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Episode 33 - Fran Bow
1.7k Plays1 month ago
Spooky Month takes a turn for the sad as we tackle a game about trauma, growing up, mental illness, and murder. Matt and Roses do a deep dive into Fran Bow. We also talk about some upcoming episodes and... a BOOK?! What are we, frickin nerds?
Email us! [email protected]
Games Mentioned:
- Phantom Fellows
- Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo
- The Ghost Stories of M.R. James (A BOOK, NOT A GAME)
- Fran Bow
- Banjo Kazooey
- Moons of Madness
- Dreamfall Chapters
- The Art of Murder: Cards of Destiny
- Mystery of the Nautilus
- Phantasmagoria
Recommended
Transcript
Political Debates and Alternatives
00:00:00
Speaker
So we're recording this episode just before the Tim Walz JD Vance debate. I know I'm getting texts about it like incessantly. So it's got me thinking about.
00:00:14
Speaker
debates and how like like the idea about them is like, oh, the these this is where the ideas of the candidates square off. And the the nation gets to choose whose ideas they liked better. But that doesn't that's not what it is, right right? It is just two grown human beings fighting fighting and or lying.
00:00:37
Speaker
one one one or the other or both. yeah And trying to say the most meme-able thing, right? Like that's how you win a debate these days, is you just say a thing that's meme-able. And yeah there's a bunch of people in the audience who pretend to be undecided voters, because that doesn't, that's a fictional creature.
00:00:55
Speaker
but So i I've been wondering, I wonder if you think there's like, there's no competition between two candidates, right? That could sway you one or the other. Not in this specific election, but in any Republican versus Democratic. Probably not. Yeah, you would know before it happens. It kind of reminds me of the Ken Ham and Bill Nye debate.
00:01:20
Speaker
where I feel like nobody was really swayed either way. You know what I mean? Like they debated, they each gave their sides and I don't think it did anything. I'm just like, all right, well that happened. So what would be more interesting to watch, right? Like if, okay, these people want to compete, they want to pretend like they're winning votes or failing to win votes, right? Like they want to pretend this thing's going on when we all really know it's not. Right. So,
00:01:50
Speaker
What would we rather see? Like, what would we rather see Tim Walz and JD Vance do it? Go to a donut shop? Face it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I still think it should be some sort of competition. But like, do we want to see our political opponents, like political candidates, do we want to see them fist fight? Do we want to see them? Yeah, I do. Do we want to see them play Mario Kart against each other? Do we want to see them like,
00:02:17
Speaker
ah like Lately, I've been thinking of like competitive Sporkel quizzes. like Imagine Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Do you like a Sporkel quiz? Each sitting down to different Sporkel quizzes, like just like one of those grab bags about, like yeah it'll be like, these are my favorite ones, where it's like the A quiz, and it's like, name ah all the things in this category that begin with A, and it'll be like countries, elements, capitals, Shakespeare plays, right?
00:02:43
Speaker
it tests your general knowledge of the world. Imagine Kamala Harris and Donald Trump both sitting down to the A quiz. I would watch it. And there's at that point, there is no saying.
00:03:01
Speaker
Oh, this is rigged. Oh, this is skewed against me. you're It's like Donald Trump, you could not think of the name. ah You did not know that a country named Armenia existed. You did not know.
00:03:16
Speaker
that arsenic was a cat was a was a was a was an element. right like You did not know the Shakespeare play, Antony and Cleopatra. You can't pretend. like but right like think though We would see it. We would see what they're typing in. It'd be split screen.
00:03:32
Speaker
But what if you're a bad tester? Because I think that I think that is a thing that happens. Like what if you're just it's it's an actual phenomenon. What if you're a bad tester? You know, what if you fail the sporkle quiz? Right. That's an interesting. But then again, what if you're a bad debater? Right. So that's another thing. Like people they get trained to debate. Right. So they can't know what the sporkle quiz is ahead of time. Like the one. OK. Yeah. Like, OK. They do like 10 in a row. Right. Yeah.
00:04:00
Speaker
And so one time it might be like, name on 151 Pokemon. And i like JD Vance would cream Tim Wals in that, unfortunately, right? like he'd just He'd just be like, go through his mental pornography with all the decks and he'd be like, okay.
00:04:22
Speaker
Uh, and Tim Watson would be like, uh, my son told me about Charizard and he'd get one.
00:04:28
Speaker
um But and like, and that would be fucking hilarious if it was like name on the street, street fighter characters. And Donald Trump just named all of them. Just like in 10 seconds, Kamala Harris is like, Zangief. Zangief. Oh man, ah the stretchy guy, I don't know. It's like, can't time up. And then you look over at Donald Trump's name to all of them. What does prove?
00:04:53
Speaker
i I don't know, but that's that's funny. Like that would be so much more. What does the debate prove these days, right? Like that would be so much more fun. That'd be so fun. ah Should we pivot? Should we just do Sporkel quiz debate things from now on? Only if we can get really famous people to humiliate themselves.
Introduction and Social Interactions
00:05:15
Speaker
that That would be the best. And just watching a normal person do a sparkle quiz, not that fun. But again, watching fucking Joe Biden. and daughter Try really hard. and down and or Or oh my God, in like the primaries, watching.
00:05:32
Speaker
And some people who are good political candidates, like Bernie Sanders is not gonna do good on like, i you know. Name a video game, just one, Bernie. Just one, you could do it. Right, right, or like the best, the all the Oscar winner, like every Oscar winner of all time, he's gonna be like, ah Titanic in the fourth. Titanic. That's all I got. And then, It's rather dumb, you know, from New York. That would be one where Donald Trump would probably kick ass though, right? Like, honestly, like, he probably would be like...
00:06:09
Speaker
he'd probably he would probably just destroy anybody in like ah in in that kind of quiz. Like an entertainment quiz? Yeah, and then you'd give him, because that's he's obsessed with celebrity, right? but they yeah give him But then you'd be like, okay, name the flags of the world. And Kamala Harris is just there, just like typing, typing, typing. And Donald Trump is there like ah like pretending that his fingers are cramped. Like, I can't, this keyboard's not working.
00:06:37
Speaker
I don't have a Trump impression. That's for the better. So what you're saying is you want to show down with me on a Sporkle quiz. Only if we're both running for office. I am. What office? Mine. My office. So if I'm running for 2024 pushing up roses, hu like I'm trying to to become you.
00:07:04
Speaker
then we face off in a sporkle quiz. Okay, I'm writing that down and we're gonna and next year, as I'm running for, quote, my office, we'll throw down, we'll have a sporkle debate quiz. Okay.
00:07:20
Speaker
i i'm ah' ah so I'll start prepping now. you Cue the Rocky music. Me running up and down the steps of the art museum with two keyboards in either hand.
00:07:36
Speaker
yeah You're gonna have to be good, yeah, at art and adventure games at the same time. It'll be like the fragrance quiz and I'll be like, no! No!
00:08:14
Speaker
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Save Your Game. I'm your host, PushingUpRoses. And there's another host to this show in case you didn't know. He's, like, frightened and powering. Ah! It's Matt Aucamp. Hi, Matt. Hey, everybody. I'm also the host of the show. ah how's How's everybody doing out there in podcast land? Let's give him a second to answer.
00:08:39
Speaker
That's, you know what, I'm glad to hear it, guys. Those were great answers. What, no, you can't, what if they say, okay, those are great answers is a good response. I'm yeah glad to hear it. What if one of them's like, oh, ah my whole family just died in a plane crash? And you're like, oh, I'm glad Those are good answers. Good answers is a good one. yes Yeah. Imagine if you said to somebody, hey, how are you doing? And then the they're like, um my ah cat and dog just killed each other. And you're like, oh, that's
00:09:19
Speaker
I feel it, you know what, the better answer would be like, all right, witnessed, understood and witnessed. hurt Heard, heard, heard, heard. Heard, heard, yeah. I hear you. ah Happy spooky month, happy spooky month to you, Matt. That's valid. That's valid, that's valid, we hear you. hear Yeah, happy spooky month to you. We are now, me and you are now, temporally, in spooky month.
00:09:46
Speaker
Yes, it is October 1st. Wow, look at that. we are We are recording on a good day. I like that. Of course, this means absolutely nothing to me. um The Spooky Month is just a month where everybody else gets to celebrate with me.
Spooky Month Activities and Fragrances
00:10:01
Speaker
They catch up. yeah They just catch up. This is who I am all year round. This is just in the intensified versions. Pushing up roses 2.0. People start saying to you, oh, nice costume rather than why are you wearing a costume?
00:10:17
Speaker
Why did you come to the party wearing that? It's like that meme. Yeah, no, it's great. I love Spooky Month because everybody else gets to enjoy what I enjoy pretty much all the time. And that's nice. I welcome it. I welcome all my spooky kin. Welcome in. Welcome in. That's what she said. Sorry. It's not going to get old. Every time. Every time. It's not going to get old.
00:10:47
Speaker
How are you enjoying the first 20 hours of your spooky month? Well, I slept. Okay. um I did a painting, turned out pretty good, I think. I bought a new quest because my first gen quest was dumb and broken. ah i I bought a new fragrance. Have I talked about this? Have I told the masses about my fragrance era? I don't know. Do you want to talk about it now?
00:11:14
Speaker
No. Okay. Real quick guys. I'm really into aromatherapy right now. I've always, I always have been, but it's kind of pivoted into like liquid fragrances. So I've been trying a lot of different perfumes and I just got a new one today and it's terrible and I hate it. Oh good. It smells like sour milk. Okay. Uh, why would they, why would they do that?
00:11:37
Speaker
I don't think it's supposed to. Oh, OK. Or listen, here's the thing, though. Here's the thing. awesome Because then why would you have bought something that said yeah sour milk? yeah I think with a lot of fragrances, it works with your body chemistry. So unfortunately, this particular it's just a sample. I don't buy full. I'm not made of money over here, people. I'm made of 50 squirrels in a trench coat. um So I just buy samples.
00:12:06
Speaker
until I can figure out like what kind of scents I like. But your body chemistry is going to dictate how that smells on you. And this particular scent smells like sour milk on me. I don't know what that says about me. I don't know. You found me in person. Do I smell good?
00:12:24
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, I do. Here's the thing. I don't remember what you smelled like. So clearly that is a good sign. Right. Honestly, I wasn't into my scent era at that point. But the next the next time you see me, I'll have been fully engulfed. So if I don't remember your scent at that point, you're going to be fucking pissed. Yeah, I'll probably be. I'll be sad. Probably. I won't be pissed for I'll be like, oh, I thought I thought this this scent profile was Really nice. But then again, I'm not a scent guy. I do not like the smell of scent. I like the smell of of ah living in the world way more than I like the smell of a candle or a perfume. Fine. I'll bring a grass scented perfume.
00:13:12
Speaker
Is that what you want? Yeah, that's all I've ever wanted, is somebody
Game Reviews and Recommendations
00:13:18
Speaker
to be near me wearing a grass scented perfume. No, it would smell horrible. I like the smell of actual smell. If somebody wants to smell like strawberries, I would much rather they rub strawberries all over themselves. But who's the makeup guy? They would like a strawberry perfume.
00:13:34
Speaker
Listen, we're like of a generation where perfumes that we grew up with that are that are parents sprayed or grandparents. Those are very outdated and like old smelling now and mature. They have sense that are like photo realistic like strawberry, like you did put a strawberry on you or like photo realistic like croissant. I could smell like bread if you wanted me to. I don't want you to.
00:14:00
Speaker
Well, I'm just saying. I mean, OK, OK, let's say this. I don't care what you smell. You can smell like well, I don't have actually a a preference about your smell. You can smell however you want to smell in the world. I know literal skin off the inside of my nose, but but. ah I don't have any particular.
