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Episode 47 - Sanitarium
0 Playsin 9 hours
Look, you all knew this was coming eventually. Matt put it off as long as he possibly could, but the time has finally arrived. Despite it having practically every element that PushingUpRoses hates in adventure games, we play one of her favorites of all time: Sanitarium!
Roses is still playing Cabernet, trying to get the good ending. Matt is Playing Heaven's Vault and it's incredible.
And the less said about the intro, the better.
Email us! mattandroses@gmail.com
Games Mentioned:
- Cabernet
- The Crimson Diamond
- Heaven’s Vault
- Overboard!
- Sanitarium
- Space Quest VI: Roger Wilco in the Spinal Frontier
- Ninja Gaiden
Economic Blackout Day is Friday, February 28th. Don't buy anything!
Amazon Boycott March 7-14. Nestle Boycott March 21-28.
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Transcript
Muppet Rankings and Humor
00:00:00
Speaker
I found an Instagram reel of the most fuckable Muppets rated by, yeah, rated by ah this person. I don't know who they were. They just popped up and they were doing some ratings. They didn't rate like every single Muppet. It was like a handful of So to give them credit, just go out and search most fuckable Muffet and it'll be fine.
00:00:19
Speaker
Yeah, if you could just go Google that, that'd be great. Whatever you find is what Roses is promoting.
00:00:27
Speaker
And so like, you know, I was telling Matt, like, you know, they he she rated Gonzo and Kermit, you know, the the usual, right? That's the usual. But yeah what would we rate Roses?
00:00:39
Speaker
And just for reference, Gonzo is a five out of five. All right. Glad we got that all the way. What would Marjorie the trash monster be? what What is her rating? Oh, my God. She is, in fact, a trash monster, and we need to keep that in mind. I do want to. Okay.
00:00:55
Speaker
We have often called you. ah Marjorie the Trash Monster recording. Yeah, and this very similar. So I think we really need to separate you from Marjorie. Right now, yes Right now we are separating Roses from Marjorie the Trash Monster. They're very, very, very separate. Okay.
00:01:11
Speaker
Marjorie the Trash Monster. Okay. So the first thing, fucking this this one's easy. She's just going to lay there. Yeah.
00:01:22
Speaker
But I bet she's going to show a lot of enthusiasm. She's going to do what they say, topping from the bottom. Okay.
00:01:34
Speaker
So my thought is Marjorie the Trash Monster, you'd think because she doesn't move, she's not going to move a lot. She's going to be a one But i think she'd go I think for her lack of mobility, she makes up for by going to work in other areas. She knows the limitations.
00:01:53
Speaker
And she knows the human body. Yeah, she's very wise. Marjorie is very wise, very smart. So I'm going to say, like, she's not going to be the best lady you ever had. I'm going to say, but she's going it's going to be fun. So I'm going to like, 3.5. What do you think?
00:02:08
Speaker
I was going to say 3.5 or maybe 4 for the dirty talk. The dirty talk. Whoa, okay. Do you get it? Eat my sludge, she'll say to you.
00:02:21
Speaker
Also, extra points for having two little like rat friends. ah That's just extra people. and What about the Fraggles in general? I think they're kids.
00:02:33
Speaker
All the Fraggles are children? No, Uncle Matt isn't a child. Okay, well, that's fair. Fraggles ages. This is what we do in our spare time. Yeah. How old are the Fraggles? They're all teenagers.
00:02:46
Speaker
Oh, they're teenagers. Okay. so se So Sesame Street is like children. Fraggle Rock is maybe teenagers. Oh, okay. Muppets are adults. It says, okay, I don't know. i don't know what the i don't know what the the authority of this is, but there's a forum where they talk deeply about this on MuppetCentral.com.
00:03:06
Speaker
And it says that they are all in their upper teens to... 20s and like red is 28 but they age slower why yeah why is red randomly 28 so even though they're teenagers and adults You've got to think of them as kids and teenagers. So don't fuck the fraggles.
00:03:25
Speaker
Don't even think about it. Even though Moki does look like she's 30. Don't think about fucking the fraggles. It doesn't matter how hot they are you. Go back to wanting to fuck the minem's ok oh they're adult emine m's tot fuck that the ah M&Ms, M&Ms. Moki looks like a mom.
00:03:42
Speaker
Moki does look like a mom. I think Moki is the oldest fraggle. Well, Uncle... ah Traveling Uncle Matt is the old flag. don't count him because he's not present.
00:03:53
Speaker
that guy He's the missing uncle who is never there. That guy goes nuts in bed. that guy just... And just so we're clear, we did separate Marjorie the Trash Monster from myself.
00:04:09
Speaker
I will not just lay there. I just wanted to put that out there. But I am a little trash-like, so you can expect that. Well, did or our audience need to know that? Yes. Okay.
00:04:20
Speaker
Yes. Also, there's a character called Archbanger Fraggle. Archbanger. Archbanger Fraggle. yeah He's at the head of the pipe bangers.
00:04:31
Speaker
So I think we know where he ranks.
00:04:55
Speaker
Hey everybody, and welcome back to Save
Heaven's Vault Game Analysis
00:04:57
Speaker
Your Game. I am Matt Aukamp, and this here, ah once again resuming her title of Marjorie the Trash Monster, is Pushing Up Roses. How are you doing?
00:05:08
Speaker
Oh god, Archbanger Fraggle is so cute. He has like a big old beard. he so cute! He's a cute old man. ah and he's he's ah played by or performed by one of my favorite puppeteers, which is Jerry Nelson, which I think is great.
00:05:25
Speaker
ah Yeah, I mean, I guess that only increases his fuck up. We're still talking about this. Listen. Sorry, folks.
00:05:33
Speaker
We love the Muppets, okay? Hey, Roses. You been playing anything lately? Oh, my God. I'm so angry at everything all the time.
00:05:44
Speaker
oh i do So what you guys didn't know about last week is that after we finished up our Cabernet discussion, I realized that I had gotten a terrible ending.
00:05:59
Speaker
Awful. Like we we we compared notes. Matt got this amazing ending. I'm like, wow, I would love to get that. So like um Crimson Diamond all over again.
00:06:10
Speaker
Special epilogue and you didn't get it. And I didn't get I'm like, what is happening here? So I am chipping away at it still trying to get.
00:06:21
Speaker
ah certain characters to like me trying to get I'm a little stuck because of the save slot situation because I can't go i can't go back to where I really need to be i it might be beneficial to just start over but yeah I just want to update you guys that I got 10 Terrible ending. Absolutely awful.
00:06:41
Speaker
I could not believe what Matt was telling me at the end. So I hope that inspires you guys to give it a look because i do think there is something special about like wildly different endings like that.
00:06:54
Speaker
Because it did reignite me a little bit, right? It it reignited a little bit of my interest. It sounds to me like this might be a good ending, bad ending, golden ending scenario, right? Well, you got the golden ending, hands down. Yes, definitely. And I don't know if you got the good ending or the bad ending. Or, you know, you think you got a terrible ending, but...
00:07:17
Speaker
is it I say terrible because that's how it made me feel. i don't know. if You're right. I don't know if that is the worst ending that there is. ah Because, you know, i i i guess the worst ending is you die, right? That's for any game. Okay, yeah, yeah. But, like, my character was still alive, but she was put in a really bad, like, unethical situation. She kind of got trapped into it.
00:07:42
Speaker
yeah And I think it's because of a bug. Yeah. if i met If I may. Okay. Yeah. There is something you need to find later in the game. You know where it is. You're told where it is.
00:07:53
Speaker
And you're told what to do with it. In my first game that I fucked up, I was able to get this item and retrieve it, but I didn't finish that game because I killed someone. I didn't want to do that.
00:08:04
Speaker
yeah When I restarted, i went to the location. I could not get the item. Could not it. That's so strange. Yeah, it was not. so Again, it's like like sometimes when you reload a save, it flips a switch on all your other saves, and it's like oh, you already did this.
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah, there's definitely something buggy. certain in other ways. It's very strange. And I do want to point out there was no day one patch. And so a lot of the, this is frustrating, but a lot of these bugs are still hanging out there.
00:08:37
Speaker
I'm sure they'll release something. um Well, when you go to, they seem a little unaware of some of the bugs because when you go to their, their like discussion page, they're openly soliciting people submitting things.
00:08:51
Speaker
their bugs and the ones people talk about they seem like oh interesting like they seem like they haven't heard of them and it's like well how could you play through even once this game without encountering these bugs but maybe they haven't played it vanilla right like they maybe they've only played it with their developers tools on and they just have not just like played through beginning to end since they created it which is a mistake yeah Oh, yeah. yeah yeah um I'm sure they will. like It is a good game. I actually really like this game. It has very positive reviews on Steam. It's got around 182 reviews thus far. Oh, wow.
00:09:28
Speaker
Really? yeah I didn't know it had this ah level of popularity. I kind of thought we were out in the wilderness here, but I'm really glad. No, people like it. But if you look at the reviews, they they are talking about the bugs. It is not just us. it is a very buggy game.
