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Episode 42 - CHRISTMAS EXTRAVAGANZA!!!
0 Playsin 7 hours
PushingUpRoses and Matt Aukamp welcome you into their trans-dimensional Christmas cabin to play a bunch of holiday-themed games with them and their amazing guests. We play a cat game with Crimson Diamond's Julia Minamata! We play an obnoxious boy game with Alasdair Beckett-King. We play a creepy depressing game with Francisco "Grundislav" Gonzalez. And wrap it all up by playing a demon game with Party of One's Jeff Stormer. There's also talk of nog, window-jumping, wassail, and much much more fun!
Happy Holidays, everyone! We hope you had fun and enjoyed this extra-long episode and we'll be back early 2025!
Email us! mattandroses@gmail.com
Julia: https://www.juliaminamata.com/
Alasdair: https://www.abeckettking.com/
Francisco: https://www.grundislav.games/
Jeff: https://www.partyofonepodcast.com/
Games Mentioned:
- Christmas Nightmare
- Lonely Christmas
- Crimson Diamond
- Milo and the Christmas Gift
- Milo and the Magpies
- Watch Over Christmas
- Scribblenauts
- Rosewater
- Last Christmas
- Still Life
Recommended
Transcript
Surprise Visitor and Holiday Excitement
00:00:49
Speaker
All right, I'm super ready for Christmas. I've got my gingerbread men cooking in the oven. Got John Denver in the Muppets album playing over there. I've got my weird jelly decals up. This is gonna be great. Oh my God, I love Christmas. What the heck is that? Hello? Who's there? Oh my God. Okay, I'm coming. Matt? Roses.
00:01:15
Speaker
what what's What are you doing out there, buddy? Hey, hey, thanks for letting me. I'm in i'm here for Christmas. Oh, that's interesting. I don't remember inviting you. All right, I'm just taking off my snowy boots here and my coat. And oh, look, a cozy little chair. I'll sit down in here. Oh, you got some eggnog for me. Thank thank you. OK. Yeah, I knew what, come on in. I've got some gingerbread men in the oven. I've got my John Denver and the Muppets album playing. I know you like the Muppets.
00:01:45
Speaker
I do like the Muppets. i you know I prefer the soundtrack to ah Muppet Christmas Carol, but I'll show her. I'll listen to some John Denver and the Muppets, sure. Yeah, thanks for um and not inviting me over. I really needed something to do on this ah Christmas blank, Christmas Eve, Christmas no time.
Sentimental Holidays and Gaming Plans
00:02:06
Speaker
It's time adjacent to Christmas. Well, you know what? It is Christmas, so I'm glad you're here, Matt. Thank you, thank you. I'm glad I'm here too.
00:02:14
Speaker
how How are you enjoying your you Christmas blank so far? I love Christmas. Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. ah You know, Halloween, Christmas, the the ultimate the ultimate holidays for me. the ultimate holiday, Halloween Christmas. It's the Christmas where we all dress up in scary outfits. and yeah I guess that is how people used to celebrate Christmas though, huh? Yeah, yeah. I love it. I love i love all the Muppet Christmas things. I love... Ignog I love Christmas dinner. I even like the music that's overplayed. I really enjoy Christmas It's one of the it's one of the last memories I have with my parents ah Not at the same time. They died different at different times, but they each died around Christmas or after Christmas. So Yeah, I I like it. I try to take it all in. What about you match? How are you doing? You've been playing any uh
00:03:11
Speaker
Any Christmas-y games? Yeah, I love Christmas. I love eggnog. I love, ah you know, I love Christmas treats. I love presents. I love giving and getting presents. I love a Christmas tree. So, you know, I decided this year I'd pick up some new Christmas games. Oh, great. I've been playing a lot of them with my friends who I hope it's okay. I invited them all over. You did?
00:03:34
Speaker
to your cabin. Really? I told them it was our cabin. so ah i Some friends of mine should be showing up throughout some friends of ours actually should be showing up throughout the ah the evening to talk about all these games we played together.
Christmas Horror Games Discussion
00:03:50
Speaker
um You'll remember, we played a lot of them all together in a big chair with us and all our friends, remember? Oh, right, I was very cozy. ah I also, I got really sick after that, so I and don't recommend sitting in a chair with that many people, but I- Sorry, I had the plague, it's my bad.
00:04:12
Speaker
But I played a couple before that. I played two specific games that I found on, um, they were the same bundle on Steam. The first one was called Christmas Nightmare.
00:04:29
Speaker
ah right
00:04:32
Speaker
and the second one I have to even look it up ah Christmas Nightmare and Lonely Christmas now these games are horror Christmas games where ah that it's just they've used basically the same exact assets. And they have the same premise, which is you are alone in a house, on Christmas, and something scary is terrorizing you. And it's just a series of fucking jump scares. So the no the first game, I said, Christmas Nightmare tried to do something a little artistic, and ah a little bit, where both of them, they're very high definition.
00:05:14
Speaker
but it's all, yeah, clearly like pre-rendered assets that they bought. yeah And then just compiled together. And ah you um you start out like in the street, just lighting off fireworks for some reason, and then you keep getting notes from your neighbors like mad at you for lighting off their fireworks that they were saving for new years, and then you do it again, and then they do, they whatever, you go to the store to get some groceries and there's like some fake scares, like some fake jump scares like, oh oh, where's the cashier? Oh, what's that noise in the back? And then it turns into this, it's a man who's just shitting wildly in the back. Like literally?
00:05:55
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that it's behind a door, but it is like the worst, grossest, scatological noises you've ever heard, just coming from behind this door. And it's like, oh god, okay, I kinda wanna stop playing now, but I'm gonna see this through. And then it's about 20 more minutes of you just walking around your house while like a goblin is tormenting you, like a little Christmas gremlin and like kills your child and your wife and whoa wraps them up in gift wrap and leaves them places. That's hard news.
00:06:26
Speaker
This doesn't sound like, so okay, correct me if I'm wrong. This is a game with ah with a Christmas band-aid on it, like a like a setting. Well, yeah, the theme is Christmas. It doesn't have to be a Christmas game. Everything in the house is Christmasy. Okay.
00:06:45
Speaker
um And then it's like, oh, you're alone on Christmas because you got in a fight with your wife and you, and she left. And okay the end of the game is you wake up from this horrible dream and you call her and apologize. And that's.
00:06:59
Speaker
okay And so that's what I'm saying is it's trying to do something artistic. Like there's a point there a
Milo and Cozy Game Critiques
00:07:05
Speaker
little bit. um Just a fairy glib and shitty one. And and then here Christmas, ah Lonely Christmas is you are a, hey, tell me if this one sounds familiar. You're a child named Kevin who was left alone on Christmas while your parents were. I know.
00:07:22
Speaker
I've never heard of anything like it. So you sort of, you you wake up, ah and this was funny because it's like, these are both like survival horror walking, not survival, just horror walking simulators, jump scare things. um But because you're a kid, you're just like a little shorter than everything, which I thought was really funny for a while. Do you remember in, what is it? ah ah Is it what remains of Edith Finch, where at one point, a couple points you become a kid, and then your just perspective is slightly lower? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah that's true. i think you Don't you become like a baby and stuff as well? Yeah, and just that switch of perspective while you're in first person is for some reason so fucking funny.
00:08:10
Speaker
It's like, oh yeah, I am a little lower to the ground. so and it But it is, there's like you're just like walking around the house doing Christmas chores, chopping down a tree, decorating it, and then a guy comes to deliver your pizza, and but at the same time, you find out there's a killer on the loose, and of course, the guy who delivered your pizza is the killer, and he's in a jesters outfit, and he's just like, you just have to basically run back and forth around the half loop of this house. okay Waiting for more jump scares to pop out. yeah And that's how the story unfolds. You just walk to the one end, something happens. You walk to the other end, something happens. you are like it's just It's literally just that. And he like murders your parents at one point and you end the game by stabbing him to death. And then ah then you wake up from a dream.
00:09:01
Speaker
like the last one just like the last game and by the way there is a fireworks setting off thing it is literally some of the assets are 100% the same of course and these are by different people I don't know if there's like a community of people that makes these like really shitty ah horror games but right And if you're listening, and you made one of these games, and you weren't intending to just get people's money, and this is something that's passionate for you, then I'm very sorry, but I can't imagine that's true. But then you ah you wake up, and then you go downstairs, you open your present, and it is like a figurine of the murderer, the end. Great.
00:09:43
Speaker
So that's a lonely Christmas and Christmas nightmare. Don't merry christmas don't buy that. They were both 40 minutes long and bad wow and cheap and like cheaply made. and i So yeah, that's.
00:09:57
Speaker
Okay, well, the good news is, Matt, well, thank you for your service of playing and reporting back of these terrible, quote, Christmas games. The good news is we played some really interesting. Interesting, not necessarily good. Not necessarily good, but longer, more detailed. We played some some games, some Christmas games with our friends, as we said, and we're going to talk to you all about them in hopes of ah giving you some Christmas cheer, holiday cheer.
00:10:27
Speaker
And you know what, actually, ah let me pull this blanket off. ah You might have noticed I brought in this large object covered in a blanket. um yeah Our first guess is it's actually just in the room. So let's go to some incidental music and I will pull the blanket off of their head.
00:11:19
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to Save Your Game. So happy that you could be with us here today. I have with me two very special guests, my very cozy, very lovely, very holiday spirit, my co-host Matt Aucamp. Matt, Matt, thank you so much for being here with us. Hey, thanks thanks for having me. I'm just sitting here with my with my robe on and my- A robe? I have a robe and the- Dang.
00:11:47
Speaker
ah snow is fluttering outside the window and I should probably close it so I'm gonna go do that while you introduce our guest. Thank you, Matt. Thank you for that input. With us today, the amazing Julia Minamata of Crimson Diamond fame. Julia, thank you so much for being here with us for this holiday extravaganza.
00:12:10
Speaker
Aw, thanks so much, roses. And thank you, Matt. I hope he's back from the window and can hear me thanking him, but oh thank you. Julia, how are and how are you how are you doing? how How are you this holiday season? and Yeah, it's it's a quiet quiet season for me this year and I'm kind of enjoying it It's been hectic. It was hectic for a little while there oh with the game and all with the Crimson Diamond release and Like updates and patches and fixes but yeah, it's just the perfect time to just slow it right down and come chill out with some folks and Talk Christmas games and i'm i'm yeah, I'm looking forward to just a peaceful time this year
00:12:51
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds great. That's awesome. So speaking of ah a peaceful Christmas time and Christmas games, the three of us all played a game called Milo and the Christmas Gift.
00:13:08
Speaker
I mean, and what did I play it or did Matt force me to play it? No, no, that's our dynamic, honestly, is Matt thinks of a game, I'm like, I don't know about this game, and then I play it anyway. And at least half the time, you love it. Yeah, I would say even probably more than half the time. um but So overall impressions, what did you guys both think of this game?
00:13:38
Speaker
It was really cute and cozy. I love the illustration style. It looks like a children's book. um I hadn't played a game like this in a while and I had to recalibrate my brain to be like, puzzle logic. And I got to say like, I don't, my brain doesn't really work that way. And I did have to consult a walkthrough. So I'm sorry, that's my confession, my Christmas confession.
00:14:03
Speaker
Oh, we don't we don't mind that i'll give a Christmas confession, too. I also had to console. I am not going to say anything. I admit nothing. I don't think my brain works like that. It's it's one of those games where the puzzles are not like diegetic, right? It's not like, oh, you have to think about what you need to accomplish and then what you know, tools or things in the atmosphere you have to accomplish that goal. It's like these disjointed puzzles where it's like, oh, you have to, you have to open a lock and you have to look at things in the environment like, oh, ah there's the color on the lock is white and there's four white candles or whatever. So it's number four, like it's stuff like that. And it's like,
00:14:58
Speaker
Did somebody really sit down when they were coming up with this, this like they were like, all right, I need a good combination for my shed lock. Let's see, there'll always be three white candles in my backyard. Well, that's the thing, right? I feel like I'm probably fortunate that my brain doesn't really work like that, because certainly, you know, most of the time the real world just simply doesn't work that way. So probably for the best.
00:15:25
Speaker
What a weird a weird kind of puzzle because technically it is a logic puzzle but it is illogical by the way Matt is speaking about it's like no but but why do we have three bells outside So it's like he always for all eternity. Yeah. So yeah, we have a logic puzzle. It's not moon logic. It's not inventory based, but it's so illogical that it's kind of infuriating. And can we just, can we just talk about the main issue here? Why did that little girl leave the door open? Okay. Let's talk about this plot of my oh yeah's a plot. Yes. All right.
00:16:06
Speaker
so it's by well the basic details it's by second maze games and um well it's published by second maze games which published like the white door which is one of the rusty lake games um and it's by a guy named uh oh man i'm gonna butcher this yohan shirft Okay. Do you guys think it's Sjohann Schurft? Maybe Schurft. I don't know. um But it is, ah he he released a game a few, was it a few years ago or was it last year? Called Milo in the magies and And
00:16:44
Speaker
It is this, it's it's exactly this. It's like this this story about a little cat but um and his you know misadventures and this is his free Christmas game that he actually released. Okay, so Milo and the Magpies was 2022. This was released last year. I guess we're just getting around to playing it now. um but The backgrounds are like fully hand-drawn and hand like It's either hand painted or like colored pencils. Is it really? Looks great. Yeah. Yeah, I think it might be. why I'm I'm watching him make it now and it's watercolor. OK, it looks like almost like a combo of like watercolor and maybe you like watercolor pencil. Yeah. Yeah. So it's giving it it's kind of extreme ah like children's book kind of look. And then you play a little cat.
00:17:42
Speaker
yeah Okay, because ah first of I have the stopping map because I didn't know what I who we we were in the game I thought initially that I was the cat because it's called mile on the Christmas gift and so there's the cat and then there's the bunny and then but things happen like does the cat plug the phone in what is happening that is where Yeah, you are on some level. I guess you're a you're an all-powerful God Yeah, so I feel like, yeah, I feel like that's who we are. We're an all-powerful God. And not the cat or the bunny or anybody else in this. Oh my God, yeah, and rather than playing the cat, you are prodding the cat. You're like, do something. Yeah, that's all I felt, that you're guiding the cat. Do anything, buddy. Yeah, it's kind of like one of those, like an Amanita game, right? You are this semi, yeah, this powerful,
00:18:28
Speaker
third party who just gets to poke things and see what they do. um Yeah, yeah um it's very, what's the word? ah
00:18:40
Speaker
What are those? You know, those those children living books. There we go. It was very living book to me because you're on ah before you can advance. It's not open world, right? You are on a screen. You have to figure out the puzzles and you're just kind of prodding things and looking around. And that's and it's so illustrative. it Yeah. Reminded me of like a children's living book. ah Yeah, I think that's ah that's that's right. And the so the plot here is, as Julia said,
00:19:08
Speaker
There's a, you're, you're well, you're focused. Now I don't even know how to. We don't even know what this is. There's a cat. There's a frigging cat. His name is Milo and the little girl who owns the cat and which I guess we would have, was all stuff that happened in Milo and and the magpies. She gets a little bunny for Christmas. It's so cute. And the cat at first is pissed.
00:19:36
Speaker
But then like really quickly makes it. I thought that was what the game was going to be about. Like, oh, cats pissed a bunny. Yeah. And they have to like come to terms and like be friends or something. Right. But now they like they they become friends like immediately. Yeah. And the this this friggin little girl just immediately. She just opened her bunny.
00:20:00
Speaker
She just got it. She lets it run away like immediately. The door is open. Well, we don't know that she left the door open. It could have been her mom left the room and left the door open. We don't know.
00:20:11
Speaker
You're right. I want team little girl. I'm on team little girl. like ah Allegedly. yeah Someone left the door open. so Somebody left the door open and the bunny got out. And the cat's like, don't worry. I've got this. I got this. Don't. Yeah, I got this. It's fine. I just what I was looking at that door the whole time, you guys. I just knew I'm like, oh, my God, the door is open.
00:20:33
Speaker
Just the door's open, there's wild animals in here. Well, there is a bunny. The cat's maybe not a wild animal, but yeah, I was mad that the little girl didn't even notice. Yeah, you'd think she would be focused on the bunny. Yeah, I would be. Me too. She'd be a bunny. I'm pretty focused on the bunny. I'd be pissed if I was the parents, and I'm like, we just gave you a bunny, and you immediately lost interest in it.
00:21:01
Speaker
Well, and also the fact that she doesn't seem to appear in the rest of the game, like she's not looking for the bunny, so she just let it go out and she's like, well, I guess that's that. Yeah, well, guess the bunny's wild again. Whoever comes back comes back. I don't know. Literally went next door. The girl was like, ah, too hard. Too hard. I mean, it is snowing out. So, you know, it's it's winter. She don't want to go out in that.
00:21:29
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I understand. It's probably cold enough out there to freeze your Winnebago. and Sorry, Muppets reference. So. That's not even accessible Muppets, Matt. that that That's Muppet for you and I only. ah Do you ever see ah Muppet Family Christmas, Julia? I have, but it was many years ago. It's the funniest it's the funniest Christmas special that exists. um So the bunny,
00:22:01
Speaker
flees into like a neighboring yard and the cat comes. And this is this is where I got confused immediately. Oh, boy. um Is a man lighting off fireworks in his own backyard? Also, why? What is wrong with this man? ah to Go on. He's not even doing it. Yeah, he's not doing it for the entertainment of anyone. He's alone.
00:22:25
Speaker
Yeah. How did you guys all deal with these puzzles? Like how did this ah poorly? don I was stumped immediately. You know, what's so funny is because the way the game looks, it looks like a children's book. So you feel like it would be easy. And then when it's not easy, you're like, am I, ah you know, not as so smart of a person and this, there's something wrong with me clearly.
00:22:45
Speaker
Well, the first, so the first puzzle, and we're just gonna spoil it, guys, because whatever, there's a bunch of um lights hanging off a tree, and they happen to be in numbered segments. Just like so between, like before they're interrupted by a branch, it's one segment is one, and one's two, and one's three, four, five. Because you just have to click them in order. But why? What's going on? Yeah.
00:23:15
Speaker
i I hate, guys, I truly hate that puzzle. I truly hate it. I didn't like this the the other puzzle that was on the same screen. Because like I think I mentioned earlier, you are on single screens. And you progress the story by figuring out the puzzles within that screen.