00:14:27
Speaker
desire to smell some scent smiths. The idea of what of what bread smells like made out of a chemicals. Listen, here's the problem with me and there's a lot, but here's the burden. Okay, hold on. All right, everybody, this is gonna be a very long podcast. Hey! Okay, no, what's the, okay, let me hear. Bean, so the problem with me is that I am overly defiant for my own good. So the more that you say you don't like sense, the more I'm gonna spray some on and force you to be like, what do you think of this one? What do you smell from this one? What does it smell like, Matt? What does it smell like? We never, we've met in person one time. So you were just doing this hours and hours away from me. Just out of like this.
00:15:28
Speaker
impotent spite, right? yeah yeah like Like, I'm wearing 19 perfumes right now. i' i mean I'm in Pennsylvania, Rose. I can't smell you. And you're like, okay, I'll put on another one. I'll put on another one. And again, I still smell like sour milk. That'd be terrible. That's just all the sour milk you eat. I don't drink milk at all. So that it's strange, right? No, you eat it. You eat it once it gets chunky and sour.
00:15:59
Speaker
Really gross. That's very disgusting. And now all I can smell is that. Thanks a lot. I gotta go I gotta go put on a perfume. Okay. So have you been playing anything lately?
00:16:13
Speaker
Yes, ah and i'll just I'll talk very briefly about those things because they're gonna go into other things. ah So I started Phantom Fellows and I i love it so far. I am gonna be doing a review on it. ah So that being said, I'm not gonna talk too much about it. I did talk about the demo a couple episodes back and our last guest was ah Paul from Phantom Fellows, the dev for Phantom Fellows. So you guys can listen to that.
00:16:41
Speaker
But I am liking it so far, i like the vibe. It's very cozy. And then I've also been playing upon some random guy's suggestion. I say random guy in that tone. I mean, Matt, paranormal insight, the seven mysteries of Hanjo, which I couldn't even find because he called it like you called it like the 13. I couldn't remember it was called. So we were having a phone call about like what we were going to do for spooky month and we were pitching back and forth like spooky games.
00:17:10
Speaker
And I was like, oh, there's this visual novel I've been wanting to play for a while. Oh, God, I don't remember. It's like the seven. It's like the 13. It's like the 12. It's like the 10. It's like some amount of ghosts of like a name. Honta. Like I was just like making shit up.
00:17:30
Speaker
And I forgot about, and it's so funny that you called it paranormal sight because nice i that seems yeah that seems like the parody of just like some guy who's like, yeah, I could see pretty well.
00:17:44
Speaker
um But paranormal, I forgot the word paranormal sight, which ah arguably is the most functional word. the title Yeah, yeah. That's like the, that's like the trademark of the day and, uh, got the number wrong. And I thought it was mysteries and instead of ghosts. And anyway, and then you're like, will you like look for it real quick? I'm like, all right. Are you on a computer? Will you look for, okay. I found nothing. And then I kept looking for it off call. And I'm like, there's nothing. I bet you saw this right. Right. Cause I was like, look, I probably did a popular, um,
00:18:24
Speaker
Like it's like got an anime theme, it's like look up popular or like spooky visual novels and you probably yeah were looking at it and you were like, well, this definitely isn't it? Cause it doesn't say any of the words that Matt said.
00:18:40
Speaker
But eventually you got back to me. And I was like, oh, it says, hey, sorry, it's this totally other thing. And my immediate reaction is like, wait a minute, back up. How did you manifest the 13 mysteries of ghosts or whatever? But anyway, yeah once we did find it, I did sit down and I played it. I played it in full, actually. I kind of binged it almost um because we will be covering it. You're not a big um ah visual novel person either.
00:19:12
Speaker
No, and not necessarily because I don't like them. They're not something I gravitate towards naturally because I just don't have the time for them. But I do, but when I play them, I do very much ah enjoy them from time to time. So I'm always open to to playing one. It just is a time commitment. It's a it's a brain commitment, you know, because you are getting a story. And this is by Square Enix, formerly Squaresoft. And so I just want you guys to imagine a horror themed final fantasy in visual novel form. And that's what you get. And we will be talking about this later and spooky month because it is scary. It is horror. um But I'm mad at it. And I'm never going to forgive Matt for suggesting it. This happens with so many things that I suggest to you. That's true. and There's probably a lot. You could probably like do a text search for I'm mad at you.
00:20:08
Speaker
A couple of like 50 times on my end. And it'll be like three days before we record any episode. but ah that but I do want to say I did enjoy it. Sometimes you can recommend a game and then you're still mad at me that you had to play it. And then I'm still mad. I'm like, wow, why did I do this? You're like, I'm mad at you. I'm like, you, you. I'm a little mad at today's suggestion if I'm Frank and it was mine.
00:20:36
Speaker
yeah see See, guys, I told you, this is the problem with me in that there's a lot. There's a lot of problems with all of us. yeah But I do want to make it clear I did enjoy that game. And I do look forward to discussing it with you on the pod. um And I'm trying to decide if side of if a bad ending or a bad experience with an ending, how much that colors my enjoyment or perception of what I had just experienced. I'm like really kind of thinking about that.
00:21:06
Speaker
Interesting. Okay. What have you been playing? Well, so I also, I started paranormal site. Um, and again, we'll talk about it on the show. I did start it. The one thing I'll say is I, uh, the very beginning of the game is very scary. Yeah. I started it intentionally.
00:21:23
Speaker
in bed, in pitch black, yeah in the middle of the night, all by myself, with the volume up. And it was it was like an endurance test, right? Like I kept thinking, like i got I gotta to turn a light on. i got No, I'm gonna power through. It was very, very scary. Yeah, that first that first section is very frightening. I played a very just the very beginning of Phantom Fellows. So I don't have much to say about it besides the fact that if you enjoyed Paul on our last episode, go get Phantom Fellows. It is in his voice, in time like it is his voice is all over this thing. ah it it It is as if it came wholly formed out of his brain. Like the dialogue, yeah, you could you could i can um I can imagine him saying every line. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's those those are the best forms of art. Yeah, where just nobody could have made this but Paul. Yeah, exactly. and And yeah, I will have a review on that and I will let you guys know when that is up if you want further opinions on Phantom Fellows and
Exploring Fran Bow's Themes and Story
00:22:27
Speaker
critique. And I'm sure I'll talk about it on the show as I get deeper into it. But ah really, so I've had a busy school
00:22:35
Speaker
like two weeks and some personal life stuff, too. So I haven't been playing a lot of game I haven't had a lot of time for games besides like games for the show. Yeah. But one thing I've been doing because we're in Spooky Month is and i'll I'll give this as a recommendation. I've been reading a collection of ghost stories by the gothic horror writer, M.R. James. Mm hmm.
00:22:59
Speaker
who wrote in the early 1900s. So this is just a, this is just a collection of his short ghost stories. And it is very good, very scary if you like Gothic horror. um This book is gonna fucking get you. It's got his story, The Mesotint. What's the number 13? Oh, my favorite so far has been Lost Hearts.
00:23:30
Speaker
Ooh, I like the title. That one I also think was the scariest of them. Okay. I'm going to be honest, ghost stories frighten me. We've had we've had deep discussion about this. ah Yeah, ghost stories very much frighten me. um I love them. Like all the and all my favorite episodes of Unsolved Mysteries are the paranormal like ghost story ones. But because I have like a belief in that or at least an openness to it. I don't know what I believe in man. But I have I have an openness to a lot of things.
00:24:03
Speaker
um kind of witchy in that way. So I have that that ah spiritual weird thing that spooky women tend to have. And because of my kind of openness towards it, it's it does frighten me. Yeah, especially mean ghosts. I prefer friendly ghosts. Put that out there.
00:24:24
Speaker
ah Yeah, this book is basically all mean ghosts. um And I don't believe in ghosts. I don't have much belief in anything of beyond the... I'm not a supernatural believer. I'm not a religious person. I i have no... yeah ah i mean I am a faithless human. But i I have faith in human beings. I have faith in people. Gross.
00:24:49
Speaker
but But I like to give myself really over to, but like if I'm reading a ghost story, if I'm watching a scary movie, I like to really give myself over to it as if I believe it. And I think that makes them much more enjoyable. So anyway, this book is ah the ghost stories of M.R. James, it's the British Library hardback edition. And it doesn't have as many stories as some of the other M.R. James collections, but this edition is fucking beautiful.
00:25:18
Speaker
So. That's awesome. And it's it's got that same sort of, you know, that Gothic, like they're slow burns. It's like um it's like he's telling you a story in a in the drawing room after after a sophisticated dinner. Oh, I love I actually kind of like that. You know, front loads with a ton of details and then the spooky stuff starts um seeping in from the sides. Yeah. Like I really dig that shit. um Yeah. Yeah. So.
00:25:50
Speaker
Anyway, that's instead of games, the the ghost stories of MR James. Nice. I love it. That's perfect for spooky one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's it for me. So today, roses, I believe what we're going to be talking about is the, what when was this game released? 2015. And it was my, it was my game of the year.
00:26:14
Speaker
Oh, shit. Back in the day. So this is the 2015 game ah by Kill Monday games. Fran Bow Fran Bow. Yeah. Revisiting it.
00:26:28
Speaker
made me pretty sad. It is a scare. Don't get me wrong. This is a horror game. And I think what's interesting about horror is that there's a lot of sub genre that you can look into that you can consider horror. um Everything kind of holds hands and in in certain ways. So Frambo is more on the psychological side, um where where I think sad things can become frightening.
00:26:56
Speaker
but there's also just some weird stuff. Yes, there is. Well, we will we will get into it. It is a very bizarre game, um but I think this is gonna be a pretty spoiler heavy edition, so. Yes, it will be, yeah. So if you're interested in playing Fran Bow, to be safe, maybe if you really don't want anything spoiled, you might just wanna go play the game first and then come back to the show. Yeah, I agree.
00:27:22
Speaker
I agree with that, but I'm ready to get into it if you are. Let's do it.
00:27:58
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome back to Save Your Game. I am Matt Aucamp. This is Pushing Up Roses. How's your break? Hi, it's good. I thought a lot. Okay, that's good. That's what I do. i I love to hear that your brain is functioning.
00:28:14
Speaker
I didn't say that. Let's not be silly. So today we're going to be talking about Fran Bow for Spooky Month. And this is like a pretty fucking intense one. It is intense. Yeah. And some like some of it is very scary and some of it is not. How how do we want to start this? When did you first play Fran Bow?
00:28:34
Speaker
I played it the year it came out. I was very excited about it. And I was in talks with the devs, killed Monday. ah Natalia is the main dev and ah where um most of the inspiration and story came from was from her personal experiences growing up. um So she is a big part of the creative process and the story and how this came to be. And they gave me a key for it and I really liked it. I think I streamed it right off the bat.
00:29:04
Speaker
ah maybe not even understanding that there were a few heavy jump scares right and in yeah the beginning of this game. But yeah, I played it in 2015. It was my personal game of the year when I was doing heavy game reviews for YouTube. I really liked it. um it's It's hard to explain the feelings you get out of playing a game like Rambo, because it's it feels trite to say this was fun.
00:29:31
Speaker
Right. ah Because ah it's not necessarily fun in the traditional sense. It's an experience, you know, and it's meaningful. um I found it engaging and thoughtful. I'll say that then. Yeah, I definitely thought I agree, I think it was engaging and thoughtful. I played this a couple years ago and I got through like the first chapter, and got to the second chapter and I like i fell off pretty hard. okay I knew that I had, I knew that there was a lot about it that I enjoyed. and There's something about the pace of like the puzzles um and the progression that I just, I lost my momentum on.
00:30:19
Speaker
Yeah, fair. um And so I was glad to have a reason to go back to it. And I think I was, really I found it way more, I found where this story goes to be very surprising. So why don't we just start out with like, so it starts with you're a little girl, 11 year old girl. 10. So I thought she was 10 for the whole game and then at the end she calls herself 11.
