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Episode 30 - Audience Recommendations Vol. 3
1.8k Plays3 months ago
Welcome in!
PushingUpRoses and Matt Aukamp take your recommendations seriously! And they prove it by playing four of them and reviewing them in this episode: There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension, The Journey Down, Voodoo Detective, and Life is Strange.
We also bring back some SPECIAL GUESTS for our RANKING EVERY ADVENTURE GAME segment.
Email Us! [email protected]
Games Mentioned:
- Muppets: Chaos at the Carnival or something
- Fallout: New Vegas
- The Abandoned Planet
- Myst
- Mars After Midnight
- Pulpergeist
- There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension
- The Journey Down
- The Dream Machine
- Grim Fandango
- Voodoo Detective
- Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father
- Curse of Monkey Island
- Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars
- The Slaughter: Act One
- Life is Strange
- Codename: ICEMAN
- Deponia: Doomsday
- Wavetale
- A Whisper in the Twilight: Ch. 1
- Ben There Dan That
- Astronomica: The Quest for the Edge of the Universe
Recommended
Transcript
Why isn't there a Muppets adventure game?
00:00:00
Speaker
Why is this not being a Muppets adventure game? I was thinking that, too. I really was. so I was like, you know, the Muppets would make it pretty fun. Like, I mean, all of their things are adventure related, right? Like, all their movies are adventure to phase. Yeah, they go on adventure. Muppet capers are heist. Muppets take Manhattan as, like, Broadway. Like, they're always on an adventure. They experience mysteries and chaos and then have to solve them. Yeah. That seems fucking prime for an adventure game. But all they've ever had are the worst platforming games you've ever played. I swear there was also like a gosh, this was a long time ago. It wasn't an an adventure game and it wasn't a platformer. It was like ah one of those experience games, like storybook. Do you? Yeah, you remember those, right? Yeah, yeah. I've never seen Muffet's one of those. But yeah, i I know what you're talking about. Yeah, I've had a few of them. Like I had one for like
00:00:56
Speaker
I don't want to say they're like living books because you can interact with them like I remember like interacting in the toy story one for example.
Chaos at the Carnival: A Muppets game disaster
00:01:07
Speaker
I spent a lot of time playing Muppets adventure chaos at the carnival.
00:01:13
Speaker
which was a Nintendo game that was very, very bizarre. It was like a bunch of like, you would, everybody had their own stage. Like, Fozzie, you would walk around a maze made out of ice cream, collecting bow ties and candy.
00:01:29
Speaker
and And somebody had like a river raft adventure. I thought Kermit had a river raft adventure. Everybody, yeah, every Muppet had their own little adventure and they were all so hard. I don't think I ever beat any of them.
00:01:45
Speaker
This looks horrible. I'm looking up the screen caps. This is just a game, like a skin for a game, and they're like, Muppets, let's just put Muppets in it. Yeah, it's like they went to their, who actually made this game? Who was the high tech, high tech expressions? It was like high tech expressions went to their development team and were like, okay, what games do we have under development? A River raft adventure? Okay, it's now Kermit raft.
00:02:13
Speaker
and you're gonna, it's gonna be a 15 minute experience. Okay, what's this one? Oh, the the candy maze. Oh, it's now called Fozzie's Maze. It's ah it's a 10 minute experience. Like everybody who was working on a game, and they just had to throw them all into Muppet's ah Carnival. yeah There was like a gonzo. You had you were flying a spaceship through like an obstacle course and it was like that sort of game where you have thrust and you have to like control the thrust. Do you know what I'm talking about? I'm very good at controlling the thrust, so yes.
00:02:58
Speaker
What? You walked me right into it. Oh yeah, you're right. I guess I did. Should I the music there? I guess so.
00:03:29
Speaker
Everyone that did okay. All right. All right, you go
Old games were hard: Delight or disaster?
00:03:33
Speaker
start. Sorry go ahead No, I can't do it now it's got the moments gone yeah Everyone pushing up roses here with me Wow, I can't I really fucking threw you off. I was gonna just start talking about Muppets chaos at the carnival again. like i was't i like It felt like I wasn't done. yes like I was too excited to talk about Muppets chaos at the carnival to even wait for the intro.
00:04:02
Speaker
I'm just very insulted. I'm just extremely insulted right now that the game is so bad. What I need to say is you pointed out while the music was playing, while the intro was playing, that ah none of these things look like carnivals. No, they don't at all.
00:04:20
Speaker
yeah ah like how there's no world in which you go to a carnival and you go on a 10 minute raft ride down a raging river and be like, okay, no, now I'm 10 minutes away from it. Can somebody drive me back to the carnival? Just get lost along the way. They never returned. They just got lost in the river rafting. Oh yeah yeah, one of our our features here at the carnival is we send you away.
00:04:51
Speaker
forever into space or down a river. Also, the first screen cap that even comes up of gameplay is like you're just on a random brick wall. Yeah, remember all those brick walls at the carnival? Yeah, I don't I don't remember that stage, to be honest. Maybe you didn't get there. It's like, ah yeah, it's like it looks like an evil scientist at the top. Yeah.
00:05:19
Speaker
And Kermit is ah seductively squatting over two platforms next to Miss Piggy.
00:05:30
Speaker
Yes, yep, that that's what I'm looking at too. Oh yeah, remember that weird science guy from the Muppets? That isn't Bunsen, yeah, this is it's not Bunsen, it's some weirdo. This is what happens when we, oh, oh, there was, okay, there was a, I'm looking at more screenshots, ah animals one was a bumper cars thing, but it was like it was like a,
00:05:56
Speaker
It was like a ah race thing. um And I think you had to like, i don't now I don't remember. I think you had to bump into stuff for points. I don't i don't know. it was It was a wild game.
00:06:09
Speaker
it wasn't good. And it was so hard to just play it over and over. Remember, that's how games used to be. Oh, yeah. They were just too hard. So you'd play them over and over and you wouldn't have fun. Yeah, I did that all the time, honestly, except but especially with um especially with console games with adventure games, not so much. I think I always I think I always legitimately enjoyed even the harder adventure games, like even King's Quest III, but yeah with console games, you're just like... oh It's funny how we barely had a cold open. We just kind of like started the show by talking about video games and then yeah failed at introducing ourselves.
Oops, we forgot introductions!
00:06:50
Speaker
Yeah, did you know, you guys, that this is Save Your Game with Pushing Up Roses and Mad Awe Camp? Hi. Yeah, that it is that.
00:06:58
Speaker
Welcome. We talk about video games. Well, welcome in. Have you noticed people saying what? This is a thing that I have noticed recently and it wasn't always the case when I was a kid. No one ever said welcome in. But now at every store and every restaurant I walk into, somebody says, hey, welcome in. Really?