00:23:33
Speaker
um i do i ah this is not This is not a roses game. this is not it It is about a cat. So you'd think it is. But the puzzles, I don't I don't like. I love how cute it is. Yeah. I love me some cats and I love me some bunnies and I kind of like the maybe you guys felt this way, too, that the whimsical kind of warm nature. ah mit Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
00:24:01
Speaker
um yeah Julie, you mentioned the um the the phone, I guess you'd call it a puzzle here. That's where I was suddenly starting to believe that I wasn't the cat. Because what would that guy think if this cat just darted out from the fence and just plugged his phone in?
00:24:24
Speaker
So yeah, that's kind of incredible. like it so yeah it was It was a cool like item combination. I wish there was kind of some more like item combination puzzles in the game. yeah yeah But yeah, like overall, I feel like, yeah, i mean I'm gonna come with roses that this this these types of puzzles are really not my cup of tea, but it's super charming. And it was a kind of a relaxed type of game. And because you were restricted to one you know screen at a time, you the the the confusion was somewhat minimized.
00:24:52
Speaker
Right. You could just kind of click around and stuff would happen. and And, you know, there were some hidden things that were kind of a little fun to discover. And I did have the walkthrough, so that was all good. It was fun to find the hidden stuff, too. Yeah, I think I'm going to go back with a walkthrough and find the other hidden stuff, because I only found like three, but.
00:25:10
Speaker
Yeah, but yeah, this is the, you know, this is only the second room of the game but yeah it kind of sets in real quick that you're going to have to use your different brain for this one. Yeah, yeah you're, you're, nothing really makes sense brain. Yeah, if a logical puzzle game that's odd, it there's a little bit of a disconnect.
00:25:29
Speaker
and of me I'm going to say, you say this is only the second screen, but there's three screens in the game. Yeah, there's not many screens. It's true. like i like We're almost done with the bomb here, right? like like you free The cat frees a bunny. The bunny accidentally gets locked in a shed.
00:25:50
Speaker
The cat frees the bunny. What are we free the bunny? Yeah, we got free the bunny. Us, comma, God. the No, God, the literal.
00:26:05
Speaker
um And then a man takes the bunny and you're like,
00:26:11
Speaker
I like, did you guys, what did you guys think when the man took the, well, okay, I guess before that you bunny and the cat have a real like choreographed dance through the snow. It's very titanic. It was my favorite part of the whole game, I have to tell you. Like it was so cute and magical and the music and the cues of the music and everything. I was like, oh, this is super nice. That was my absolute favorite part of the game, for sure.
00:26:40
Speaker
ah yeah james I like that also in this segment you play hide and seek. Yeah, so cute. It's so cute. With the bunny right before. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. I like that a lot. um yeah I like and I like the animations of the I mean, there's very few animated things in this in this game. Like I said, it is it is kind of living bookie to me. But the the choreographed dance, as you say, I thought that is so cutely animated with the tumbling of the cat and the bunny. I'm like, ah, yeah, this is how I felt about Milo and the magpies is this guy's really good at animating a cat. Yeah.
00:27:18
Speaker
like when, besides when the cat is on two legs doing like a waltz. Besides that. Well, my cat does that all the time. Oh, okay. I guess, yeah, I haven't had a cat in a little while, so. Basket is a very good waltzer.
00:27:34
Speaker
um But besides that, like the cat is really like a kind of natural looking at all times. It is, yeah. So, okay, man takes the cat.
00:27:47
Speaker
And you're like, were you guys like, oh, he's returning the cat? Or were you guys like? You mean the bunny? The bunny, sorry, yeah. OK. Are you guys like, this motherfucker kidnapped our bunny? No, I was pissed. I'm like, I think we just lost.
00:28:02
Speaker
Game over. Game over. You got to go back and see. Maybe you forgot to forgot to pick up the pie. You you you put the wrong combination. like you could have you know There's multiple.
00:28:14
Speaker
solutions and the least correct or or the lesser correct one is going to give you the bad ending. I think his man kidnaps the bunny. Cat has to return home. Girl cries for five solid minutes and then the game's over. I guess at that point, but I didn't even really notice that that happened because like everything kind of was inexplicably happening that I'm like, okay, I'm just going to take this and just try it. We'll just follow the curve and just go snack.
00:28:40
Speaker
And the cat doesn't realize it, Milo doesn't realize it happened, so Milo keeps on looking. Yeah, he keeps looking, yeah. And that's when you end up at, this is a strange thing, you end up at a, like this was a location in the previous game, and so you end up at this frozen river, it wasn't frozen in the previous game, where people are escaping. Oh, I didn't even know it was a river, I thought it was like a street.
00:29:07
Speaker
Yeah, this is- I'm a dumb. There's literally a fish in like a thing. Oh my god. There's ducks swimming in it. Okay, you know what? There's a bridge over it. Yeah, there's a bridge. This game was like way more trippy and psychedelic than it was nuts. I had a great time. I don't know what you guys were playing.
00:29:31
Speaker
and If it comes to the logic that's in the game, I could totally see you taking that in stride too, where, oh yeah, there's a duck swimming in the road. That's terrible. I was thinking, I don't know where my brain was at in brain fog. Well, so there's something, there is something weird though here that I didn't, and maybe it's a thing in certain other countries. I don't know. um There's a soup stand that is facing the river.
00:30:00
Speaker
Right, like there's a like ah there's a kitchen with a table and like ah like an awning and a sign and this girl is selling like vegetable soup to people who are skating by. You guys ever seen anything like that? I have never seen a soup stand, ever.
00:30:26
Speaker
out of the Chicago, so that's, the it it could be. um I assume it's like a holiday pop-up. Like, all right, the river's frozen, get the soup stand, pop-up out. Yeah. um And your customer base obviously sucks because at some point you ah you drop snow into the man's soup and he just chucks the soup just down on the ground and sleeps away, up and all.
00:30:58
Speaker
They have some real bad Yelp reviews on this poor little indie soup stand. This is another illogical logic puzzle, right? Yeah. but Yeah. I was so excited that I solved this one with the dials and everything. I always beside myself with joy. Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:15
Speaker
It's, well, by that point, our brains have sort of adjusted to it, right? And you're just kind of like, okay, what? there It doesn't make sense, but what clues could be lurking anywhere? Really, it got worse for me, because I didn't even know I was on a river. So I just progressively got worse at this game. This game rotted your brain, little by little.
00:31:41
Speaker
um Yeah, it's just like the price of the soup corresponds with the temperature you set the... That doesn't make sense, that doesn't make sense unless unless this is an economy. It's like every every degree that I turn up my cookware costs me one penny.
00:32:08
Speaker
So if you want soup that is cooked at 250 degrees, ah you are going to need to pay me $2.50. I mean, that also like, even though that's an illogical logic puzzle, it, at least like I knew to look for numbers and there's only so many numbers, you know? Yeah. Yeah. There's three numbers and there's three numbers you need to find done.
00:32:36
Speaker
Yeah, so I just have I just want to say I had a visceral reaction. Again, I don't know. This got progressively worse for me. I don't know why. ah But on the last screen, ah you know, that's where everyone's reunited. This woman like.
00:32:52
Speaker
Okay, so you as Milo, you prod him to hide in a box, and he's hiding in this box of Christmas hats, and a woman finds him and brings him back. It's a box of Christmas hats? Yeah, that's why he's wearing a Christmas hat.
00:33:08
Speaker
Okay.
Eggnog and Holiday Traditions
00:33:09
Speaker
I didn't call that. Hello. Hello, Matt. Oh God. I'm the dumb one. So the swimmin brings back the box. Like she doesn't take the cat out. She just brings the whole box of somebody's Christmas hats and she puts it down and she says, I found your rabbit. I can't. Did she not look in the box? I'm so confused. Okay, so Miles got the hat on, so you can't see his ears. And if you see an animal... I don't know, I was just like, girl. And the only way you can tell the difference between people, this is something science has been grappling with for centuries.
00:33:52
Speaker
is that the only way you can tell the difference between a cat and a bunny is its ear. It's but like the length of its ears. And so you know in situations where you can't see the ears, yeah science just cannot figure it out. Additionally, she's been primed to know, I'm sure, that a rabbit is missing, not that Maya was missing. So she saw something furry in yeah and the box. She didn't think twice about it.
00:34:17
Speaker
No plot hole here. but wife said so mad meant two games I've spent two games with this cat. I think people are pretty used to Milo going missing. I think everybody in this town knows what it's like to find Milo in a box of hats.
00:34:36
Speaker
Maybe this time, you know, new bunny has gone missing. Oh, is Milo missing too? No, not this time. No, no, no, no. Priority is the new thing. Oh, no, you could find Milo in the box of hats. No, this is... Everybody knows it. Did you guys think it was like a little bit of a cop-out that we actually... This is a game, by the way, guys. This is an actual game we're clicking around and the object is to find this bunny and bring it back to the little girl.
00:35:05
Speaker
But we don't ever find the bunny. Somebody else off screen finds the bunny. I was so glad. This is the only puzzle we need to do. Yeah, we find the cat. We find the cat who isn't or who rather we drove to being lost. We made the cat be lost. But that's the only thing they need to do is find the bunny. And this game wouldn't they wouldn't give they would humor me. Let me find the bunny. Yeah. Did you feel unsatisfied by the ending then? I did. I did. Yeah.
00:35:35
Speaker
ah I was fine with the ending. It felt cozy Christmas-y, but I see what you're saying. Yeah, we didn't achieve anything. Yeah, and for what it is, it's good.
00:35:48
Speaker
The theme of, you know, everyone coming kind of coming together for the holidays, I feel like maybe you could kind of think about it that way where sometimes you have problems and then, you know, you have friends and family can help you with your problems. And I don't know. Oh, yeah. No, I think that's probably on some level what they were going for, right? Like the whole town is on this little girl's side.
00:36:12
Speaker
Yeah, including the the woman with the box of hats who can't tell the difference between a cat and a mermaid. She did her best too. In a town like this, everybody needs to stick together because all none of them, and none of them are particularly competent. Well, the world is less chaotic, okay? I can't blame the people for not being competent if their world makes no logical sense. That's true.
00:36:35
Speaker
Little girl loses her rabbit out of her own front door the moment after she gets it. ah Woman doesn't know the difference between a rabbit and a cat. ah ah um Man sets the lock ah um on his shed by how many candles he can see at that moment.
00:36:57
Speaker
What happens if like his wife comes home with a new candle? Does he have to reset this lock every single time? He can never get into the shed again. Oh my god. He can never, for the rest of his life, is able to get in the shed. Did you guys see- World as hell. There was a cute thing on the um river scene in the art that I don't know if you guys picked up on. Do you guys see all the cats in the background? No. In the river scene?
00:37:22
Speaker
Yeah, scattered throughout the tree branches i did not know i are just a bunch of cats really cute silhouettes of cats. Oh, that's sweet. Yeah.
00:37:34
Speaker
Makes me wonder if there's more like that that i I didn't clock, but... Yeah, I think overall, the idea of coming out with kind of like a free holiday game is something they kind of used to do back in the day, like with DOS games and everything. They'd have food, yeah you know, and I think it's a really sweet little gift for people. And I really have a lot of warm feeling toward the developer for that reason, too.
00:37:54
Speaker
Absolutely, yeah, it almost made me when the first bit of the game, the very first chapter, you're not solving puzzles really, you're just clicking on the cat and the bunny back and forth and watching them do stuff. And at that point I started feeling like it was like one of those old Sierra Christmas cards where yeah yeah it's basically just almost like this just like interactive little Christmas card. Yeah, it's real sweet.
00:38:20
Speaker
Yeah, and like I, you know, I joke and like, Oh, I found this unsatisfying at the end, which I did. I did find it unsatisfying, but at the same time, it's not. That's not the purpose of this game. The purpose of this game is the experience itself and feeling warm and cozy and just having a nice thing to look or look at and click around, you know? Yeah.
00:38:42
Speaker
So that's Milo and the Christmas gift. You guys can all go just get it on Steam for free. It's a gift. It's a Christmas gift. It's a Christmas gift for you. um So before ah before we get out of here, Julia,
00:38:57
Speaker
um Here's the thing we're talking to all our guests about today, um because it's a thing that's very near to me and Rose's hearts. Oh God, why? Oh no. I haven't been prepped on this. Okay, go on. Can I have $700? That's not what we talked about.
00:39:20
Speaker
How do you feel about eggnog? Are you an eggnog person? Oh, that's a really good question. It's real sweet. I find it, it's too sweet for me, but I'll have like a little bit, like a sip of it is nice, I find, but I could never drink like a whole thing of it, like a whole serving size. But yeah, how do y'all feel about the eggnog? My son used to say it was like a liquid cookie, which I think is true. Big fan, I'm a big fan of eggnog. Alcohol, no alcohol, usually no alcohol, but either one,
00:39:53
Speaker
Love it. I'm right now enjoying, as we speak, a original brand Pennsylvania Dutch eggnog made with real dairy cream, rum, brandy, and blended whiskey ahead. Just a tiny little dram. I like the flavor a lot of eggnog in the rumming and stuff. Me too. It's very nice. Yeah, are you a bigger fan of alcoholic or non-alcoholic?
00:40:20
Speaker
Probably the non-alcoholic, because I can't really drink like all that much alcohol. OK. But yeah, just like a little bit of rum in there is just real nice, I got to say. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely prefer non non-alcoholic, ah because i I know it's like so intensely sweet. I also cannot have a lot of it, but I'm like i'm like wild about it. I need to have it. There's something very nostalgic about it ah for me. We always had eggnog at Christmas.
00:40:47
Speaker
and like it i don't I don't know, if you like less sweet eggnog, then you should put alcohol in it. um But yeah, it gives it a weird sort of weird flavor to me. Do you guys sprinkle nutmeg on the k nog? Yeah, I do.
00:41:06
Speaker
Cinnamon nutmeg something, maybe, yeah. Yeah. yeah i Every year, I'm always looking to try new nogs. Do you guys have a favorite brand?
00:41:20
Speaker
Matt, you weirdo. Nobody has a favorite brand of eggnog. Well, there's one brand that comes out and then we just get that one. What's the brand? It's a Beatrice. They make like, you know, other milk and stuff. Beatrice. And that's all we get. It's just like the one thing we get in in the grocery store at that time of year. And you know what I... Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, no, that's all. That's all I got. Okay. I was going to say you reminded just at like talking about ah brands of eggnog. I can't name when I like the best.
00:41:47
Speaker
But I can name what I don't like. Is that is that acceptable? Go ahead. Yeah, it's even better. It's even better. I'll name my worst nog of all time after you. OK, it's actually Dean's Eggnog. And Dean's is a pretty big brand. I've never had Dean's. Yeah. What makes it bad? Yeah. It's a little watery to me. Yeah. so And I just you know, eggnog is meant to be a little more luscious and kind of decadent. And yeah. And Dean's is like a milk brand. So you would. I don't know. Maybe it's.
00:42:17
Speaker
Maybe it's me, I don't know, but i yeah, do not not a big fan of Dean's. So Wawa has an incredible nog. If you guys are ever in the Northeast, I guess ah ah whole it's all the the whole East Coast now, right, has Wawa's. Check out Wawa nog. Now the worst nog I've ever had is Bolt House Farms. Do you guys know Bolt House Farms? Oh yeah, they make the vegetable juices and stuff. Yeah, which generally pretty good.
00:42:47
Speaker
they They have a thing called holiday nog. um I described it last year, I have it written down here. Worst nog I've ever had, it's like water poured into pumpkin spice flavored milk. so It's horrible. it um It has the consistency of, and I'm sorry to anybody at home enjoying a nice nog right now, and they're gonna have to take a little break um after I say this, but it's the consistency of mucus. ah It's horrible.
00:43:15
Speaker
I hate it, I hate that. Do you have it? So, okay, and then before we let you before we let you go here, Julia, and thanks you so much for joining us and talking about this cool game. um what sort of Do you have any holiday traditions that are super important to you that you wanna share with people?
00:43:34
Speaker
Yeah, um well, there's a tradition of baking holiday cookies, which, you know, it's not unique or anything. But my mom makes the same cookies every year, the same kinds of cookies every year. And one of them is a thumbprint cookie. And there are thumbprint cookies in the Crimson Diamond.
00:43:49
Speaker
And that's a great puzzle too. Yeah. So that's why that's there. That's why I have those there because every, you know, every year for the, you know, as long as I've been alive, she's baked them and I, and I love having them and they're so holiday season for me. Um, so that that's one thing. And then I've been taken upon myself to make the, uh, the gingerbread cookie recipe. That's also from like an old vintage, you know, 1970s cookbook that my mom has had. And, uh, yes, my absolute favorite cookie. And I make those every year now. So those are, those are my nice holiday traditions.
00:44:19
Speaker
That's awesome. That's so good. Man, I gave i keep that Faro character so many thumbprint cookies, Julia. Because I was like, I got a little stuck and I just... I thought I could like make him sick or something. I was going to do that actually. I was you do i was going to do a Mr. Creosote death where he would explode.
00:44:38
Speaker
but i Is there an achievement for giving him enough ah mut bunchch of cook No i don't Trust me, I would have had it Yeah, i yeah oh um was yeah Missed opportunity You hear that Yeah, why are you banging on your desk, Matt? There's a knock at our Christmas cabin door. So I think another guest is trying to come in. Julia, we're going to have to say ah Merry Christmas to you and happy christmas every other holiday that happens around this time. There's a bunch of them. yeah And ah thank you for hanging out with us.
00:45:21
Speaker
Thank you so much for inviting me on. This was lovely. and Milo was wonderful. And yeah, happy holidays, Merry Christmas to you and roses. This is great times. Aw, thank you so much Julia. I guess I'll go answer the door. All right, we'll be right back.
00:45:39
Speaker
Wow, look at that. It's our good friend Alistair Beckett King. Alistair, why are you out there in the freezing cold? It's so cold out here, Roses and Matt. Why are you making me stand on your doorstep in the cold outside this real door?
00:45:56
Speaker
I mean, we are in Chicago, where it's very cold all the time. And we're in the west of Philadelphia, where it's very cold. Very cold, all the time. Very, very cold. I'm in London, which is also very cold. Damn. Can I come in?