00:30:47
Speaker
I think, I think that maybe a year has gone by. Whoa, you start, that's surprising, but you okay, so you start as a 10 year old girl named Fran and she is in a mental institution in 1944. Yeah. Because she discovered ah both of her parents murdered and chopped up into little pieces, ah fled into the woods with her cat, Mr. Midnight,
00:31:17
Speaker
and then was discovered, you know, brought to an institution where ah things are kind of fucked up. Yes. and and And I think that definitely draws a lot of inspiration from how kids were treated during the war, war times during, you know, when children were institutionalized. I don't know, during that whole chapter, you're in an institution, you probably maybe got the idea that there was some Joseph Mengele ties to that. um
00:31:49
Speaker
So yeah, you as Fran, you are being treated. You know that your parents have died. You don't know how they were murdered and you're being treated two for this trauma. There's a lot of references to trauma and to childhood trauma in the game specifically. But again, these children are being mistreated in the way that they were being mistreated and experimented on in the actual 40s. So there are implications that ah children are being lobotomized and or sewn together, which was something that did happen in the 1940s. And I believe that Fran will also be
00:32:33
Speaker
It is implied that she is also an experiment. She is being treated and and we're going to find out more about that as we go. There's a lot of theory about Frambo and what things mean and if things are actually happening. And we'll dive into that. I'm actually really, really ah interested to know what your interpretation is ah right of every of what happened here. um Because I obviously have my own interpretation.
00:33:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think because so a lot of the stuff that you're saying here is stuff that yeah, ah we don't exactly know at first, you can kind of glean something you glean that something's wrong, right? Because she's telling she's she's talking about how the medicine makes her feel weird, but they make her take it anyway. Yeah, um they actually take it away from her and you have to get it back. Are you talking about the duotene?
00:33:23
Speaker
Yes. So they give her medicine right in the in the first scene. okay And she's like, I don't feel good. She hallucinates. And it's a very gruesome hallucination. The first couple chapters are pretty gruesome. They don't always stay that way. But for like the beginning of the game is extreme. It is extremely gruesome. And so the doctor said, take take the pills away. Don't let her have it again. But you get a message from your cat who is missing.
00:33:52
Speaker
saying that you need to take the pills that will help you see. um Yeah. so that just Just to jump way ahead, and this is spoiler territory, but that that message isn't actually from your, that's not actually your cat, right? Correct. Yes. If you're asking me my opinion, well, it's tough. It's tough. I don't do know. You do meet your cat. like You are chasing down your cat. You do find your cat on this quest, but I don't think it's your cat that's guiding you.
00:34:22
Speaker
Right. Correct. It is. OK. All right. So anyway, so you do glean some things like, OK, you pretty early on in this chapter start to learn that kids are being lobotomized. The sewn together thing you learn a lot later. um But it's happening at this. It is happening at this hospital. um There are two doctors, Dr. Oswald, who you don't know very much about in this first chapter at all. He's like the founder. He's like the head honcho.
00:34:51
Speaker
Right. And then there's Dr. Dern. ah Marcel Dern. Oh yeah, Marcel. The implication from what Fran witnesses is Marcel Dern is evil, right? He's doing something bad to these kids. Right.
00:35:06
Speaker
he is he has trapped you here and something very sinister is going on and Marcel Dern is behind it. And then, so what happens is you get this, ah it's one of these games where you are jumping between realities to solve puzzles. um You have the duotene and when you take it, you get transported to this horrifying other world where everything is ah gory,
00:35:33
Speaker
ah characters that you have just met in the real world. You just see them dead, dismembered, or being tortured by these ah ah black ghosts that you will learn more about throughout the game.
00:35:49
Speaker
um And also you see a white ghost, like a young girl, ah a glowing white girl who just appears randomly and runs out of, like every time you see her, she immediately runs out of the scene. That is a question I still have. I don't know who she was. i Yeah, I think in playing this game, there's always going to be some questions that maybe you're not going to understand. And I would say with a more artistic game like this, in kind of a Twin Peaks way, some of it can be abstract and only symbolic. But I actually also think that a lot of it is to be taken at face value, which is something that a lot of people
00:36:34
Speaker
debate and theorize that you know as you are your main goal is to figure out what happened to your parents and what's actually happening what was happening to you. And where's my cat? yeah yeah And what what what happened here? you know There's been this horrific murder, a horrific crime. What is what is this?
00:36:53
Speaker
um And as you do this, you do go that it's divided into chapters, the game is, and divided into settings in those chapters. Yeah, they're not all scary, actually, but they are all fantastical. Yes. And so how do you interpret that as you're going through these settings? Because they're obviously the one setting is you're in the mental institution. There's another setting called it Etheria? That's King's Quest. I'm... Ethersta. Ethersta, thank you. um and i That's kind of why I wanted to go through this a little bit, and we could maybe we can speed along. Maybe I'm getting too granular, but that's kind of why of kind of why I wanted to go through this um chronologically through the game, because I feel differently about each setting.
00:37:40
Speaker
come so ah like So we go through this thing and there's a lot of, again, there's a lot of heavy stuff. We're trying to escape the asylum. You're using your duotene to jump up back and forth between realities. And sometimes that is clearly symbolic, right? Like sometimes it is clearly like um you were in the same room all along and this and just when you take this, things look scarier. But sometimes you affect one reality by behaving in the other. So right so clearly,
00:38:12
Speaker
If, because things are physically happening, I think something, you are actually leaving one reality and going into the other. That's the only explanation unless the entire thing is a hallucination. So. Yes, correct. I don't believe that. yeah I don't think it is a hallucination. I think that later in this game, we find clues and ah and um research by Dr. Oswald and and like And there was like a book in his office. It might not have been in his office, but we find something that actually ah describes all the five different realities that there are. So for those of you who are thinking like maybe Fran Bow was just hallucinating, i don't I don't think that's what the game is trying to do. i yeah meaning I think it is both. I think this is a game about different realities that you're going through.
00:39:08
Speaker
and also being symbolism for trauma. I think it's both, you know? Yeah, because at this at this point, you're seeing these ghosts hanging over these kids and they seem to be both feeding on and deepening those kids' trauma, right? Right. There's even a point where you have to chase one away. Yeah. yeah to ah To basically free a kid. Yes. And that,
00:39:37
Speaker
so so you get So you have like an understanding of it. That understanding is gonna change throughout the game. Like later you'll find out what these things are, what what their name is and what their role in this like lore is. But at the time you just see them as this metaphor for the ways that trauma or or mental illness or tragedy or depression hang over us and just pull us down um and cling to us and feed off of us.
00:40:06
Speaker
There is another theory though. And don't don't get me wrong. I believe this game is about, it has multiple realities in it. I think it is, that is how the game describes it to you. And I think that is how you are to take it. However, if you look at the names of the chapters, I think they're very interesting. You know, one of the names is like um my sober day. And that kind of begs the question of like,
00:40:33
Speaker
Fran is being experimented on. To what extent is she being experimented on to where she is not sober and not seeing things correctly and not in the ultra reality that we get into? which is and i yeahs It's interesting, the the chapter that's called My Sober Day is this first chapter where you are taking drugs to enter another reality, right? Yeah. that is that is strange. And I will also say something else about so my sober day. You feel like you are delving into realities about this asylum. Yeah. Some of these conclusions you come to are just wrong. Yeah.
00:41:13
Speaker
um Some of these conclusions, ah you know, and again, we're gonna be spoiling, so I'm just gonna say it now. dr ah Dr. D, God, what's his name? Dr. de Dern, two E's, so it's hard. yeah But Dr. Dern is not the bad guy. Dr. Dern is trying to help you, and the you see him having a conversation with your aunt, and you think,
00:41:40
Speaker
Based on this conversation. It seems like your aunt is trying to help you and he is trying to keep you In this horrible place Yeah to harm you and the very opposite is happening So like it is weird to have it called my sober day when even the realities you're uncovering aren't sober realities They some of them are wrong. Yeah, and it did you notice that chapter 3 is called vegetative state and ah so in chapter three ok kind of So chapter three kind of pivots at the end of chapter two. It's implied that you fall and like you you injure yourself somehow. You wake up as a tree that cannot move. You cannot move. It's also called vegetative state. And a lot of people theorize that
00:42:28
Speaker
you're not even in this reality, but you are instead is this one a hallucination where you're actually paralyzed in a different state. And I think I think a lot of these things can be like holding hands, because I still firmly believe we're hopping realities. And that's, but specifically, we're hopping to realities. I don't know if you that is the only That is the only way um for this game to have had a happy ending, also, if this other reality, ah the vegetative state reality is real. Otherwise, this game has an incredibly depressive ending. I do think it's a sad ending, to be honest with you. OK, so to truck right along, we get out of the we get out of the asylum.
00:43:17
Speaker
um we find like we're being led, not by our cat, Mr. Midnight, but by like a mechanical cat. And he leads us into a maze, which is like a legit maze with stealth elements. It sucks. There are some parts of this game that do not work for me. ah sure same And, same you know, like there are some arcade segments. There are some, this is, again, this is a legitimate maze.
00:43:46
Speaker
There's a cog puzzle that drove me insane, as you can imagine. It's a cog slider puzzle. It is both things. The cogs are on blocks that you have to slide. And ah there's a lot of, like, go look at a poster. It'll tell you a bunch of little tell you, like, a series of things you have to do in a specific order. Then you got to go to the thing and do it. And then you're like, oh, fuck, I forget. And you go back to the post. And then you're like, fine, I'll just get a piece of paper and write it down. There's a lot of that.
00:44:14
Speaker
um And I think this is one of the things that makes me bounce off this game a little bit is like, I found most of the, and we'll get back to the story in a second, but I found a lot of the puzzles to be tedious. ok um I found a lot of times I was like, oh, okay, this is a fetch quest. Or, yeah okay, this is, okay, I see what I have to do. This isn't like, again, this isn't like, um logic, I don't have to think my way through this, I just have to memorize this thing and go back and do it, right? Like, there was a lot of stuff where it's like, I'm not stumped. I just don't really feel like doing this. No, I totally get that. You know what, I think some of it is because yes, it can be very fetch questy. um
00:45:00
Speaker
you are trying to help other characters and maybe not even help, but you're just trying to find ways out. And yeah, and so that is very fetch questing. And I think, I think Rambo is such a dense game, in terms of stimulation, that it can be a little exhausting to to do some of these fetch quests. I think a good example is actually the second chapter where you're helping the twins. There's a set of twins that were sewn together and that's kind of... Oh yeah, good point. Yeah, we can just get right back into the... Because that's basically where we go to next. Right after the maze, we go through... We go through some weird... We help some bugs. That's a weird thing too. There's a lot of bugs.
00:45:47
Speaker
Yeah. Giant bugs in this game. It's very sanitarium in a way, isn't it? Right. Each chapter is vastly different from the other. And the bugs don't... I cannot find any symbolism with the bugs. The bugs are just, I think, ah magical creatures that are just like, ah we need we need a creature here. Maybe it'd be funny if it was a bug.
00:46:07
Speaker
I do want to say that like if you there's definitely a lot of things that this game took inspiration from. Alice in Wonderland is one of them. Yes, we will definitely get to that. yeah I do think there are some elements that are simply inspired by. they and and That's fine. they don't have to and Not everything has to have symbolism. They can just be a part of this world you know that that the dev was creating.
00:46:34
Speaker
So then the next thing is you get kidnapped ah and it's two twin girls in like a spooky kind of like an overly normal, you know, that kind of spooky where it's like, oh, this house is normal, but a little too normal. And then as you go to certain places, it's like, oh wait, this isn't normal at all. um But i they're two twin girls who want you to be their cat.