00:07:19
Speaker
i remember that but Is that like a Pennsylvania thing? Cause in Chicago it's just like, Hey, what's up? No, it was. So it was when I went to Louisiana, I noticed it for the first time. I was like, Oh, everyone down here says welcome in everywhere you go. This is it. And then I came home and everyone in fucking Pennsylvania is saying welcome in.
00:07:38
Speaker
Maybe you brought it back with you. What changed? Why did suddenly everybody start saying welcome in? I've never said that ever, and I never hear it in Chicago. So I was like, hey, how's it going? but Welcome in, everybody. Welcome into the podcast.
Viewer game suggestions and host preferences
00:07:55
Speaker
Welcome in. i'm That's what she said.
00:08:03
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:08:08
Speaker
You're really, you're really on a fucking roll today. This is why I have fans.
00:08:19
Speaker
Hey, what have you been playing? I haven't. But for good reason, for good reason, because this week, we actually dove into some of our suggestions, we actually get quite a number of suggestions every week from our viewers. And some of them just really stand out to us. So we did tackle a few of those suggestions. So I played two games, Matt played two games. And that is what I've been playing. And I, I'm happy to say that I enjoyed both the games I played. That's awesome. I enjoyed
00:08:51
Speaker
both the games I played too. I haven't finished either of them, unfortunately. Oh, that's too bad. But I have played things other outside of those games. So maybe I've been derelict. Maybe this is a dereliction of duty.
00:09:05
Speaker
No, because like, ah here's the thing, though. Here's the thing with suggestions, right? Yeah, I think if we are suggested something, and we're like, trying it out, we reserve the right to be like, all right, this is not for me. Here's why. And here's my experience, you know, with that game if you can get around to finishing it it it. That's fine. You know? and you know But i I think I will. We'll talk about it when I get there. I think I will finish them
Modding Fallout New Vegas for a better experience
00:09:28
Speaker
here. here's ah Here's what I have been playing, though. I do want to talk about what I've been playing. First of all, I talked a lot about Fallout New Vegas and they want to give people a suggestion. If they are intrigued, if they're interested or if they're thinking they've played it before and are thinking going back and they're playing on PC, I want to suggest there's this website that's called that's just Viva New Vegas.
00:09:54
Speaker
It is, ok i I think it's like Viva New Vegas dot modding dot com or something. and If you type in Viva New Vegas, you're gonna find it yeah into like a search engine. Anyway, what it does is...
00:10:08
Speaker
it' um it's a modding guide, like a guide to modding the game so that, because it is like, it's by Obsidian, but it's like a Bethesda kinda game, and so like a Bethesda game, it crashes all the fucking time. So its first thing is it's a guide to fixing all those bugs yeah that these types of open world Bethesda style games always ship with, and then Cleaning up the graphics and cleaning up some of the weird UI stuff that's like out of date and then adding features that are more current like a sprint button or dynamic.
00:10:50
Speaker
crosshairs, stuff like that. um And then you can keep going. You can like add ah some ah extra content that's like that was ah that was originally cut from the game so that it could fit on consoles and stuff like that. Very cool. But what what the guide does is it gives you a like just very base level step-by-step instruction on how to on what mods to choose where to find them, how to install them, and how to test them, make sure they run, and that literally anybody can follow. So like if you're intimidated by mods, this is not...
00:11:28
Speaker
intimidating at all. And it makes the game so much better. and So that's just my that's my recommendation. Oh, nice. I love a recommendation. The game I've been playing is a game called and it's I had no I did not know this game was coming out.
Pixel art adventure games: The new trend
00:11:45
Speaker
I'm ready. I'm i'm ready to Google it. I discovered the day before it came out.
00:11:51
Speaker
wow I just randomly stumbled across it on Steam. Actually while we were recording and I was looking up something for our segment. That's how I, that dude, that's how I find all my games these days too, is when we are Googling to look up something and then like other things pop up and suggestions. This is what happened and I saw this thing and I was like, oh, what's that? I'll just click on that and I'll click wish list and I'll look at it after the,
00:12:16
Speaker
ah after the show and it it was like, oh, it comes out tomorrow. It is called The Abandoned Planet. And it is a pic, like a first person pixel art.
00:12:28
Speaker
a point and click adventure game and that's like a combination of just like ah like a normal point and click adventure game and then like a mist kind of game. Yes, I've seen screen caps for this. It looks gorgeous. it is There's just something about it. It is so pretty. The UI is beautiful. yeah you're like You're this woman who gets trapped on an ah and on an abandoned planet and you're walking around like the ruins of this old civilization. and Um, and the puzzles are not nearly as hard as like mist or something like that. So if yeah that turns you off at all.
00:13:04
Speaker
you If you're interested in the art style and you're interested in our recommendations, don't let the mist of it turn you off because- Yeah, I was just gonna say maybe it has the aesthetic appeal, the the atmospheric appeal of mist, but not the insane- Yeah, and it is that sort of thing where you're walking around, your career like you're finding devices and locks and things like that that you,
00:13:32
Speaker
have to understand in order to like in order to utilize. But you also have a character that is narrating, maybe a little too much for my taste, but so it doesn't feel so lonely because you have a character that is constantly talking to you, a character that's sharing her observations out loud, which usually align with the observations you just made. So it's not like, I didn't feel like she was giving me too many hints, ah maybe pushing me in the right direction a little more often than I would prefer, yeah but it's really, really great
00:14:10
Speaker
Also, and this is something weirdly that's gonna come up during this ah podcast a lot, the rare instance of a black protagonist in an adventure game, and which happens so rarely. So rarely. And for no reason that I can discern. I do not know why that's the case. but I definitely have things to say about that in my ah for the game that I've been playing, for sure. Oh, me too. Yeah, um it is rare.
00:14:37
Speaker
uh but yeah it's it's really really good um i highly suggest it's called the abandoned planet uh it only has 34 reviews on steam this should be being talked about by all adventure game fans like this is i i don't know i don't know why this isn't had number one on the top of all of our tongues. This kind of atmosphere is what I loved about Myst. And you all know, not a Myst fan at all. But I always loved, this is going to sound insane, I always loved booting up Myst because of the atmosphere, just because I wanted to be on that island that I didn't even think you could get off of. I didn't there were other islands. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:15:22
Speaker
um Yeah, and I mean, I think that is that is the case. it It really feels good to navigate this world. And I was doing it at, ah and granted, I have played so many puzzle and adventure games. yeah yeah i i I know I fly through them a little faster than the average person, um but- That's because that's your jam, you know? yeah Exactly, yeah. um But i was I was moving through this, e i I didn't,
00:15:49
Speaker
find myself stuck or stalling, almost at all. So I think people are going, like the pace of this game is great. I never stuck in an area longer than I wanted to. Oh, good. I like to hear that. So before we start talking about the games that you, the listeners, recommended, I'm going to need roses to throw on a little theme. OK, are you ready for the theme?
00:16:16
Speaker
Here we go. 1, 2, 3. Heck yeah.