00:46:12
Speaker
Sure, come on in, have a spot around the fireplace. Let's wait for Julia to jump out the window. Okay, she's gone, now you can go in. She could have used a door. Oh, that's fine. She didn't want to see us. No, I am in a little way.
00:46:30
Speaker
This is an adventure game. you need to but We need to move you out of the doorway. It's like a character standing there like, how can I open the door when there's a person standing in it? how can How can one person leave the door when another person's in it? Matt, if you could just offer him cider from your chair, you could lure him away from the door. OK, OK. as Sit, chair.
00:46:56
Speaker
offer cider. Alistair, would you like some nice Christmas cider? Yeah. Now, just to be clear, is that non-alcoholic in America cider?
00:47:07
Speaker
Cider is generally non-alcoholic. Yeah. Well, if you're talking about like... A little warning about England then, cause cider in England is an alcoholic drink. Generally, yeah. If you're talking about like a wintery drink, uh, in the US, you're talking about like a warm apple cider that is non-alcoholic. But if you're in a... That's why they're taking kids around the cider factory in the system. It's just... wouldn't be appropriate in the UK. Cause again, it's an alcoholic drink made from apples.
00:47:36
Speaker
I also have a wassail bowl here if you want some of that. I've just been throwing every liquid in the house into it. You don't want the wassail. Have you been wassailing? Is that singing going to happen? I wasn't warned about singing. The wassel pot is community pot and everyone's drank out of it. And this is why we're all sick. If you want to pour anything into the wassel bowl. It's actually unsanitary. If you have any liquids on you, you can- I'm just going to spray a few crisps or chips and jeezy coats in there. It's just good as a floating layer. There you go. We forgot to have Julia add anything to the wassel bowl.
00:48:14
Speaker
But I think she spit on in it anyway, because she was mad we didn't offer her any.
00:48:24
Speaker
That's actually how she always leaves a room. She spits and then she goes straight out the window. She's really nice, but she makes an exit. We've built such a rich tapestry of holiday fiction here. Alistair, how have you been, my friend?
00:48:43
Speaker
Very well. i It's lovely being here in your sort of soundstage built house with all fakes now and studio quality lighting. Transdimensional Christmas house. I've put my artwork everywhere. That's why it looks like a Christmas horror show. I like to make my guests comfy. how How is your Christmas season so far?
00:49:07
Speaker
It's not too bad. I've had a quiet Christmas. I haven't done that many gigs because I'm a standard comedian and normally Christmas gigs are awful. Normally you you gig to people who are having Christmas parties and they're just the worst audiences because they all know each other and they're all like, oh, you should, you should say something about bald Jeff. he That'd be hilarious. It wouldn't be because we don't know Jeff or care about him.
00:49:32
Speaker
We, the rest of the room isn't invested in Jeff's baldness, really, at all. Well, I'm pretty invested now. Now I'm curious. I've built a picture of him, you know, I've i've drawn a portrait of him using my words. and you in God, I fucking hate Jeff's baldness. I'm pretty mad at Jeff at this point. Gross hair, dude. I don't know if baldness is what really gets my goat.
00:49:57
Speaker
And we are, what we are, we're three people with beautiful hair on the in this in this transdimensional cabin. Mine is bleached to fucking back. Alistair, what did you think of my hair when I was in the cabin? I was surprised that it was light because I think the last video I'd seen, and it was dark. Alistair, that was like years ago.
00:50:17
Speaker
No way. Well, okay. but You don't always show your face in the recent ones that I definitely watch about. good blood yeah but did i did I watched Hot Frosty after you told me about it. You described the plot of Hot Frosty to me and then I went and watched it on YouTube and it was the same as you telling me. Yeah, it was the same. It was what I said. It was the same as what you said. You watch it. Did you follow me on Instagram? You could see my face on Instagram.
00:50:43
Speaker
This is so funny because what it is is it's like it's it's like a real holiday gathering where your family starts bickering out. I can't believe this. all right Well, ah we're so happy that you've joined us here. ah And we all together ah in in one in one big comfy chair sat and played um ah a game called Watch Over Christmas.
00:51:13
Speaker
This is your fault, Matt. How do you guys, just high level, how do you feel about Watch Over Christmas? Anxious. It makes me feel very anxious because I instantly took a dislike to this game, but also I made a sort of cartoonish point and click adventure game years ago.
00:51:34
Speaker
The way I react to this is the way people who don't like my game react to my game going like, oh, it's ah it's like cartoony and it's for kids and it's supposed to be funny, but it's not. um Brackets my game actually is funny, but your game is funny. Yes. I feel bad. Yeah. I feel too bad criticizing it. That said, I have got a word document open with a lot of criticism. Listen, I need to say something.
00:52:03
Speaker
You're allowed. Thank you. I was waiting for permission there because usually people would be like, no, no, shut up. Anything. first miss Okay. I went into this game disliking it. And then I was like, kind of, I kind of like it though, because it's got that grand adventure.
00:52:20
Speaker
i think I think I was really into the world that was illustrated in front of me. I liked that part of it. I liked that there were different cultures that were coming into it. And then I disliked it again for reasons. But at the end,
00:52:35
Speaker
I was at peace with it. I'm like, okay. At the end, no emotions at all. Perfectly neutral. This is how I felt. No, you you were describing my experience exactly because I started this game and so angry because, and I think it's literally, there's two things I think that really bugged me, like right off the bat. One is Siska's voice. Oh my God.
00:52:57
Speaker
It's bad. It is just... How can you... So, Cisco is a 12 or 13, it seems to vary, your old boy, but he also says that 42 is three times his age or something. I know. I did that math too. Which mathematically means you're not 12. But anyway. I only read about half his dialogue. He's got puffy orange hair and he's called Cisco, which is short for Francisco. And I think that is probably... I don't want to generalize, but I don't...
00:53:25
Speaker
think there are any other red-headed people called Francisco. It's not a name and a hair color that tend to go together. So he's a unique with ah the most annoying way of pronouncing the word Christmas I've ever had.
00:53:39
Speaker
oh mercy charisma this He also talks- Luckily he says it in every sentence. Thank God. Thank God for that. He talks like a 40 year old man sometimes too. Like just as yeah his wordage.
00:53:56
Speaker
I'm just like, is this a 12 year old or what is that? What is the dialogue? He's got that. He's got that like like grown person doing a kid's voice voice. Right. It's like this at all times. It's like a kid from an adult.
00:54:12
Speaker
yeah And you can tolerate that kind of acting for the length of an advert. I don't think the voice actor is bad, but it's really misjudged because he's so enthusiastic. so i have two things um I don't think that's what 12 year olds sound like. 12 is like a very specific age where kids do feel more adult. They don't typically carry him around a teddy bear. Yes, they start to be cynical and sarcastic. they yeah they're like He's written like a much younger child.
00:54:39
Speaker
I thought he was eight. I thought it was eight until I found out he was 12. He is cynical and sarcastic, but he still speaks in that way. He's like, he'll say something sarcastic, right? Like, oh, that was very helpful. And it's like, yes, that's sarcastic, but you're also saying it like you're very excited to be sarcastic. Yeah.
00:55:07
Speaker
And there's, yeah, talking about the, the way he's written, like a 40 year old guy, like there's a bit where he makes a reference to the dukes of hazard, which is a show I, a 40 year old guy have not seen yeah because it was on telly before I was aware of things. So it's like, well, so how does it, how does a 12 year old, it's, you know, okay, I guess it's, that's the writer talking directly through the child to the player. It's all set in the nineties.
00:55:35
Speaker
i don't because you know how okay so guys in this game you can collect presents I think I didn't I don't know if I collected all of them and I don't know really what oh I did I was so worried I wouldn't and i did you do get an en achievement yeah you get an achievement so it's a little collect-a-thon it's a little hidden object yeah find all the the gifts a lot of games have that mechanic the gifts are strange like the first gift I opened was a 90s game boy wait how do you open the gifts you just double click on him
00:56:06
Speaker
Matt. Wait, no, I clicked on the gifts and they just disappeared. And it was like gift found. No, mine opened. And I found a Game Boy and I found like a couple consoles and like. What? I know, it sounds like a dream. Once I dreamed that I got outside the court in Mario Kart on the Super Nintendo, I just kept riding. And to this day, you're still out there. I'm still out there somewhere. Still on Rainbow Road somewhere.
00:56:35
Speaker
and Okay, where so when you would find them on the screen, you would click them while on the screen. They're in your inventory. No, no, no, in your inventory, in your gift inventory. There's a gift inventory? Matt! All right, here's here's him loading up Watch Over Christmas while you guys talk about Watch Over Christmas. Like look at a play through and you'll see what I mean.
00:56:58
Speaker
um I'm gonna find one too, because now I feel like I'm losing my mind. i Now I believe you, now that you you've told me there's a gift inventory. like I'm not making up seeing like a Game Boy, and there's a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man plushie. There were all these weird gifts that don't apply to a Gen Z child, I don't think. You're right about the the Dukes of Hazzard. That one really threw me. because yeah like There was a lot of weird references in this game, but that one was like...
00:57:37
Speaker
I had to sit and I was like, there's no way he's talking about the Dukes of Hazzard right now. And it was completely out of, I couldn't even make it make sense in context. I couldn't be like, oh yeah, it makes sense to reference the Dukes of Hazzard right now. Yeah. Matt, do you wanna just really, really quick, what is the premise? What is the objective of this game? Sure, okay. So you're a little boy named Cisco, as we said, and you,
00:58:06
Speaker
you are visited by the Christmas spirit one night, I guess it's Christmas Eve, right? You're visited by the Christmas spirit and it inhabits your old, no, no, you have to do that later. Sorry, I'm mixing it up. Matt, the story is not this hard. This is going bad. This is going poorly. Oh my God.
00:58:28
Speaker
It's a bit like Nightmare Before Christmas because the realm of Santa like santa and other Santa-like creatures like Krampus and Labalfana, is that right? Labalfana, who's an Italian. ah Yeah, Italian folklore. Jack Frost. Yeah. What happened was Krampus kidnapped.
00:58:48
Speaker
Santa Claus and you, Sisko, have been tasked with rescuing him. Yeah, I don't know why. As we go through this game, there appears to be a lot more experienced people that could maybe do this. But apparently we learn like way at the end that only a child can save Christmas because in adults, the Christmas spirit is weak.
00:59:11
Speaker
It's only a child can save Santa. But it needs to be a kid who knows about the jukes of hazard and quite a lot of the 80s, 90s stuff as well. Who likes Gameboys and stay puffed, marshmallow men. Yeah.
00:59:22
Speaker
I sort of think everybody thinks that kids are easy to write, like kids' stories are easy to write, because kids are like, they love Christmas. And it's like, well, what's Francisco's personality? Who is he? What's his thing? And his thing is he's a kid who likes Christmas, which is everyone. And he's got an older teenage sister and she's cynical and likes bands. It's like, OK, so these are these are the most generic children you could come up with. And Francisco's outlook on life is to be like enthusiastic about things. And it's like there's there's no There's nothing there's no acting to do. There's no personality there. And I kind of think with this kind of point and click game, your enjoyment of it completely hangs on whether you like hanging around with the main character. Because this is this kind of the this kind of classic point and click, you're not really driving the story forwards. You're running a lot of errands for people. There's lots of side tracks that don't really feel like they're necessary. But if you enjoy hanging out with the main character, that's all fine.
01:00:18
Speaker
But if they're annoying, you you're in big trouble. That's what I struggled with, though, because like i I did find this character very annoying. But there are so many things. And and I think that's because it's very clearly derived from other classic adventure games. and i And I say that knowing this, because they put in references to other games. like You can find Manny Calavera's head, like an illustration of his head. You can find an illustration of Murray's head from Curse of Monkey Island.
01:00:50
Speaker
ah So there are parts of this game that take me into that nostalgic zone. And I actually, I didn't think I would like the illustrative style, but I actually do like it. I like it except for one thing. I don't like how the humans look. I only like the character design in in the places that you go. So in the enchanted forests and and in the villages and stuff.
01:01:15
Speaker
because they have cute eyes. And in the real world, they don't have cute eyes. And that's my hot take. Thank you for having me. I should say there's a and second artist, because um at the end of the game, there are some real shifts in the style of a background art, because there's a different artist doing them. And I think George Commiotis, who did the animation for the characters and the backgrounds, did the backgrounds at the end of the game. and because there's some really I think really, really good artwork toward the end of the game.
01:01:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's so i so I see it now that you're talking about it. One art style, it again has a very thick outline, I guess, cartooning then that there's another star that's more illustrative and more likely. There's a lot more Bill Tillerish where you don't have outlines and it's, you know, it's, that's some there's some very nicely drawn snow and some really sweet locations. So it's it's kind of a pity that some of the prettier stuff is, is very late in the game.
01:02:13
Speaker
Before we were doing this podcast, I'd started this game two ah two separate Christmases. Like, I want a Christmas game, I'm gonna try this. And just, I got maybe just to the first village, like ah out of, away from Siska's house and never picked it up again. And then like a year later, I was like, okay, yeah I'm gonna play that Christmas game that I played last year. And same thing, got about there and then it just got over one.
01:02:42
Speaker
As I was playing it this time, I kind of fought my way through because I knew we had to talk about it on the show. so But by the last, by like the the fifth chapter, I felt like the game started moving. Like I felt good better about it. Okay, but the game shouldn't start moving at the fifth chapter. No, I'm not saying, I'm not recommending it based on that.
01:03:02
Speaker
ah but Six chapters it is way longer than you think it's gonna be like I assumed when I started I was like Oh, this is sort of the gate at the sort of game you can knock out in two hours But no, this is like a what and six to eight hour game. Yeah, and most of that is Cisco saying charisma Well, I didn't notice this in playing how dialogue heavy it really is. There's a lot. Yeah. I think that accounts for a lot of the time. I have to be honest. I watched a playthrough rather than actually playing it. So I cheated. And even the playthrough I watched by the end, they were skipping through the dialogue and it's like, you've been here for six hours now. Stop. but Come on. don show the Show yourself some respect and don't just skip through the dialogue in the gra dramatic finale.
01:03:47
Speaker
I was talking to some people because I write a series of kids books and um there is an issue with sort of kids writing, which is that you write yourself as a child. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's it's not necessarily relevant to kids now. Like as so someone pointed out when when people our age write grandparents. We're writing them so old, but like children's grandparents are actually not that old. They're like 55 in some cases, and we're we're writing these with an old, terrible pensioners. with the
01:04:19
Speaker
You know, and it's like, well, they no that's our, gym obviously my grandparents are dead. Sorry to ruin Christmas, but you know, we ruined the holidays. It's hard to sort of inhabit a child. And, and so I don't want to criticize the game too harshly for not fail for failing to capture a child. I just don't think that Francisco has, I don't think that Cisco has a personality.
01:04:39
Speaker
really he doesn beyond being enthusiastic and I think that's what's missing and it doesn't seem to be told from a child's point of view really it's yeah it seems to be aimed at the well for instance really early on in the game his older sister tells him Santa Claus doesn't exist and's okay so this game is is not for any kids who are so young that they you wouldn't want to include that in the game right kind of who is it for because what who older than a child could put up with this constant Christmas enthusiasm So I mean, I thought I could, I love Christmas. I love adventure games. And I was just like, Oh, but like what Matt said, I had kind of a journey of liking it, like disliking it and then liking it again.
01:05:22
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I don't know. the The credits say that the game is for the people who never lost the like the child inside them or or whatever, or something like that. yeah Like the people who's, like the spirit of Christmas and wonder of being a child stayed with them forever, something something along those lines. So I think that's who they think it's for. It's for adults who feel childlike.
01:05:47
Speaker
but i I think it's for people our age, just with the LucasArts references in there. and Well, here's the thing I think. I think a lot of people that make adventure games, unfortunately, a lot especially a lot of these people who make point and click games using AGS, right? Like there's so many who are just fans of adventure games, and they have been their whole life, and they just wanna make one. But they're not really thinking about audience. They're just thinking about, I wanna make an adventure game, um and maybe what settings I've missed, what settings I haven't seen before, or, is you know,
01:06:26
Speaker
Or i want to I want another game like Lucas, something like that. Which I respect. The devs made a game that they clearly wanted to make. yeah Like we said, it's long. It's six to eight hours long. There's a lot of settings. Honestly, I dare say it's got better structure and better I don't know, overall quality than a lot of adventure games I've played. It's just- How are the puzzles? Because watching it in a playthrough, I cheated. Because there's quite a few full screen puzzles, which is the one thing that differentiated it from a classic LucasArts game for me. And I thought, oh, is there a bit, is there an element of sort of casual or, you know, the room kind of gaming here? You're making noises.
01:07:11
Speaker
This game does look like a lot of adventure games do where it has that classic errand type of a thing where you need to use inventory objects and so and you actually have a pretty big inventory. This would be a pretty good for how much to my pants way. I found that I was carrying a lot of stuff, but.
01:07:29
Speaker
Like a lot of adventure games, every now and then we get a slider puzzle or like a pipe puzzle where you need to change where the water goes. And those, as everybody knows, I hate those. i They're not my favorite at all. So, yeah, I think um it is. that i think If there's a lot of the inventory puzzles that are that feel more like fetch quests than actual puzzles, it is like somebody wants you to go somewhere and get something and then come back.
01:07:57
Speaker
And I think there's a lot of the puzzles that, some puzzles are just solved through dialogue, right? You approach a challenge and you're like, okay, they're gonna make me go do something to solve this. You can annoy somebody into submission. Yeah, yeah, and there's a lot of situations where you just talk to them and keep talking to them and then they say, all right, fine, here's the thing you've needed this whole time. So the puzzles aren't, none of the puzzles are hard.
01:08:24
Speaker
They make sense too. I think they are pretty logical. I think so too. I got a little stuck when I first got to the village. I forget what the actual puzzle was, but there's something early on in the village I got stuck by. But most of the game, so I could sort of breeze past,
01:08:46
Speaker
without without walkthroughs or much thought. But yeah, you're right, Alistair, there are a lot of full-on logic puzzles um and a lot of the cliche ones, right? like There's a puzzle where you have to put the cogs in the right place to make the thing move. The clock tower, yeah. Yeah, yeah there's one point where you have to ah craft a symbol out of like a penta, what do you call those?