00:09:42
Speaker
And that sucks because I want to do well at this game. This is a game that... your When you have a game where your choices matter, you need to have a working game. That's just how it is. like yeah There are buggy games that I play that I can get through that it's just kind of char. Like, Quest for Glory 5, that's a buggy game. It's still buggy. No one ever fixed it.
00:10:03
Speaker
But do I play it and can I win it? Yes. one cares about it enough to do, like, a fan-fixing bug. No, of course not. like I'm just saying it's not it's buggy, but it's not game-breakingly so.
00:10:16
Speaker
So if you're going to have limited save slots, like if you're going to have only three save slots, then your game can't be buggy. Right.
00:10:26
Speaker
based on how you want the player to play your game. But if you can't progress, if it's broken, if the saving is broken, then you've got to give us unlimited. I'm sorry that I want unlimited save slots so I can go back, you know, good to be both. But that being said, I still like the game.
00:10:42
Speaker
I still think it's very fun and very well-written. I do hope that, and I do recommend it. Just know that there are bugs and they need to be fixed because they're game breakers. They're not just, they're not just like Bethesda characters like twirling into the air. And that's really funny, right?
00:11:00
Speaker
so These are game breakers. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I'm still playing it on my Steam Deck. And I do want to say for the viewers, anyone interested, I think it plays better on the Steam Deck than it does on the computer. That's my opinion.
00:11:14
Speaker
Yeah, I tried both. I think it's still not verified for the Steam Deck. So that's ah that's a good recommendation. Hot tip. Hot tip from Pushing up Roses. All right. What have you been playing?
00:11:26
Speaker
ah So after we talked about, um we we mentioned this game for a moment last ah episode when we were talking about adventure RPGs and you know it's interesting that this was called an RPG in some of the in some of like the reviews and forums that I read it's the game Heaven's Vault by Inkle yeah you've you've mentioned that before yeah It's very much more yeah like I could see why somebody would call it in RPG because you are making decisions. You are choosing where to go.
00:11:57
Speaker
Where you choose to go is going to have consequences. um The dialogue that you pick is going to have consequences. You are inhabiting the role of an archaeologist named ah Aaliyah, who is being followed around by a robot companion who she names Six.
00:12:15
Speaker
my God, I love robot companions. sorry to go on well and you play it's in this world where you exist in this world where that's like a bunch of moons i don't think anything any of them are actual planets but a bunch of moons encased in a nebula and you as an archaeologist are summoned to like this uh academics office where one of her professors her professor of robotics went missing.
00:12:45
Speaker
um And you start tracking down this professor and you find he's left this trail of um really old artifacts pertaining to the culture before um the culture that you're in.
00:13:01
Speaker
Like ages, ages old artifacts. And you start questioning why was this man, this roboticist, out here doing archaeology work work, this doesn't make any sense.
00:13:15
Speaker
And so you and your robot companion have to travel on a wooden spaceship ah down like these beautiful rivers of of you know nebula, nebulonic, that's not a word, maybe it is, of these nebulonic gases um between moons and discovering ah long abandoned dead moons with ah old archaeologically significant sites on them.
00:13:43
Speaker
And, you know, besides dialogue and exploring, your other main mechanic is that every artifact you find and ruins that you find, they all have ancient writing on them.
00:13:55
Speaker
When you find one of these, it'll open up a separate menu where she will break it into words. And you have to choose from a limited set of what you think these words could be.
00:14:07
Speaker
So then if you find something and you're like, this says, you know, heaven ring. And then later on, you find something else that has a similar word. Like you find a gate with this on it and i like a God looking upwards.
00:14:22
Speaker
And it says the same word from heaven ring and and then blank. you might be like heaven gate. And then she'll say, i am now positive that the word heaven is correct.
00:14:34
Speaker
Or if you find um a another thing that's like a ah knife and it's like blank knife. And the first word was the one you used for ring. And you try to put that in. She'll be like, I don't think ring was ever correct. And then it'll wipe it from the other object too.
00:14:51
Speaker
Oh, interesting. You're kind of going through trying to use the, what you can make of the symbols. Like I've i've kind of noticed a few things like, okay, this symbol at the beginning of the word of a word means an adjective. This one means a verb.
00:15:05
Speaker
um This one means a noun. and Or when this symbol is present, it's referring to a person. But when it's at the end of a word, it's referring to something a person something that applies to a person rather than the person themselves.
00:15:19
Speaker
um Or like, oh, these three slashes in some way mean many so three slashes can be present in the word forever or the word us in the sense that like both of these signify something that is multitudinous right so it's really interesting in that and the writing and story are also just kind of fascinating and i am A couple little hours in, it looks cool. Yeah.
00:15:49
Speaker
yeah It's by Inkle, too, who make very interesting adventure I see that. I see that they made um Around the World in 80 Days kind of homage game in 2015, which is kind of my jam. So I'm kind of surprised that I didn't know about that. that thats That's really cool.
00:16:10
Speaker
Well, their game Overboard in 2021 was fantastic. It is you have just ah gotten away. You've just murdered your husband. You're on a cruise ship. Yes, you do.
00:16:22
Speaker
You've just murdered your husband and now you have to you have to get away with it. I remember this. wanted to i remember this i wanted I had wanted to play this, and then it just got away from me.
00:16:36
Speaker
It's like a reverse whodunit, and you kind of keep going through this. Like, you die, where you get caught, and the day starts over again, like a time loop. And then now you know where certain characters are going to be, and you know which strategies work and which don't. And so you're just kind of trying all these different things to get these different endings, and or and the you know the ultimate ending, which is you get away with the hot man and the all the money and...
00:17:02
Speaker
you don't get caught for the murder and no, and nobody else gets blamed. It's like a Howe Ketchum, but it it looks like Agatha Christie. It's like this, the format of Columbo, but it looks like Agatha Christie.
00:17:14
Speaker
Okay. I don't know the floor man, but yeah, sure. Yeah, absolutely. It's exactly that. Perfect. So Heaven's Vault, just to wrap this up, um it's got like a sort of an Egyptian vibe. Not really ancient Egyptian, but sort of like. um yeah It's think old. Just think older than that. It's not ornate like Egyptology. That's not really what it is Some of it is.
00:17:40
Speaker
um But like when you're like i would when you're like going around it's not. century Egypt is is some of the vibe is like the vibe of maybe the architecture and stuff. But some of the old cultural artifacts have a lot of Egyptian or even maybe just South Asian vibes. Sure.
00:18:01
Speaker
It's I don't know. It's really pretty game. The characters are like illustrations that fade into each next animation. So rather than watching, you know, a character sway their arms as they move, it'll jump from and the character in one in one stance to their character in another stance and like fade between the two. It's hard to explain, but it's yeah it's an animation style that takes a second to get used to. yeah it looks a little rouss ah It looks a little bit like rotoscoping. It looks kind of a little similar to, um, oh my god, the train game.
00:18:39
Speaker
Uh... The, um fuck. the Yeah. ah where There's like a murder on the train. It's not Orient Express. The last Express. The last Express.
00:18:49
Speaker
Yes. That's what I'm thinking of. I knew what you were thinking of, but I could not think of that. um Obviously, this has this is a newer game, so it has more polish. it It's more clean. Kind of reminds me of that. Yeah.
00:19:01
Speaker
I can see what you mean, though. Again, the animation is going to take a minute to get used to because it's almost like it's almost like if you take an animation, you take like a two second animation and cut out all the frames in between right second one and second two, it's and they just fade, the one frame fades into the other. It's kind of like that. Again, takes a minute to get used to, but it's really it's a really interesting game and it's a really cool story. And I suggest it's called Heaven's Vault.
00:19:29
Speaker
You know how I have ah the genre of grand adventure? And I don't call every adventure game that. This looks like a grand adventure to me. And just to give like an opposite, to me, Locomotive was not a grand adventure. That was a closed circle. So when I'm playing like a closed circle game, like Colonel's Bequest, Dagger of Amun-Ra, that is not grand adventure to me. It's an adventure game. It's just not like grand adventure.
00:19:54
Speaker
This looks like grand adventure where you're really traveling. a Broken Sword. That's grand adventure. You know, 100%. This has Indiana Jones vibes up and down. Yes. Yes.
00:20:06
Speaker
I just wanted to put that out. I don't know why I'm obsessed with like, I'm obsessed with these like little mini genres. It also, it also reminds me for some reason, a little bit of the, the, um,
00:20:18
Speaker
but story themes of his dark materials there's definitely like a religious but technological thing going on here another thing you learn really early on just to just to set some of the sci-fi of it all is all the robots in the world ah in this nebula are they're not built by humans they are found underground okay So they were built by somebody long ago unearthed.
00:20:50
Speaker
So that gives you something, some sort of hint about like what this game is going for, I think. Cool. to To me, that really put together the aesthetic of, okay, this is what I'm expecting.
00:21:04
Speaker
I'm going to check it out as soon as I'm done being frustrated with Cabernet. just want a better ending. It's a good follow up to Cabernet because it is there's a lot of choices and there's a lot of character development and there's a there's a lot of reading.
00:21:18
Speaker
That's I'm fine with that. um Is it voiced? There is a narrator. Okay. Who speaks sometimes and it's she's really good. Honestly, I'm down with it.