00:16:24
Speaker
Playdate with Matt. with Matt. It's such a jam. Yeah, isn't that a bop? Yeah. It's a segment within the podcast Save Your Game, where Matt talks about the game the adventure games that he's played on his Playdate. I finished.
00:16:45
Speaker
Mars after midnight. Oh, okay. You know what? I don't remember you saying you didn't finish it. Or maybe I do remember that. Yeah, I think I said I would come back and give everybody an update. So I did yeah did finish it and it is interesting. um So just a quick recap.
Mars After Midnight: A narrative exploration
00:17:03
Speaker
ah Mars After Midnight, much like Papers, Please, you are basically guarding a door and deciding to let people in or not let people in based on criteria. In this case, you're guarding the door to a self-help group on Mars and you bar or allow people to go through based on if they fit the thing that the self-help group is there for. And it'll be things like angry cyclopses or small insects wielding knives.
00:17:34
Speaker
so So I beat it. um the You said this was the Lucas Pope game, right? Yes. That's what, okay. I was just making sure you did mention papers, please. And I'm like, is it? Yeah, it is. Okay. So it was actually, it was very adorable. So I started to get towards the end and remember how, I don't know if you remember, but I told you that ah every night the Martian dreams of things on earth. Yes. With the great pyramids. or that Yeah, you said and I started to get kind of sad about it. And I haven't even played this game. I'm like, it sounds sad.
00:18:09
Speaker
And the off colony ticket that ah that the ah this one guy was selling um was like $10,000 or $100,000 in amount that i I was like, I can't ever afford this. So seeing that happen, when the man started selling a teddy bear, I was like, fuck it, I'll just buy the teddy bear.
00:18:29
Speaker
And it's, he gives the teddy bear to his little robot friend. And now when you're still dreaming of earth, the robot starts dreaming of all the fun things he wants to do with his teddy bear. Like go skiing. Go on a joy ride or ride a bike. It's so cute and sweet. And then when you finally get through, uh, when you finally help all the Martians.
00:18:55
Speaker
And this is going to get into spoilers, but again, I think a lot of you aren't going to get to play this game. So I'm going to spoil the hell out of it. The salesman is like, hey, for a loyal customer, like one day you just get a delivery and you're like, oh, I didn't buy anything. And it says for a loyal customer and it's the ticket off colony.
00:19:13
Speaker
And it's very sweet. You see, you help everybody and then you take the ah ticket. And here was what was very surprising. It takes you to the Earth colony on Mars. And then you do the, you basically go through another series of helping people. So the game had a whole extra segment that I didn't know. Oh, wow. That's nice. I love those kinds of things where it's like, oh, it's not over yet.
00:19:37
Speaker
Yay. but Instead of weird Martians, there were weird Martians, but there was also like ah humans now and robots. Fuck that. I don't want to help human beings. I only want to assist ah aliens.
00:19:53
Speaker
um my and So that yeah, you had to, there was like a vampire club. So you like had a, you had like an X-ray scanner to make sure that they had fangs. It was really cool. And then, you know, and then obviously the ending, if if you can't tell is that same pattern repeats and he gives you- That's really adorable. I don't know. What is, what he would, what is the theme of this game, right? Like it is somebody who is helping everybody to ah solve their own problems. He's like making it his mission to solve ah the problems of the people on these Mars colonies. And he's one issue. He wants to get to Earth. Oh, my god. And there's this moment. So you know if there's 120 people to help it in the Mars colony, and then there's 50 or something people to help in the Earth colony, on the way, there's a sweet little thing where it pops up and it's like, Earth, 8 million people need help.
00:20:52
Speaker
And it's ah it's a little a little bit of a poignant way to end. um But I don't know. Yeah, I haven't fully digested its themes yet, but it's sweet. It was fun. Some of the some of the support groups I liked better than others. There was one that was very funny where it was it was something about ah being immune to wind. So you had this- Man, I wish I had that. Are you serious? ah Immune to wind?
00:21:25
Speaker
You have this big fan, and you somebody knocks at the door, and you turn on the fan, and if they stay still, you let them in, and if they don't, they fly off the screen. So imagine just going up and knocking on a door, and somebody's like, okay, hold on, and a giant fan turns on, and you get blown all the way down the street. ah That was really good, and there's and one that I didn't like. You know I don't like crude stuff. You don't?
00:21:55
Speaker
and you know i don't i though i'm I'm fine with profane stuff. I'm fine with a ah cursing. i don't I don't mind sexual content, but yucky stuff, crude stuff, I don't like. Yucky stuff, okay, got it. There's one that was like farty party. I see, okay, I see. And you had to wait for the person to fart three times. It's like toilet humor. You're talking about toilet humor. Toilet humor, yeah, I'm not a big fan of it. But, you know, anyway.
00:22:22
Speaker
It was a great game. ah The other game I played was Poltergeist. Like Poltergeist, but with the word pulp in the front.
Poltergeist: Puzzles and storytelling
00:22:31
Speaker
Now this game was very strange. It is another one of these ah play date style,
00:22:37
Speaker
um like when you don't point and click, what do you call a point and click game? When you go around looking at things and gathering inventory and using the inventory on things to- Just an adventure game, right?
00:22:52
Speaker
I guess, yes so it yeah, so so it was a game like that, you get called, you're a detective, you get called to a house um where the entire family, I guess, has gone missing, their son went missing, and then the rest of the family, I guess, disappeared, maybe, and you find the ghosts of the family scattered throughout the house, and you gotta go around and solve a bunch of, again, they'd be point and click puzzles if you could point and click, but you basically just walk into things and press the A button, and it's like, oh, you found a hammer, and then you open up your inventory, pick up hammer and walk into something else. And it's like you used hammer on nail, whatever, right? um And you're trying to ah basically solve the problems of each of these ghosts, which are members of the family. And then they, and then remind them of their son. And then the ghosts disappear. And then you have to look for their son.
00:23:50
Speaker
he like crawled into a well and then got stuck and then died down. Oh, I see. Okay. um So you have to save him. Well, you don't save him. You just find his bones, you bring them back, you bury them. and And then it turns out that the entire family had been cursed. They'd sold their souls to because of their grief over their missing, over the missing boy.
00:24:16
Speaker
It was fine. Yeah, I was gonna say it it looks I don't know. It's giving me some kind of like extreme old timey vibe. Why did I say old timey? Not old timey, but like, ah it's giving me almost text adventure vibes with the way even though it's not, it's not a text adventure, it is graphic. But I don't know, there's something about it. There was just so many text based games kind of in this similar vein of like, you're in a house, you know, like mystery house, as an example.
00:24:48
Speaker
It did really feel that way, right? Yeah, it felt like these old fashioned text games where you are in a haunted house. Like that's just so yeah common. yes And yeah, and like like the other sort of, again,
00:25:07
Speaker
this this kind of adventure game, inventory-based adventure games that have played on the Playdate, it's almost got like an Atari-looking graphics. You're like... Yeah, it does. You're like top-down isometric, but everything's... yeah Oh, good. My favorite. um ah like um ah Your character is like 20 pixels, smashed together, and you just have to assume that is what a human looks like.