01:09:13
Speaker
those where you have a bunch of shapes and you have to make you have to put them together to make a have other shapes. I have no idea. but I'm sure that does have a name, and I don't know what it is. pent I keep wanting to say pentagram, but that's a very specific name. Not a pentagram. That is a specific like shape, yeah. um so I think the puzzles the puzzles are okay. i think Again, what you said, Alistair, if you like the main character, I think this game, there's a lot to like here. There's also a lot of oil in this game. Sorry, I was about to say, you give a guy diarrhea, but there's a lot of oil. Early on in the game, there's baby oil and they make a sex joke about it. He's like, he asks his dad, why is there baby oil in the bathroom? And the dad's like, oh, don't worry about it. um even though that But that is where you would keep baby oil, isn't it? Exactly. yeahnu So it's not like,
01:10:02
Speaker
It's not, it' it doesn't imply extra sexiness that it's in the bathroom. That's the place it's kept. This is where you could keep it. Yeah, I absolutely agree. Well, you're gonna keep it and under the kitchen sink with the bleach. Based on the dad's reaction, it was very much like, and it's like, no, there's just baby oil in the bathroom. That's what, but yeah, there's baby oil. There's, you have to make fish oil. You have to acquire cooking oil. You get castor oil. Every type of oil is in this game. What's going on?
01:10:33
Speaker
Sorry, the spirit of Christmas is, don't you know anything about Christmas, Matt? It's a time for oils of all kinds. It's time for oil, yeah. I'll go pour a bunch of oils in the wassel ball. Deck all with several oils.
01:10:50
Speaker
i much yes There's a joke that I actually thought was pretty funny, which is at some point you go into like a dungeon and there's a guy doing that old ah playing with that toy where you try you're trying to catch a ball on the end of a stick that's like tied to it with a rope. He calls it a skill toy. Again, he talks like a fucking 40 year old. That's a nice oh yeah skill toy. you Hey, I like your skill toy. And the guy says, this isn't a skill toy. This is a weapon. This is my weapon. It's just like, yeah, it's like a little, ah I don't know, like hammer ah with um ah a little red ball hanging off of it. But then later you get captured by guards.
01:11:31
Speaker
one of them hits you with one of those things like just has one and i was like that is a pretty good joke dude it's got whimsy to it for sure it's it's got a charm that that it just kind of comes and goes the charm comes and goes which is a little strange to say But yeah, there it does. There's another point in this game where this was the weirdest part of the game to me, where you you know you have to get elf tears. Yeah. um For some magical recipe, right? Yeah. And you find pepper spray. It's right after ah you give the guard playing with the toy diarrhea by forcing him to drink castor oil. And then later you tie a rope to his leg and have a goat run away. Also tied to it. Yeah, you're destroying this man. So you have pepper spray, and you have to get elf tears, and you're walking around two elf villages. And I was just like, this can't be it, right? And I was just walking up to every elf using pepper spray on elf. Oh my god. You weren't allowed. At no point were you allowed. The solution to the puzzle is you find one elf that's sick, and you find a handkerchief. You put the pepper spray on the handkerchief, and you give it to the elf.
01:12:46
Speaker
What, you still pepper? You do pepper spray an elf there. Yeah, you do pepper spray an elf. He walks around, Siska walks around saying like, I couldn't do that. To pepper spray an elf. You had a handkerchief. Then he, instead he makes somebody a huff. Pepper spray. I guess what he meant was some of the spray might get into the tears if you sprayed it directly onto their face yeah while in the recipe. So you just need them to get the fumes.
01:13:13
Speaker
If he had said that, then I would have solved the puzzle. That was what I had to look at the walkthrough for. Like, ah if he had said... And that would have also been hilarious and revealing about Sisko's character if he had said... in into cis god's real character He's an absolute sadist. There's something also about this game that reminded me, I don't know if you guys got this, ah I got like got a real Toonstruck vibe at certain points. I did too. Absolutely. I was thinking that as well, especially with the aforementioned guards that I mentioned. Yeah, definitely got Toonstruck vibes. As soon as I saw Krampus' lair, it reminded me of
01:13:56
Speaker
I can't remember, is it? I can't remember. Is it Nefarious? Nefarious? Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious. Nefarious.
01:14:12
Speaker
um it would have been a watch for christmas would have been a much better game and Nefarious. Nefarious.
Critiques and Humorous Game Reviews
01:14:25
Speaker
Nefarious.
01:14:27
Speaker
look but god i explain that baby oil Give me a go on that skill toy
01:14:38
Speaker
Okay, but I want to mention one of the very last lines in this game that like took me out of the whole thing. It made me viscerally angry. So on one of the last lines when so, as we said, you have the Christmas spirit, which is inhabiting your teddy bear with you the whole time he's in your inventory the whole time, but he can't stay forever. So You know, as soon as you complete the task of of saving Santa and I think killing Krampus or imprisoning, at least imprisoning him. I think you're imprisoning him. I think he's alive. it's snow globe He's
01:15:12
Speaker
he looks small If Coraline taught me anything. Yeah. He's alive, but very small. So at the end, the Christmas spirit's like, I got to go. I don't want to. And he like, you know, they say their goodbyes. And then he says, quote, life is an adventurous journey or nothing at all. Yeah. Yeah. I assumed in grief that sounded better and less depressing.
01:15:37
Speaker
I'm just like, so you're either on a grand adventure or it's fucking nothing? Or you're dead. Or you're a dead person. Yeah. Like there's no in between. What a weird way to end like a very whimsical, like, you know, holiday games. I was like, life life is an adventure or nothing. Yeah, it's also like, I've been spending six hours sitting at my computer playing a video game. I guess life is nothing at all for me. Life is nothing. Real zinger for us now.
01:16:06
Speaker
I guess that's why the person on the playthrough I watched started clicking through it frantically. No, like better. I must live. I must finish no commentary playthrough. I'm so mad.
01:16:21
Speaker
I like the way when you confront Krampus at the end, he's monologuing. And then Francisco says, you talk too much. And he said, you've got some nerve, boy. And I was like, good one, Krampus, because this kid talks a lot.
01:16:37
Speaker
That's so funny, because that is one of those just like cliche lines that they don't even you don't even think about when you put in a villain's mouth. But yeah, that is exactly a great comeback to this specific boy. Yeah, you really zinged this little 12-year-old.
01:16:54
Speaker
he's going to sit He's gonna sit the rest of that night and be like, dude, I do talk too much, don't I? Oh my God, I do talk too much. Oh my God. Do my parents love me? Yeah, it gets very dark at the end. but In a way, it did inspire the spirit of Christmas. In a way, it did fill me with the spirit of Christmas because every time he says, Christmas, I said, oh, Jesus Christ, which is the true meaning of Christmas. True meaning of the spirit. That is true, wow. Thank you, Sisko.
01:17:22
Speaker
Yeah, Cisco believes to keep the Christ in Christmas. He's annoying Jesus back into Christmas. So just a couple little notes that I wanted to, because it seems, feels like we're wrapping up here. Yes, we gotta wrap. There are some very, my favorite puzzle of the game was there is a puzzle where you have to collect a bunch of roots and then go to like a sciencey table. I knew you would love that puzzle. Like a botany table and you like have to discover the different traits of each root and then rule out which ones it is not. I like that puzzle a lot. Yeah, yeah.
01:17:59
Speaker
ah There's also a thing that I absolutely hate. in And I don't know, I think it's just a ah limitation of the engine. So I don't think there's anything people could do to solve it, but therere it's this thing that's ah where if you go to talk to a character and they haven't done their animation loop yet,
01:18:22
Speaker
you have to sit there and wait for their entire animation loop to pass by oh no before the dialogue starts. So there's there's certain ones where there's like a ah there's like a bartender that he'll like pick up a glass and he'll like grab a rag and he'll wash it and he'll look at the glass and wash it again and he'll put it down.
01:18:44
Speaker
And if you talk to him at the wrong time, and you have to sit and wait, not only for him to do that whole animation, but sometimes he's not ready. So you have to sit and have him like, wait, he'll just like sit there for a a few seconds, then pick up the glass and you're like, oh my God.
01:19:02
Speaker
no Is it a visionary game? I think it's made in visionary, is that right? I don't know. French or German? um I think it is, because a lot of the high res sort of quite illustrated point and clicks of this age were visionary games, I think. And then the very last thing, the game ends with a... So even if you're enjoying the game, like if you're like we're saying all the puzzles are pretty logical and ah it's very... The game ends with two of the worst
01:19:34
Speaker
puzzles ever One is you have to send smoke signals to, ah you have to like decode something, which is kind of cool. But then if you get any of the smoke signals wrong, it takes like ah literally like five minutes to go through the sequence and have him say, oh, I guess I got it wrong. And then you try again. That was awful. But then the absolute last puzzle of the game is just rock, paper, scissors. Yep, it's rock, paper, scissors. Totally up to chance. Yeah. you could, you could be doing it for an hour. I think I did that for like eight minutes. Like I was just like, because it's like, Oh, I lost a round. All right. I'll try again up. I went around just the whole time. Oh yeah. The ice pick or something. The ice shard. Yeah. I just kept using it.
01:20:22
Speaker
Yeah, because, oh, right, because if it's got bad AI, it's just gonna cycle through, and you will win more often than you want. Yeah, and I won. I did it. I beat Krampus. Rock, paper, scissors, go me. I was looking for a pattern, because it was taking me so long, and I was like, there's gotta be some, and it's not, it's just completely random. There's not. Yeah, there's no pattern. Well, so that's Watch Over Christmas. What's everybody's rating out of? Out of Santa to Claus?
01:20:55
Speaker
Is this imperial or metric? I don't know. What do they use in Greece? My rating is one half full glass of milk.
01:21:09
Speaker
Yeah. ah What is the upper limit? Is that half of a glass out of one glass or half of a glass out of five glasses? It's like average half glass average five out five out of ten.
01:21:22
Speaker
Yeah, mine is probably a half half empty glass of milk because I don't want to condemn it. Right. And I do, I see myself in the developers, um but also really hate this kid. and i Mine would be one of those Christmas, my rating is one of those Christmas crackers that has the little, uh, the bowling ball, the like little plastic bowling balls and bowling pins in it. Cause those are the most fun ones to get.
01:21:49
Speaker
it's like it's like it's ah like It's still junk, it's still gonna go in the garbage, but it's like, okay, that was all right. That's fair. um So, Alistair, we've been talking to everybody today, or were I guess you're only the second person we've talked to in this cabin. I don't know, we're recording these out of order. ah But. It's very hard to tell how many people have been in the cabin at this point from the Yeah, yeah. There's a broken window, I know that much. There's a broken window. There's a lot of weird shit in the sale bowl. Yeah, stick there.
01:22:26
Speaker
Are you an eggnog fan, Alistair? Well, I'm a vegan and i don't I didn't really, I've never had it. I looked it up when you mentioned it to me before we spoke. And I've got to say, it looks disgusting. You're all just drinking raw eggs, are you?
01:22:44
Speaker
Merry Christmas. I feel weird. you can't So I have had vegan eggnog, uh, And it's just like, it's just like drinking a liquid sugar cookie. But yeah, the vegan stuff is a little, like I would not recommend vegan stuff. You need the egg. The egg is the good bit. It's just custard is all it is. It's just milky custard. So what are some of your Christmas, are you a big Christmas fan?
01:23:25
Speaker
I love Christmas. Yeah. I hope I didn't sound like a cynic. Lots of good Christmas traditions. My recent Christmas tradition is watching one of the Thin Man films.
01:23:39
Speaker
which are film noir comedy screwball comedies from the 30s. There's about nine of them. And so the first one is set on Christmas Eve. And the second one is set on New Year the next ah couple of days later on on New Year's Eve. um And that's as far as I'm up to in nice in those films. So I'm watching I'm working my way through the series Christmas by Christmas.
01:24:03
Speaker
nice and they're very very funny do you have any um like uh christmas like ah foods or desserts that that really are special since eggnog is off the table vegan christmas is not that hearty it's hard to sometimes i make a vegan haggis which is just friends and spices again the key element is missing in in all of these things yeah um What else? I've done vegan mince pies before, but but yeah which ah I don't know if you know, so mincemeat is like a sweet kind of preserve. It's like raisins, right? so Yeah, it's like raisins and other things, so it's very yeah sweet, but it's like Victorian times sweet.
01:24:47
Speaker
I had never had mincemeat before and I just, for the very first time, because I've been reading this book about the origins of American Christmas and to spoiler alert, all of them are fake. oh Everything about it. Even the stuff that has traditional European roots.
01:25:05
Speaker
did not come ah via like folkways. They came from some rich dudes in New York reading about them and being like, hey, this is better than people getting drunk on the streets. Let's try to bring this here. And then pretending that they were traditional. Anyway, um so I, they but they've talked about mints so much that I was like, all right, I gotta try this shit. And so I made,
01:25:31
Speaker
mince pies for the first time. Wow. Just this weekend. It was pretty good. They're lovely. I mean, they're an acquired taste, because they're quite rich, and they're slightly alcoholic, and it's all sort of, suet is in there, which makes it trickier for vegans. Yeah, I didn't do that. Yeah, I left the suet out. Yeah. Oh, you can't have it without the suet. And I heard, like, I'm a vegetarian, right? So I heard you can throw meat in there, too. I think people always say, you know, they used to have meat in the old days, but I've never known anybody to actually have meat in their mincemeat.
01:26:06
Speaker
Um, but yeah, so I, it's, it's good. I mean, yeah, it's a lot of flavor. It's like, cause it's like dried fruit and nuts and rum and a lot of citrus and butter. Like it's so much stuff. You have to imagine the cold winters of Victorian England. And it's like, this is you all the enjoyment you're getting for the entire year. So we're going to cram a lot of dense flavor into a single current.
01:26:35
Speaker
which whatever ah yeah Like, also the enthusiasm people in the old days had for currants and dried fruits and nuts, which now are like a punishment for a child. But in those days, they looked at normal fruit and thought that it's just too moist, dried out. Now it's a party. And whatever you don't eat of the mint, you just throw in the sale bowl. Yeah, just throw in the waffle bowl.
01:27:01
Speaker
um Well, so thank you so much for stopping by our our Christmas celebration, Alistair. Is there anything that you want to want to promote or anything that you you have coming up that people should know about? No, no. I mean, if you're into folklore and traditions, I do a poet, again, if you don't mind editing.
01:27:21
Speaker
If you're into folklore and traditions, I do a podcast called Lawmen with James Shankshaft, where we talk about the traditions of the British Isles. and so Yeah, I can't believe you haven't had me on your podcast. Extremely rude. Extremely rude that we haven't had you on. We talked about this last time. Talking about Chicago law.
01:27:37
Speaker
yeah yeah because yeah You're an academic on the law, yeah. It's not actually a windy city. The name, it's just a name. Yeah, I just taught you that. Incredible. Yeah, it's a great, it's a it's it's actually, it's a really great podcast. I really enjoy it. It's, you guys, great lore, like, which is such a funny, like, there's, ah do you have Christmas lore episodes?
01:28:06
Speaker
Yes. So a long time ago, probably during one of the first lockdowns, we did a live stream Christmas episode where James told a story about a pig that that turned out to be way more about a pig than it was about um Jesus. He got to the pig via Jesus to make it through Christmasy and then just told the story about a pig. And at the end of the episode, I was like, James, that was mostly about a pig. And so almost to really sort of hammer that joke into the ground,
01:28:35
Speaker
Since then, we we do Christmas pig episodes every year. We tell pig related, hopefully festive stories. And let me tell you, there are not that many of them. We are really, really running out of Christmas pigs. That's so good. Uh, yeah, guys, yeah everybody check it out. Um, I, I will definitely be listening to your Christmas pig episodes in the coming days. But yeah, thank you for, oh.
01:29:03
Speaker
Oh my, is that a wrapping on our cabin door? It looks like somebody's wrapping on our, actually, uh, we already used the door. So it's somebody wrapping on our, uh, somebody the our Christmas cabin. I guess I'll go answer it if, uh, if you want to say goodbye to our guest roses. Uh, Aleister, if you could please leave via the window, that'd be great. Oh, the window as well. All right. Bye.
01:29:32
Speaker
but
01:29:47
Speaker
Matt, for the love of God, go answer the basement door. That is definitely a real thing. I wanted to listen to the interstitial music. It's getting louder. Alright, alright, I'll go answer the door. Hello?
01:30:01
Speaker
oh Oh Thank you finally for letting me out I've been down there for Oh my god, it's ah it's I've been down there since since forever I've been locked down there with reindeer and like Santa and so look i don't know What kind of i know what kind of a cabin are you have are you running here we I'm sorry that we had to reschedule. I know you got here on time. what And I told you to hide in the basement. Oh yeah, is that what happened? Oh, I think I drank too much eggnog and now I've just lost all sense. You drank all our eggnog? Shit, you didn't drink from the Waseo ball, did you? Uh, maybe.
01:30:45
Speaker
Oh, I put some packing peanuts in there yesterday. Yeah, if you have anything from the basement that you want to add, everybody's been adding to the wassail bowl. Oh, ah sure. I've got some pine nuts and sawdust. Mostly people have been adding solids to the wassail bowl and it's really become a bad drink. Isn't this an adventure game podcast? Aren't we not now creating the ultimate inventory item by combining all of these things into your wassail?
01:31:15
Speaker
Bowl, whatever it is. it's like um It's like when you play, ah what's that game where you type the words in and they just like happen to have every object possible? Oh, yeah. That's the kids game. Yeah, for the day, for the DS, Scribblenauts. Yeah, Scribblenauts. It's like Scribblenauts when you type in just like flying, ah you know, flying invincible superhero lawyer or whatever and can solve every puzzle.
01:31:43
Speaker
Well, that is this wassail bowl. Yeah. Okay. Do you want to like come up out of the the floor? Oh, yeah. Come on. Come up out of the basement. Oh, my back. Oh, yes. Okay. Oh, here I am. Hello. We've just been sitting here, ah me and my sexy red vinyl sand costume. Oh, goodness. And Matt in his ugly sweater. Had just settled in for a long winter's nap. Where did you get where did you get that outfit?