00:21:30
Speaker
I miss the old days of like Final Fantasy games where it's just a bunch of text. Just let me read it, please.
00:21:40
Speaker
So so yeah yeah what are we going to be talking about today? ah
Sanitarium Game Deep Dive
00:21:44
Speaker
You know, I thought we'd just talk about the stars, the moon the sky, the cloud Yeah, that's not the plan at all. not that's not movie That's not what we discussed.
00:21:58
Speaker
Wait, we're talking about Sanitarium from 1998? Yes, I did it. i did it, everyone. I persuaded Matt to talk about Sanitarium with me. Oh, fuck.
00:22:13
Speaker
Dude, my birthday is coming up, so we're going to talk about all the games that I want to talk about. Oh my goodness. Okay, so let's play Sucky Legs Reno and talk about Sanitarium.
00:22:44
Speaker
everyone, welcome back to Save Your Game. I'm pushing up roses. This is my very special co-host, Matt Aukamp. Hello. Hi. So how did this happen? How did persuade you into doing sanitarium finally?
00:22:58
Speaker
um Well, you orchestrated a car wreck. um And i you know, i was I was driving. i flew off the side of the highway. i woke up in a, um you know, a mental health facility with my face all bandaged. And all anyone would tell me is you are going to play sanitarium with roses. You're going to play sanitarium. But did you remember your name?
00:23:21
Speaker
Did you have amnesia when you woke up? i I did not remember my name immediately, but some little kids in a pumpkin patch told it to me. so Oh, were they weird looking? Were they weird looking children?
00:23:33
Speaker
Okay, good. Everything went to plan.
00:23:37
Speaker
ah What the fuck is this game? Let me say that. Let me say, before you say anything, i love I was telling a colleague, one of our mutuals about this, ah talking about the pod.
00:23:49
Speaker
I love making you play my favorite games that I know you're going to have a reaction to. ah It cracks me up so hard. Okay, go ahead. It's so strange to me that you love this game because I love it.
00:24:03
Speaker
Number one, it is... isometric you hate that i know i know know i know has a maze you hate that i know number three full of logic puzzles you hate that i don't get it number four bad voice acting which i kind of like let's be honest i don't think you i don't think you hate that play dagger i play dagger of amon ra i love this shit You know, so this game was made by Dreamforge yeah Entertainment, not Entertainment. Not, yeah, Entertainment. Yeah, well.
00:24:37
Speaker
just They can't all be winners, okay? And, like, they, this team never made anything like this. Like, this Sanitarium was a huge hit in 1998. This team before that and after that really only made top-down RPGs.
00:24:55
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And they never made, like, none of them, I looked up every yeah ah major, like, person that worked on this game, like, the lead lead designers and lead artists and stuff, none of them ever made anything again.
00:25:10
Speaker
like they would Like, they would, like, work on, like, they'd work on a Diablo game, or they would work on an expansion to a Fallout game, but they would never really, like, make something big again, which is interesting.
00:25:26
Speaker
Right. Yeah, it is interesting. um i I do love this game. I know that there are logic puzzles, but I don't think there is like an egregious amount.
00:25:38
Speaker
there There are some that I'm like, ew, I hate this more than life. like I hate this so much. um I also want to say, i i believe I read the post or listened to the postmortem on this.
00:25:49
Speaker
And from what I understand, this is going to make sense to you and everybody listening. The developers had different ideas on what the game should be. Okay. And so it all got in there. So oh it's like, ah so this game is in chapters, but each chapter is very, very different. And the way they tie that in is um kind of, ah you know, Matt was ah foreshadowing a bit. You wake up, your character wakes up.
00:26:17
Speaker
Well, he doesn't wait he doesn't wake up. Does he? It's hard to tell. It's hard to tell. Yeah. You see some flashbacks in which he has been awake. Yeah. yeah Since his accident.
00:26:27
Speaker
Before the beginning of this game. But it is clear that the beginning of this game. Is where he I guess actualizes. So your character. Does have amnesia. You wake up in a. um Psychiatric facility.
00:26:42
Speaker
And you can't remember anything. And so it's. Basically the the the. Drastically different levels. Are basically all parts of. Kind of this hallucination.
00:26:53
Speaker
That you're having. um which I think is really interesting. I actually really like the way they tied it together. That being said, when you have a game that is full of drastically different chapters, you are not going to like them all. That's just not that's not how that works. you know Each chapter really is a different it really is a different story, isn't it?
00:27:13
Speaker
It is basically a collection of short stories that are either horror or sci-fi or a combination of the two. And they all... they all They all tie into each other either thematically or just through reference.
00:27:31
Speaker
right Right. Like somebody will say something about a character that's going to be in story five. Yeah. ah like Like Max will be reading Max's main character. He'll be reading a comic book starring a character that he will later become.
00:27:46
Speaker
Correct. And that character has significance because it ties back to like his childhood. Right. And there's some other shit like all of every story involves. um And this isn't really paid off, but every story involves some sort of disaster with water.
00:28:03
Speaker
Every story involves dead children, which does make sense. Yeah, it does. Yeah. Every story involves mad ah mad tyrant who is manipulating ah circumstance, allowing people to be hurt or killed for their own gain, which makes sense thematically.
00:28:24
Speaker
um but like yeah It's kind of like each story is different, but it's keeping in line with the same like characters and archetypes. You are still you actually are still Max.
00:28:38
Speaker
You're in different bodies in these chapters, but you are technically still Max going through these little stories. And yeah, there's like you said, there's this villainous character. They all represent you know the same character that's going to be revealed in the end.
00:28:53
Speaker
So can do this in turn can we do this in like order of the way the chapters go, but with Max removed and his his whole story at the end?
00:29:04
Speaker
Max! I love his voice acting. If we just pull out all his chapters and we talk about them as if they're one solid story at the end, and in the meantime we talk about all the...
00:29:17
Speaker
hallucination chapters. What? Yeah, go for it. I have no idea how to talk about this game. I know, I know. if Well, though, I do want to talk about, I do want to set the scene for the game, and that is as Max. Like, the game opens up and you're in this, um...
00:29:33
Speaker
Yeah, mental health facility and there it's supposed to be horrifying. There's people talking to themselves, there's blood on the walls, things about to explode. ah And there's a man like banging his head against the wall over and over leaving blood on the wall.
00:29:48
Speaker
It's a little disturbing. It's meant to be disturbing, though, when you look at him. the terrible voice actor yeah that voices Max goes diagnosis crazy. crazy And you're like, okay, I get ah how bad this game is going to be right off the bat. dare you I do. I do like this game. i just want to put that out there. I think it is a good game, but go ahead. There's no excuses for his horrible quips in the midst of really serious subject matter.
00:30:17
Speaker
ah Sure. Yeah. And ah yeah And so also the controls of this game are horrible. You have to hold in the right click the entire time because it's the right click creates an arrow.
00:30:32
Speaker
And as you move that arrow to different sides of the character, the character will move in that direction. And then you use the left click to interact with stuff. You always have to look at everything before you can interact with it. And you cannot skip dialogue ah until it's the second time you've heard it So anytime you solve a puzzle, like you see a solution across the... You see a lever, and you're like, oh, i need to pull that lever.
00:30:54
Speaker
You have to watch Max. You have to sit there while Max talks about the lever for a few seconds before you can pull the lever. And yeah, the and Max's voice acting is pretty... Not good. I can understand like being like, well, that's going to set the tone for this game.
00:31:10
Speaker
i think I'm used to it. And I think that's to me, it's become, well, that's just his voice to me now. And everything moves so slow. it does. Do you know how I got through this game?
00:31:21
Speaker
I don't. So I, this is my second. Were you eating pizza through it? This is my, I ate pizza at one point during it. Yes. But this was my second time playing it ever. My first time was years ago.
00:31:35
Speaker
Yeah. i downloaded a cheat engine to speed the movements of the game up. Probably good idea. speed entire game up. Yeah. that I was moving at like five times speed the whole time. Yeah.
00:31:48
Speaker
Which also was really hard to get used to. it was really dizzying because everybody's doing everything at that level of speed. So when people are just standing there doing their idle animations, like swinging their hands back and forth or banging their head on a wall, it's happening so fast.
00:32:03
Speaker
That's funny. Also, people are talking at the same rate. So they're they're doing something. While they're talking at a normal speed. And it like it doesn't line up at all. like It's like crazy that you would be speaking so slowly while moving your hands in these very erratic manners.
00:32:22
Speaker
Anyway. So that's how I played it. Anyway. So, okay. First chapter. I guess yeah second chapter You are... i think you start as Max, right? You start as Max. That's right. So you get yourself ah escaped from this burning down psychiatric and institute and you are kind of transported via this statue. You find a statue and the statue transports you into this little tiny village.
00:32:50
Speaker
And something about this village is just a bit off. You'll notice right away that the children look like abominations. Right. There's no adults anywhere. There's no adults. Yep.
00:33:03
Speaker
Which I got to say, the first time I played this game, I did find it scary. I wasn't sure what to expect yeah i think when I booted up this game. I think I found it creepy. ah It is creepy. Yeah.