00:47:01
Speaker
um and they're a little older than you, and because they're older than you, they tell you they get to they get to order you around and tell you what to do. And so they are trying to get make you do a spell for them. Yeah, they need they need your help, essentially. They need your help to cast a spell. And it becomes very clear really soon that if you do this spell, ah you are going to die. um So instead, you it's it's kind of cool, actually. Instead, you trick them into,
00:47:32
Speaker
casting a completely different spell. yeah And that's I thought that was really cool. But so OK. It is a nice one. And this kind of reiterates, I think this reiterates the the notion and idea of another reality that we're in and the fact that, yeah, these are girls that were experimented on.
00:47:53
Speaker
um And I like the idea of doing this other spell because i I don't know how you felt. I feel like we freed them because they said they were not born this way. They were not born conjoined. And so I felt like when we cast the spell on them, they're ghosts separated and they were no longer sewn together anymore. Right. I mean, in this We see them both together and separate at different points. Yes, correct. In this entire chapter, are they sewn together? Or are they do they bounce back and forth in this chapter? I cannot remember. They do not bounce back and forth, but we do see their kind of ghostly images. And we also kind kind of get an idea of what might actually be happening happening in kind of the real world. So if you take your duotene,
00:48:43
Speaker
in the house, you will fall into a well, just a really rancid well. And there are two babies in that well. And I think those are the girls and in the real in the realistic reality that there is, you know, like, I think that there were a lot of failed experimentations in the real world from Dr. Oswald. I think that was the symbol of of one of those realities.
00:49:11
Speaker
Right. And they talk about that later. They do yeah talk about. So these these girls and are named Clara and Maya, Clara and Mia. um And they yeah we. Yeah, we continue to learn about them throughout the game. So, yeah. So you're in this house at this point. This this chapter is basically just like a gathering ingredients. Yes, like puzzle chapter. You're just walking around and you know exactly what you need to get. And some of the ingredients are easy and obvious in other ones, you have to really think it through. yeah And you have your duotene, so you're jumping back and forth between realities. But this is also where you find your cat. You finally find your cat.
00:49:50
Speaker
yeah um And he can talk for some reason. He can talk. You find Mr. Midnight in a cage. But yeah, when you take your duotene anywhere, but there's like two rooms that turn into other rooms. But when you take it in any of any but those two rooms, um yeah, you just fall to the bottom of a well. And I think that's very smart. You also find a baby crib with two babies sewn together, which clearly are meant to represent Clara and Mia as Yeah. When this happened, when this, cause it's clear that the wounds are fresh. Yeah. And like bear in mind, this is not just to be frightening. This does tie into the overall yeah story, like very specifically twins and experiment like not even metaphorically, but literally this ties into the bigger picture and the end.
00:50:41
Speaker
And this is where so you start to get some sense of that there are multiple forces i guiding you here. Yeah. um So this chapter is where you start to realize, oh, that mechanical cat and Mr. Midnight are just entirely separate entities. They do not relate to each other. Right. um This is also the chapter where you realize I don't know if you get his name yet, but you this this character that's been popping up occasionally you start to realize, oh, he's helping me. And he's this terrifying skeleton man with a top hat. His name is Itword. You've seen the word Itword written in the asylum. um And this is where you start to realize, wait, it seems like this guy's helping me. Of course, you don't totally trust it right because he's terrifying and because so many people are trying to take advantage of you. yeah This is where you start to get the idea of like, oh, he's at least trying to help me
00:51:40
Speaker
to his own ends, yeah which at least partially coincide with my own, at least right now. um Uh, this is, and also we haven't talked about this yet. There's another character. We don't have his name yet, but I'll just say it. His name is Ramor. Ramor. Yeah. Ramor. Oh, like Ramor. So Ramor is this, this is the, uh, and it's clear from the very beginning of the game. This is the architect of our, um,
00:52:11
Speaker
misery. This is the person, this is the being. He's got a big like goat skull on the front of his head. And he's just like a he's like a spiky blobby black ghost creature. Yeah. okay We're still talking about Remore, right? Yeah, covered. yeah And he's got blood on his skull. And yeah, yeah, he he definitely has the the goat type of aesthetic, where you could tie that into maybe being a demon if you really wanted to.
00:52:40
Speaker
Yeah, um i and I think he is, kind I think he is meant to represent a demon. Yeah, I do too. So Ramor is like pursuing you throughout this game. he was there He was present when your parents died. He has been taunting you throughout the game. He is pursuing you. He tells you he's going to kill you and you're and youre your cat.
00:53:03
Speaker
and And So some of these, again, some of these forces begin to become clear here in this this house chapter. and then And that's where you escape. you ah Like Rosa said, you split these girls apart and then you escape with your cat and you're like, oh, everything's great. And that's when you get chucked down a hole. Remore tosses you down a hole. So this is what you're talking about. This is the chapter called vegetative state. and that is yeah I hadn't thought that through
00:53:36
Speaker
Because she falls, and now she's in this other world called Itharca. Itharsta. Itharsta. Yeah, it's a weird one. It's a weird one. And everybody there, she's a tree, and everybody there are like root vegetables or other plants. Yes, it's very nature, very nature inspired, very light.
00:54:00
Speaker
ah It sounds like its name at their store, you know what I mean? Some are bugs. Yeah, and it's not, yeah, and this is the one, this isn't very scary. This whole chapter is not very scary. Like there are some, you still find yourself every now and then, taunted by evil spirits who take your form or take the form of other people in your life um to scare you, which is probably what Moore's doing. Yeah. um Yeah, but this whole chapter is just, it's a total tone shift. um You're just in a fantastical, magical ah nature world. And you're just doing puzzles. This is where you're mostly doing fetch quests for a wizard and you're just trying to get back to your...
00:54:44
Speaker
Yeah. And I turn back humans really liked that chapter a lot. It felt like in in the art world, it feels like a breath of fresh air. You can't just when you're doing very personal art like that, you can't just throw heaviness on the on the viewer all the time.
00:55:06
Speaker
Because it start you get desensitized to it. I'm sure you kind of felt that way after seeing so many gruesome things. You start to get desensitized to what you're seeing, and that might actually lose meaning. So I felt like the Athersta being one with nature um and and going through more of the story that way was such a breath of fresh air. you know It felt more, it felt like I, it felt for a moment that Fran was at peace.
00:55:35
Speaker
and Was somewhere and somewhere happy, you know somewhere peaceful and I guess you could make the argument that it was kind of like a heavenly place some people find that to be when you actually die and you're now in an in a in an undead world If there's the does have a heavenly type of ah of ah of a thing to it I don't think that's necessarily What the game is trying to say you can theorize that with art you can theorize anything ah But it does have that heavenly part to it, I guess, or at least or at least she's regenerating. you know She's like being regenerated. And by what you said, I think that's interesting. yeah that Earlier, when you pointed out the vegetative state, because you do, at the end of this chapter, you do end up just back in the woods. So I think it is entirely reasonable
00:56:29
Speaker
to imagine and again and you are turned into a piece of wood for this whole thing you're turned into a wood plank and you're trying to become a girl again so you you start as like paralyzed and then you become you know again like you you are not you so right this idea that you were just lying on the floor of the woods hallucinating i don't think is a bad idea Right. I don't think um I don't think so either. And even though I ah fully believe at taking this game at face value, I also believe because it is such a personal artistic piece and a meaningful piece that you can take it as that as well. You can you can look at it as though Fran has passed over and we're we're more just unraveling the the what's happening in a different reality. That might be a death reality, you know,
00:57:24
Speaker
Right. So interesting. OK, so it is interesting it is really interesting. This is also where you start to learn some of the mythology of this whole thing. So you learn about these um these dark, these creatures, these dark ghosts that were lo ah looming over the kids.
00:57:42
Speaker
yeah um and that you keep seeing in different places, you learn that they're called Kamalas. Not Harris. No relation. no really yeah i i learned You learn that they're called Kamalas.
00:57:56
Speaker
um and I guess water for some reason transforms them into Velokas, which are, which goes from these creatures of like darkness and sorrow to these calm, peaceful white creatures. And so you realize that at all of these, all these dark ghosts that you're seeing are these corrupted versions. Correct. Yeah. Of ghosts. And then the, all these ah white um ghosts that you've been seeing are these like evolved forms of those same ghosts. Velocas, I think. Yeah, V-O-L-O-K-A-S. Yeah. I think it's really smart and and very symbolic.
00:58:40
Speaker
Yeah, I honestly, ah we could be pronouncing all of this stuff wrong and I wouldn't know. ah But I think it's very smart to have like water as a purifier. um And I think it's interesting that when you put the water on kind of these tortured souls, right, who are clearly, we can clearly determine that.
00:59:01
Speaker
they are tortured souls. We saw them in the and the institution. yeah ah They're traumatized souls, basically. They're very dark and tortured. But when you purify them with water, they almost kind of they are almost hurting even more until they're purified. And I take that personally as doing the work. I think it's interesting that when you are trying to fix yourself, it is insanely painful and you have to be open. You have to be open to being hurt.
00:59:31
Speaker
In order to fix yourself in order to get to that lightness it hurts it hurts, you know And I I just think that's very smart and very realistic and it's meaning it's really meaningful Um, I found this whole game very very poignant and meaningful to me Um, so I wonder there's also a couple other things we learned about the valakas, uh, which is First of all, then we start making the connection. Oh that little that um white ghost of a girl that we've been seeing over and over. And again, there's a lot of weird creatures you see only once. They just appear and their whole thing is to be scary and intimidate you, and then they're gone. And like that's whatever. some of them Some of them have very clear symbolic meanings. Some of them just are scary. It's fine, whatever. But we see this white girl ghost a half dozen times.
01:00:28
Speaker
And always very significantly, like the game pauses ah to watch her like walk away. yes And sometimes you can click on her and Fran Bow will give a little wave. um yeah And yeah that's true she will wave so I keep wondering, what is that girl?
01:00:47
Speaker
I've had theories that might be Fran Bow's mom. I have theories, it's just a random ghost that has gone through something maybe similar to you and is just trying to look out for you. But she has, she never interacts with your story. She doesn't really, like she walks away from you sometimes and leads you to the next screen, but it'd be a screen you could go to any, like she never leads you to anything. She doesn't actually help in any meaningful way. She's just there and that,
01:01:14
Speaker
is interesting to me and I don't know if I have any theory as to who she is or what she is. Right. Yeah, it's interesting. um I'm wondering
01:01:30
Speaker
I'm wondering if it's Fran, part of me thinks it could be Fran that she is seeing in another reality because it's interesting. We do see another reality Fran at some point. We do see another reality Fran. Yeah. And it is interesting that you don't always need to take the duotene to see weird things, which again, reinforces that we're not just hallucinating that we are that this is happening at face value. So it could be Fran and maybe we're not even supposed to know. Maybe we're just supposed to theorize what this could be because I think this is a game where we do have solid answers for some things and it's black and white and other things are not so black and white. They're gray or they're symbolic or you know metaphorical for for trauma and healing and things like that. So my my biggest question to you
01:02:23
Speaker
is now that you've got, now that we've kind of gotten far into this storyline, right? yeah Who murdered Fran's parents? Because that's the big question, right? That is what we're trying to find out. We need peace of sorts, who murdered, and this obviously we're going to start reflecting on very spoiler heavy stuff now. So who do you think is the murderer?
01:02:48
Speaker
It's a tough one. I mean, I think I know who the murderer is, but I don't know if I blame that. Well, there's two. There's a few theories. Yeah, I want to wait till next chapter to to to really tell you my theory there. Fair.
01:03:07
Speaker
So there's something also interesting mechanically about this chapter that we should talk about, which is instead of taking the duotene, you end up getting a clock that can shift seasons. I love that, by the way. I really, really do what it reminded me of. It takes this horrifying thing and does this fantastical thing instead. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.