01:32:10
Speaker
way Anyway, welcome to our Coast Cabin. Would you like a cider? A warm cider. Matt, bring this man. You got any hot butter rum while we're at it? I'll check the Christmas cabinet. okay Everybody, this is Francisco Gonzalez. If you didn't you didn't know already,
01:32:34
Speaker
ah Francisco, thanks for coming and spending this little Christmas time with us. Oh, thank you for having me. It's ah it's my pleasure. how How have you been enjoying your holidays so far? Well, I have been in a basement.
01:32:50
Speaker
but working hard on my on my game called Rosewater, which was supposed to be out in 2024, but ah you know things happen and now it will be out in 2025. Give us an exclusive. What month and day specifically? i can't tell you that I can't tell you that, but I will tell you that I will be releasing, I will may be making a major announcement in January with regards to more specific dates about when it will come out. So... Holy shit. There you go. Okay, yes, that's all well and good, but why am I not in your game?
01:33:29
Speaker
What do you mean? Okay, Rose has been assaulting everybody who comes in this cabin and demanding that she be part of their projects. Oh, do she ask you want like a- She has to be on a costar's podcast. Oh, I see. Do you want to like appear as a background extra in a scene that I'm doing right now? Yes. Okay. All right. I don't want it to be a background extra. All right, you can be too. Wow. Gee, see how easy it is.
01:33:59
Speaker
This is how you get things done, Matt. You just harass people. You just bring people to your trans-dimensional Christmas cabin, and then you force them to let you into their projects by locking them in the basement for several several days. yeah I mean, speaking
Dark Themes and Narrative Criticism
01:34:14
Speaker
of games and Christmas games, we were just going to, we were about to have a a riveting conversation about last Christmas, um not the George Michael song, definitely a bop, but the game, yeah.
01:34:27
Speaker
Yeah, so we all all three played ah played the game last Christmas by Polly Telly Games. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got some thoughts. Which is a cute little um cute up to a point.
01:34:43
Speaker
It's cute little AGS adventure, right? Like this was made in AGS, it seems. Was it? I don't know. Actually, I don't know. It may have been. I said that about the last game and we learned it was not the case. It's got that sort of vibe. Okay, so this game is interesting because apparently it started off as a game jam game, right? Because there's two versions of it. There's two versions of it with different art. Same voice acting, which I thought was interesting.
01:35:11
Speaker
But there's ah there's like ah ah an upgraded version and on Steam. Yeah. um That's what I played. And I'll say that voice acting is like pretty good. I mean, there's only one voice in the game. I agree. i I thought the voice acting was the best part of the game. Yeah, I liked it. I liked it a lot. What this voice actor does that, man, was not present in Watch Over Christmas.
01:35:37
Speaker
um and I think a lot of voice actors, especially non-professional voice actors, fail to do is he was subtle. He just yeah spoke like his normal voice. And yeah that goes such a long way in yeah creating a character that's believable and and a character you can stand.
01:35:58
Speaker
Yeah, i mean i think I like the art too. I thought the art was clean. Everything was very clean. Like the voice acting was very clean. The art looked very clean to me. It was it had a polish to it that I appreciated. I ah thought it was a nice short little adventure that was about Christmas and other things. So to to give, yeah, to let's give some background for ah listeners. um you are just like a man who's dressed in a Marty McFly outfit. yeah yeah You up to your girlfriend's Christmas cabin and you're getting things ready for like ah ah romantic a Christmas Eve night with her um and you have to, you have like a little to-do list and you gotta get a tree and decorate it and you've gotta set up like a a little Christmas table. like dinner
01:36:50
Speaker
Yeah, you don't actually make the food you make a you make mulled wine, I believe yeah yeah yeah yeah side or wine yeah yeah And you also have to set up a sexy bed to retire too early and a a bubble but a romantic bubble bath You should probably mention that this is a period piece because it takes place on Christmas 1989 I believe or is it 1988?
01:37:17
Speaker
Oh, I think I might have missed that. Oh, no, it's very important. Yeah, I just assumed it was. Yeah, yeah. I assumed it was just for the last Christmas ah Wham cassette tape. Right. no Well, I mean, the whole thing is that it takes place 1988 and then There's you find out at the end that last Christmas was Christmas 1987 and well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Yeah, so I guess what happens throughout the game is yeah, it's a lot of inventory puzzles.
01:37:55
Speaker
you're sort of wandering around these, there's very few, and like there's very few screens, and there's one that you don't do anything in, right? Like the backyard you don't do anything in? You don't do anything, that's correct, yeah. So strange. But it's it's just like the rooms of a house, and you have to come up with, you know, fucking point and click ass ways to make all these things happen, because you don't have a Christmas tree, you don't have Christmas decorations, you don't have fucking anything, right? Yeah. Yeah, in classic point and click character fashion, it's just substituting everything with passable substitutes. Yeah. Which oftentimes is like, yeah, pretty fine. Like you you substitute a tablecloth with a bed sheet and a bed sheet with a curtain, but... Well. Yeah.
01:38:48
Speaker
I just thought of something really horrible. And I mean, and please forgive me for saying this. Okay. The guy is the guy puts all this stuff together. And then he's like,
01:39:00
Speaker
Wow, I did such a bad job. I'm gonna fucking kill myself.
01:39:10
Speaker
Which is not funny at all. Why would that but why would I make such a joke? Oh, wait a minute! It's because that's actually what happens in this game, except not for that reason.
01:39:21
Speaker
Yeah, not for that reason. As you are going through doing this stuff, you just keep getting these flashes. And it seems like a sweet game. It's a little creepy, as in there's like kind of like discordant versions of Christmas songs happening. But as you're going through, you just get these flashes of dead people.
01:39:44
Speaker
I guess most of them are you, but not all of them, right? No, they're all you. are you yeah all of them are you oh No, see, because because one thing that I thought was a little cheap and and i don't want I don't want to dunk on this game too much because like I said, there's plenty of nice things. i yeah It's hard to talk about this game without talking about like the giant elephant elephant in the room which is the subject matter of like the big twist. I get that. Yes. But also another thing that I thought was a little chief was that like in the Steam page description it says there's four different endings and yeah I guess technically there's four different endings but the four different endings are literally just pick which one of the four ways the guy
01:40:29
Speaker
offs himself to see and it's that's that's not really a different ending you can pick yeah it depends on which of because at the end after everything goes crazy like it shifts into this sort of like alternate thing where it's like oh what's going on the cabins empty And each room has a light that flashes. And then like when you click on it, it says, go into the light. And then you get like the scene of that. Oh, I i didn't know there was one of those in every room. there's Well, not I mean, there's one of them in the four rooms where you can see the scene. So like you can pick which one of those four you want to end the game on. Strange. OK. That's such a strange thing. And and I don't want to.
01:41:14
Speaker
I'm not going to dunk on this game, yeah but I do have criticisms of it. yeah So I guess we should we should probably, before getting into that, like explain, because I think we've kind of danced around it. We should just like flat out say it. like The twist of this game is the fact that the guy preparing all of this stuff Is i guess he's a ghost and he's kind of remembering his last christmas because it's a year later and like the cabin is abandoned and he's doing this. So the big twist at the end is the like once he puts it all together like i said like everything gets shifts into this alternate dimension kind of thing or reality is like oh where is everybody.
01:41:50
Speaker
And then you go into the light and then it's revealed that he killed himself. And you see his suicide note and his suicide note is like, oh, dear, I couldn't stand being all these months apart from you. So I've decided to take my life in the place that you'll be guaranteed to find me.
01:42:07
Speaker
which really discussed it yeah that's a hidden that because that's horrible but yeah disgusting yeah yeah that made me very upset because because this game is it does have this twist where this guy you know committed suicide I wanted, as I was playing, I'm like, Oh, this is interesting. it It almost feels like, you know, you're going into this cabin. And let's, let's just say that it's representing the suicidal person, somebody who is ideating, right?
01:42:38
Speaker
It's putting you in a cabin where something's amiss, but you're kind of ignoring it, which I'm kind of, you know, that's the symbolism of of depression. It doesn't look okay, but you're making it look okay. And now you're seeing all of these death scenes, and you have to see them to finish the game. You can choose which one to quote, end him on, but you do have to go through the motions of this game.
01:43:02
Speaker
And I thought, well, that's kind of clever and kind of symbolic because that is what ideation is like. you You think about every way that you can end yourself. And so I didn't think the twist was gonna be, he's just simply a ghost who was also a dick. It got really very dark at the end and I don't think they should have took it that way. I think yeah i liked it to a point where I'm like, this is what ideation feels like. I can see this being significant.
01:43:31
Speaker
And then I was like, Oh, the twist is interesting too, except they unfortunately made the character very unsympathetic by having what I think is a very unrealistic suicide note. I don't I don't like that, you know, as an advocate myself as a survivor, if you've ever read any suicide notes, they're all full of lamenting and saying sorry and don't worry about you know it that that's not really what that is so I really wanted I guess I wanted this game to mean more than it did because the the subject matter is so is so sensitive so they just took it in a very dark way you know they made that they made this character
01:44:12
Speaker
very unsympathetic and unlikable, because he but but essentially took his life to get back at someone, which is horrible, obviously. Yeah, it's like, yeah, I also had a lot of issue with the note.
01:44:28
Speaker
Not looking at it through that lens, which you know i I don't have any experience with that, so i you know I can't speak to that. But just from like a narrative sense, there's no real explanation about why he's doing it and yeah it just kind of it's like I haven't been with you for a few months okay so does that mean that you've been kept apart for some reason beyond your control is it that she's been ignoring you and you feel that you have to do this is it because you know circumstance like or like it's not really made clear why they haven't been together
01:45:09
Speaker
And I get the impression that he is a jilted lover because he was like, I'm going to I'm going to take my life where you are going to find me. Right. Right. That's what I got. Yeah. That's the thing. Right. Like, it's just yeah, it just and that part, too, is just this is a story. I know it's meant to be dark, but I don't say it bothers me when there are. Yeah.
01:45:32
Speaker
these stigmatized representations of of a suicidal person. And like I said, it's it's it's not it's not that I'm offended. it's just ah I don't even know. It's just very dark it's a very dark place yeah to bring it, right? and then You're absolutely right, yeah.
01:45:47
Speaker
It kind of throws all that out the window with like the literal Columbo epilogue. That's a way, so before we get to this epilogue, like I do want to talk about some of the puzzles that we saw. Sure, sure, sure. Because there's some fucking wild ones. like and you're supposed to, you're making mulled wine and you don't have any, and like this is, so I have a friend who played this game too and she had, like she was not surprised by the suicide at the end because she was like, the whole game was creepy. I was like, what do you mean? And she was like,
01:46:21
Speaker
Well, yeah you're poisoning people because you need, for mulled wine, you need spice, you need wine, you need citrus, and is that everything? Oh, you need two types of citrus. You need lemon and you need orange.
01:46:36
Speaker
So you don't have any of that stuff, so you use old spoiled grapes and a packet of bread yeast, and you put them together in a bottle, then you put that on the stove with a lozenge you find stuck to a pillow that apparently this is their Christmas cabin, so this is at least a year old. And and then the air freshener from your car, which is orange scented, and then a bottle of Old Spice cologne.
01:47:02
Speaker
That's gonna kill somebody, whatever. like And it's also like that you go in, I was not surprised by this twist. I knew something was weird because the cabin was weird. The cabin was abandoned. If he was acting like nothing was wrong. yeah Yeah, no, it definitely, from the get-go, it was pretty obvious that there was gonna be like some sort of twist. And I was like, he's probably dead or something. I didn't expect, like I figured it was like,
01:47:29
Speaker
he was a ghost or something. I didn't expect that it was because he had killed himself. like That was okay, whatever. But i yeah. i don't ah For whatever reason, when I first played this game, I did not see this coming. Oh wow, okay. Until you know the the flashes started happening.
01:47:48
Speaker
And I thought, oh, that is really fucking weird, I didn't expect that. So then I was like, oh, I bet this place is haunted. sure And then, no, it is. And it's too bad because I like short and poignant pieces like this. I like things that make that impact. It's just unfortunate that it left kind of a bad taste in my mouth. It started out kind of... A bad taste like mold wine made with... Yeah, like poisonous mold wine. Terrible taste in my mouth.
01:48:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean so much so I actually considered doing a full write up and analysis on it, but also it's it's tough because this isn't indie developer, they didn't clearly make the art that they wanted to make, I just think that it's potentially Not a good idea to to to handle subjects like this. So, okay. So we can get now now like I guess it's probably time to get into ah this ending. I don't get it. Fucking straight ending. Yeah. Francisco, do you want to take it? I mean, so the girl shows up. It's one year before she shows up one year. Right. She shows up one year before she goes to the cabin. She screams. Then like.
01:49:06
Speaker
a little while later, this detective that looks like colo and sounds like Columbo shows up and he's like, what are you doing in the outhouse? And she's like, they're going to kill me. And then it's like first Christmas coming soon. It's like, OK, so this just pivoted into like some sort of weird cabin murderer.
01:49:27
Speaker
horror movie? I don't know what they're doing. What? This wasn't the game. This was a preview for the actual game you're going to make? I will say this, though. If they go and do First Christmas from Betty's perspective, which is the girlfriend, yeah and they kind of pivot and make this character Frankie, if they make him into the dick that they they have him be in in this game, I think that would speak a lot. I think it would really help.
01:49:56
Speaker
Actually, I've just gone to the Steam page, and the blurb says, Christmas Eve, 1987, and Betty travels up to the family cabin to prepare the original perfect Christmas for Frankie. Discover the events leading up to last Christmas. So, oh, okay. So they weren't broken up. That's very confusing. Because last Christmas, yeah. Because, yeah, what she is preparing something for him. Right.
01:50:23
Speaker
Oh, wait, hold on. On Christmas Eve 1987, Betty arrives at the family cabin and finds herself faced not only with a seemingly endless list of tasks to prepare the perfect Christmas for her new boyfriend, but also tackling a stream of unwanted visitors. What? So Frankie is her new boyfriend. Oh, so Frankie's not her ex-boyfriend.
01:50:42
Speaker
No, well at this time in 1987 Frankie is her new boyfriend but then I guess at some point between 1987 and 1988 they were apart which caused Frankie to take his own life. So to me this whole thing is just like
01:51:04
Speaker
Okay, I would have been happy with a game that was just about making a shitty Christmas for your girlfriend and it's bad, right? Like that is fine for me. yeah To me that's like one of these classic AGS movies. forum like big blue cup forums games is like you just make a week like the puzzles are all weird and the premise is very simple like oh make a Christmas and that's cute it's fun it's fine you did not need to add suicide and murder and not like ah like it it just seems so unnecessary listen I would I would even like it
01:51:45
Speaker
yeah I would like it if it was just a cute sweet and short thing I would also like it if they kept with the dark twist but handled it better and handled it maybe more realistically because if it was more realistic I think it would be more poignant for people yeah versus did this guy just did he just do this like that The majority of people who struggle with suicide ideation don't want to hurt their loved ones. Yeah, I think if it was even I'm cool with the dark ending, man. I like a dark ending. I like a sad twist, especially if it's trying to say something. But what is this trying to say, really? I don't know. You know, it's yeah, it does. It does come out of left field. Yeah. I mean, there is the foreshadowing, but like it also doesn't really
01:52:35
Speaker
do anything. Well the foreshadowing comes out of left field too is my thing. This game does do two cool things that I like, two like just like very minor cool things. And again, I liked setting up a a bad Christmas. I like that if I can ignore the rest. But um it does do two cool things that I like. One, there's a locked room that stays locked the whole game and you never get in. Like that's bold. That's a bold thing to do.
01:53:04
Speaker
yeah And number two. I bet you we'll find out what's behind that door in first Christmas though. I bet you will. You're right. Number two. You could carry every inventory item in the game until the very end.
01:53:18
Speaker
you don't need to do things in any specific order. You can just go around collecting everything and solving it all in your head. And then just like at the very end when you have every inventory item, go put them all down. Like I think that's, there's something really like fun about that. It's like what I always wanted to do as a kid when I played point and click games is I was like, oh, I, I lost the fish. I wish I had, I like, I wanted, I liked that inventory item. I wish I had them all.
01:53:44
Speaker
but it's like collecting all this stuff so we I didn't dislike this game at all. I just think it was handled in a way that it could have been, it could have been even better. It could have been a more satisfying experience. Yeah, it's not a bad game. It's just like you say. But do you guys know what ah the fact that you can carry all the inventory items at once means?
01:54:07
Speaker
How much does your pants weigh? How much do my pants weigh? Everybody, let's pivot away from suicide. A man with very heavy pants. That came out of nowhere. This goodness came out of nowhere. He's also wearing the Marty McFly jacket, which I assume has lots of pockets, so maybe the way he dispersed evenly amongst all of his Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, maybe he's got, yeah maybe it's just, it's how much does my entire body weigh? Which the Colombo is gonna have to figure out for himself pretty soon. I'm sorry. I'm sorry sorry for saying that. Okay, so what do you guys think? How much does, but what do what do you guys think some of the most heavy inventory items in the game besides the very obvious one?
01:54:59
Speaker
The very obvious one being the Christmas tree. the tree Yeah, you're holding an entire an entire tree. um It's not like a small it's not like a room sized tree. It is two floors tall. Yeah, no, this is like an outdoor like nature huge fir tree. Yeah.
01:55:16
Speaker
What else was I carrying? I was carrying like, okay, so I, oh, the cassette, the boombox, we have the boombox. You got a boombox, yeah. The last day of Christmas, I was carrying things.
01:55:29
Speaker
ah pass Some rotten grapes, a lozenge, and a sheet. Yeah, we've got like ah our Wham cassette tape, which it like that weighs nothing. An axe. You got an axe, you got a cooking pot.
01:55:44
Speaker
There's like candles that's at some point cause we put it by the tub. One of those big orange extension cords is pretty heavy. That's pretty heavy. Yeah. I'm going to, okay. And we're counting the tree, right? An antique wooden chair. Remember that.
01:55:58
Speaker
Oh. Yeah, you're carrying everything at once. Because he breaks the chair into pieces, but he picks them all up. So he's got all of them. Okay, and we're including this Christmas tree in the answer, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I don't know how much a tree. No idea. No, what do you think? How much does this man's pants weigh? I'm gonna say 200 pounds, even.