00:33:15
Speaker
And everybody's talking about mom mother and everybody's they won't really talk about what happened to the parents. They keep alluding to a pumpkin patch that everyone's a little anxious about.
00:33:27
Speaker
Yeah. um You find one kid Susan dead in the ground. Carol. Carol. Yes. think it was Carol. I'm not sure. it was so But yes, you do find. Yes, Carol's dead.
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah. um and everybody. ah Yeah. And the other thing everybody's alluding to, or you find a bunch of like writings alluding to a comet. Yes. I really loved the weird kind of religious mania themes of this chapter.
00:33:57
Speaker
i i thought it was really interesting. I wanted to learn more because you you go through this chapter and you find, like I said, you find like diaries and stuff like that and articles and that kind of puts the story together.
00:34:09
Speaker
You also notice that the children bear resemblance to plants. To put it to put it plainly, like so one one has like a stick for, you know, branches for our a leg or leaves and there it seems like they're slowly turning into foliage.
00:34:25
Speaker
Yeah, and they all are happy about this when you discover that that might be the case. They all seem excited about turning into plants and they all have a specific plant they want to turn into. Yeah.
00:34:36
Speaker
um Also, the kids are, even though like the game kind of, it starts you and you think these kids might be bad guys, they're actually not. They're just children. yeah They're bratty.
00:34:47
Speaker
Some of them are nice. Yeah, they're just children. ah So you're going around this little you're going around this little town talking to all the children it forever. Forever you are talking to these children.
00:35:00
Speaker
There are like 12 children and each of them have 10 dialogue options to ask them about. And again, you can't skip through dialogue that you haven't already heard. so
00:35:12
Speaker
Uh, wait, yes, you can. Only in dialogue, not in looking at things. Oh, okay. i was going to say, I thought you yeah could. You can skip through dialogue, but you can't skip through him talking about stuff he's looking at.
00:35:23
Speaker
And you have to look at every kid before you talk to him, like you do with everything you interact with. That's true. Yeah, you do have to look first. You get some hints through all the stuff you find about all the adults were kind of abusive.
00:35:36
Speaker
In one way or another. um You get some other things that like. but Not all of them though. But there are abusive. I don't know if all of them were though. We don't hear about any of the adults that aren't.
00:35:48
Speaker
That's true. ah So not all of them likely. But we hear about. the preacher who was abusive we hear about um the the driscoll's who were didit yep i like that story i liked i like figuring all that out um and who somebody was it the reverend who killed carol i don't know that that's a spoiler because and no i wouldn't worry about that um I don't remember one of the one of the adults killed Carol yeah um and that might be a third adult so there's some abusive really sad it's a really sad chapter to start with um and interestingly enough because you escape chapter one well I'll get to this in a second
00:36:43
Speaker
Eventually, you track down. you You do a terrible combat sequence. Terrible. Awful. Terrible. You fight a bunch of birds and then with a scythe, and then you fight like a jack-o-lantern, a scarecrow man with a pumpkin head.
00:36:55
Speaker
It's quick, so it's not like it it won't take long, but it's it's not great. If you die, you just start back at the beginning of that little bit, yeah and everything you killed is already dead. Yeah. um Especially when you're moving at five times speed.
00:37:08
Speaker
right Oh my god. um That's so funny. So many you dive quicker because... everything can kill you so before you've had a chance to react but um so you find out that there was an asteroid that hit ground and mutated i guess some vegetative vegetable matter who became sentient and started mutating the children um to make them to improve them to make them better yeah and because humans are the problem Right. And interestingly enough, you end that chapter by exploding generator.
00:37:45
Speaker
Yeah. Which is how... Which is what was taking place in Max's real life at the end of the last chapter. Right.
00:37:56
Speaker
Mm-hmm. So, that yeah, the game is meant to... kind of pose this question of is this reality or not it's clearly not if you ask me it's like clearly max is it is in his head somewhere right ah we look like a patient so i think it's safe to assume that this is not real and for whatever reason he is either dreaming this or imagining it or disassociating i think it is a good way to put it
00:38:27
Speaker
He has a lot of trauma, which we explore. Which seems kind of unrelated to the conspiracy that he is unraveling, which we'll get into all this later um when we talk about Max's chapters. But...
00:38:41
Speaker
ah A lot of these seem to touch on either the conspiracy or his trauma or sometimes a little bit of both. But it's interesting because the conspiracy shouldn't have driven a mad. You can see how the trauma might have. but and I'm just using yeah the language of the game. Like I wouldn't normally call somebody mad in real life. Of course. Yeah.
00:39:02
Speaker
Yeah. No, I think i think i think he was... i don't I don't think this is a spoiler. Because I think you learn it real quickly. In chapter one, even. yeah you were You were clearly in a car accident.
00:39:15
Speaker
Yeah, and I don't understand why that puts you into this disassociative state. But we can talk about that more when we talk about Max's chapter. The next fantastic world you go into is
00:39:33
Speaker
I was leaving it for you. Oh, sorry. Do you want me to say the next Max chapter or the next chapter? No, the Fantastic chapter. But they're all Fantastic. yeah Matt, please, you're confusing me.
00:39:45
Speaker
Fantastical chapter. The next one's the circus. You think that's the next, like, Fantastical? Yeah, it goes from the kids to the circus. ah there's There's a Max chapter in between.
00:40:01
Speaker
Yeah, there is a Max chapter in between. Okay, so you're taught so in the circus chapter, which, oh my God, I love circus anything. I love this chapter.
00:40:12
Speaker
i love circuses and video games or carnivals or or whatever. The really interesting thing about this chapter is you don't play as Max. You turn into his younger sister, Sarah.
00:40:25
Speaker
is very strange when it first happens when it first happens it's it's very strange but man i love that chapter it's so fun to me i love like jugglers and clowns and and creepy it's a creepy circus let's let's be it's a death circus let's be honest it's you would not go there to have a good time no ah Because this is a horror game.
00:40:49
Speaker
ah Whether it scares you or not is beyond the point. It is still horrific in nature. So the whole circus is ah not great. ah there's It's on like an island ah surrounded by water.
00:41:02
Speaker
And there's like dead people floating and in the water. But interestingly, Sarah... The little girl that you're playing. She doesn't really care. she seems to be having a pretty good time.
00:41:13
Speaker
She's like, yay, a circus. We. It's very strange. Yeah. ah Even when you look at dead, dead bodies, she's like, ew. and yeah so um So, yeah, you basically just go through this circus. You're trying to help them.
00:41:28
Speaker
um They are all being snatched up by a there was a squid boy in the freak show who escaped. And once he hit the water, he's been growing and becoming more powerful. And he's just like snatching people up and i guess eating them.
00:41:43
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. And because of that, people are having a hard time surviving on this little island. They can't really get extra food or or or water, really. So everything's kind of going to shit.
00:41:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's hard to tell why. i Do you know why? Was it just a flood that caused them to be stuck out here? Yeah, I think it was just a flood. Okay.
00:42:07
Speaker
I don't think there's anything more to that. Yeah. it there's some There's some clues as to what Max is going through. Like, you get your fortune told here, and somebody says that evil forces are conspiring against you, and you possess a solution to a problem. Yeah.
00:42:28
Speaker
I don't think, and you have some flashbacks, which we'll talk about when we talk about Max's stuff. But yeah other than that, it's just kind of like a ah ah spooky little point and click adventure. Yeah.
00:42:40
Speaker
Where you're trying to defeat us. You're trying to find and defeat a squid boy. Like that's pretty much it. It's still like, it is still, yeah. That one's pretty, pretty dissociated from, I think the rest of,
00:42:53
Speaker
of the things but like the game does have its themes and its story but I also think it is just trying to be creepy at the same time and provide you with entertainment so they're not like all cohesive you know what I mean seems like it might be a metaphor it could be because I don't think it's it's either a metaphor for what Dr. Morgan is doing to people Or it's a metaphor for, like the Squid Boy is a metaphor for cancer taking people. Like it took his sister. It's hard to tell.
00:43:27
Speaker
It's hard to tell what this is a metaphor for. It might just be a spooky little story by itself. And the only thing that's important about it is that you play as Sarah, who is Max's dead sister.
00:43:37
Speaker
And then you play a short little chapter where you are... which maybe we'll talk about in the Max section, but you are still playing as Sarah walking around Max's childhood home.
00:43:52
Speaker
Oh man. I really like that. I really, really like that. That whole level or chapter I think is really spooky yeah and disorienting. And I really enjoyed that one. That's, that's the one that's the most heavy on the story. You're going to get a lot of story about Max's past with that one.
00:44:11
Speaker
That's kind of what, yeah, yeah, you're right. That's kind of why I'm thinking, let's save that until we're done all the silly chapters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The next crazy chapter yeah ah Is that the Grimwald?
00:44:22
Speaker
Grimwald, yeah. Grimwald? Oh, man. That, you know, i love this game. I'm a cheerleader of this game. i think it's extremely entertaining and interesting.