00:25:31
Speaker
I assume just because of the title you're playing like a noir, a hard-boiled character, pulp. Yeah, and that doesn't really come through. um ok you People call you a detective, you are a detective, but the pulp style doesn't really come through. Oh, that's good. Yeah, that's what I would want.
00:25:48
Speaker
The weirdest thing about it is the epilogue, which is after you, and there's some interesting things going on here. like there There are some interesting puzzles. There are some interesting uses of um of of the of the technology.
00:26:06
Speaker
ah You don't use the crank at all. But okay anyway, the epilogue is like another it's almost as long as the game. And it is like a it's like a series of platforming challenges and like timing based.
00:26:24
Speaker
ah Platforming game things it like do you find it that it was padding? I don't think it was padding because they didn't need to put it in there at all. I think it was just I think maybe the person just had a couple game ideas and smashed them together. or it's It's hard to tell what was in their brain. i yeah The story resolves.
00:26:52
Speaker
through the epilogue. So arguably, it's not an epilogue. It's just the second chapter. Interesting. But yeah, it jumps into like these kind of these platforming challenges that I didn't really enjoy. OK, that's fair enough. So that's Polpergeist. And that is Playdate with Matt.
00:27:22
Speaker
with man
00:27:25
Speaker
i love i'm glad you love this song sim like yes yeah but song i have a song you have to have a song there I still think our listeners need to make us a song for, and well but we'll talk about this when we do it, but need to make us a song for uh, ranking every adventure game episode or segment. I think somebody should just make me a song and just make her me. it just If you, oh man, if you want to see roses do a specific segment, if you have a segment for the show in mind, make a song.
00:28:01
Speaker
for it and then Roses will want to play it so badly that she'll just do the segments. That's true. You know what? Matt knows me very well. This worked. I will literally do any segment. Even if it's on stuff I don't like. Like, even if it's like, we just want Roses to play Myst. Fine. I'll give you what you want. It's not going to be a fun time, but.
There is No Game: A genre-bending experience
00:28:28
Speaker
So, Roses.
00:28:31
Speaker
Yes. Do you want to talk about a game called Voodoo Detective? Yes, I do. All right, let's prank our Paxitinos.
00:29:02
Speaker
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Save Your Game. I'm pushing up roses. This is Matt Aucamp. Hey. I hope you all had a great break. During the break, I actually decided that, yes, we are we are going to talk about Luda Detective. We're going to do that. But I would first, before we do that, I would like to talk about the other suggested game that I had played first. And that was, there is no game wrong dimension. And I think you've played this game, right, Matt?
00:29:30
Speaker
Yeah. Have you ever played the first There Is No Game? No, but I did. I know it's short and I did look it up and I saw where the inspiration came from. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It was like a game jam game. Yes. Yes. And then it kind of turned, it kind of like evolved almost into this full fledged, interesting, a hybrid of games. So ah do you remember the text I sent you when I started playing it?
00:29:57
Speaker
He said, I don't know about this game. Yeah, I was like, I don't know about this. I don't know if I like this. And and the reason is because I didn't quite realize that the game was going to pay homage to different genres. And that's why we got it as a suggestion because the game does have adventure game elements to them. In fact, I would say it all is except the first part.
00:30:20
Speaker
is mist-like. So if you guys haven't played this game, it's very clever. you know You enter into this game program where the program is talking to you and trying to say, there's no game, do not start the game, get out of the game. And it's trying to do everything it can to get you to exit the game.
00:30:38
Speaker
Yeah. And so it's in chapters. So the first chapter I thought was more of a Myst style game. That's kind of where the homage was. I felt it was like logical, more logical. Oh, because it's logic puzzles. Yeah. I mean, the first chapter is all you're just in the ah opening screen. You're just in the title screen. And every piece of every puzzle and piece of inventory you need is somewhere in the puzzles in that and no ah but title screen. Yeah, and and I did like it. Like, don't get me wrong, I liked it. But also, I'm like, I don't want to play an entire game that is this kind of puzzle. I really don't like I appreciate the right it's very Jackbox Games writing. It's clever. um It's fun. And it's engaging. It's like, Jackbox game writing is interesting interesting way to say it. Yeah.
00:31:29
Speaker
ah And, but that I realized quickly that this is not my type of gameplay. However, once I got through that first chapter, it started paying homage to different games. So then I found myself in a backstage of an adventure game.
00:31:45
Speaker
which I thought was fantastic. It's it really funny. It's so good. That's why I when you asked me about it, or when you said that when you were like, I don't know about this game, I was like, I'm going to wait until she gets to the Sherlock Holmes, yeah, point and click game and before I respond.
00:32:05
Speaker
Yes. And then I really started to, I guess, understand what they were doing with the game. And then it gets even better from there, because then it goes into a Zelda homage. It's so funny. It's so funny. It's kind of like scrutinizing some of the stupider parts of these shots, some of the the the less ah playable parts of these games and kind of making a small commentary on it. And it's funny and it's fun as well. Like the puzzles are fun. And yeah, I actually I, I have not finished this game yet. It's actually taking me a while. I don't know if I'm just dumb. Like what am I doing wrong?
00:32:47
Speaker
But this is a game where you can't die, but you can rest. If you do a puzzle wrong, you have to restart, at least in the Zelda area. there's a I find that there's a lot of restarting.
00:32:59
Speaker
The Zelda game, it it makes fun of microtransaction stuff, right? It does, yes. That's the even next chapter after that. So like the game program that you're in, it's so interesting. It keeps turning into a different genre of game. And the program that you're speaking to is like, oh, that was the type of game I was meant to be before the developers left me. It's so it's very funny. It's very clever to see all these like little game. So yeah, after the Zelda game, it turns into um
00:33:32
Speaker
like a DLC, like pay to play type of thing. It's very, again, very, very funny. And yeah, like a free to play pay to win. And yeah, it is like, it's that same Zelda game, right? Yes, it's the same one. It's the same Zelda game, only they add a bunch of ads and microtransactions to it. And there's like ads for papers, please, in it. And there's an ad for Parappa the Rappa.
00:33:59
Speaker
That's funny. like So yeah, i i was it was a weird roller coaster for me because I'm like, this is not the type of game that I think that I'm going to enjoy. And that's too bad because I think it's clever in concept. And then when it got going, then when I saw it,
00:34:18
Speaker
do what it was doing and it ah paid homage to adventure point and clicks, let's say, and then the Zelda games and then making fun of just all these quirks and eccentricities in game dev. Yeah, I really yeah, I ended up really enjoying it. And i I think I would recommend it just as a fun time, to be honest, it's very stimulating. So just keep in mind, I don't think this is a very laid back casual game. I felt like I really had to think about kind of what I was doing.