01:56:26
Speaker
Okay, so around the weight of Wrath of the Gods, 200 pounds. Right, that's right. Oh my god, that game makes me so angry. Okay, can I just say that I was very disappointed that nobody commented on that fantastic line, I'm old and have nothing to give you. I have nothing to give you.
01:56:49
Speaker
That's so true. didn't talk about and that what is Literally my life's mantra. I am oh i have nothing to give you ah So if anyone didn't see that we're talking about a game called wrath the gods and we talked about last episode with Alex Pearlman promania five thousand five hundred and that we didn't talk about that scene because in that scene yeah it is like there's a pretty woman and an old person and both of them need to cross the river and then you have you like it's like oh choose either the old woman who has nothing to give you or the young woman who will give you a prize on the other side and them both, okay? Yeah, Like, how, why is one more moral than the other? Either way, you're helping somebody who needs to get across the fucking river. What the fuck sort of morality is that? Where it's like, young women do not deserve your help. Okay, sorry. Go ahead. Uh, okay. I think it's gonna weigh approximately 150 pounds.
01:57:51
Speaker
Oh wow, you guys both went over. It's actually a surprisingly small amount of weight um because a Christmas tree is about 65 pounds. That's what I figured, I still got it wrong. um So overall, it's like 120 pounds.
01:58:09
Speaker
Okay, I wasn't that far off. You weren't very far off, but you could carry 120 pounds around. Listen, I have won both rounds of these games. I got closer than Alex and closer to Francisco, and I won a prize. You won, you your prize is... You have to carry the over you and across river old Thanks, but I'm old and have nothing to give.
01:58:36
Speaker
Can I... yeah can i Can I grab the reins now and and shoehorn in my ulterior motive that I wanted to talk about on this as a as you know being a guest on your podcast again? Well listen, it's Christmas and Christmas is a time for generosity and one thing that we can be generous about is the hosting of this podcast. Go ahead. i wanted to guest We're your guests and you're the host now.
01:59:05
Speaker
No, no, no, no, that's too much responsibility. Nope, too bad, too late, too late. If you want to talk about, you're the host now. Okay, fine, fine. Hello, welcome to my podcast.
01:59:16
Speaker
Did you save your game? I hope you did. Oh, dear God. Now then, let's talk about, let's talk about a classic, classic game from way back in 2004? I actually don't know what year. Golden years.
01:59:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's when I graduated high school. Oh, shit. Oh, wow. Let me find it exactly. It's 2005. 2005. OK, I wasn't too far off. When my son was born. Oh, good lord. All right. That gives you guys a little picture of what my life has been like.
01:59:57
Speaker
So so i when you said that this was a Christmas episode, I thought, well, you know what? I have a very, very, I don't want to say fond, but definitely a specific memory of a Christmas themed adventure puzzle that I think has gained somewhat of a reputation amongst the adventure game playing community because, you know, it's it's one of those games from probably published by the adventure company.
02:00:28
Speaker
um develop by Oh, actually, yes, it was. I'm looking on likeki Wikipedia right now. Wikipedia, I said. It should be Wikipedia. It's made by Microids. Made by Microids, published by The Adventure Company. Yes, I'm talking about still life. Have either of you played still life?
02:00:51
Speaker
I have, and it's been a while. It's been a really long time now. I'll lay my cards on the table. You told me you were going to be doing this. So I did play Still Life this week. Holy shit, Matt. I didn't finish it. You're dedicated. No, don't bother. It sucks. What? Hold on. All right, we'll talk about it. It's kind of beloved, though. All right, you've got three minutes to state your case on Still Life.
02:01:19
Speaker
state my case okay yeah i i i assumed you were going to defend it am i wrong no i hate the life i fucking need still life it's one of the worst adventure games i've ever played so i but i bring it up yeah because it has a very appropriate puzzle for the season which is the cookie puzzle That was the worst puzzle. This is okay. Good. Yeah. Tell everyone about the well, the cookie puzzle in and of itself is terrible. I don't know. I'll, I'll explain why in a moment, but first I want to explain within the wider context of the game, why this cookie puzzle is just one of many reasons why still life is the, in fact, the worst adventure game I have ever played. played One of the worst. I don't know why I thought you were going to defend it. ah No, cause it sucks. Okay.
02:02:08
Speaker
So Still Life is actually the second in a trilogy of games. There was a Still Life 2, which I never played. and The first game was called Post Mortem. Yeah. I didn't play that one either. But Still Life is kind of a bridge game in that you play as this this FBI agent named Victoria McPherson, I believe her name is.
02:02:31
Speaker
I don't know why I'm guessing because I'm looking at the Wikipedia. Yeah, it's Victoria McPherson. She's an FBI agent. You just didn't want to seem like you were looking at the Wikipedia, so you pretend like you're just remembering. No, I'm looking, I was, and then I looked for confirmation. 2004 Chicago, I believe, with this year's Father for Christmas. You are in Chicago. Holy shit, I forgot. He discovers an old notebook by the colander and grandfather, I believe.
02:02:54
Speaker
okay so you guys did you know that i live in chicago i was just gonna say when when i messaged matt matt was like roses doesn't want to play still life and i was like you should tell roses to play so still life because the serial killer is literally an artist she'd love it and then bird I didn't remember it took place in Chicago. So now you have double the reason to play it, Rosie. You it's play it, because it sucks. To be fair, I don't think it's that bad of a game. I think it has some of those, like, early 2000s 3d adventure game problems like there's a bunch of rooms you walk through for no reason Okay, and it's a badly designed game and I'll tell you why I will give you the very short reason why so the overall story is intriguing you're an FBI agent and You're trying to track down this serial killer who's an artist. the The murders are all, like, I think they have to do with, like, art and, like, creating, like, he's, oh, I'm creating a portrait of art. I don't remember what what the killer's name even is, but it's probably something stupid.
02:03:56
Speaker
But the thing is that it's like, oh, this serial killer is very similar to a case that your grandfather investigated in Prague in the twenties. So part of the game you play as her grandfather, who was the the the main character in post-mortem. So the game switches between 2004 Chicago and 1920s Prague.
02:04:14
Speaker
And it's interesting because it's like, oh, it might be the same guy or it might be a copycat, whatever. It actually never gets resolved, but that's another story. oh Really? Okay. Yeah. It ends on a cliffhanger. You never find out who the killer is. And I think they kind of gloss over it in still life too. So it's heavily implied that it's her boyfriend that's the killer, but you never actually find out one way or another. Okay. Unbelievable. All right. Yeah. Anyway, cause he wears a mask cause he's an artist of course.
02:04:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I mean, problem I wear a mask all the time. I'm wearing one now. Okay. Wow. You can see because you're in the Yeah, yeah. How did I not realize it was a mask this whole time? dimensional Christmas cabin. The reason that this game sucks is because I've just explained the story to you. It sounds like an intriguing story, right? It sounds like a story where you are uncovering clues and mysteries and stuff. But the game goes through incredible incredible lengths to just stop you in your tracks every single time. Because literally
Infamous Puzzles and Narrative Analysis
02:05:15
Speaker
every single person you meet is like, I have information for you, but I locked it in my safe and I forgot the combination. I'm not exaggerating. yeah So you have to spend most of the game deciphering weird locks that these people have on their safes that no one would ever really have because no one, that's not how locks work.
02:05:37
Speaker
So the cookie puzzle is just another example because it's like, you're going home to your dad's house. And like, instead of being like, Oh, dad, I'm home, I'm gonna look through grandpa's old things and like, ah try and figure out who this killer is. Because remember, there's a serial killer on the loose and like, we're racing against time here.
02:05:56
Speaker
And every moment counts. And we need to catch this guy. And our dad's like, could you please make me those cookies? And she's like, yeah, actually, no, I watched a video and I forgot because she's like, well, I promised and a promise is a promise. I'll make you the cookies. So she's actually the one that's being proactive about wasting time because he's like, oh, no, it's okay. You don't have to. She's like, no, no, a promise is a promise. So then she goes into the kitchen and you can't proceed with this game until you make the cookies.
02:06:24
Speaker
Correct, and and that's just part one before you yeah before you talk about what's really insane about this puzzle Yeah, I want to talk about her relationship to her dad for a minute because okay fucking sucks I don't know if you got this when you were playing it but I haven't played this game in like 20 years, so. it is that it is so um The actors must not have been told they were father and daughter. It is very rife with sexual tension. The hugs are way too long. and the And then even this recipe filters in to this idea that like, oh, and daughter probably shouldn't be making this for her father.
02:07:06
Speaker
But yeah, there's so much sexual tension between the there it's daughter and the father. It's interesting you bring that up because I noticed something when I was watching. I watched a video last night to refresh my memory so that I would be sure that I was being as accurate as possible and not just talking out my ass from what I vaguely remembered.
02:07:25
Speaker
So the the the the whole conceit of the puzzle is that it's not a straightforward recipe because of course that's the problem with this puzzle too. There's no value to this puzzle. This puzzle is literally just there to stop the pacing of the story because she said she was going to make cookies for her dad. You don't learn anything of interest from completing this puzzle. It doesn't contribute to the story in any way shape or form. It's literally just follow a recipe but oh no it's not just follow a recipe the recipe's in code so it's not just use a a cup of flour it's oh no it's a cup of love and yeah so another and half a teaspoon yeah okay i'm glad you said that because i picked up on this from the video so it's like oh half a cup of love oh a teaspoon of of uh you know
02:08:15
Speaker
desire, desire like love and what or sensuality or whatever. And it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So essentially, you don't have any in game way of knowing this aside from just trial and error, unless you have an idea of how to make cookies, in which case you can kind of be like, okay, well, I guess this kind of makes sense. So short of like using an actual walkthrough you would have to use outside knowledge this is like this is literally like the old man in hugo's house of horrors yes i'm bringing that up because fuck that game so so this is a puzzle that requires outside knowledge if you don't already have it and other than that it's just guessing
02:08:57
Speaker
And like looking at it now, having made cookies, I'm like, okay, I could probably have figured this out. But when I first played this yeah and I hadn't made cookies, I was like, how the hell would I do it? But yeah, even still, it's just like, it's just an exercise in futility and frustration and like- Even then, like, okay, ginger and cinnamon are romance and sensuality. Roses, which one's which? Yeah, yeah exactly. Roses which?
02:09:24
Speaker
of ginger and cinnamon, which one's romance, which one's sensuality? ah So cinnamon is sensuality. Okay, you got it right. I thought cinnamon was gin, was romance and ginger was sensuality because like you'd think like- Why is- No, because cinnamon has the spiciness. I was thinking in- Yeah, so then why is ginger romance?
02:09:48
Speaker
because it makes your stomach feel better.
02:09:53
Speaker
ah
02:09:56
Speaker
The trope of redheads in ah media is that they are all sensual, right? Like there's something sensual about being, so it's like, oh, ginger sensuality. As the resident redhead, you should know about this, right?
02:10:11
Speaker
I'm not. I am blonde. Okay. Well, do you have more fun then? I could have sworn. Well, I had a kid at a year after high school, so apparently I had plenty of ginger and cinnamon, if you know what I mean. Yeah, man. I had a lot of cinnamon. Well, actually, go ahead. Go ahead.
02:10:35
Speaker
Well, because I, okay, so I knew that commitment was flour because two cups, right? There's nothing else that you would do that much of besides flour, but it's- And also flour is like a binding agent. So commitment is kind of also a binding agent. Well, that's why I was thinking more integrity. Look at that. Flour is the integrity of the cookie. Flour literally is the integrity of the cookie.
02:11:00
Speaker
How is an egg common sense? Yeah, you only know that because there's not a measurement. No, no, no, because you're a good egg. You're a smart egg. Oh, okay, okay. But here's here's the gross one. I also thought milk was generosity because I was like, oh, the cow's being generous with this. No, milk is love.
02:11:19
Speaker
Cup of love is a cup of milk, which is to me Disgusting and horrible for obvious reasons also because in Spanish like Spanish Spanish from Spain slang milk is ah You know semen so it's quite early god okay yeahp ah ah whole cup Love is I guess could also be slang for that. Yeah anyway Okay. Okay. Okay. So the cookie puzzle sucks. Uh, it's bad. It's, but it's Christmasy because you're making, Oh, that's the other thing too. Weirdly enough. It's like, Oh, I'm going to make you those cookies. And then when you get to the recipe, you're making a gingerbread man. All of a sudden, it's not even consistent.
02:12:04
Speaker
And youre you you don't see the cookies ever, right? I mean, I haven't gotten to the end of the game, but yeah, you just put them in the oven, leave, and then go, solve a murder! Yeah, exactly! Do you think that like it gives it a sense of like levity? Because you are like... youre No! No, it's frustrating. It's just shitty. you know but It's just another in a long line of...
02:12:25
Speaker
stop the game to do a stupid puzzle. It's like a big game. it It does make me want to say, how about in Rosewater, you include at least one puzzle that's completely subjective.
02:12:37
Speaker
Where there is not an objective logic to it. It is just kind of based on vibes. What do you think love is? What do you think completeness is? I want to know what love is. I want you to show me. Oh, it's milk. Sorry, it's milk. Oh, yeah, it's milk. I forgot about that. It's milk. Yeah, of course. One cup of milk. Milk, did you have anything else to say about still life? But I'm taking the host duties back from you. Do you have anything else to say? I know, but I do want to remember, I do remember that when I bought it at Best Buy, cause that's how old I am. Um, I remember when Best Buy still sold like the computer, big box computer games, although it was, it was mid 2000. So it was the little boxes. I remember going to the cashier and like buying, like presented to the cashier and the cashier looked at it and he was like, Oh, still why?
02:13:31
Speaker
That sounds mysterious. And i was like I was like, I guess so. And then later, like years later now, I'm like, is he flirting with me?
02:13:42
Speaker
um He's like, I hear the love in this game. Yeah, he was like, oh, man, this nerd who plays adventure games, I'm going to have to give him a couple. A little bit of cinnamon spice maybe? A little bit of cinnamon, a little ginger. Yeah, yeah. Oh my goodness. Well, that's still life, another Christmas game. And last last Christmas, a Christmas suicide game. Yeah. Wow. We're not, it this is, what why did I get these games? What were you trying to say? Francesco.
02:14:22
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you so much. Gurundislav Games, as it were. Thank you so much for coming and celebrating Christmas with us here today. Thank you very much for having me. We have one more question. Roses. What is your stance on eggnog? You like it? Do you not like it? I don't like eggnog.
02:14:45
Speaker
Oh, he doesn't like it, Matt. I don't like the taste of eggnog because eggnog is too bubblegum flavored for me. Yeah, it's very sweet. It is very sweet. Yeah. Yeah. And another reason I don't like eggnog is because I used to work at Starbucks and when they would have eggnog lattes, you had to steam the eggnog. And I don't know if you would have steamed eggnog. It's the hardest thing in the world. Not only is it the hardest thing in the world to steam, but it also screeches like a banshee. It's horrible.
02:15:12
Speaker
I worked at a Barnes and Noble cafe who had a Starbucks coffee. And they don't even do eggnog lattes anymore because good yeah they get sucked so bad. And you had to make them extra hot. Like the only way to get it to foam up is like insane heat. yeah Well right now I'm drinking in ah Evan Williams original Southern Eggnog.
02:15:32
Speaker
It is bad. It has bad bourbon, blended whiskey, rum, and brandy in it. but It's still only 30 proof, but it is too alcoholic. Oh no. It might be the well the sugar too. But do you want to know what I just ordered? Yes. What's that? A Mocha Bananas Foster's Latte. Oh. Yes.
02:15:58
Speaker
yeah yep yep yep what So without eggnog, what's your like go-to Christmas treat, Francisco? You know, I don't know if they're Christmasy, but I've only ever seen them in our house around the Christmas holidays. But my partner oil orders from nuts dot.com these little chocolate balls rum cordials.
02:16:21
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Those things are like a crack to me. so I can eat like a whole jar of them and then feel instant regret. But they're delightful. Do you guys know that is actual, I mean, I know it's actual rum that they have in those. yeah Is it de-alcoholized or can you get drunk on rum, on like rum cordials and rum? I feel like you'd have to eat like 500 of them to get drunk on the cordials. It's kind of like rum cake. Like it actually has rum in it, but you'd have to eat a lot to get it. It's a very small amount. You would have to, yeah, you'd have to eat so many, like a few pounds, which no one's going to do.
02:16:58
Speaker
Well, I don't know. Well, I wouldn't, but I'm sure there's people out there who'd be like, I accept the challenge. If you you're a listener and you eat so many rum cordials, you get wasted. Yeah, yeah let us know. I will tell you though that I did discover a couple of Christmases ago. I mentioned i made reference to it earlier, butter rum.
02:17:19
Speaker
which I thought I read about I was like yeah exactly that's what I thought I was like oh butter run that's probably like butterscotch it's probably sweet and nice oh no it's not literally it's literally melting a stick of butter into like kraken Yeah, it's long. So it's ah it's it's just greasy rum is what it is, but it does the job. It's about right. you if ah All right, well, again, thank you for stopping by, Francisco. Of course. Rosewater, out in 2025, allegedly. Yep. Keep your eyes out in January for an announcement.
02:17:58
Speaker
yeah um and
02:18:00
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Oh no. Really? were We're getting a knock on the... Where's that knock coming from? Oh shit, I gotta jump out the window! Excuse me! to ask him. He just willingly jumped out the window. I'm pretty happy with that. Well, Francisca's gone. I hope he's a alive. I'm pretty sure it's coming from the wine cellar.
02:18:22
Speaker
Why do we have two basements, by the way, in our cabinet? We have the basement and then a separate wine cellar. All right, I'll go. Here, do you want to go answer this one together? Yeah, let's go together to the wine cellar. Do you want to hold hands and skip? Okay, hold my hand and let's skip. All right, we'll be back in a minute.
02:18:53
Speaker
yeah oh there Hey ah hey ah Jeff um what were you doing and down in the wine cellar don't worry about it I mean, I am a little worried about it. Is the wine there? The wine is, well, the wine is there minus one delicious bottle of a Montalato that I've stored in the very back. We can go see it if you'd like. I could take you. and No, that's okay. It's fine. It's i've just, I've been doing some masonry work in the back, so I'll have to step over some masonry. It's a really nice bottle if you'd like. I know. I don't need to see it. Okay. That's fine.