00:44:33
Speaker
But that chapter is gross. It's just yucky. Yeah, it's just yucky. Like, now you're in the body of a comic book character, of a comic that Max read as a child.
00:44:46
Speaker
A four-armed Cyclops with a horn in his head. Yeah. And you're around other Cyclopses. And this, I will give it credit. This chapter does fit the themes going on of like, there's a kind of a villain character controlling all these other characters.
00:45:02
Speaker
um Young, not they're not kids, but pot eggs. Young eggs are like being taken. So it does fit. They're called children a lot of times. Yeah. Yeah. They did call them children. They're called children because, and and it is like, yeah, it is a man, it is a Cyclops who is sacrificing Cyclops' children.
00:45:21
Speaker
Right. two And this, I'm unclear on what is actual plan was. Was it to rule both insects together? Because, okay, there's an intersection between the Cyclops world and the insect world. You're walking around the an insect hive, a yucky, yucky insect hive.
00:45:40
Speaker
Awful. It's so gross, you guys. The floor looks like organs. Everything is squelchy. Everything is squelchy and fleshy. And it sounds like you're walking on cornflakes, and I don't know why. Yeah.
00:45:56
Speaker
and you And you talk like this. The children. You're supposed to be a superhero, but you're not. You're like a weird alien man. I don't know. this and you solve puzzles by like,
00:46:09
Speaker
manipulating strange machines yeah that are all logic puzzles but like weird weird ass logic puzzles they are weird this is maybe by lie yes you do ah this is my least favorite chapter I don't like it aesthetically and I don't like the puzzles I didn't think they were that difficult so yeah yeah but yeah I did i didn' i didn't i didn't like it none of it yeah the evil Cyclops Emperor is merging cyclops children with insect DNA to create like a hybrid race and again i think he might be trying to con i like use an age-old conflict between the two races to conquer both but I'm a little unclear about like what his ultimate goal is it's some villain stuff you know he's trying to do villain stuff um I yeah the last wacky chapter is
00:47:06
Speaker
I don't know what it's called, but that's the that's got to be the Aztec chapter where you're playing Olmec. Yes. There's an Aztec god. I don't know how. So this this is probably the chapter you're thinking, why would roses like this?
00:47:19
Speaker
This is this is a lot of logic puzzles here. I think I'm just really into the vibe of it. It's dark. It's really dark and weird. and harrowing, um I guess.
00:47:32
Speaker
It doesn't make a lot of sense to be there, but I do like that it's there. I don't know why. It's very strange. Strange game. It's just strange that you are
00:47:47
Speaker
in Aztec. You are in at the Aztec world, and your name is Olmec. which is a different culture.
00:48:00
Speaker
yeah Like the Olmecs were a Mesoamerican culture that was like in the BCE era, ah just below the Gulf of Mexico. But it's just your name that's Olmec.
00:48:13
Speaker
Your name is Olmec. Right. And the Aztecs were, I guess, in a slightly, a larger but so an overlapping area of modern day Mexico.
00:48:25
Speaker
um and the Aztecs were around like during Spanish colonization so like 1300 like 1500 right it's just very strange it almost seems like it is treating it like Olmec culture a lot of the symbolism is very Olmec yeah but they're using the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl as a character yes and they are and you are a different god yeah it's kind of a mishmash for sure
00:48:58
Speaker
You are a different God called Olmec. It's just very strange. It's just very not not a lot of research was done. I don't think it's still like it's strange enough for me to like it. You know, it's almost like a Rob Zombie movie where I don't think those are the best movies, but they are so strange. I just can't. they're They're intriguing in this very weird way to me. You know, something's a little off.
00:49:23
Speaker
You're also on an island surrounded by impure water. Water's good name. There's an evil god that's killing people. um so again, has the same themes as everybody else, as every other chapter.
00:49:38
Speaker
And you just you have to collect, like, the totems of power or something to defeat this evil god Quetzalcoatl. Again, kind of straightforward, except for the moment where you go into the maze.
00:49:51
Speaker
you want to talk about the maze? Yeah. Oh my God. Fuck that noise. And you have to solve a bunch of puzzles to get through the maze and you have to like navigate it. If you go certain ways, the floor gives out and you so you die and you start over.
00:50:04
Speaker
A lot of the paths that are the correct path have like, timing-based electricity zapping across them. and um that if you get wrap it It looks like an MC Escher maze because it's like everything's on a different level. It's really confusing. i oh o It absolutely sucks.
00:50:20
Speaker
And so I'm going to tell you, I skipped it by loading an old save. I got so annoyed. I just loaded an old save and went to the final chapter. Fair. um That's fair. So yeah, so that's that ah that's the weird stuff.
00:50:34
Speaker
Now we take you Dear listener, all the way back to the beginning, where you wake up as Max in a mental health facility. Your face is all bandaged up.
00:50:45
Speaker
The facility's like on fire. It's falling apart. um And he doesn't remember anything. ah You don't know your name at this point. And you're just trying to find a way out.
00:50:59
Speaker
So, yeah, through all these, you also do a little bit of research as you're walking through. You start to learn a little bit. You learn about a guy named Dr. Morgan. um i can't remember if you learned anything else about yourself here, but then a lot of the patients speak about stuff you're eventually going to find. Like Lenny talks about it.
00:51:20
Speaker
getting in trouble for eating a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch which means right a human um martin talks about blood sucking insects trying to destroy the world yeah um there's all these like references to stuff you're going to see yeah and you you make your way to this like floating office in the middle of the, like a tower, like an expandable bridge. It's very strange how this place is laid out. It is laid out in a way that isn't realistic.
00:51:52
Speaker
and And I think that's on purpose. I think it is laid out impossibly to show that you're in almost a dream world hallucination, that this is a fantasy. It's not real. Even this isn't real.
00:52:04
Speaker
Yeah, correct. So after the generator explosion, this is on the other side of the chapter where you're in the pumpkin patch. You wake up in the recess yard and you are the only survivor out of all the people you just met.
00:52:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Which I think is so is such an interesting thing. um i think that that that next chapter with Max in the facility where you're in the courtyard, I think it's even called the courtyard, and you're talking to like the ah the nurses and stuff and I really liked that chapter because one of the nurses says something like, are you making up stories and situations and scenarios to help you get through what you're surviving currently? yeah
00:52:51
Speaker
That always kind of stuck with me, even though it was said in this very cheesy way, because it is little cheesy. All the voice acting is cheesy, but... I just, I found that so interesting and that, that stuck with me forever. It's just like, oh, interesting. It's like you're in, it's like Max is in survival mode.
00:53:08
Speaker
And even though he's maybe concussed, you know, that, that was my assumption is that he's concussed and everything he's doing is a hallucination or dream, but he's creating scenarios to help him get through.
00:53:19
Speaker
And that's how he survived the generator explosion. You know line stuck with me? Hmm. um when he's in the pumpkin patch and he goes, slice and dice, baby. my God. Well, I'm glad that stuck with you, Matt. It is is interesting that some of the nurses are nice to him and some of them are really mean to him and like really speak degradingly to him.
00:53:43
Speaker
It's like interestingly, yeah, it's interestingly realistic. Like it's not, they didn't make all of them like monolithic. They made them all have different personalities. um So at this point you've kind of learned that Your name is Max.
00:53:58
Speaker
You were a doctor. You had a relationship with Dr. Morgan. And you know something about DNAV. Also, you know that there's some disease that was killing children.
00:54:10
Speaker
Kind of very nebulous at this point. Yeah, yeah. You're just kind of learning. everything Some things are kind of told via flashback. Some things are told via finding an article or like a TV clip or something like that.
00:54:25
Speaker
But yeah, that's that's a good call. You find out you're a doctor. You had a colleague named Dr. Morgan. And that's what you know. And at this point, we have no reason to suspect anybody.
00:54:36
Speaker
but I was very skeptical in of Dr. Morgan in that chapter. they kind of push I think they pushed that a little bit. I would say if you don't want any spoilers, now's your time to skip ahead a few minutes. yeahp Because this is when it's going to start to unravel.
00:54:53
Speaker
um Because this next one, during your circus chapter, you get a lot of flashbacks to you as Max. And you learn some things like... You learn that Max has a wife named Jennifer.
00:55:06
Speaker
um who I guess hasn't seen in a while. You also learn that um Max had a little sister once upon a time yeah who got sick and died and he blames himself because he wasn't able to find her clown doll. It's really sad.
00:55:23
Speaker
it's Again, it's done in a cheesy way, but I'm like, oh, I'm sad. Yeah. you know You also learn about the terms Mercy core at marcy Corp and Hope Drug.
00:55:34
Speaker
Yes. And this is when we get to that, that we were talking about, that um house... That ghost house of his childhood. Yeah. And in it, you're still Sarah.
00:55:47
Speaker
And you're walking around. The walls look like cardboard. um You're seeing actual scenes of Max and s Sarah's parents. And Max is a child. And they are like ghosts.
00:55:58
Speaker
Yeah, they're like ghosts of the past. They're memories only. So in that chapter, that that's where I think you get the most exposition for who you are. Even though you're not playing Max, you're playing Sarah.