01:03:24
Speaker
It reminds me of Banjo-Kazooie, which is one of my favorite games. Matt, you know that I can parallel just about anything. like I can find ties to everything, ah especially in gaming. But like yeah, in in Banjo-Kazooie, there is an entire level where you are going through different seasons Uh, to solve puzzles and it's not the same. I know it's not like a totally different games, but just the the concept of that, of using different seasons to see different things, see what has changed.
01:03:59
Speaker
It's very cozy in that way. um ive i really i like I love those cozier levels. And I'm a spooky gal. You know, I played Fran Bow because it looked spooky and poignant, but you gotta have those cozy things, man. You gotta have those seasons and trees and nature. Ah, so nice.
01:04:18
Speaker
But i I didn't think they utilized it as much as they could have. Right. Like there are some puzzles that are solved by jumping around seasons and some puzzles that are solved by like you affect something in spring. So that is so that it's still there in fall or whatever. And i some of that was OK, but like I think they could have done a lot more with that. But since it was such a small part of the game, I get why it wasn't. I get why it it.
01:04:45
Speaker
was a little underused, right? like um But there's some cool puzzle solving with it. But anyway, you do end up getting out of this. And this we find out this is this this is about the time we start to learn about the five realities, right? This is where we yeah find a book by a guy either here or right after here is where we find a book by a guy named Leon. And he seems to have gone through pretty much everything we're going through.
01:05:14
Speaker
yeah um And we don't know much about him except for that. Yeah, ah yeah it so except for that he he seems to have notes on all this stuff. And this is how we learn about the Kamalas and the Valakas. This is why we learn about the five realities. If Therika is the second reality.
01:05:33
Speaker
ah The first reality we never see, but we know that that's where the Velokas come from, and that that seems to be the the reality that created all the other five. The human world is the third reality. That's Pandora. Pandora is the third reality. And that's our reality, yeah. We don't know anything about the fourth reality except for I think we learn that um It-word, that skeleton man comes from there. And then the fifth reality is like the evil one. That's the one right we've potentially been visiting with the duotine. That's the one that all the monsters come from. That's the one that Remore lives in. So anyway, so we learned that and ah we get out of here and then we meet just face to face. We meet It-word.
01:06:22
Speaker
And he tells us, he's like, hey, I'm your friend and I've been trying to help you this whole time. And ah he brings you to his magical spaceship and he tells you that you have to find ingredients for it. And then you have to go on and you have to like fix the spaceship. It's just very point and click game. Yes, yes, it's very point and click.
01:06:41
Speaker
And there's not even that much symbolic here ah for the first half of this fourth chapter, right? ah You're just kind of just like solving puzzles and hanging out with your friend, Itward, who was very scary looking.
01:06:53
Speaker
yeah um
01:06:56
Speaker
But Because I guess you just had this really weird experience and you just had this lower dump. So maybe they just need to give you a little break. Yeah, exactly. I think they I think the devs really tried to be very conscious of how they laid out this story and how they laid out the mood and atmosphere. Otherwise, it can be a bit much. Right. And then and again, this is a strange thing because.
01:07:24
Speaker
ah if ether ah is there's there' if If that is a coma, right? And then you wake up in the woods and then whatever this is, is also a hallucination would be interesting because this spaceship crashes and you find out, you find yourself still in the woods yeah or actually just past the woods back to, no, yeah, he' still in the woods. And then you get back to your aunt's house.
01:07:52
Speaker
yeah So like you are, and so we could say this journey has just been a straight shot from you escaping the asylum, walking through the woods until you got to your aunt's house. And all the other stuff could have just been these like either magical or hallucinatory interruptions. So what do you think? And so where I'm about, we're about to get to the place where I feel comfortable saying who killed friends parents, but Uh, what do you, what is your whole, what's your, your take on it word as just, who the fuck is he? Why is he here? Why does he care? I wonder, I wonder about it word. I wonder about the name it word. Um,
01:08:42
Speaker
A lot of people speculate that it could be shortened for intensive care, the way that remore... The intensive care ward. Yes. And remore is a little more cut and dry. I think that's remorse. I don't know if I believe that it or it is anything but a conscious, Fran's subconscious that she knows what's right and wrong in her heart.
01:09:09
Speaker
And I could be totally off base, but I do think that this type of game is like, there are some things that face value. And then there are, like you said, interruptions, like hallucinatory interruptions, some things that are purely maybe metaphysical. i I struggle with it word because to me, it feels like
01:09:31
Speaker
like her true heart or something. You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying? like He tells her that they've been friends forever. like she He says that she he was like her imaginary friend when she was a kid, but he also says he's a lot of kids' imaginary friends. But he doesn't even remember him, remember? like she doesn't He has to almost convince her that this was a thing, because we see it were his name early on, and she's like, I don't know who that is.
01:09:58
Speaker
but we've seen Itward the entire game. and yeah yeah and But once she says once he tells her that he is he was her childhood like imaginary friend, she seems to, like she's not confused. like it seems like She doesn't disagree with that. It seems as if maybe she does remember him on some level. Yeah, on some level, yeah. um And we know that he is,
01:10:28
Speaker
Like he has had other companions like this. He was Clara and Mia, the twins companion. um And yeah, but then he helped Fran.
01:10:42
Speaker
killed them. um I still I really don't know. I don't know if this is the I guess that he could just be a spiritual guide that does help children. And if he's gray, maybe he is the he's the any was born in the fourth reality. So is he really just the the gatekeeper between the human world and the dark world?
01:11:08
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I always had a hard time with it word because I really feel that symbolically he could be something and then literally he could be something. And it's a lot of to me, I interpret him just personally. And I'm more than willing to be wrong because this is only my artistic interpretation. To me, he is more of a symbolic, almost subconscious that we all have, that we all follow almost like a Jiminy cricket.
01:11:38
Speaker
he Yeah, I mean, he seems like a Jiminy cricket. He's got a kind of that sort of look. He also is a little bit like um Baron Samdi, the voodoo spirit. um He gives me those vibes. that true yeah Yeah, there's a.
01:11:54
Speaker
It's hard to, um who and Beren Somedy leads people to the underworld, right? So like, yeah ah so he, maybe he is the, maybe Fran is dying, right? And he is leading her to her death. Maybe he helped yeah lead her into the world ah when she was little and maybe he's helping lead her out. I don't know. I was thinking that too. He could be, you know, kind of a deathly character. ah a deathly character um And yeah, like like let's get into,
01:12:20
Speaker
Because I think we'll have some things to say about this. um We do make it back, like as you said to our aunt's house, but we are plucked by Dr. Dern. And this is where we sort of learn Dr. Dern is not our enemy. Correct. Yeah, he he actually does have good intention. He is a psychiatrist that wants to help us. And he has just learned that there has this is This is where the conspiracy stuff starts to unravel. He has just learned about the conspiracy. He thinks that somebody is behind the death of friends, parents. He wants, and this is entire, this is a thing. This is a theme in this game. And I think now is as appropriate a time to talk about it as any. um So many people
01:13:08
Speaker
are
01:13:10
Speaker
they they they treat Fran inappropriately for her age. And by by what I mean is like in heat like in this chapter, he's like, let's go to the graveyard together. Help me dig up your parents and the two of us together will search their dead bodies for clues and find out who killed them. That should...
01:13:36
Speaker
so that's So that's one thing. People keep doing this to Fran. They keep giving her these incredibly big responsibilities. They keep giving her tasks that an adult would, it would strain an adult's sanity and ah emotional capabilities, let alone kids. And here's this thing about Fran. She remains pretty fucking solid throughout the game.
01:14:03
Speaker
yes yeah She keeps making jokes. She keeps being cheery. she keeps when she Even when she meets horrifying creatures, she tries to say something nice about them. yeah Or give them the benefit of a doubt. like Yeah. And I think that's definitely, you know, the idea of like, ah children are, they're not corrupt until we corrupt them, right? They're not, they're not tortured or traumatized. And until we do something, they are still children. And that and I think that makes the story even sadder, right? Just to see children who are
01:14:39
Speaker
still finding out who they are and be and Fran, especially, is bewildered and amused by all of these different things, especially animals and things she sees in the game. She finds elements of those of that joy. And so it is very dark, you know, to think of ah the bigger story and experimentations on children and and how sad that really is, you know? Yeah. And she, yes, I think that's true. I think she also um It's so interesting how I think there's something about like, she's just a kindhearted person, right? Because she sees like, she could see a character, this isn't a direct quote from the game or anything, but she could see a character bleeding from the eyes and screaming at her, right? And it's clearly something that's put there to terrify her. And she gets terrified, she'll jump back, and maybe she'll even tremble, but then she'll be like,
01:15:31
Speaker
Oh, his eyes must really hurt. And that's why he's yeah like, he'll give some excuse as to why something's terrorizing her. That's very like generous towards them. She does this throughout the entire game. And ah like, no matter how horrible things get, she's still like.
01:15:46
Speaker
very kind and always treats everybody with these like very like sweet, child-like, but also just like ah generous assumptions. So. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So now we're trying to figure out who killed friends' parents. It's about here, maybe it's a little later, that my first, that we get our sort of first clue and it's either this chapter or the next we see Fran killing her parents. Right. Under the influence of Rem, Remore. Right.
01:16:26
Speaker
um And you can take that at face value if you want to, because I think, again, a lot of this game is to be taken that way. We are in a fantasy world and it is a dark world. I don't believe that though, ah because we what we know of Remore, I believe his sole purpose is to torture and and gaslight us in a way. um So I don't interpret the I mean, the game does have implications of DeFran do it, but there's also all this proof of...
01:17:03
Speaker
things saying like we find a ah newspaper clipping that said like the bodies were perfectly sliced up, which would be difficult for any human, let alone a 10 year old child. um And I think I think based on what we know, because we find in later in Dr. Oswald's office, you remember, he's the head honcho. He's the main researcher. He is the one doing experimentations. Yeah, we find out he is the bad guy.
01:17:32
Speaker
He is the bad guy. ah Dern good guy. Yes. Oswald. Oswald. Bad guy. Yeah, not so great. um So we find out that actually our mom and our aunt were twins and they somehow were involved in some of these experimentations.
01:17:51
Speaker
And the theory goes that perhaps Fran's parents didn't want that anymore. They didn't want to be a part of this anymore. That's what they say in the game. Yeah. But perhaps the aunt did. And the aunt is not this nice person that we thought she was. The aunt is involved somehow. So I think it's a ah good theory to speculate that the aunt was somehow involved in the murder. I also wonder I really wonder if they were dismembered or if Fran was shown something to traumatize her so that the experimentations would be better. ah They do make they do make it a point to say that the children need to be traumatized in a way to do multiple experimentation. So I do because we find their graves and they're not dismembered. They're not dismembered. They're intact.
01:18:44
Speaker
That is a good point. And in Fran's grave, so this is another thing, um we find out again in and this chapter, the end of chapter four, we find out that Fran has been reported to the world as dead. Correct. Yeah. That um after they found the the the news story goes that after they found her parents,
01:19:07
Speaker
they found her frozen to death. right um We know that that's not true. There's no reality in which that's true. is It can't even metaphor. like It's not' not even true as in, like oh, has this has she been dead this whole time? that it's just there's The game is not even trying to imply that. cream yeah The game is saying that no matter how much of this game is reality and how much is metaphor,
01:19:31
Speaker
ah This was ah a conspiratorial
Fran Bow's Climax and Resolution
01:19:37
Speaker
lie. right right but Because again, the cat's in the grave. Yes, and that's a sad moment to know that the cat probably perished you know with the parents. I think the cat has been dead the whole time. The cat's not talking. you know That's just another maybe even guided element by Itward.
01:20:00
Speaker
That made me very profoundly sad. um This poor again, it just it goes back to like this poor innocent child um having nothing really and just being mistreated and misused by every authority figure in her life. I do. There's something that happens with the cat at the very end.