00:34:48
Speaker
So I would say it's a more stimulating game, especially with the dialogue, the funny writing. it It does an amazing thing too, where so you're behind that when you say behind the scenes of an yeah adventure game, like you are sitting at a computer, you can rotate the computer and look at like things on the side yeah that you will need, I think. But you also um yeah ah You can like take the inventory items and the verbs yeah out of the game and use them in like the real world and then you can take stuff from the real world and just put it in the game. It's yeah so clever. It's breaking the wall and in the and the most powerful way it can bye yeah by like letting us
00:35:35
Speaker
play around in this adventure game world. are The characters, they just think that this is their life, whereas we're playing an adventure game and we know that that's what this is. ah So it's very meta. It's the most effective type of fourth wall breaking because yeah you have power beyond the fourth wall. yeah You exist beyond the fourth wall and you can affect what's in the first three. right like yeah yeah That's so smart to me. Yeah.
00:36:05
Speaker
do you think you'll finish it? Yeah, I'm gonna finish it. Okay, awesome. Yeah, exactly report back when you do. I want to know how you feel about the very strange ending. of Let's talk about one of the games that you played then. Okay, why don't we talk about um the journey down.
The Journey Down: Afro-Caribbean art and story
00:36:22
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. You know, that's a game i I really don't know much about, to be honest. Yeah. It's a game that is, and I don't love when this happens, it is a game that is in that is sold in three chapters by the individual chapters. There are games that I have started and never finished because they did that. Yeah. um yeah
00:36:42
Speaker
Like the dream machine, for example, is a really cool mixed medium art and claymation game, like stop motion animation game that was really, really cool. But it sells all six of its chapters separately. And i get buy I got number one and two, I think for either cheap or free. And then the other chapters aren't that much money, but still like, oh, I'm spending five bucks for the next.
00:37:07
Speaker
hour and then I'll spend five bucks for the next hour and then I'll spend six bucks for the next hour. And like, I hate that. Yeah. um So the journey down, I think I got in a bundle, um which I'm glad ah because each of these chapters is like 15 bucks. Oh, OK. Wow. And that's a bummer. But that being said,
00:37:34
Speaker
The Journey Down is a lot of fun. It is a really well-constructed point and click adventure game. You know, you're walking around, you're talking to people, you are ah ah collecting inventory and solving puzzles, you're sneaking into things and yeah ruining people's lives, you know, just all your standard point and click adventure stuff. You play Bwana, who is a man in this, it's this like fictionalized,
00:38:03
Speaker
Afro-Caribbean sort of environment. Okay. Where and everybody's face is African masks. Yeah, i it's a very interesting art style, honestly. i'm looking at I'm looking at the Steam page and it's really cool looking, honestly.
00:38:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's like hand painted, hand drawn, point and click style backgrounds. And then the characters are like these cute little 3D models with African masks as heads. And they're based on real African masks. Like you can go to, you can look up the development of this game and they you know the the creators cite their sources. They show the masks that these characters are based on.
00:38:46
Speaker
um and they're all real. um I'm saying African, I know Africa isn't a country, which you know is a you know a big problem and trope when people do that. I just cannot remember the ah country or culture that the masks came from, so I apologize. Okay, got I got you. I was a little worried because, okay, there's very well There are very few games, and we talked about this already in today's episode, there are very few adventure games, unfortunately, with black protagonists. It just happened so rarely. I mean, I have this list of 3,000 some, right? And I think, like, personally, I know about seven. Yeah. Yeah. um And
00:39:39
Speaker
this game opens up and you play a, Bwana and his his friend Keto are two pilots, like two pilots for hire. And they have like really strong Caribbean accents and they are, their business is failing because they're both lazy. And there was a bit where I was like, I don't know if I love a stereotype of a Caribbean black character who is too lazy to make his own business work. But he's very charming and very clever, and ah he really, really wins you over. I'm only in chapter two, so there's some of this that's still a mystery to me. But at the end of the island, there's like this steep to drop into this other sort of misty nautical realm. and And the world has an edge that
00:40:34
Speaker
it is like illegal to look over or go near or talk about. And you are trying to save a woman who is clearly interested in this edge and finds a book that, like, I guess your ancestor had held onto, your ancestor, you ah your, or your, it's your father, your lost father. And his journal, she comes, she comes to you to find, and then you need to protect her from like gangsters that are chasing her. If that sounds confusing to you, it's because it is a little confusing. Well, it's, it's giving me a very specific vibe. You know what vibe I'm going to say?
00:41:15
Speaker
No, I don't. It's giving me g Grim Fandango vibes. Oh, right. ah yeah It kind of sounded like you were retelling some of the story of Grim Fandango. That's a good point. Yeah, like a Grim Fandango, you are in a world that seems to have some conspiracy that is built around locking off a section of the world. The world is very unique. It's based on a real earth culture.
00:41:45
Speaker
Yeah, I could see that I could totally see it. This definitely would be like even the taking a different culture and using that in the game, you know. yes ah Yeah, it's it's very much reminds me of Grim Fandango, the way that Grim Fandango uses Day of the Dead masks as their character faces. Yeah. Yeah. This game is a Mexican lore, you know, sometimes Aztec lore, you know, in Grim. Yeah.
00:42:11
Speaker
I liked it. ah hi As far, the puzzles are a little, what are, they're standard point and click puzzles, right? um yeah you're you're You're kind of doing,
00:42:25
Speaker
all your your standard trophy point and click puzzle stuff. like there There was nothing in the puzzles that I was like, oh, this is brilliant. But the characters were very charming and fun to be around. um And I am still intrigued about the story. I am halfway through chapter two, and I am going to finish this series. like I'm excited about it, so. Good. I'm glad. That's the journey down.
00:42:56
Speaker
I'm excited. And actually, this is a good segue into talking about Voodoo Detective, which was the other game that I was recommended. And should we should we talk about that now or would you like to continue with yours? Oh, no, I'm i'm good. Let's talk about Voodoo Detective. Yeah, let's do that. So this is very much a roses game.
Voodoo Detective: Cultural themes and LucasArts comparison
00:43:21
Speaker
ah Which is the way I think we should do these suggestions is if we want to get the most out of playing them, we should try to assign them to people who would like them. And this is definitely a roses game. So when I first looked at it, though, however, I immediately called Matt, yes like, don't be mad at me. But like, should we pivot? And the reason I asked that is because I'm always very conscious of using culture to in a story like this. So a voodoo detective, a black protagonist that uses voodoo to help him through puzzles. I wanted to know if it was in good faith, honestly, because particularly, and this is like the journey down to when it's a bunch of white creators using black character. And I do have, I think we should get into that a little bit, but yeah, I want to hear what
00:44:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. um But you know, you would kind of convinced me it was in good faith. and And keep in mind, you know, one of my favorite games is Gabriel Knight's Sins of the Fathers. And that does have some tone deaf things going on when you really, really think about it.