00:56:09
Speaker
You find out that Sarah died. um You find out the the extent of the grief ah that the parents were going through. And I think I think you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is the chapter where you kind of find that this is why Max became a doctor is because he lost his sister at a very young age ah to something. I don't know if they really specify what she died of. but Yeah, I guess I thought it was cancer, but maybe maybe it was just an unknown mystery disease.
00:56:38
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure they really imply too much on that. This game makes up a lot of diseases that wouldn't really happen, like tainted meat killing only children and killing children across the entire world, or like some DNA disease, again, that only kills children, that you can only solve by inflicting pain on humans. like it's very there's like a very They have this very strange understanding of medicine and diseases in this game.
00:57:06
Speaker
And I think that's also, well, you know what's really interesting? They make diseases just very, almost disgusting-like. Yeah. Which I think is so interesting. I lost ah both of my parents to cancer. And it's just a really interesting way to look at disease, just this disgusting, awful Like monster. Yeah, like a monster, almost imaginary thing that yeah you can't even fathom. That might come from meat or it might come from pain or it might come from like, it just like, it just arrives in your life and spreads.
00:57:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it makes sense to use meat ah because we are meat. You know what i mean? it's It's a very fleshy, weird thing to kind of bring in as symbolism. And again, correct me if I'm wrong here, too, because sometimes the ghost house blends into other chapters for me. But is this where we've we we sorry, is this where Max remembers he's in a car crash?
00:58:01
Speaker
I don't remember. Let me flip around and see. you Well, first place I see the word car crash in my notes. I don't, I didn't write it down. Okay. Like, I think that you as the player, you already figured that out.
00:58:16
Speaker
But I think at some point, Max also figures out that he's in a car crash. You have now, so now you come back to Max and you have sort of ascended into these like towers.
00:58:28
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, I love those. Again, it just looks so creepy. I love the setting. And again, it's impossibly made. Like you find levers and you pull them and towers extend, like walkways extend. yeah There's a horrible logic puzzle where you have to get... um Oh, the pie. Is it the not the pipes? The what is that? this There 10.
00:58:48
Speaker
There are 10. and there's a ball. So there are 10 claws holding onto a ball and you can release three at a time. um And you have to, you know, math it out how you can have one extra in exactly the right place.
00:59:04
Speaker
so I'm going to be honest. I just clicked until I got it. i put absolutely zero thought into that puzzle and eventually I just got it. Yeah, basically, yeah, you're trying to get into a room and you have to knock down the doors with a big heavy ball. Why it's there, no one knows.
00:59:23
Speaker
ah Again, it's just kind of impossible. yeah And this is where you kind of learn Dr. Morgan is the bad guy. And you get this, you get, I don't know where this comes from, but some point, oh, it's the key.
00:59:36
Speaker
There's a passcode to the door that is youth hides the key to salvation. Yeah, I remember that. so you start to realize Dr. Morgan is doing something with children. Yeah.
00:59:49
Speaker
Which fits the theme of all these chapters. Like there's obviously suffering children being sacrificed for something. Yes, he's hurting children in some way to cure a disease.
01:00:00
Speaker
And he's also inflicting pain on monkeys. um i think this is where you learn that. Yeah, I think it is. It is. this um And so then starting in the Grimjack chapter where you learn that um he that Dr. Morgan has a cure. That's what he calls hope.
01:00:19
Speaker
And he hopes to profit off of it. he The Mercy Foundation is supposed to profit off of it. Right. um After a Grim. Oh, oh. So at the end of the Towers chapter, you get caught. right Right. Yes. You get caught and then you get put in a um crematorium, I think. not No, no'm not a sorry. Not a crematorium. morgue.
01:00:38
Speaker
A morgue. There is a crematorium down there, but you just get put in the morgue because I guess he thinks you're dead and you're not. It's very strange. Why did he do that? He's a doctor. He knows if you're dead or not. He could have just killed you. Yeah.
01:00:50
Speaker
And so in this morgue situation, um you find Dr. Morgan's office. You burn a body for seemingly no reason. And it gives you clue. It's for a puzzle, okay?
01:01:05
Speaker
couldn't find any clue that indicates that number seven was the body. Like, that you were supposed to no learn what was in body bag number seven. And that it would be important.
01:01:17
Speaker
yeah It's just, you can click on it. So you do, and he picks up the body and puts it in the incinerator. And then you're like, oh, a fake eye.
01:01:31
Speaker
There's also a talking tree, which is a weird, like there's weird humanoid trees. That's ah another weird theme throughout the game. Yeah. um Tying back to the, I guess... children turning into plants it's like nature versus science you know type of a deal yeah um what so what what actually happens here you find out that the mercy okay dr morgan heads the mercy corporation he wanted to profit off the hope drug you max didn't want him to right so you quit
01:02:06
Speaker
Did you quit or were you sabotaged by You quit and then your wife convinces you to stay. okay okay Help people. Right. um And then you confront Dr. Morgan with this and he teleports away.
01:02:25
Speaker
As you do. as you do. In a room surrounded by Aztec stuff. so of course, the next chapter is the Aztec chapter. In the Aztec chapter, your flashbacks show you that um you discovered the secret to curing the disease.
01:02:41
Speaker
Right. The disease that Sarah had. I think. Yes, I think that's Yeah. So that is what's kind of driving this. He became a doctor because of Sarah.
01:02:52
Speaker
I think she had this disease and he dedicated his life to finding a cure for this. And you learn that Aztecs never suffered from this disease. like that They say that randomly somewhere in one of the cutscenes earlier.
01:03:05
Speaker
um And then he's looking at like Indiana Jones footage of somebody exploring Aztec temples. And he goes, I've got it! That's the solution! and That's right. He jumps his car and drives away and runs off a cliff.
01:03:20
Speaker
Yes, yes. And that was sabotage, right? Dr. Morgan sabotaged him, thought. It is implied, yes. yeah Okay. Okay. And now your final chapter, after the Aztec chapter, you are flipping back and forth through all of your personalities.
01:03:36
Speaker
It's pretty cool. I like that chapter. Solving a quote-unquote game ah that Dr. Morgan is putting you through. yeah And ah you take it over from here, because this is where it all wraps up, and I'm a little confused.
01:03:49
Speaker
It honestly, yes. It is a little confusing. i I wonder if they did the last chapter the way they did... to i guess wrap it up because in this chapter you can actually switch you're not you switch between characters to solve puzzles so like you get a little um like a little icon where if you want to be grim wall now you can be grim wall now and maybe you need him to solve a puzzle to get to the next thing and yeah it's it's a it's kind of this weird conglomeration of everything that you went through. So there's like there's a clown park. There's like a little circus area.
01:04:26
Speaker
there a bug area? I swear I've repressed all of those things. I hate them that much. I think there's all of them, yeah. Gross.
01:04:37
Speaker
Disgusting. And so you kind of you get through all of that and you end up... In this weird... How do I describe this? It looks like a chessboard.
01:04:48
Speaker
But it's not. And Dr. Morgan's a floating head, like, taunting you. This, I really think... is like dissociation where you are in your body fighting to stay alive. And that is kind of the so symbolism of it is you are fighting to stay alive. And we don't, obviously, we don't know what that looks like.
01:05:10
Speaker
I don't, i if you're concussed like that, i don't know. Oh, and we, you did want to say you didn't understand why he was kind of having this trauma. I think the car wreck concussed him completely.
01:05:22
Speaker
and put him in a coma. Oh, so even the asylum was is not real. Nothing has been yeah real. Correct. Nothing even a little bit has been real. Yes, correct. So he is in a coma trying to survive, and his brain is kind of manifesting all of these things. it's it's His brain is helping him figure out what happened, and it's helping him survive.
01:05:45
Speaker
I kind of thought that later on... i kind of thought some of the... i thought the Asylum stuff was, like, real, but... uh full of kind of like his own hallucinations hallucinating hallucinogenic interpretations of it and so i thought his he was coming out of the coma at the i think you're right but i think he was coming i thought he was coming out of the coma at the end from like something duck like when dr morgan attacked him and put him in the oh i see no i think he was in a coma but actually the whole time
01:06:18
Speaker
that's That makes so much more sense. I looked up something. I looked up a little like plot summary and I think I cleared something up for me. um So the hope drug That Dr. Morgan discovered is... Does not cure the DNAV virus. Right. It's like useless. It slows it down.
01:06:40
Speaker
So it feels that it appears it's being cured. And so he can make more money off of it. But um Max cures it. And that's why he gets...
01:06:52
Speaker
Right. Dr. Morgan is a corrupt doctor. He just wants a way to make more money and to get prestige. Whereas Max wants to, you know, is a good doctor and wants to cure this disease, which I believe took his sister.
01:07:07
Speaker
yeah And that is what he dedicated his life to. So then Dr. Morgan gets arrested, like in the epilogue. This is, sorry. um Oh, are we going to talk about that weird last, Eric? That last the setting?
01:07:20
Speaker
Let's totally cut what I just said because I didn't give any warning. um So if you were okay with spoilers up till now, but you do want to play the game, I'm just going to say one real quick spoiler. We're just going to, you can jump ahead one minute.