01:20:23
Speaker
We'll get to it. ah We'll get to it because i do like we're so close to the end here. I just do want to get through, because we haven't talked about chapter five. So chapter five is, you know, Remore shows up and kills Dr. Dern and then, How does this happen? Fran just, Fran gets caught, right? And she just wakes up yeah back in the asylum and her aunt is there. Her aunt is there. Yeah. And she's definitely a bad guy. She's clearly working. Yes. With Dr. Oswald. Yeah. um Basically, basically, Endgame is basically,
01:21:03
Speaker
and grace is there. They're kind of in this weird limbo kind of state where it's somewhat reality, but also they're like on the edge of of the world. and and You've just spent the whole chapter going through this like house, this house full of metaphors. Every room is sort of kind of a metaphor for um And some of them are clear and some of them are very unclear. Some of them just seem bizarre. um at And at this point, you're trying to wake up remorse mother. Yes. Who is who is this like um ultimate like goddess of darkness, my book. And yeah, whatever. ah But yeah, then then you come to this end game.
01:21:48
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah, it's really interesting because I think that in in in a way, the dark side wanted to claim her as some kind of some kind of key keeper, right? Because she's always opening, she has this like ability, right? This kind of special ability. They keep saying Fran is a special girl and whether she was born that way or it's because of experimentation, don't really know. right But it seemed like that dark side wanted her for something, which is why Remore didn't want her to escape this quote in insanity. ah But at that end, as we're trying to figure out what to do, Aunt Grace kills our cat.
01:22:29
Speaker
She throws Mr. Midnight over the edge yeah of whatever wherever that we are. Fran loses it. And at this point, it should be noted that Mr. Midnight is not talking. He is just a cat. um And like I said, he is not talking at this point. um He's just meowing. But Aunt Grace kills the cat. Fran loses it and tackles her aunt with kind of this insane strength.
01:22:56
Speaker
And Oswald shoots her, as in Fran, not Grace. He shoots the child. And even though the child is dying, he still wants to use her for experimentation. It's very harrowing. However, um in a very interesting, I guess, kind of end that can be interpreted in multiple ways, um some of the characters from A Thirst to Come to her aid.
01:23:24
Speaker
And now whether they save her or take her to a heavenly reality, I think is up for interpretation. Some people found this ending to be happy that she was saved and taken to a thirsta, you know,
01:23:40
Speaker
by that that weird Pokemon-looking guy. What are those creatures called, like Axolotls? Axolotls, he looks like a, he's like, he's like, ah yeah okay, if um ah the creature from the Never Ending Journey, what's his name, Falkor? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If Falkor is a dog and a dragon combined, this is an Axolotl and a dragon combined.
01:24:03
Speaker
yeah Yeah, absolutely. it yeah It's cutesy, and it's it's furry, but it looks like an axolotl. And it's long. yeah And I just i want to put something kind of really important out there is axolotls are actually amazing regenerators. They can regenerate their organs and their limbs. yeah And he is who helped to regenerate Fran. Yes, he's the healer. He is the healer of Itherste. Yeah, axolotls are awesome.
01:24:33
Speaker
So yeah, in this final scene...
01:24:38
Speaker
It's strange, the last thing you do is you inject Dr. Dern with this. So you find out that you like Dr. Dern tells you you have been you've had your medicine switched. He was trying to, he this is how he discovered it. He realized that you have been given been giving given the wrong medicine on purpose this whole time. and Yeah, it was part of the experimentation, yeah. And you discovered that really early on in the first chapter, but you don't really know what you're looking at.
01:25:05
Speaker
yeah You realize you find like a box with two types of pills and you realize that your pills have been switched with another. yeah um But you don't know what that means until here. So, OK, let's talk about Mr. Midnight for a second, because there's a cat in your coffin. Yes.
01:25:25
Speaker
you have been You were being led by a mechanical cat for a while, but then you met an actual cat and you've been spending time with an actual cat who could talk to you. yeah And then at in the last chapter, when you find your cat again, it can't talk, it just meows. And then when that dragon creature, Palantras, and Itward come to save you, the first thing he shouts is, Gorska, she's here.
01:25:54
Speaker
Or Gorska, I found her. I don't think, as far as I know, Gorska is a name. and It's a Polish name. It is not a, and maybe it's supposed to be a word in their language, the Itharst language. if there so Yeah, maybe, yeah. um It doesn't appear to be like a known exclamation in any other language. And maybe a listener can write and tell us if I'm wrong, ah but my Googling didn't come up with anything. I came up with is that Gorska's a name. Yeah. um And. Immediately upon saying it, the cat runs up from his back when Mr. Midnight is there again. And also this entire time, people have been calling Mr. Midnight a traitor. All the bad guys call Mr. Midnight a traitor.
01:26:46
Speaker
They do, yeah, they do. Like Remore and Grace and Oswald call him a traitor. Yeah, that is a particularly confusing thing to me. So is and they seem to know about all these other they know who it word is. They seem to know about all these other realities and characters and stuff. Also, the the other thing we learned, okay, so um we we kind of glossed over this, but Lucia and Grace, ah Grace is your aunt, Lucia is your mom, they were twins and they were part of Dr. Oswald's experiments. Also, um they were there at the exact same time as Clara and Mia, yeah the two who got sewn together, the twins who got sewn together were there, and they ah were all there with a man named Leon.
01:27:39
Speaker
but who was a doctor at the time too, and he's the one who wrote the book. Right. um But anyway, so who the fuck is Mr. Midnight? I don't know. Is that a manifestation of Leon? Is that ah is that ah another character named Gorska who switched sides? Yeah. It would make sense if he was to call him a traitor if it's Leon.
01:28:05
Speaker
And when you meet the other ah manifestation of Fran, who seems to be willingly taking part in the experiments that you, Fran, escaped. right um When you meet that Fran, she tells you she never had a cat, and she tells you that um she had spoken to a man named Leon who told her some of the stuff that you, Fran Bow in the game had told her. yeah So in her reality, was he never a cat? Was he just Leon? And in your reality, the he was Leon was the cat? And that's why he's a traitor, because he changed sides. It's so, I don't know, there's a lot going on here.
01:28:56
Speaker
um yeah Uh, and trying to, so trying to track that plot wise is hard enough. Now trying to track it as a metaphor, fucking imp impossible. I don't know what the metaphor of Mr. Midnight is. I don't know. I don't get it at all. Um, it's hard. Yeah. I do like the theory of that being like Leon as the trader, as the one we don't see that is on like the elite, the light side of things that want Fran to be happy.
01:29:28
Speaker
um Yeah, it's interesting. There's a lot. I mean, in re-talking about this, there's really a lot going on in this plot. There is a lot of story. There's a lot of things to understand, a lot of characters.
01:29:40
Speaker
um But do you agree with my theory on grace being part of the murder, at least? So, yeah, I want to talk about the murder again before we wrap this up because now that we've gotten through the whole plot, I think there's a couple of things. I think on a metaphysical level, there's the possibility that Fran was um Fran, who, like you're saying, has not been able to be corrupted or reduced by any of these incredibly traumatic experiences she's been through. She's been so a rock, so the idea that somebody could have corrupted her is a little difficult to swallow, so. It is strange, yeah. Did Remora corrupt her? Or, if we're talking about this is all a metaphor, um did Oswald but drug her?
01:30:32
Speaker
And that's that's what got her to do the killing. Right. Yeah. um Yeah. Was there no. Is there more. Yeah. I just don't see. it I just don't see it. I just don't see her being able to do it. And so on a on a on a conspiracy level. Did Grace and or Grace and Oswald or some other henchmen.
01:30:54
Speaker
kill the parents and they blamed it on Fran, or well, they did a lot, right? Yeah, they did a lot. They pretended that Fran died to the public and then to Fran told her that she killed them. Right, yes. Or, but they didn't, that's another thing.
01:31:11
Speaker
in the scene right before we escape the institution, we see, and this is why we think Dr. Dern is a bad guy, because Grace wants to tell her something and Dr. Dern's like, she's not ready. So did they actually ever even tell her that she killed her parents? ah Yeah, I don't think so. So if they didn't tell her, then where is she getting this idea from? Right.
01:31:37
Speaker
Right. So like if it is a conspiracy to trick her into feeling like she was corrupted, again, unless R'more is literally R'more literally exists. And like you said, he's just trying to torture her. Yeah, I think he is trying to not allow her peace so that she can be part of that. The reality he's in is this like keeper of keys or something.
01:32:02
Speaker
but So like a lot of stuff in this game, I'm holding all three realities in my head at once, right? Like I believe that and like i i I don't have a conclusion. I don't know what happened, so I'm just, I interpret the game in all three ways at the same time. That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. um Because yeah I think that's a lot of this stuff, right? like yeah is this um Did they mean this to be a metaphor? Did they mean this to be a reality, a different reality? Did they mean this to be a hallucination? yeah And it's like, yeah, maybe all three.
01:32:37
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I, you could definitely interpret it any, any of those ways. I think because I'm like so close to the themes in this game, I kind of come out of it feeling very sad and that it to me, i this is a fantastical world to me, but it is a fantastical world that is presenting themes of trauma and mental illness. So I think instead of even being a very scary story, which it is, um psychological stuff is scary. It can be very frightening.
01:33:12
Speaker
um In fact, the whole first scene where she's in the institution reminded me of when I was a child and in an institution. And it did feel that frightening. It did feel scary. And again, you're just a child, you know, so it's it's interesting and sad and poignant that they have her in this kind of horrible place. But and yet she finds amusement.
01:33:33
Speaker
at certain decor in the institution and things like that. So I actually take it away as yeah I did play a fantasy game. That's how I interpret it. And but there are very realistic themes within this this fantasy game that speak to ah people who have experienced trauma like that. um So let me add one more thing here.
01:34:02
Speaker
In the final chapter, as Fran Bow, you see a picture of Fran with her her childhood friend. And that childhood friend's name is Alice. And Alice told you has ah has told you all about her fantastic adventures. This is clearly Alice from Alice in Wonderland and through the Looking Glass.
01:34:26
Speaker
what that made me think of immediately is like Fran Bow is like this dark side of that. like Alice al in Wonderland is a dark story, but this is like just another similar tale of like a metaphorical idea of what it means to grow up, but this is like what took what it means to grow up with trauma rather than just what it means for ah that growing up is traumatic. I don't know what I have,
01:34:54
Speaker
here, right? Besides that, it is interesting to compare this to Alice in Wonderland. It is, it is, it's very, um, it's very contrasting in a way where it's like kind of telling these fantastical stories with creatures and learning how to mature and grow up. Except Alice comes from kind of this privilege place of privilege. Um, and Fran comes from a very sad place, a very, a place of pain.
01:35:29
Speaker
and trauma and and and how that children like that deserve their stories to be told as well, even in this fantastical sort of way, you know? Yeah, it's almost like it's almost like the story for a traumatized child, you know? yeah Something for them to to gravitate towards, I guess.
01:35:56
Speaker
so Sorry, it's a heavy one, you guys. it's I find this very sad. I find it very a very sad game. And it is ah it is a lot more emotionally heavy than scary. It is scary, like especially the start of this game. It's very scary, yeah very spooky. um But there's a lot more in terms of like emotional heaviness to this game than there is scariness.
01:36:18
Speaker
Yeah, which I think kind of lends itself really well to horror. I think it's a good way to express yourself. And and like I said, the one of the devs, Natalia, this was an expression of her feelings and experiences she had as a child. And I often think about how horrific that can be. you know Like I said, when I was young and in an institution, that felt horrifying to me. You know what I mean? So it is horror in a way.