02:19:28
Speaker
I have a better idea. I have a much better idea. Jeff, why don't you take yourself out of this cold, dark, ah slightly nerdy wine cellar and join us for a little video game talk in our cabin. We have. side That sounds lovely. Do we have any eggnog? You know, I love my eggnog.
02:19:48
Speaker
ah Well, okay, we we have a bunch of drinks. We have some cider We have we have British cider meaning it's alcoholic and we have American cider which we learned the difference between that is sure That is true. I do know that we we have eggnog of the alcoholic and non-alcoholic varieties Also, and then we have this was sail ball. If you have anything you want to put in the was sail ball people have been putting stuff in it all night ah And I guess at the end, me and roses will drink it and die. So, yeah great. julia ah Julia spit in it. I put some styrofoam peanuts in it. So whatever you want to put in it. Whatever. A little bit of liquid would probably be nice by about now.
02:20:27
Speaker
ah Well, I do have some two-year-old aged eggnog that I will just gotta... um It's less of a pour and more of a scoop at this point, but I'm just gonna scrape it in there. Thanks for adding to the wasail bowl. This'll be a real good drink at the end. Jeff Stormer, thank you for coming to our Christmas cabin to talk adventure games with us. I'm so excited. ah This is really a highlight of my night. I'm so i'm thrilled to be here.
02:20:55
Speaker
How's things? How's your Christmas been so far? I'm pretty good. ah Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I am a certified Christmas head. ah Where do you get that certification, by the way? yeah Santa Claus. Oh, I've been calling my local my local county office. Oh, sure.
02:21:19
Speaker
No, no, that's how you get a notary certification. I can see the confusion. Okay, all right. By the way, though, I do have some documents that I need. This might actually be a really mutual trade-off while I'm here. Okay, all right, yeah. Well, I can notarize those for you if you can just point me... Just point me in the vague direction of Santa Claus, and I'll just head that way after. Yeah, it's... The vague direction?
02:21:43
Speaker
Hold on. I'm going to do the the finger lick. Get the wind on. It's that one. It's no. OK. All right. after After we finished talking about this game, I think I'll head that way and see if I could get certified. Great. Yes. You.
02:21:57
Speaker
Just wrote a book. I did. I just wrote a book. I wrote a book. ah You could find it in stores as of like mid to late January. I should probably have a date, but I don't. I'm certain they gave me one. Don't ask me if I remember it. ah It'll be out in late January. ah It is by it is it's by me. It's my job. It's almost like it's a great book. It's by it's by a great author. Yeah.
02:22:27
Speaker
We're just talking about a book that I own, right? You took a John Grisham book and you wrote it down word for word. Like an old monk. you You illuminated a manuscript of the sperm by John Grisham. I have a great book. It's called Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn. It's really great. It introduces a really great character named Mithurandu.
02:22:54
Speaker
Let me tell you about this Mitherondu guy. Okay, why don't you tell us about your book just real quick? Sure. The book that I wrote is called The Ultimate Fantasy Character Creator. It is a guide for LARPers, fantasy writers, role players, people who love fantasy, and it is a guide about making and fleshing out fantasy characters. It is ah about a hundred exercises to flesh out every little detail of your character's life.
02:23:19
Speaker
from their clothing choices, their fighting style, ah what they did yesterday, what they had for breakfast, all kinds of different little things. And the goal is really just to like create characters with a little bit of depth and who are, you know regardless of how fantastical their circumstances, they are human. They have fleshed out you know everyday human lives. Nice.
02:23:39
Speaker
That's that awesome. ah That is very cool. I mean, i I'll tell you, I hate fantasy. ah Me and my, as you can see, I'm petting a flying reindeer right now. Me and my flying reindeer, we both hate fantasy. I get it. i I mean, look, I wrote a book about fantasy, but admittedly, like I'm really more of the the airport paperback sort. You can give me a story about like a difficult business deal.
02:24:09
Speaker
A lawyer who's in some real trouble with the mafia. He gets in some real, some real, the jury selection process, some real drama kicks in. I don't know why we're going so hard on John Grisham. Sorry, sorry, John, sorry. I guess it's in case my dad listens, so he turns it off. so he So he gets this point, he's like, I was with you until the John Grisham hit. And then he turns it, that's not why my dad says like, my dad sounds like me on this slightly higher pitched.
02:24:36
Speaker
yeah Your dad sounds like the villain of a John Grisham. God damn it! We can't! Grrrr's in! You're gonna colonize the case! Only uses two curse words, damn and hell. Where the damn is this hell? Lawyer.
02:24:57
Speaker
Sorry John Grisham, I take no responsibility for what these two men are saying. Carry on. What if John- What if John Grisham John Grisham is secretly a huge like adventure game fan and listens to every episode that he's sitting at home on Christmas listening to this. He's like, oh, can't wait to listen to my favorite podcast. He's like,
02:25:20
Speaker
He's typing out the email to ask if he can be a guest on the show. Quietly, it's delete email. This is his laptop. up look auto sha and though John Grisham's worst Christmas. That would be a good adventure game too. John Grisham's worst Christmas. I would play only if it included a long subplot where you had to select a journey.
02:25:44
Speaker
Oh God. Okay, so, all right, so, um Jeff. Yes. And Roses. Hi. The three of us all sat down together in one big, comfy chair, and we played Azazel's Christmas Fable. Yeah. So just like high level, what are you guys, what are your what are your what are your thoughts initially?
02:26:13
Speaker
I love it. I thought it was really cute. I thought it was really fun. I thought that like their writing genuinely had some jokes that like made me laugh and pop me like I really like the best possible kind of experience from an adventure game.
02:26:27
Speaker
Listen, Jeff, if you could see the other games we played, you would know that this is like it takes it. i This is a breath of fresh air for me. I love this game. I thought was super cute. I looked really cute. I like the voice acting. Very reminiscent of 90s 90s and clicks. Yeah, very, very like you could really see a lot of Monkey Island in this. It was really, really cute.
02:26:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's nice and short, too. Really easy to like knock out in an evening, which is really nice, like a breezy and like a lot of the it did a thing that I really like in adventure games where, ah you know, as a as a as a guy who pays taxes, i my time is at a premium. Right. So like.
02:27:12
Speaker
Uh, I appreciate that the puzzles weren't like, uh, punishingly difficult. You could like, you could piece together a lot of things and like, they gave you the clues to be like, Oh, okay. I see what I got where I got to go from here.
02:27:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah yeah know it was very intuitive, I would say. This was the, I don't know how you feel, Matt, ah since we did play four games. This is the best one that we've played out of these Christmas games. Well, if you remember from the intro that we definitely already recorded, ah I've played six games, but yeah, this is 100% the best one. yeah um and Like you guys said, it's cute, it is,
02:27:52
Speaker
like legitimately funny at times. Um, the puzzles, yeah, they, they are challenging enough to make you think, but not challenging enough where you are. You're not likely to get, they're not Kings questing you. No, no, no, no, no, no. Even when you get stuck, like I got stuck a couple of times, had to look up and walk through, walk through a couple of times.
02:28:11
Speaker
it it was the sort of thing where I, what you want to do when you look at a walkthrough is go, oh God, I'm so stupid rather than, yeah ah what how the hell was I supposed to know that, right? yeah yeah or Or you want the experience that I had at least once where you read half of the wall, you read like half of the directions and then you go, okay, nope, I got it from here. I see what I see, now I got it.
02:28:35
Speaker
One of my favorite things to do with adventure games, we haven't talked about this on the show yet, but is go to a walkthrough or like see a screenshot in a walkthrough and just see an inventory item that I don't have yet. Yeah. And just from there, just be like, OK, all right. I know I see how this is going to connect to the puzzles that I'm facing. Got it. I'm lost in. I know where I can deduce where I should find that inventory item or exit. Yeah.
02:29:00
Speaker
and like that just that experience of like when you read when you went like when you don't read the full solution but you get just enough to kind of like click it into place and be like okay I i that is that to me this is the sign of really good writing because that means that you that once presented with a clue you can see how it leads to the solution yeah roses do you want to do you want to walk people through like the basic plot here Yeah, let's ah let's give him some premise here. So you're playing Azazel. You seem to be a demon ah her from from Hell. You have like a boss and a superior. ah The boss's name is, is that Gorgamon? The big guy. yeah yeah Yeah, big guy. Big guy's Gorgamon and then all the other devils are like, there's a- There's like a Beelzebub, right? There's a Mephistopheles and then, yeah.
02:29:49
Speaker
So yeah, you were playing Azazel, and for whatever reason, it's just like in, I think in one of the other Christmas games we played, Gorgomont has a problem with Santa Claus. I don't really know why. Yeah, I don't know why all these games were like, you know what, somebody's got a beef with Santa Claus. Everyone hates Santa Claus. Yeah. So you as a Zazel, you've got to go to this like Christmasy town. It's very cute. And basically steal. What is it like a man? What would you call like a magical star? like yeah sentient Yeah, it's like it's like the North Star kind of like it's like the Christmas the Christmas star. Yeah, yeah it's kind of like the frozen star or something like that. Yeah. It's like the heart of Christmas, basically. Yeah. So you're basically tasked with a ruining Christmas. Even because, because you've been slacking Azazel hasn't been the best demon. He actually has some empathy towards the people he's supposed to be torturing. so Real, real quiet quitting situation.
02:30:48
Speaker
yeah yeah yeah So yeah, you go down to this village and you're just meant to fuck things up. That is what you're doing. But in that quest to to fuck things up, you kind of realize Azazel likes Christmas. He doesn't really have any interest in messing things up.
Mischief and Humor in Gameplay
02:31:07
Speaker
ah It's very cute. I like I really, really, really like this game a whole lot. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of that story. It's kind of like that that classic story of a guy who is sort of performing the trappings of an identity. um ah He clearly likes like all his references are hell and torture based and he and he likes causing mischief. um But and that's not clearly that's not the identity identity that like
02:31:38
Speaker
Is in his soul, right? He is he's actually kind of a sweet guy and he does not want to Hurt people and you can tell that even as you're walking around the town and like trying to do shitty things yeah like There's a lot of like no, I don't think I should do that Exactly. He asks a girl out and she says no and he's just and anytime you try to talk to her again He's like, I don't think I should bother her anymore oh And if you try, he gets he has a taser that I found right away and he just refuses to tase anybody pretty much. There was one very funny thing that I thought happened because this is an adventure game. The protagonist is going to ruin something. That that is just what happens in adventure games, whether on accident or or on purpose. There is a part where we're where we're in like an archived like library situation.
02:32:29
Speaker
And we burn half of it down. Half of it is burned to the ground. That woman just moves on. and We've ruined that woman's whole career. Her career is ruined. She has a chair to authenticate elf identities, which is a weird thing. And we destroy it by jamming tape into it. And then ah we burn down her library. Oops. Oops.
02:32:53
Speaker
you know Also, i really want the thing I really wanna talk about is, Matt, you gestured towards it, but the the Taser puzzle is very funny to me. yeah ah Very specifically, the thing that's very funny to me is like it's truly the first puzzle you run into. One of the first things you do is you walk into a barn and like the puzzle of like how to get stuff in the barn is they show you a locker and they're like, this requires a four-digit code. And you're like,
02:33:24
Speaker
All right. Well, it's a four digit code around Christmas. And then half of the game later, like truly half of the game later, somebody says to you, man, those elves have a lock on their ah lockers and they say it's their favorite day of the year. and i'm like Man, I solved that at Outwork. Why are you telling me this now? I am so, I have such like adventure game brain rot that I saw that and I didn't even attempt to solve it. I was like, there will be a clue later. I just closed it. I just like, I didn't, yeah.
02:34:02
Speaker
And then when I got the solution, I was like, I got to solve that immediately. Yeah, you can do it immediately. If you were to guess four digit number around Chris, I got a spoiler. Spoiler for a puzzle. I don't know if the listeners are going to be upset about that. But you know what? Like, it was so funny to me to open that news and be like, four digit number Christmas. Got it. OK, we're in. Yeah. And the four digits are separated. Like, there's a separator in the middle. So you know it's two digits and two digits.
02:34:30
Speaker
yeah And then half half of the game later they're like, I have a clue, a juicy clue. And I'm like, all right. So this this game also has a collection element, like a hidden, there's a there's a type of collectible that's hidden throughout the game. Did you guys find them all? I did not. I did not piece together that that was a thing. Are you talking about the balloons? The Christmas crackers.
02:34:54
Speaker
So throughout the entire game, there are Christmas crackers hidden in the background. What the fuck is a Christmas cracker? ah It's ah like a little noise, like a little like pop. It's a little like a paper thing you pull and make it. Matt, I completely missed this. I'm not gonna lie. You didn't find even one of these? I did not piece this together. Roses, how about you?
02:35:18
Speaker
I don't think I did. I was very focused. So neither of you even questioned why in your inventory you had a gray picture of a Christmas cracker and when you clicked on it it was.
02:35:30
Speaker
an empty shelf. I thought that that was just a little graphic to separate inventory. like I never ah never clicked at that because I did not think it was a graphic that was clickable. I thought that that was just a fun little geometric Christmas pattern. That's so funny. Yeah, every single screen in the game has one Christmas cracker hidden on it.
02:35:53
Speaker
You know what, this reminds me of watch over Christmas, but like shorter and better. Cause that had a collect, a collectathon element to it as well. Yes. That had, um, presents that were scattered in that game. And you're not a demon, but you might as well be for what that yeah man, that the way that little boy corrupted my soul and brain.
02:36:18
Speaker
Yeah. It's hard when we get just like kind of a good game to talk about it for very long because what do you say? Like it's good. Yeah. It's fun. It's good. The jokes? Good. The jokes hit, which really like, you know, you kind of expect a couple groaners, but like the jokes, like there were a couple of ones that like really, uh, the musical interlude in the middle. Oh my God. I genuinely popped me. I was like, I was like, I've solved it. And then they did the joke there. And I was like, oh, that's really funny. That is very good. The only line that has ever stuck with me. I've played this game twice. I played it the year it came out to. And the only line that's ever stuck with me is deck the halls with strung up bodies. Like a great gag when that happens on screen. You're like, that's going to be good.
02:37:04
Speaker
and Does that serve a per- Oh, it does. It gets one guy away from the thing you need to get. His glass so you can get his, uh, fingerprint to get, which is like, that's great, that's great puzzle work. Like, that's good. Awesome! A fucking hilarious twist on that puzzle.
02:37:20
Speaker
It's so such a simple and tiny twist on that puzzle. It's like in a lot of of adventure games, you have to find some dust and you have to find some tape and then you dust a fingerprint off something, right? But in this, you do it with a packet of hot chocolate, which is really hot.
02:37:38
Speaker
you know It's very Christmasy, which I really appreciate because i we did play a couple games that were It didn't give me the Christmas spirit. Let's just say that ah this one really feels like a Christmas a Christmas goth adventure game because it's got that dark. we yeah We are playing a demon. Keep in mind. It's very like strangely like nightmare before Christmas meets like elf. It's like an adventure game. ah Yeah, I appreciate it even more. And it makes me sad because when am I ever going to play this game again?
02:38:15
Speaker
sure because it is so do you guys find that like it is so specifically I okay so Matt I didn't know I guess at Christmas making a yearly tradition I mean yeah it's it's a game that genuinely you could cruise through and like a cut like an afternoon so like you could just be like all right it's our annual Azazel's playthrough and then you just kind of be like I'm curling up by the fire I got some nog and I'm just gonna cruise through it I actually don't know if anybody plays this ah out of season, because it's still a really good adventure game. And I don't want people to wait until the holidays to play it, you know? Yeah, you want people to go after listening to this episode and play it. Well, hopefully, if you listen to this episode in December, right, you'll still sort of be in the Christmasy mood. in It's very Christmasy. Like, it would feel weird to play this game outside of that season, but yeah.
02:39:06
Speaker
if you've never played it, I i mean, I suggest it. The other thing about it is it's all made by one dude, Greg Mulbaugh. Really? Right, yeah. and And I think he does every voice in the game. That i ah that feels right because of how similar everyone sounds.
02:39:23
Speaker
Everybody sounds similar and a lot of people are pitched so like as Azazel is Has a slightly squeaky voice, which I think is just it's to me I think it's sounds like this guy Greg Malbach's voice just slightly pitched up and then because then when you talk to the the The lone girl elf. Oh, no, they guess there's a couple never Yeah, yeah when you talk to the the girl at the first elf you meet the girl outside the like Santa Claus' castle? yeah um he's like yeah Yeah, she's like a ticket. What do you think her job is? Security guard? I don't know, it's hard to say. She stands there and tells you ah that there's a magical barrier to stop you from going into the castle. That's her old job. um She has the same voice, just even higher pitched up. Okay, okay. Yeah, wow.
02:40:20
Speaker
Um, that's wild. That's a great job, honestly. Yeah. Yeah, I'm impressed. Uh, yeah, I. I think it's, again, it can be hard to talk about it. It's just like a good game. There also oh there is a couple of things like there's a slider puzzle in it, which might bump some people out, but it's not that bad of one. It's not that hard. Yeah. It's not that hard. So I forgave it because I am the queen of disliking slider puzzles. I hate them. Sure.
02:40:53
Speaker
sure But this one was a bad, I'll let it slide. I'll let it slide! There is a straight up deduction logic puzzle in it where you have to yeah retrieve something from an archive and you know that you know a couple codes.
02:41:12
Speaker
to get the thing from the archive and you have like a chart and you have to basically figure out, um it's very simple deduction puzzle, but like admit I appreciate it. I mean, I am a big ARG guy, so like that, like you show you show me a bunch of symbols and then tell me to solve a thing and I'm immediately like cracking my knuckles. I'm like, all right, let's dig into the source code of the game. Let me make sure there's nothing hidden in here.
02:41:39
Speaker
everything in the game with a barcode scanner and let's see if anything pops up. I really liked tricking the golf guy into thinking that I was some kind of amazing golfer. That's really funny. We also may have ruined his life, like just a tiny, just a little tiny bit. We did steal his glasses. We stole his glasses and his expensive golf club, but we gave it back. No, we gave it back. We gave back the golf club because he felt bad about it.