01:07:32
Speaker
um The ending is that Dr. Morgan
01:07:39
Speaker
Max wakes up, reunites with his wife. Dr. Morgan does get arrested for tampering with the car. um Yeah. Resigns from Mercy Foundation in disgrace. ah And Max becomes like the new head of the Mercy Foundation.
01:07:54
Speaker
Yeah. It's a good, it's a good, solid ending. The issue is this whole game. Now that you, and now that I've kind of explained it to you, this whole game takes place inside your head.
01:08:05
Speaker
Yeah. Which I think makes sense. Even though it's called sanitarium, I don't think you are in a sanitarium. I think you are trapped in your mind. Yeah. And that is and that's what's really happening. And literally every every chapter is symbolic of something.
01:08:21
Speaker
Or you are in this coma trying, just desperately trying. Your brain is trying to move you forward. Yeah. Yeah. What did you think about that last gameplay, that last chapter with the ah kind of mirror the mirroring situation?
01:08:36
Speaker
I mean, that I hated. i like i hated it too. I know. I like the skipping back and forth between characters thing. even I did too. Yep. It can be a little tiring when a game changes its setting and its characters entirely and its like mechanics entirely. Because can be like, okay, I have to reorient myself.
01:08:53
Speaker
um And I get that a lot while playing Sanitarium. I just find myself just like struck by a wave of exhaustion and either needing to put it down or rededicate myself.
01:09:05
Speaker
um That's It's a lot. Yeah. The last puzzle sucks. I mean, there's, it's, it's like the maze in that it's just, yeah, it's a type I still, I still kind of found it interesting visually because it's clear in that final puzzle. That's when you're trying to wake up yeah from your coma. You're trying to wake up.
01:09:25
Speaker
I think it even shows like an IV or like, a not an IV, but it, it, it has a visual where yes, you are in a bed trying to wake up from a hospital.
01:09:37
Speaker
And I like that. i think I think the reason this resonated for me so much is the surreal nature of it. Everything really doesn't make sense. it It is completely surreal.
01:09:50
Speaker
It's weird. And it just, it gives me a vibe. It gives me like, this is weird and I really like it. And like the story, like it is a little confusing. Even we kind of like, what, why did that happen?
01:10:02
Speaker
But it does, I think it does have like a focal point in this story that's easy to understand. You know what I mean? Like, you know who the villain is, you know what's happening.
01:10:14
Speaker
um You know, you've been sabotaged and everything that you're thinking is just to get you out of the coma, which I think is kind of cool and an interesting way to look at survival, you know?
01:10:27
Speaker
Right. what do you say makes you love this game? So that's all going to be very subjective because I know you don't love this game. No, I don't hate it.
01:10:38
Speaker
It's more a cult classic, I think. it I don't hate it. There are things I really like about it. There's very little I love about it. That's fair. But i I like it.
01:10:50
Speaker
I like it pretty good Like if I were rating this game, if I were reviewing this game, I'd give it, you know, I'd give it in the 70 range. Yeah. Yeah. I think I love it because i found it when I was kind of young at a Best Buy with my dad, who was still alive at the time.
01:11:08
Speaker
And I played it in full when I was going through something where I was feeling a little crazy and like out of my mind a little bit. And that struck with me. It's just all the symbolism of life kind of going out of your mind and not knowing what's real and what's imaginary and trying to survive.
01:11:25
Speaker
It's a dark and harrowing and creepy feeling. yeah But it really resonated with me, even though it was very segmented, right? Not everything cohesively fit together. i would cut the Grimoire chapter completely. I don't think it adds a lot. If anything, it gets a little redundant, you know, but I could tell the devs really had a theme that they were like driving home.
01:11:50
Speaker
you know i also have a little bit of trouble understanding, even though it was a pretty good chapter, i have a little bit of trouble understanding what the metaphor was in the circus chapter, like we were saying. don't know if there was, or or if they just wanted us to play as Sarah to get a sense of who the character was and maybe what a special character she was to Max.
01:12:10
Speaker
And there is that moment where he does say to Sarah... That she'll be better in time for the circus or something, something of that effect. So yeah, like, I get how a chapter like that would have a meaning to Max. I just don't think it holds together as a metaphor. Yeah.
01:12:30
Speaker
Yeah, i don't I don't know if it does. And I wonder if, I mean, i' I might be giving it too much credit, but I also kind of wonder, Max is in a coma, brains are weird. It's just going all over the place. you know it it It almost makes sense that it doesn't make sense given Max's circumstances and yeah trying to like stay on, getting your brain to stay in focus and fighting and surviving you know for your life.
01:12:55
Speaker
yeah You're going to have things that maybe don't make sense in your brain. But yeah, I think it I do think it leans more because Sarah liked the circus. She was sick.
01:13:06
Speaker
And I wonder if this is the circus of of death. You know what I mean? Because she is sick. I wonder if this is just a very creepy, harrowing circus.
01:13:16
Speaker
Although she's again, she's she's into it. She's grateful for it to to be there. Yeah.
01:13:24
Speaker
Does that make sense? too Did I i explain why I like it? I think I think definitely. um do you you've played How many times did you say you've played this game?
01:13:35
Speaker
Like a lot, dude. Like, to be honest, I didn't even revisit it. I'm just recalling all of it from memory. So that's how many times I've played it. And when you... you You don't find it tedious. You don't find like the speed.
01:13:52
Speaker
i do. The mechanics. teach Okay. I do find it tedious. I think I just, there's something about the vibe and how it makes me feel that I, apparently I'm just forgiving it because it is tedious. I don't like walking back and forth with yeah but the mouse. um It is slow. The voice acting can be very slow two These are not characters that are in any rush to talk to you.
01:14:17
Speaker
um So it is. I do think it's tedious. I just like it anyway. And I think they do do it. Like it is when you say walking back and forth, they do a lot of things.
01:14:28
Speaker
putting different objectives on different sides of this of a walkable map yeah um and you kind of just got to keep going back and forth you do there is a lot of backtracking in this game really annoying yeah um do you think now that you know that ah that cheat engine allows you to speed up the walking that you would do that next time you play Maybe.
01:14:51
Speaker
Yeah, maybe. do like replaying it every now and then, to be honest. ah But yeah, it is slow. It's extremely slow. I just wonder if, like you kind of, you described, because all the idle animations are also five times the speed, I wonder if that would like take away some of that surreal nature that I like, some of the creepiness that I like and make it a little too comical. It's like, oh, that guy's banging his head at the wall at like,
01:15:17
Speaker
90 miles per hour like i i don't know if i would if i would find that distracting
01:15:24
Speaker
right i mean yeah i'll say that it is definitely distracting but it is also like i found it worth it for just yeah how slow so are you surprised that this is one of my favorite adventure games e no ah well yes and no uh no because i think it definitely has a vibe that screams
01:15:54
Speaker
uh pushing a proses yes but it has a lot of mechanics that do not so yeah so i think it's surprising and not surprising might hear something interesting that I associate with this game. Yeah.
01:16:08
Speaker
I was listening to a lot of Alice in Chains while playing Sanitarium, and now I can't separate them. Which I think is interesting because... Okay. Yeah, like when i when I played it or... Because sometimes I would listen to music while I played adventure games because not every adventure game has background music.
01:16:26
Speaker
The original King's Quest is a good example. I always played music vo you know while doing that. So I was listening to a lot of Alice in Chains and what's really interesting is they have a music video for I Stay Away, which takes place in a circus.
01:16:40
Speaker
And now I really like... I really
Nostalgia, Music, and Memories
01:16:43
Speaker
associate them. Like they give me the same feelings. You know how like music is that powerful where it'll, yeah, it'll attach itself to a memory.
01:16:51
Speaker
That happens to me with a lot of, I mean, i don't listen to music while I play adventure games. I listen to music while I play all the all other sorts of games. um And i have so many, yeah so many records that are completely attached to the game I was playing while I was playing.
01:17:11
Speaker
Yeah. ah While I was listening to them. Absolutely. i talk about this in my Space Quest 6 video, but that's around the time um i had gotten the Space Quest collection and that was around the time my dad was was going to pass of cancer.
01:17:28
Speaker
So i I remember so vividly playing Space Quest 6, then going to bed and putting on the like a Cars cassette that he had recorded. So now I associate the Cars with With Space Quest 6. And i cannot I cannot separate them. They are the same to me.
01:17:44
Speaker
Here's a very strange thing. i Because it's a game that I've never played. or Not that I've never played. I've played it. game that I played very little of. And an album that i listened to I've listened to so many times.
01:17:57
Speaker
Which is the Postal Service album, Give Up. Mm-hmm. when I first listened to it, I was playing ah Ninja Gaiden game for the Xbox 360, I think.
01:18:13
Speaker
Yeah. and so I don't play Ninja Gaiden. I know. Like, what are you talking about? Yeah. But my stepdad had it and I was just looking for something to play. And I was looking for something to play while I listened to music.
01:18:25
Speaker
And I was listening to i just discovered the Postal Service. And for some reason, was playing Ninja Gaiden for a couple hours. And for whatever reason, even though it was only like that one time. ah Even now, if I hear a Postal Service kind song come on, I think of jumping up walls and throwing shuriken in Ninja Gaiden.