01:36:48
Speaker
And ah in a way, I think people can really it'll really resonate with people who've had those experiences. So do you have anything else to add about this before we move on? I don't think so. I think we actually really covered it really well. I really like this game. I really like this game. I appreciate the games candor and kind of in your face.
01:37:11
Speaker
themes and everything that it it gives us to think about. I think it's really worth playing, but I do i do want to say this. I think it can drudge up bad feelings and bad memories if you're not in a good space to play it. um you know If you've kind of come from trauma, if you've had bad experiences as a kid, even I have to watch myself when I talk about Rambo or play it.
01:37:37
Speaker
Because it can be disturbing, I think, for some for some people. There's imagery in here that is disturbing. um that has and That has even been criticized for being as such. um But I do think because of the place it's coming from, you know from the dev and the heart and candor that was put into it, I think it is very much worth looking into if you have the headspace for it.
01:38:02
Speaker
Right. ah So I do think, yeah, being in the right headspace, I also would not would not suggest people play it the way we did. I do not or the way at least I did. I would not suggest people play it ah beginning to end. Right. all All like. Give yourself some time. Yeah. Yeah. i am in that Yeah. Give yourself like ah like take breaks from it, and not only because it's heavy, but also because it changes in theme so much, and it's longer than you think it is. yeah Or, and you know, it's not that long, it's only like six hours long, but it feels kind of long because, again, it changes in theme and direction and...
01:38:48
Speaker
tone so strongly that you will feel a little exhausted at times. You'll be like, okay, just got through this whole thing. Maybe I'm excited to see it continue. Oh, and now I'm in this totally other world full of yeah puzzles that are completely unrelated to the puzzles that I just did. um And that can feel exhausting. That's fine. Take a break. Play it next week.
01:39:07
Speaker
Yeah, it is, like I said earlier, it is dense. It is dense with characters, with with stimuli. So yeah, I agree that it could do with some breaks if you're gonna play it, yeah. Okay, so ah if that's all we have to say, then I guess it's time for us to...
01:39:25
Speaker
Order a pizza, kiss. I'm emotionally distressed. Yeah, but train but ah yeah, Well, everybody, thank you for listening. We're still gonna do our ranking segment in a minute, but first we wanna say we are a part of the Adventure Game Hotspot Network. You can go to adventuregamehotspot.com for news and reviews about adventure games and also, you know, ah see,
01:39:53
Speaker
what else all of our our network mates like CressUp and the classic Gamers Guild and Space Quest Historian are up to. um And ah do we have anything, and do you have anything else you wanna tell people? um No. Not at the moment. Me, me neither at the moment.
Podcast Teasers and Game Discussions
01:40:14
Speaker
So ah yeah, come back next next week for another spooky game. Do we wanna tell them what?
01:40:21
Speaker
Spooky game we're doing next week. Shall we? Do we even know which one we're deciding to do next week? I think we do. I think it's the ridiculous one. I can't believe you agreed to do that. Let's not say anything. Okay. It'll be a surprise. It's a classic. It's a classic game. Horror is a, uh, uh, interesting term to use for them. yeah Let's just say I, I posited this as a joke and Matt went with it and that's where we are. ah And it is three games. We are going to be talking about three games. Um, so if that helped and three classic,
01:41:01
Speaker
adventure games, so if that helps give you a little. All right. I don't know if it's gonna help anybody, but okay. Me neither. Me neither. All right. ah Well, why don't we throw up some Swanky Max Amino and we'll go right rank every adventure game. I'll also, you know, send us emails, matinroses at gmail dot.com, leave us reviews on iTunes and Spotify, and I don't know, tell your friends. Tell your friends what's funny. She's crazy, thank you. All right, love you, everybody. Listen to Swanky.
Adventure Games Ranking Debate
01:41:55
Speaker
Everyone, welcome back. Hope you enjoyed your break. I'm pushing up roses. This is my co-host, Matt Aucamp. Welcome back, Matt. How's your break? It was good. I have an idea. It's relaxing, but yeah. it that It's actually not my idea. It's actually your idea that I'm just repositing for this podcast. But I think we should rank some adventure games because you know what? Someone, meaning you, found a list of like 3,000 adventure games and decided let's rank them whether we've played them or not.
01:42:29
Speaker
ah But we can only rank the ones we've played, right? Nope, nope, nope. No, we can rank whatever we want. We are in charge of this pod. ah You know, we are a smart adventure game people. We can just tell. We have a You stop us.
01:42:56
Speaker
i
01:43:00
Speaker
we have a lot we have lost control of this we have done we have done like 35 now 35 35 yeah we're gonna add five board of the list and remember we can skip one we are allowed to skip one per episode why which we have not done yet though why why do i feel bad i don't understand okay all right here we go i i use a random number generator to find these so uh The first one, 2,254. This is from Rock Pocket Games. Rock Pocket? In 2019, it's called Moons of Madness. I've never heard of, I've never even heard of this game before. It looks a little, it looks like sci-fi. It does look like sci-fi. Yeah. I'm kind of shocked, actually, that I haven't heard of this
01:43:56
Speaker
It's Lovecraftian, it's first person. It looks like you're in space and you ah get attacked by horror creatures. And it looks like they make you have some hallucinations. That's so that's what I'm getting from it so far. It's 3D. It looks like a little generic to me. Looks a little generic to me too.
01:44:21
Speaker
um
01:44:23
Speaker
but it doesn't look bad, it doesn't look horrible by any means. It's got positive reviews on Steam. let's Let's look at some of the, yeah, I mean, I'm looking at some, oh, there's a whole ah adventure there's a whole Reddit thread about how this is a flawed attempt at refreshing the Lovecraftian set. Oh boy, oh no, I do not wanna think peace right now. I just did one. And a lot of, it seems like a lot of these like professional reviews put it around like five to six out of 10.
01:44:54
Speaker
I would say a 7 out of 10 here. yeah ah I want to put this at the end of our mediocre chunk. so
01:45:03
Speaker
yeah it it looks like there's so It's just one of those things I'd probably go through seven or eight other games that are kind of like this before I'd be like, oh, I wanna play this one. That's a good way to put it. It's like, if this was in a bundle, would you go for this one first? And I just don't think I would. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think I would. I think it's gonna go ahead of Violet because Violet was legitimately not good, but maybe behind Astronomica, the quest for the edge of the universe.
01:45:34
Speaker
um'm i yeah I'm okay with that, and I'm especially okay with it being above Violet, and I was kind of sad to hear that that wasn't a very good game on our last so episode. Yeah. Because it looks good. It does. It does. It looks very cute. Okay. This is this next one's going to be a tough one. Oh, boy. i could see a reason for I could see an argument for skipping this, okay this being a skip.
01:45:55
Speaker
because I haven't played it, but it, okay. The game is ah so is number 1634 from Red Thread Games from 2016. It's Dreamfall Chapters. Now I played The Longest Journey and I liked it. I don't think it totally holds up.
01:46:15
Speaker
yeah I've played Dreamfall. I really liked it though. It is a little bit ah long. i It can get a little exhausting. And then people say, people really speak very, very highly of Dreamfall chapters, but I have not played it. I own it and I've owned it for years.
01:46:34
Speaker
But again, these games from this franchise are long and exhausting and tiring. I know. But then again, some people really like that. It's kind of a subjective thing, you know? Yeah. I would put this kind of high, to be honest with you. Yeah, I think it would have to. I think it would have to.
01:46:58
Speaker
It looks good and all the other games from them are good. it's yeah ah Clearly a lot of thought and ideas went into this. It is beloved. it yeah go It needs to go sort of somewhat It's not my number one by any means. Yeah, I think it's going to go above clam man. yeah like Obviously, it's going to go above clam man. I think a little bit more work went into it than clam man, and that's not it's not a slight. There are tears of art. Okay, where would you put it? like
01:47:33
Speaker
How would you compare this to like scratches? Because scratches, like we've talked about, is such a singular and interesting experience. It's so. Hear me out. Hear me out. I would have put it below scratches as an adventure game experience. That's just my opinion. Okay. How about this?
01:47:53
Speaker
Where would you put it? Okay, so now there's only one to compare one more to compare it to, which is Ben there, Dan that. um I think this goes above it because this is a bigger, if it was, I think I would make the argument, if we were if it was um their third game, Lair of the Clockwork God, yeah I would make an argument that that goes above this, but Ben there, Dan, that just isn't the accomplishment that Dreamfall Chapters is. Yeah, I agree. I very much agree with that. Do you remember where Fran Bow is on our list?
01:48:23
Speaker
It's like number two. It's number two, yeah. Yeah. um Okay. but For good reason, I think. Yeah, yeah, and now I've played it, so. Yeah. Okay, number 1065. This is, to oh, we're this is funny, it's only going down in number. Every number is was like a little lower than last. It's from City Interactive, it's from 2010. It is The Art of Murder, Cards of Destiny. What in the world? ah
01:48:54
Speaker
It's a lot of images of a woman, a 3D animated woman on her phone. Like every single screenshot, she's on her phone. and Okay, or on Steam, screenshot number one, she's on her phone, screenshot number two, she's not on her phone, then- But she's on her phone in another screenshot here. Then three, then three, yeah there's no picture of her. Four, she's on her phone. She's not on her phone, no picture of her, no picture of her.
01:49:22
Speaker
usa She's on her phone again. And in the, yeah, the last image she's on her phone and in the um ah the ah cover artwork, she's on her phone. So this is a game about a woman on her phone.
01:49:38
Speaker
Listen, I know exactly what kind of games these are. There's more. There's more than just one art of murder games. I know exactly what kind of games they are. These are and I'm gonna say I have a little bit of a soft spot for these type of games. I don't don't judge me. Yeah, that doesn't mean they're good. That does not mean they're good.
01:50:00
Speaker
They give me the sense like they're sort of like the Sherlock Holmes Frogwares games, or maybe like the Agatha Christie game. They've got that. They're worse than that. They're more in line, and this is not a franchise series, but they're more in line with some of those insane franchise series, like CSI, where it's kind of an adventure game, or like House or something. That's the quality. But again, I have a soft spot for those games. You have a soft spot. Yeah.
01:50:30
Speaker
Oh my god, yeah she is really really on her phone, dude like like knock down I'm like looking at other screenshots from other sources and this lady's just on her phone phone
01:50:53
Speaker
not even- I'm not one of those guys who's like, uh, these people today. They're always on their phones rather than pretend. But that's how I feel! You're in a game! But this is her job, is that she needs to be a detective. She shouldn't be on her phone. She needs- Yeah, you're at work! Here's another screenshot of her. There's a split screen of her and a scientist on their phone.
01:51:15
Speaker
And here's another split screen of her and like a gangster on their phone. This is too much. i I feel like it feels like I'm exaggerating, but people, if you look up this game, The Art of Murdered Cards of Destiny, you will find over a dozen screenshots of this woman on her phone and other characters on their phone. What is going on? I've never seen anything like this.
01:51:50
Speaker
but All right, so it's going at number one, clearly. I kind of like, I'm kind of, I might have to play this fucking game. I was actually gonna pause it.
01:52:06
Speaker
Like if I'm in town for a tattoo, this is what we should play. We're gonna play. Art of Murder, Cards of Destiny. Art of Murder, Cards of Destiny. Yeah, there's a bunch. there's what like What if we're surprised? here Oh, I own Art of Murder, Hunt for the Puppeteer. What? Perfect. These are all $5 games.
01:52:26
Speaker
Yeah, they're kind of on par with hidden object games, except for like like the structure is a little different. I would say I just flipped through ah Art of Murder, heart of Hunt for the Puppeteer.
01:52:39
Speaker
which has mixed reviews, by the way. She's not on her phone in any of the screenshots. I was gonna say, like, what if we play this and she's, like, not on her phone all that much, and it's just, like, a coincidence that all the streams asked her about it? You're gonna be so mad. Then we drop this 10 points. 10, 10 spots. Okay, I'm gonna put this, i' I'm kind of excited about this. I wanna put this above our, what we call our mediocre block. Okay. I wanna put it above the seventh guest.