00:44:30
Speaker
you know, the black characters in that game are essentially the bad guys. You know, Dr. John is a bad guy. And that was the black character that that they had. And he was played by ah Michael Dorn of ah Star Trek fame. He was wharf. And that's great. um The casting was great. The casting was not the problem. It was not problematic or anything, but just the way things were portrayed. And I'm not saying Gabriel Knight is the worst offender out there. right But if you really think about it,
00:44:59
Speaker
you know, there with that can be a problem is having your black characters and the culture that they use as being the villain. So I was a little I was concerned. But I played voodoo detective and to be honest, it's kind of the opposite of Gabriel Knight, where now we have a a black character who's playing the detective set in a world ah said not caribbean um it's ah It's a fictional, is it a fictional area? Yeah, it is a fictional area. I think it's supposed to be like, I think it's kind of supposed to be in, it's like an island yeah that is sort of inspired by Louisiana.
00:45:42
Speaker
Yes, it yeah, just like because because Voodoo came over to ah Louisiana. So I think this is different in that there is a black protagonist, the characters are made, I mean, um majority people of color, ah they are played by people of color. And I believe the use of the culture, the use of the Voodoo religion is more reverent than Gabriel Knight.
00:46:11
Speaker
Even Gabriel Knight had its moments where it's really trying to educate you. You know, Jane Jensen is a writer. She's very much into the history that she puts into her games. So they can be a little like, you have to be a little like studious sometimes with those games. ah She loves, she loves information and like compendiums, you know? So I found that to be kind of a lighter version in here where it is talking about things in voodoo in a more educational, respectful way. And I really appreciate that. And I really appreciate that we had these characters in this story. ah That being said,
00:46:51
Speaker
I liked, i I really liked the game. I don't know if I would play it again, even though I liked it, I'm glad I played it. I feel like the reason I liked it as much as I did is because it was Curse of Monkey Island, you know, for the most part. um Really, like so many things reminded me of Curse.
00:47:10
Speaker
ah It's a really interesting mix of Curse of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango because Voodoo Detective is in fact a detective story. You are trying to figure out ah why one of your clients, a woman you meet, has has amnesia. She seems to have lost her memories.
00:47:29
Speaker
um You know, she comes to your office right away again very grim Fandango ah So there is like a conspiracy. There is a mystery going on here and that's very grim Fandango I would say it gets kind of dark and adult towards the end. Yeah, um but also has this fun whimsical element that's very reminiscent of the Milky Island games and I also especially really like that there is some commentary going on here, you know, booty detective, he doesn't like any of these tourists, because these white tourists and like big conglomerates are kind of taking over this island. And it's annoying, right? It's like they're kind of, they're catching up the culture, as it were. And I liked that. I liked that kind of commentary in the background. That's not what the game is about overall. But I liked
00:48:23
Speaker
that commentary. I like that the that the devs were at least cognizant of that. Yeah, again, it's it's hard to I don't like talking about games as though they don't have their own personality and they're just based off of these other games. This one's a little tough because it really it really does remind me of those two LucasArts games.
00:48:44
Speaker
ah But like I said, it has its own world going on. yeah Again, mostly people of color, an educational aspect to it, which is nice. Pretty good puzzles. Some of them I thought were a little hard, but to be honest,
00:49:00
Speaker
i I kind of dug them. In fact, I would say Voodoo Detective has one of the best UIs, the easiest UIs to play ever in a point and click. I never misclicked. I always knew what I was doing. And what what what factors contributed to that, do you think?
00:49:18
Speaker
I think it was the simplicity of it. ah You know, this is not an adventure game where you have a taste button and a look button and a use button and an operate button if you're Gabriel Knight for some reason. So ah yeah, the UI was very, very simple. um You click on hotspots and you don't have to look or examine. You get one button.
00:49:41
Speaker
What? Yeah. And you can either look at it or examine it. And it's just yeah it was just very pleasant, to be honest, because sometimes UI and adventure games can be a bit of a pain in the butt. Yeah, I mean, I thought this journey down was the same thing. It was a one click interface. It seems a lot of point and click games are moving to that.
00:50:03
Speaker
Yes. I did really like Voodoo Detective. It didn't make a big lasting impact on me besides um the setting and the artwork. I played this game, I don't know, six months ago or something, and I don't much remember the right yeah a story. i don't really um I don't remember many of the puzzles, but I do very strongly remember that setting. And I don't think that setting is going to go away from my brain for a long time. and Yeah. um So yeah, like you're saying, I don't think it is groundbreaking in any way, but if you're looking for, if you're a fan of LucasArts or ah Revolution, point and clicks, and you want another one that is as good, ah yeah maybe not as good as LucasArts, at least as good as the Revolution games, I think it's worth it, look. i do I do too, very much so. Yeah, I'm glad you liked it. i ah
00:51:00
Speaker
I thought you might, but I wasn't i wasn't sure. Yeah, I can go either way on stuff. you know i I definitely have my ultra super likes, but there are things that I can be fickle about. But yeah, no, highly recommend. It felt like an extension almost of LucasArts games. So in that way, ah it I recommend it. I want to step back for a second real quick just to correct something from earlier. Earlier I was saying African masks. yeah i i track down the actual cultures. Cause again, I really hate that sort of idea that we just say Africa when it's like 50 different countries and you know probably hundreds of different cultures and they're all incredibly different from each other. yeah So it is masks by the Makande people who are ah generally live in Mozambique and the Chokwe people who generally live in Angola.
00:51:56
Speaker
So oh thank you for that. I want to to go back to that about ah the journey down. But I also do want to talk to you about black protagonists in adventure games or video games in general. Yeah. um Because that was something we were both unfortunately had to be worried about as we went into these games. Yeah. um Both in both cases, the developing development team was white. Yeah. Thankfully, I both used ah black actors to play.
00:52:25
Speaker
the black characters, which is good. You don't want to give ah black roles to white actors, right? There's ah you have incredibly talented black actors out there willing to be in your games.
00:52:37
Speaker
if you are a person who's making a game and put a black character and have a white person voice it, you really have to ask yourself why, why are you doing that? But, ah and and it it it's because there's just so few, as far as we know, and if listeners, you guys know of some that we should be aware of, i we really want to know about them. um There's so few black developers in adventure games.
00:53:06
Speaker
um Yeah, it's a very small space. The thing that I think about is ah if we are to relegate black voices in in our characters to black creators, the problem is we're not going to get in any black characters in video games. Yeah. And that's worse. Yeah. As much as I see the Journey Down and Voodoo Detective, and i my first thought is, ooh, I hope they're not ah being weird. I hope these bunch of white guys don't do something weird with a black character. It's still like, I would rather black characters be in games written by white people than no black characters be in adventure games at all. yeah Exactly. Yeah, as like as long as they're being voiced by the correct people, yeah.