01:18:48
Speaker
That's wonderful. It's a very strange association. Yeah, I mean, the cars in Space Quest VI is a weird association. Like, what? Why? and yeah Yeah, that's what I was listening to at the time after...
01:19:01
Speaker
i couldn't I couldn't listen to music while playing Space Quest X because it's voiced. But like I would go to bed and then listen to the cars. And that's what happened there. Yeah.
01:19:11
Speaker
You know, I'd like to pose an idea. please. I would love to do ah podcast episode where we really talk about games that that affected us or that helped us through something.
01:19:26
Speaker
Oh, okay. Because I'm going to be honest, Space Quest, the collection, that helped me through my dad's death. And they're super connected now. I was playing a lot of that ah collection because it was the last it was one of the last gifts I had gotten before he died.
01:19:44
Speaker
So I got that gift for Christmas, right? And then he died January 20th. So that was like the only thing I was pouring my heart into were these games. Yeah. That's so interesting. I'll have to think about that. ah and none yeah There's none that spring to mind, but I'm pretty sure i think there's got to be some.
01:20:04
Speaker
Yeah. I am the queen of sad stuff, so I can i can drudge it up in you, no doubt.
01:20:13
Speaker
But yeah, there are some games around that time where Gabriel Knight is a big one, too. That was definitely helping me through some stuff. this is going to put me know This is going to put me into a thoughtful place that's not going to be interesting for discussion until I've completed the thoughts.
01:20:30
Speaker
yeah So yeah, I think that's a good idea. And I think we should talk about that. Yeah. Do you have any other parting words about sanitarium before we say goodbye to our listeners?
01:20:42
Speaker
I just really recommend it. Like, I know we criticized it. It's just one of those things that if you like a bad horror movie because it's giving you the vibe that you need. yeah i think Sanitarium can do that.
Adventure Games' Evolution
01:20:55
Speaker
I really do. It's a little incohesive in parts. But I think it is worth playing as a classic adventure game. I think it deserves to be there, you know, with your King's quests and your space quests and all that. And your LucasArts.
01:21:10
Speaker
yeah I think it definitely belongs there. And I think it also, it was also an era where adventure games weren't we've talked about this era. Yeah. Yeah. And it is always a shame to refer to it in this way, it's an era where adventure games weren't very good.
01:21:26
Speaker
um One of the last kind of okay ones, you know, things were turning into 3d Grim Fandango came out the same year, 1998. Yeah. And then you don't, you don't see many beyond that, that are, I mean, even remember even before that had, yeah.
01:21:42
Speaker
ah well ninety seven had riveon and um Broken Sword 2 and Crystal Monkey Island. So its it's not like there was nothing. but it But it was on its way out. for It was a big decline in what had been around before. And there was a there was becoming a lot um but o types of adventure games that just sucked so bad and then 98 was sort of yeah kind of getting towards the end and then sort of 99 till what mid 2000s even maybe even more than that to be honest we were kind of neisons yeah it's pretty bad
01:22:28
Speaker
It's like almost nothing that you want to play besides the freeware, like AGS space. And a lot that's not great either. but um so But besides like some, some people making really interesting fan games at like, yeah or um ah indie games that were free.
01:22:46
Speaker
um Yeah. This was sort of the end. This is sort of the very end. um So I can see it really sticking in fans memories. Yeah. Absolutely, it sticks. we cut You know why?
01:22:58
Speaker
Because it felt like with Sanitarium and Grimm, that even though they did do kind of that 3D thing, it felt like there was hope a little bit. Like, those games are good.
01:23:09
Speaker
an Escape from Monkey Island came out two years later, and you're like, oh, never mind. i I like that game, but I understand why it declined, like, 100%. So, like, we had some hope there.
01:23:20
Speaker
And then nothing just goes down completely. So you're you are right in that, you know, I think a lot of this being a cult classic is because it was one of the last ones that I think people might have really connected with or really enjoyed, just like Grim Fandango.
01:23:37
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I mean, because I'm looking at this, like, the list right now that I have, and it's, like, Longest Journey but yeah the next was the next year. That's pretty liked.
01:23:49
Speaker
Yeah, which has really, you have really, you know, mixed reactions to. Definitely. And then, and yeah, Escape from Monkey Island, and then, like, yeah, and then I don't have another thing that, and I'm scrolling through pretty fast.
01:24:04
Speaker
Yeah. But there's not another thing that sticks out to me as like, oh, people love that until Siberia in 2002, which again is kind of problem. Oh, Discworld Noir was also in that time.
01:24:15
Speaker
Yeah. I think people were kind of slowly forgetting about adventure games by the time Discworld Noir really came out. That's a cult classic too, though. People like it. Broken Sword 3 hit in 2003 and everyone hated it. Yeah.
01:24:29
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah. yeah it's it's Yeah, and it there's just like ah there's like a desert here for years.
01:24:40
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't play games for a really long time. Frogwares Sherlock Holmes games start coming out, which are pretty controversial. So um so much controversy in in adventure gaming.
01:24:57
Speaker
So that is Sanitarium. Guys, everybody...
Conclusion and Call to Action
01:25:00
Speaker
Thank you for hanging out with us for an hour talking about adventure games. We have been brought to you by us and only ah us and all of ourselves. And you can email us at Matt and roses at gmail.com.
01:25:15
Speaker
ah You can find us on Instagram at save your game podcast. You can, what else can they do? You still always seem to end that with an inflection of questioning. Yeah, I still don't remember. I never remember. Not once have I remembered. Save your game podcast.
01:25:32
Speaker
on instagram You should be the one who says it then. yeah Apparently. apparently. What else? What else do we want to tell people? I have actually something really important to tell people that maybe they're not aware of.
01:25:47
Speaker
Oh, wait, hold on. I do have something legitimately important to tell people. I'm going to get political for just I'm going to get semi-political just for second. Oh, God. um There's, you know, there's some i mean things kind of suck right now. Right. We all know. They fucking suck.
01:26:02
Speaker
Here's some things that if you want, you can do. I don't know how widespread these boycotts are, but ah the thing that you still have power over is where you spend your money and...
01:26:14
Speaker
showing people that their actions can result in um extreme losses of money is start the most powerful, literally the most powerful thing you can do, even if you just do it for a day or a week.
01:26:29
Speaker
So um on February 28th, there is a nationwide economic blackout for if you can just for one day survive on the food in your fridge, don't eat out,
01:26:43
Speaker
Try not to travel too many places. Like, don't spend anything. You can do it. any Everyone can do it for one day. February 28th is an economic blackout.
01:26:55
Speaker
March 7th through 14th is an Amazon boycott. Even if you're going resubscribe again later, which you probably shouldn't, but some people do. Some people really want to.
01:27:07
Speaker
Even if you're going to subscribe again later, for march 7th to 14th just cancel your amazon prime don't buy from amazon don't watch amazon tv just for a week you can do this too i promise just for a week I have something that people can watch instead.
01:27:24
Speaker
Please. My YouTube channel. YouTube.com slash pushing up roses. You don't have to pay for it. it is completely free. And it's probably more entertaining than anything you'll find anywhere else, which is yeah big words, but I stick by them.
01:27:41
Speaker
I'll say, if you if you watch Amazon TV a lot and you're looking for something to watch that week, um there's an app called Dropout.TV that has ah bunch of cool comedy stuff on it.
01:27:54
Speaker
um Like, really cool indie comedians who are basically put together their own little TV network. And there's a show on there called Very Important People where... Improv comedians get dressed up in makeup that they haven't seen.
01:28:09
Speaker
They don't keep their eyes closed the whole time they're in the makeup chair. And then ah they wake up, look in the mirror, come up with a character, and then get interviewed on a talk show. Oh, that's cool. I love that. very cool paul f tompkins was just on it there's it's very very good so i'll talk about these economic there are these blackouts and these boycotts um just a little bit at every episode for the next month or two but right now february 28th economic blackout march 7th to 14th amazon boycott and uh that's my soapbox
01:28:40
Speaker
Also, this is incredible. i canceled Netflix. We all know why. we all know why. It's the hot frosty situation. We know what happened there. was a real hot frosty situation. It was hot frosty situation. But who needs Netflix or anything when all the Lifetime Thriller movies are uploaded to YouTube for free?
01:29:02
Speaker
Okay. No, no, no. These Lifetime Thriller movies are uploaded to YouTube for free. thrillers man I've watched like 20 of them. So um I'm just putting that out there for y'all.
01:29:14
Speaker
You don't want to spend money and you want to watch something questionable. There you go. So those are our cool cultural and political recommendations helpful for the moment.
01:29:24
Speaker
um So anyway, I'm so sorry. I interrupted you when you were, I know you were going to say something really, really important and like, if you need to take a little cry for a second, because I interrupted you really important. That's okay. The lifetime thing was pretty fucking important. Okay. right good I'm glad that people know that you can watch those for free, but actually what I was going to say is that podcast is art.
01:29:49
Speaker
Oh, a podcast is, podcast is art. Well, artists suffer. Yeah.