01:53:08
Speaker
i do too i'll put it I don't know if I want to put it above... It's hard because sometimes then you contend with like mistakes we've made on this list. I know, I know. Right? Because it's like, okay, I don't know if I want to put this above dark grim mariupolis, but I definitely want to put it above hella cyberpunk thriller, and but that but that's impossible because...
01:53:32
Speaker
So what if we just put it in between the two as just like a compromise of that? Yeah, that's fine. OK, and maybe we'll maybe we'll play it and we'll have and maybe we'll do a thing where we like move it or something. yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think if we play these games that we have never we haven't played before, I think we should be allowed. Like, that's the only real that's the only way we can move things on this list. I think that's the new rule. We can move things if we play them. OK, fair.
01:53:59
Speaker
Okay. All right. All right. This is number, again, we're just going downward. um Number 689 on the list. This is from 2002. It's from Cryo Interactive. Okay. I know that. i' ah It is Mystery of the Nautilus.
01:54:19
Speaker
history of the that's also known of secret Also known as Secret of the Nautilus. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. It was Mystery of the Nautilus in the US. It is Secret of the Nautilus. Right. So this is a Jules Verne type of game.
01:54:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's got horrible reviews. Yeah. I was going to say, this is OK. So this part of the publisher. It's got one out of five on. Oh, well, who the hell is Pris Godot Scott? I don't know who that is. So but go ahead. So like the publisher is the adventure game company again or the adventure company. They do all those weird mediocre adventure games. Like, again, you guys got to go look up crime stories is the most off the wall, bizarre thing ever.
01:55:04
Speaker
It is. a man It is abandoned where it looks very much like. Oh, I hate it. a It's the era of it's the Miss Clone era. Yes, it is, which I hate. Oh, yeah. I need to put this low. I don't like it. It gives me a bad. It gives me a bad vibe. I got it. Yeah, I'm getting a bad vibe of it, too. OK. All right. Yeah, let's let's put it. Oh, shit. OK, let's let's put it like the person.
01:55:30
Speaker
I think we put it in this, like we have this like garbage dump. We do. ah At the bottom. That's like Blue Force, The Fan, Wild Wild West, The Steel Assassin, and Free DC. Those are our bottom four. Dude, what happened to Weird Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction? That should be our final one. Did that get yeeted off the list?
01:55:52
Speaker
Oh, ah other remember that one episode remember that one episode where I was talking about, I was like, why do we only have 35? This doesn't make sense. i remember a I somewhere we must have that it deserves. It's just yeeted off the list completely. i've got Okay, I'll put it back on the list. It's back on the list. Weirdest Stranger Than Fiction, 1996. So you're lucky I have like this insane memory. I'm like, no, I remember what the last one was and it was weird.
01:56:33
Speaker
The fact that we forgot about it, makes means that that stays at the bottom. But I think Mystery of the Nautilus is our number, our new 39. Because our second to last, this one looks like it sucks. Rose, you're going to be so excited about this last game. all right all right all right This might be a big, we might get in our first argument.
01:56:54
Speaker
First, are you serious? We butt heads, man. This is from three, this is number 343. Again, weirdly just going downward. Okay. Uh, 1995. It's by Sierra. Uh-oh. What do you think this game is? Is it, it's by Sierra. It's by Sierra at 1995. So King's quest seven. No. Am I close?
01:57:23
Speaker
ah you know it fits and I'll just say this, it fits with sos a spooky month. Oh my god, is it Quest for Glory 4? No, no. Damn, I really wanted it to be, though. It is. I'm gonna just going to say it, unless you want to guess one more time. Gabriel Knight? It is Phantasmagoria. No!
01:57:50
Speaker
I knew that. I knew that was 95. I don't know why that didn't pop up into my head. This is going to go high, but I just don't know if I'm going to put it as high as you. Let me think about it. All right. Oh, no, I'm not going to put it that high. It's not a good game. I like it. I want to start with number one. Like this is what I want to do for Phantasmagoria because we both like this game. yeah I think maybe you like it more than me.
01:58:15
Speaker
Probably. I probably do. Yeah, that's fair. Which is why I thought maybe there would be an argument here, but maybe maybe not. Like you said, it's you don't think it's a good game. So um so let's start with number one and move down until we start to feel doubtful. How about that? OK, that's a good idea. OK, so Portal versus Phantasmagoria. No fucking contest. No. Portal's a way better game. Agreed. Fran Bow versus Phantasmagoria. I think Fran Bow is more.
01:58:43
Speaker
ah It's just more smartly put together. I think there's more of an authorial voice. Yep. Um, papers please way more of an authorial voice. Oh yeah. No, it's done. Now I feel terrible if I did that. In fact, our top four, I think just have really strong voices. Cube Escape the Lake. Now granted, this is where I'm starting to feel slightly uncomfortable maybe because Cube Escape as an entire series, way better than Frandas Magoria. Sure. This is just Cube Escape the Lake. I think we need to go down a little further here.
01:59:18
Speaker
Okay, so Scratches versus Phantasmagoria. I think Scratches takes what Phantasmagoria was doing, right? like Like Scratches wouldn't exist maybe without Phantasmagoria to set the stage, but Scratches does it way better. Like I'm terrified playing Scratches, not that scared playing Phantasmagoria. You know though,
01:59:41
Speaker
It has such a legacy and such an innovative, they really were doing innovative things with Phantasmagoria. Sierra always tried to do different things with their games and use different tech. It was very important to them. And it's got that legacy and I don't know if Scratches does. And so because of that, because of its it's notoriety,
02:00:07
Speaker
Here's the thing, I would play Phantasmagoria over Scratches. That's my thing. I think you're making a strong argument. I want to move one more down and see how how uncomfortable we are. Yeah. To see if if you're on the right track here. and So moving one more down, Dreamfall Chapters versus Phantasmagoria. I would still put it above, personally. Those feel neck and neck to me though, right? Like that feels sure both feel like And if we go even one step down, bend there, Dan, that versus Phantasmagoria, no contest. We are too far down. yeah so i So, okay, all right, I get you. so
02:00:44
Speaker
Scratches versus Phantasmagoria. That's hard. that's really to I need you all to know that this is a very difficult decision for me, and this night is ruined now because- If I was like, I want to get spooked out, I would play Scratches. Or if I wanted to if i want to play with somebody who's like, a let's play spooky game to get into the Halloween spirit, I would put on Scratches, not Phantasmagoria, but- Hear me out.
02:01:06
Speaker
hear that Wait, hear me out, though. but yeah but But if I were to go on a date with someone, I would put on Phantasmagoria. Yeah. And I'm also thinking this thing like I could probably I will probably play Phantasmagoria every one to three years. Yeah. my life I'll probably like throw it on and be like, oh, play Phantasmagoria again. That's dead that's kind of my art. And I might not finish it every time now.
02:01:29
Speaker
But Scratches, I will play probably once every five to 10 years, and I will finish it. So it then keeps it neck to neck and neck with me. Like I still, I don't know. Should we tie it for now? I hate tying it. You know how I feel about tying. We tied Scratches an amnesia rebirth. What the fuck are we doing? I know, and you were like, you like recoiled. You're like, you're all right, okay.
02:01:58
Speaker
Okay, all right. Okay, I will concede. No, I'm gonna concede. No, I will concede. No, I will concede. Okay, let's roll the dice. We're just gonna do evens and odds. Which one is, which one, okay. Let's do D, let's do D20. Okay, ready, evens or odds? Which one's Phantasmagoria? Even. Okay, ready, it's 14. So Phantasmagoria goes ahead of Scratches.
02:02:28
Speaker
okay with it. um you con seede I was I was ready. Me too. Because I kept thinking because I was thinking like, man, I do feel fuzzier. I know. thats mcgory I do too. But I think scratches is like a stronger piece of art. But I think it Yeah, I'm happy with it. Do you feel, now that it's there, it's sort of like, you know when you do eeny, meeny, miny, mo, and it's not about going with the one that you land on. It's about how you react when you get there. It's how you feel, yeah. No, I do feel good. And now that it's there, how do you feel? Okay.
02:03:02
Speaker
I feel good. i do i would It's personal preference. People might argue it. I would prefer Phantasmagoria over Scratches.
Future Episodes and Closing Remarks
02:03:10
Speaker
right and it's The same way to stateway sometimes I prefer McDonald's over like a steakhouse.
02:03:16
Speaker
you know
02:03:19
Speaker
No, no, I'm saying no. All right. No, I don't want either of those things. So this is i that was an interesting one. That was an interesting series of games. ah Yeah, we should cover them. What if one time. One time when we are tired, right? Oh, boy. One week when we're like, blah and we don't want to do we don't want to like.
02:03:45
Speaker
um We don't have to play a whole game that week. Maybe we're just playing maybe we're just both stuck on some game that we have, you know like ah that we want to play rather than one we have to play. yeah um We do an entire episode, we try to get like 20 on the list in one episode. we like We do an episode where we're just like, all right, let's fucking, let's, let's, i let's,
02:04:15
Speaker
Double this list, that's too many. let's let's ah let's let's ah right Let's ah beef out this list. Yeah, I'm totally down for that. I thought you were gonna say, let's play Phantasmagoria, and I was getting a little excited, but all right. No, it's fine, it's fine, I understand. We'll do Phantasmagoria at some point, I'm sure. um Okay, well, think I think that's it. It's our longest episode to date.
02:04:44
Speaker
ah these deep dives, we really go, and we've been doing, it's interesting, we've been doing more deep dives lately. Yeah, well, I knew with Frambo that I would have a lot to say, so I just, I knew it would go long anyway. But I think like our last, um whatever, 10 episodes, I think that's in saturation, but ah so many of our recent episodes have just been deep dives. And like, I just want to say, folks,
02:05:13
Speaker
that's and i'm not That's not even true. We did... we did ah Our last episode was one, and then it was Broken Sword. and Yeah, we did Broken Sword. That's right. like three or this This month will all be deep dives because it's Spooky Month. Yeah. yeah But I just want to reassure our listeners, like after Spooky Month, we're not just going to do deep dives. We will do other stuff. Absolutely. This will still be a variety. sort of In fact, this might be a good time to tease that we're considering maybe doing a live show on stream.
02:05:47
Speaker
Yeah, we can also tease, I think our next um ah Q and&A episode is gonna be after spooky. After spooky month, yeah, yeah. What else do we wanna tease? i mean That's a lot, right? like They know that they're getting three spooky episodes. Jeez, yeah. Then a qe ah Q and&A, then some point a live episode. Yeah.
02:06:14
Speaker
And we're gonna do an all ranking episode. That's so stupid. I'm so excited. I wanna do that now. ah All right, load it up. Let me just close this one out real quick. We'll keep going until 1 AM. Let's keep going. Thank you guys all for hanging in there ah for fucking over two hours. Yeah, dude, if y'all hung in there for two hours listening to us,
02:06:41
Speaker
Email us and say say something that only we would know. Let's do a code. Okay. What's the code? Oh Man what? is I don't have one off the top of my head. Let's let's let's think about what we talked about today Email us with Tam i I almost I almost had it Matt. Could you feel it? It was there it was on the tip of my tongue and now it's gone um Email us with
02:07:11
Speaker
your favorite piece of topic, but yes. Email us with, i email us with subject to the email. Why is she on her phone?
02:07:28
Speaker
ah Why is she on her phone? You don't even have to put anything in the body of the email. Why is she on her phone? But if you have a theory as to why she's on her phone. Let us know. The whole game. Then put that in the body of the email. All right, guys. Well, thank you so much for listening. And I guess all we have to say is that ah podcast is art. And artists suffer. This one's special.