00:53:57
Speaker
Yeah, i the only ah black developer I know in adventure games is Alex Francois, who did the game The Slaughter. Have you heard of this game? I have not. um It's on Steam. It's The Slaughter Act 1. So I don't know. And it was in 2016. I don't know that there will be an Act 2 or any. You know, I don't know that it'll keep going. Yeah.
00:54:20
Speaker
But, oh, I guess he released The Slaughter Magdalene in 2021. So maybe he is gonna keep going, and that one's free to play. And he's working on a story-rich mystery game that's coming soon. So hopefully that- Well, that's cool. Yeah, so- Yeah, I'd love to keep an eye on that. An active game developer, but honestly, that's the only, again, it's the only black developer I know of. Yeah.
00:54:48
Speaker
ah adventure adventure games specifically. So if, again, if anybody knows anybody else, we would really love ah you to let us know about who those people are. Yeah, I'm and extremely open to that.
00:55:06
Speaker
All right, that being said. I wanna talk about a
Life is Strange: Teenage life in games
00:55:10
Speaker
white people game. maybe Yeah, you wanna talk about. It's a very white people game, to be honest with you. I know exactly what are the lightest games. that have it's Life is strange. ah ah That's the other game I played.
00:55:24
Speaker
Have you played Life is Strange? That's an interesting one. I played Life is Strange when it came out, and it did not have a lasting impact impression on me, but there is a huge fan base for Life is Strange in general for the whole franchise. And I think it's especially interesting to women, and to young women as well, considering the characters in the game, especially the main character, is a young girl.
00:55:52
Speaker
so what i I am always very put off by graphics like that. So I had a hard time with it. But what did you think? Yeah, it's that it's that sort of the same sort of like um sketchy art style turned into 3D that you see in like The Walking Dead, yeah like the like painterly art style that then is converted to 3D. So sometimes that weird, therere there'll be an angle where somebody's hair just doesn't look like hair. It looks like like noodles hanging off the head. But, ah you know, when you're not seeing one of those weird angles, I think it it does look beautiful. There are moments in this game that are
00:56:33
Speaker
just breathtakingly pretty, ah especially, you know, when you're looking at the like panoramas are right when it's showing a specifically framed shot or it's showing like characters against a large, you know, ah beautiful natural background. Yeah.
00:56:49
Speaker
So Life is Strange is one of these choices matter games. I'm gonna say puzzles aren't the focus, but that's actually one of the problems. The puzzles are one of the problems in the game. um But you play a young girl named Max Caulfield.
00:57:06
Speaker
who has just been sent, she just moved back home to her little Northwestern town because for some reason, this tiny little Northwestern town that she grew up in also has a very famous art academy there. So as a high school senior, she's enrolling in this art academy and ah she's a photography student. And very early on, she witnesses something very dramatic, dramatic and traumatic. ah And she finds she can rewind time, which is an incredibly interesting choice virtue where for for a choice as matter, like a choose your own adventure game. and Yeah, because you're kind of a Prince of Persia type of mechanic.
00:57:56
Speaker
Right, you get to try, say a dialogue option and if they're like, why the fuck would you say that to me? You're the worst person in the world. You just rewind it yeah and try a different dialogue option and sometimes that is the key forward, right? Like there is a scene really early on right after you discover your powers where you're still trying to figure out if they're real or not and ah your professor asks you a question about photography, you don't know the answer,
00:58:24
Speaker
Uh, you get embarrassed by giving the wrong answer. Now, all of a sudden, you know, the answer because he just corrected you. So you rewind time, answer the question again. Um, and it's full of stuff like that. And sometimes those things are much more consequential. Like, do you shoot a gun at somebody or not? And I am not. I've played this game for about six hours and I'm only in chapter two. It's a long game. It is a long game. Yeah.
00:58:54
Speaker
ah But I'm enjoying it. I think the story is interesting. I like the characters. There's some problems that I'm having with it. Number one is the puzzles. Yeah.
00:59:09
Speaker
there, but with the puzzles where you have to rewind time and make the right choices or give somebody a new prompt now that you have new information. yeah I like those. Those are great. I think that's brilliant. I would love to see more of that. The shit I hate is these point and click style puzzles that they litter throughout the game almost as if they feel like they have to have them there.
00:59:32
Speaker
Yeah, i I felt that way too with the game. I just, it almost to me, sometimes I think about life is strange and like, does this have an identity crisis where it belongs in the genre? And it's not that games can't, you know, mix up mechanics. I love games that have multiple mechanics. I would argue that Stardew Valley has multiple mechanics in it.
00:59:56
Speaker
I don't know. it's It's different when you're just, you feel like you're shoehorning in a mechanic just to have it, just to say that you you have this mechanic.
01:00:07
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So um I think that's the problem. I don't think there's a reason for it. Like, I think yeah mechanics need to have a purpose and I don't think they fit into the game's themes. I don't think they fit in. I don't think they feel good. I think they just slow it down. um And a lot of stuff slows it down. Like, as you go between scenes, you can walk up and look at everything, talk to everyone. And most of it is inconsequential.
01:00:36
Speaker
yeah like there was a scene ah that I just had where I was going to meet my friend at the diner and for some reason I could walk up and down the street and just talk to like random people standing on the street and none of them said anything interesting walking through the diner I could talk to everybody in the diner and none of them gave me any new insights into the world into the characters into the story it was just like Why am I doing this? And because I am the way I am, I feel like I need to do it all. I feel like I need to experience the whole thing. And and i i'm go i'm good I've got to try to get over that in this game and just move towards my objectives. Yeah, you just have to do the objectives. Because there's so much in this game that is just unnecessary. And it feels like the game ah was it feels like the developers were worried they didn't have enough. Yeah. Yeah. And we're just padding it out.
01:01:28
Speaker
um It's almost like too close to real life. you know like You don't go outside and look at everything and talk to every person. You have to almost treat yourself like you're just a person going to the diner. You're not going to stop in the street and talk to Joe, your neighbor. You know what I mean? like and And because of that where we've we grew up on adventure games where there's always like an interesting side character and or if it's there, it must be interactable. But yeah, this feels more like padding. And it doesn't affect the like
01:02:02
Speaker
It has no consequences, right? like you yeah Max Caulfield is supposed to be a shy um and aloof kid. And that's what everybody that's why she's not popular right in the game. That's why people mock her is because she seems like a ah disaffected hipster.
01:02:20
Speaker
um And a disaffected hipster doesn't walk up to every single person they see and start chatting with them. And so you can choose not to do that and play by the character, but if you do it, the game doesn't react to that. The next time you see somebody, they're like, oh, there's Max always always with her head down, not talking to anybody, taking pictures. I'm like, I've talked to everybody. I've talked to everybody.
01:02:47
Speaker
um think that it's a very like almost ah young person type of the game and when i say young person i mean like i would have I would have probably liked this game considering the characters were teenagers. Probably would have liked this game as an adolescent then. you know Because sometimes we like to play we like to watch things, we like to play things where we are the younger person and the characters are a little bit older so we could put ourselves in that situation. It it very much feels like a teen drama to me and maybe that's why definitely yeah that's i think that's why I didn't connect with it.