02:42:04
Speaker
I also like very much that they introduce a magic golf club that would solve all of our problems and they literally quite literally hang it on the wall in the first act. Yeah. they And then it does not get fired at any point. You never get it. You never get to touch it. And I that is that is Very funny. I also also I like the fact that it has one of those LucasArts games always ended in kind of like a boss battle. Yeah. Yeah. The game ends in a in a in a point and click puzzley boss battle that also is really good. Everything like I don't want to give too much away to people here because I think they should go play it. Yeah, I agree.
02:42:47
Speaker
Matt, in the ah golf store, did you find that very Space Questy? Because I did. I could not think of Space Quest 4. There's like a clothing fashion store. Oh, yeah. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, it's I was like, oh, I feel very eve Space Quest-y right now. Right, and it's got that Space Quest thing of like, here's a commercial Earth thing that's just out in the middle of space for some reason, right? Yeah. um Okay, well, do you guys have anything else to say about Azazel's Christmas fable before we wrap but it up? I'm trying to think. I don't think so. I was just surprised by it, pleasantly.
02:43:27
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Very much. Yeah. yeah i just And I hope people play it. ah Yeah. Like you said, Matt, some people ah you know celebrate a little after Christmas because, you know, time is a construct. Who cares when you celebrate? Definitely give it a play. I think it's cute. And if you like 90s point and clicks, I think you'll appreciate it.
02:43:46
Speaker
Absolutely. i think so too I really cute is the word I would use and I appreciate that it like I appreciate it was a very it was a it was a fun ah homage to that style of a very like big big LucasArts 90s energy but like it also was really just like a cute story that like hit the the writing was good really pleased with the entire experience.
02:44:10
Speaker
And I'll say cute without being saccharin. Yeah. Yeah. that kind of It's not that specific kind of syrupy cute. It's just pleasant. it's Yeah. Cute in a way that feels like it's respecting, like, you like regardless of your age, respecting you as the viewer. Cause I feel like sometimes if a thing sets out to be cute, it can kind of come across as like a little condescending. yeah Sometimes people who try to write like all ages, entertainment come across as like a little dismissive of their audience. But like this felt like regardless of your age, you would get like a kick out of it.
02:44:43
Speaker
I also think it is, I didn't even realize that. It is pretty much all ages, right? Even yeah so the adult jokes are just like somebody gets drunk. And like the like the the the hell jokes like are pretty predicated on like, yeah I'm gonna be mean and tickled. Like it's a lot of like tickling is like torture. I guess you do poison a gingerbread man and ah as a result of that, he gets sent to hell.
02:45:10
Speaker
but he gets sent to hell because when he wakes up, he hits, once he's hit his toe or something and says the J word. Well, it's the J word. That's what he just says. I said the J word because he says, Oh, specifically. Well, I think they gesture towards it because I believe he then follows that up by saying he says it in vain. So I think the implication is that he is in this world. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is still to be honored.
02:45:38
Speaker
ah Oh gosh. Because immediately Azazel says, what, jelly beans? And so I thought they were just kind of intimating at like, oh, a random word. I may have read too much into it and been like, oh wow, he really he dishonored the savior.
02:46:00
Speaker
That is wonderful. All right, so Jeff.
Jeff Stormer's Eggnog Expertise
02:46:05
Speaker
In addition to your new book, The Ultimate Fantasy Character Creator, yep and your hit award-winning podcast, Party of One, correct you also do a yearly podcast. ah The world's leading and as far as I could tell, oh.
02:46:27
Speaker
ah podcast about eggnog I do I've got a glass of eggnog right here which is why I'm getting I'm just getting a little bit more silly as we go on guys I have two glasses of eggnog here I had a non-alcoholic one that was filled to the brim of some upstate Eggnog, an upstate holiday nog because they have three types. They have premium. They have classic and they have holiday. Great. They are literally all different. I've like I've like ah studied the agree. And then and then I had an Evan Williams eggnog. Evan Williams is pretty good. That's a pretty solid having had. Here's so the problem here. I I talked about this on blue ski the other day.
02:47:14
Speaker
The problem that I've run into, I guess I should give the premise of the thing. So yeah I host a yearly podcast called Talking Nog, which is a podcast about all things eggnog. We answer listener questions. We look at listener photos. We share stories and celebrate. It's a yearly tradition honoring a yearly tradition. The problem is this start this bit started was a joke about like, I don't know enough. of I don't know anything about eggnog and I'm going to pretend to be an expert on this subject.
02:47:45
Speaker
The problem is that I've been doing it for five years now. Holy shit. And now I actually know a lot about egg. Like I've learned a lot about eggnog and this has at some point stopped being a bit. Yeah. I love that. I love it when you like kind of jokingly do something for just for novel's sake and then it's like, oh, actually this is quite interesting. I want to keep doing it for five years.
02:48:10
Speaker
I've gotten enough questions about like commercially available brands of eggnog that I've tried a lot of them and I can actually give informed recommendations and like, I'm now grappling with this knowledge about myself. Okay. Worst brand of eggnog. I'm going to give a category because I think it is kind of true largely across the board. And this is a thing that has come up, I think on every single episode, someone has asked about this and I've done a lot of research about it. ah Every single store bought vegan eggnog ah is trash. They're all bad. yeah If you want a vegan eggnog, if you want a non-dairy vegan eggnog, you have to make it yourself. There are recipes that are, there are recipes I've had that are genuinely incredible and delicious.
02:49:03
Speaker
All of the store brand holiday nogs ah are all every single one of them is bad. Right. All of the like all of the like this one uses rice and this one's like rice water based or this one uses soy milk and they're all bad because they all like sub in the cream for whatever like non dairy milk. But they all end up super watery. And so it tastes like you're drinking eggnog water and they're foul.
02:49:32
Speaker
ah ah No, no. Oh man, I've had, you know, I will say there is a non-dairy eggnog I've had that is store bought, that is good. And that is, hold on, I have it here on my nog log that I keep every year. Sure. It's just, you got guess you gotta be keeping a nog log, frankly. It's not vegan, but it is non-dairy. It's the lactaid nog. Oh yeah, the lactaid. That makes sense though, because like there's so many good ways to to replace dairy these days. It's a little harder to replace egg, you know? Yeah. And like a I've had several very delicious like homemade vegan like ah eggless nog varieties. like a My dear friend Liz makes one that uses that like subs in aquafaba as the thickening element. Oh, wow. Okay.
02:50:22
Speaker
Uh, that one worked really well. Um, I've had some that like, I've read some recipes and I've tried it and they've been delicious where they recommend like using a crushed up date syrup. Oh, so as like a thickened, like a syrup to kind of like provide a thickening element to something like a, like a soy milk or an oat milk or something to kind of sure thicken it into that eggy consistency. But like the problem is none of the store brand varieties do that. And so they all come out so thin that it's like undrinkable.
02:50:53
Speaker
You do know a lot about, I know so much about this. I think it haunts me last year. I'm excited because I want to know what the best one is because I'm going to write it down. I love eggnog myself. So I am stoked to hear what you think. That's commercially available. Yeah. Obviously. Yeah.
02:51:11
Speaker
I am biased because it is ah local and I know that it is not available in all places. I know what he's going to say. But Penn Dutch eggnog is every time I did not know you were going to say that. Okay, wait, that's the alcoholic one. Yes, I did know otherwise Matt you knows otherwise Matt you do know exactly what I'm about to say it' the Wawa eggnog Wawa eggnog hits great and turkey hill eggnog also very good But Wawa eggnog you get the little you get the little thing. It's next to the strawberry milk so good grab that Drink it on its own add a little bit of alcohol if you choose Wawa eggnog hits every time If you go into a good Wawa, right, everybody knows there's like, the the there's Wawa's around, and then there's the good Wawa. You go to the good Wawa, the week of Christmas, somebody has dropped that eggnog into the into the coffee creamer section. that's One of the employees has dropped an eggnog into there. If you go to the good Wawa. That's, and that's where, it's I mean, that's where it's at. like
02:52:19
Speaker
um Well, that doesn't help me at all. I can't. I live in Chicago. I can't go to Wawa. Evan Williams isn't bad. And I think that one is pretty good. It's very strong and alcoholic. I don't like alcoholic eggnog. OK, right we're going to figure this out. I would say Nellie's.
02:52:39
Speaker
Nellie's is a good non-alcoholic. The one that i the one that the general recommendation and this is here's my I think recommendation in general. This is my generalized advice. Okay. um I am going to point you towards maybe not a brand but like a signifier I think of like what's going to get you good store bought eggnog. Carton not jug.
02:53:07
Speaker
Yeah, like yeah every grocery store is going to have like six different varieties of gallon jug eggnog and like that's going to be ah mass produced. It's going to be sickly sweet. It's not going to hit if you can find whatever like local brand. I don't know what the local like milk brand or whatever in your area, Chicago. Yeah. Yeah. Do they have United Dairy Farmers in Chicago? Well, is that like an Ohio thing? It does not sound familiar. Okay. I'll say this. a glad If you can find like a local farm that does eggnog and a glass jug, yeah that's gonna and be your number one. but That's gonna hit like nothing.
02:53:47
Speaker
And then, yeah, I agree. The carton eggnog. Yeah. Nellie's, you got Southern comfort, which is great. It's a little, a little on the sweet side, but like, but but like on its own, it's good. You can also, if you, you know, high fructose corn syrup in it, but it's very spicy, which I like. They add a lot of that spice because they're trying to simulate the taste of the whiskey with just the spices. So it has a lot of that and it's good. So Co is probably if I were like in a chain store.
02:54:17
Speaker
If I were in a Target and I was just like looking and I was like, I'm going to grab egg dog. I'm going to a holiday party. I'd probably grab the SoCo before anything else. Yeah, honestly, that's helpful. Now, I ah mentioned this earlier in this podcast, the two and a half hours ago in this podcast. But worst eggnog of all time and my estimation, and I think I left you a Facebook comment about this last year, the moment I tried it and had to spit it out and then dump the rest down the drain, is Bolt House Farms, the smoothie company, make fine smoothies. They make a holiday nog. I'm so upset at the knowledge that a smoothie company is in the eggnog game, and I'm so upset that I'm going to go out and find them. I complained about it on Instagram last year. I was so mad. Like I went to their Instagram and I was like, how can you possibly make this? I was that angry with how bad this did take because it was like, there's nobody that drank this in the factory either period or there's nobody that drank this and knew that they should let it out the door. And but they like did it anyway. Well, here's the the the the the night. Here's my the two aspects that of how my life has become hell.
02:55:36
Speaker
There's two specific ways in which my life has been ruined by making this podcast. One of them I have not been able to find, but I know I'm going to run into it one day and I'm going to have to get it and I'm going to have to drink it. I know that it's coming. When I tell you, I'm going to ask you this and you might actually get it. If I were to ask you a candy brand.
02:55:59
Speaker
to make the worst candy brand to possibly make a branded eggnog. It's tied to it being also a bad candy. Is it Necco? It is not Necco. Okay. Similar, similar flavor profile on account of it's chalky and still and stale and bad. Oh my God.
02:56:19
Speaker
what i has i'll say I'll say this, it's it's weird that they're making this, they're trying to zero in on Christmas because they've already unfortunately cornered Easter. what ah what i tell you you and You want me to say it? Yeah, please. Peeps eggnog. No! Of course they would though. Of course they would.
02:56:42
Speaker
Peeps eggnog, like, evades me because i have I have to get it out of my life. I need to have it once. I need to have it over with. There are people that think, like, already Peeps is evil because there are people that think that's what's marshmallows is. yeah There's people that do use Peeps as, like, for their s'mores and put Peeps in hot chocolate. There's people that, for thems, marshmallows is Peeps.
02:57:07
Speaker
And that sucks. Can you imagine your only experience with marshmallows being peeps? And then- That's not even possible. Right. And then moving on to having your experience with eggnog being peeps. Well, but here's the way here's the other way that my life has become hell. And I truly mean this. When I tell you that I start getting people asking me around September, if I will drink,
02:57:33
Speaker
whatever the latest eggnog joke monstrosity is oh yeah every year. So when I tell you that Hidden Valley Ranch Nog ah ruined my like ruined my Christmas god damn it and it it doubly ruined my Christmas because I like had to.
02:57:52
Speaker
I tweeted about this. Back when Twitter existed, I tweeted about this. And the Hidden Rally Vantage people, I'm bringing this beef into the public. They reached out to me and were like, we would love to send you ah some Hidden Valley Ranch Nog. And then they ghosted me. They did not send me Ranch Nog.
02:58:12
Speaker
Wow, Hidden Valley. We've got some people going on now. So I had to wait until it it was out in the world, find the recipe and like recreate it.
02:58:23
Speaker
And okay the even worse part, I got my hopes up because I read the recipe and I could follow the logic of it. um And so we're like, Oh, this might taste good. I was like, this might, because like, there were a few key things where like they, the recipe very specifically was like, it's going to use the, the ranch dressing, uh, seasoning packet. Okay. And I was like, okay, so we're just kind of using the, the herbs and spices. And then it was like, and we're pairing it, not with something like a rum or a whiskey, but with a mezcal, because it's going to have like a saltier, smokier flavor. That's going to pair nicely with kind of the dill and some of the the other seasons. its still
02:59:01
Speaker
OK. And I was like, OK, sure. I'm seeing the logic here. And then they were like, and you're going to add cream, but if you're not adding sugar to it, so it's going to be creamy, it's going to be spicy, it's going to be a little smoky. And I was like, OK, all right. You're actually winning me over a little bit. I almost see the logic of this. Yeah. It was genuinely a pretty good barbecue sauce. Ew! Oh, no!
02:59:28
Speaker
I took a drink and I was like, yeah, okay. If I were to like marinate a chicken breast in this, I would maybe have a pretty good chicken leg tomorrow. Oh no, I hate it. I can see on a very vague level, right? Like the the way you would, you the way you make ranch dressing and the way that you make eggs. I see the logic.
02:59:46
Speaker
I see the lot. I get cream. You get eggs. You get spices. That's a like but you're just trying to you're trying to basic. You're really trying to account for the deal like more than anything. You're trying to make an eggnog where you can account for the flavor of dill. One last nod question. Yes. Best alcohol to be in a nog.
03:00:07
Speaker
Jen, my wife uses bourbon in hers and it comes out really nicely. Uh, like a nice spiced whiskey also works really well. If you like sweeter, like a spiced rum is also a really good choice. So this was a segment we did like one, one of the, one of the previous talking dogs where I like, I got, I went into the lab.
03:00:28
Speaker
where we made a batch of non-alcoholic eggnog and just spiked it with like all of the different like popular commercially available liquors to just see what happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tequila, surprisingly good, brings out some of that like ah creaminess and sweetness in an interesting way. Vodka was fine. It just kind of tasted like you watered down the cream element. Yeah, yucky. The only one that was truly bad was the the scotch nog didn't work. Yes.
03:00:57
Speaker
That one was bad gin better than expected In part because like it had that juniper piney flavor and I was like yeah it had it It had a Christmasy taste to it. That wasn't what was expected weirdly weirdly similar to tequila ah Like sake also worked pretty nicely that's strange too Couldn't explain it, but like it kind of added ah that little bit of like um sharpness or crispness or like brightness. But so you lean whiskey over rum, it sounds like. Primarily because I think like the the nog itself like already has so much sugar and sweet in it that I think sometimes not the rum, unless you're going for like specifically like a very dark kind of Jamaican rum, make it too sweet to really like make it into like a sipping drink throughout the day.
03:01:48
Speaker
Okay, well that's some great Nog advice from our friend Jeff Stormer, host of Talking Nog. Talking Nog. And the party of one podcast and author of the now available book, maybe, no not available, boot available. Now available for pre-orders depending on when this comes out, possibly available in stores, depending on when you listen. The ultimate fantasy character creator Jeff Storm, thank you so much for coming and visiting us in the Christmas cabin. Of course, of course. Thank you for playing the game as well. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I really did. I enjoyed it. This was a wonderful conversation. If you excuse me, I'm going to jump out of this window. Oh, OK. Oh, no. Oh, God. Oh, it's my name. Oh, God. Oh, he's fine. Just close the window. It's fine. yeah Could you close? Yeah, could we just close that? and Thank you.
03:02:51
Speaker
Well, Matt, I think that, yeah, I think we've had a really great Christmas, and thank you for spending time with me and playing games with me, because you know what Christmas is about? Video games. No, it's about, well...
03:03:06
Speaker
No, ah it's about harassing your friends. Oh, you're right. It is. Showing up unexpectedly at your friend's cabin while they're in a sexy Santa outfit, which nobody questioned me on, by the way. That shows what people think about me, I'm just saying. And talking eggnog and playing video games. Just thank you, Matt. Thank you for being here. And and being my co-host, I actually am very much looking forward to just jumping right into the new year with our show.
03:03:36
Speaker
Me too, thank you, Roses, for you know this amazing first, we're not quite at a year yet, but this is the first year of our show coming to a close, and i yeah, it's been ah it's been a really fun time, and thank you for playing these Christmas games with me, even though most of them were bad. And it still had a fun time and hosting all our friends here at this trans-dimensional Christmas cabin.
03:04:03
Speaker
um All right, you ready to ah drink the wassail bowl with me?
Reflections on Christmas Gaming
03:04:08
Speaker
Okay, do we have to? By the way, yes we do. By the way, we are part of Adventure Game Hotspot Network. Check them out, adventuregamehotspot.com, where they will have a, you know, by now, or very soon, there should be their their Games of the Year kind of wrap-up going up, which I ah did some write-ups for. And yeah, email us, mattandroses, at ah gmail dot.com, and it'll, you know,
03:04:34
Speaker
Send us a nice Christmas greeting or holiday to celebrate another holiday. Let us know what other holidays you celebrate. say hi Or just say hi. Send us a picture of your Christmas tree or your menorah. Or you could tell us how much you liked the Christmas version of our theme song and we'll pass that along to our very talented friend who played that piano part for us. um All right, so ah you got your cup of wassail.
03:05:02
Speaker
Yeah, I have my coffee here too as a chaser. Okay, well, we might not get to our chasers, this might kill us, so. Okay, I'm ready. Bottoms up! All right.
03:05:15
Speaker
Oh god! Oh, oh ah let's it's worse than the bananas foster mocha latte that I had the last episode. And the podcast is art to all. To all a good night.
03:05:35
Speaker
and suffer