01:03:27
Speaker
Here's a reason I'm going to disagree with that. um I think you were right, and ah broadly, but I don't think, I think there's a problem with this, how this game relates to young people too. And that was another thing I wanted to talk about. There are some lines in this game.
01:03:45
Speaker
that are just absurd. ah yeah Here, at one point, somebody asks if you wanna call the whambulance. At some point, Max calls herself a noob. At some point, somebody says smiley face out loud. ah The bully tells you to go fuck your selfie.
01:04:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's trying. It's almost taking a little bit too much pop culture to where it's cringe. It's like ah my dad has passed, but let's say my dad was here and he was talking like that. i'd be like yeah that Don't do that. It's clearly made by old people trying to relate to kids. yeah There's a point where the the punk girl, your punk friend, she keeps putting on punk music and it is just like a singer-songwriter being a little emo. And being like playing an electric guitar.
01:04:37
Speaker
while he sings his sad gentle songs rather than and it's like that's not you're not playing punk music there's nothing punk about this and she's like she's like ah this is what punks listen to what um and there and at one point she's like you go to meet her at the diner and she's like oh man i'm so i can't wait to eat i'm hungry like the wolf Nobody's making references to Hungry Like the Wolf, like a Duran Duran reference? Are you sure? I mean, I'm making those references, but I'm old.
01:05:13
Speaker
it's that i mean that's my So those are my biggest problems with it. like yeah Yeah, you're definitely not alone with with the dialogue and how it's written. I think even people who really like the game would admit that it's a little cringe.
01:05:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's definitely cringe. And then, and again, the puzzles are just kind of frustrating. There was a puzzle I just did where it was like find five, you're in a junkyard, it's like find five bottles. Why? I gotta go find five bottles? This is gonna enrich my experience? It was, so, okay. i'm I'm talking a lot of shit. I like this game. I'm going to finish this game. I'm going to spend the 20 hours or whatever playing this game and yeah um because I am really ah intrigued.
01:06:00
Speaker
by the story. i I do like the characters even though some of them are absolutely fucking absurd. yeah Again, there's no punk Like Chloe, if you like these kind of games, and I have played um other don't nod games, I played Tell Me Why, and I think it was actually a much tighter experience. It still had some of these problems, but um Tell Me Why was actually, I feel like a lot better of a game than this, um but this rewind time mechanic is so brilliant. Yeah, yeah, I like that mechanic too.
01:06:36
Speaker
that I and it feels good you just like hold both triggers in on the controller and there's like a little swirl in the top left corner that just like uh unravels and like that's so smart it's just it's very smart um I think Also, I wonder how you've thought about this game. You're a big Twin Peaks fan, right? I am. did you Do you get Twin Peaks vibes from this game at all? or um i can see I can see why people get Twin Peaks vibes for sure, but I think Twin Peaks
01:07:10
Speaker
is even more in the abstract realm. yeah um it's ah Twin Peaks it knows exactly what it is. I think even David Lynch would say it's it's kind of a a drama, like almost a soap opera, okay but it has to be done with some kind of artful purpose. And I feel like even though I get, ah ah like I said, drama but or like a a teen drama before,
01:07:34
Speaker
Maybe that's where it's different to me because Twin Peaks had a lot of adult characters, making it less of a teen drama and more of um a mystery you know murder mystery. it it And then it gets very, very, very abstract. um So i can yes, I can see where people are coming from. I can see getting the vibe from that, but this is like the less mature version of that. okay There is, in in fact, a ah ah character who has a license plate that is TWNPKS in this game. So this game really wants to be compared to Twin Peaks. There also is a missing girl in this game, and that's another weird thing. Nobody seems to fucking care at all. Nobody seems to care. like There's two characters that care a lot.
01:08:25
Speaker
Okay, maybe like three characters that care a lot, and nobody else cares even a little bit. but And that is so strange to me. Well, life is strange.
01:08:38
Speaker
Okay, so those are our
Collaboration announcement with Adventure Game Hotspot Network
01:08:40
Speaker
games. Thank you guys so much for recommending them. ah It sounds like we enjoyed all of them. um Yeah, i think i I think it's safe to say that we did for sure. ah So we're gonna, you know, our next Q and&A episode that we have,
01:08:54
Speaker
We'll collect a few more from y'all. Yeah, absolutely. lee Good job, everybody. you're your Good job. job bad you good oh catch good Good job, roses. We played the game. We played the games. Pat ourselves in the back. Before we continue, I want to take us out. And I don't mean like, club us over the head. I mean, before we go into our next segment, I want to just tell everybody that we're a part of the Adventure Game Hotspot Network. ah Please check out the website. There's all kinds of Adventure Game content over there, and we're happy to partner with them. Or you can email us at, of course, mattandrose.gmail.com. And we have some special guests for our next segment. So I'm going to put on the swanks, and I will meet everyone for our last segment.
Codename Iceman: Frustration galore
01:10:10
Speaker
Hey everyone. Good news. We brought Danny and Bill back for this final segment because we didn't get to do it last week. I was going to ask, I was going to ask whether or not we were in, in universe, the same episode or whether but it is a new, it is a new episode. You've been gone for an entire week.
01:10:28
Speaker
plus about an hour. he is We don't have that much time. And you were just talking about coding in Iceman. So before we start ranking every adventure game ever, I need to hear what this experience you guys have had is.
01:10:40
Speaker
and okay Last time, you two gave us what I would say is a little teaser, a little taunter, a little challenge of, hey, why don't you play this one? Yeah, it certainly was not. It was not a recommendation. It was more like a challenge. I believe Rose, as you said, it was your favorite game. It seems crazy.
01:10:59
Speaker
Oh, that's so it's so unlike me, but i mean if I said it, it must be true. I think that the whole game is really put into context by what happened right at the beginning. You're sitting on a beach, shirtless, sun-baking, and the first thing we decided to do was stand up, put on shirt, and then read the newspaper. But in order to read the newspaper, you have to sit down and take off your shirt again. yeah
01:11:26
Speaker
it's been such a weird like okay So for anyone who needs a little bit of Iceman context, they they lure you in by saying, you're a secret agent, here's a sub, you're ah you're an operative. And then the entire first act is, welcome to a Tahitian beach with hot natives and cool sexy babes. And you're like, what is going on?
01:11:45
Speaker
and then Like the only things that you do, like this, this, there's two categories of like codename Iceman is bad. Is that the only things you can do is, uh, I wouldn't even say seduce women, just sort of go up to interact with women in strange ways. Most of whom ignore you. Most of whom use to talk.
01:12:04
Speaker
yeah Like I sat down next to a woman who said, why don't you buy me a Mai Tai? I said, buy a Mai Tai. And the game said, you're not close enough. And I'm like, what are you talking about? So I wandered around for 20 minutes trying to get close enough to buy a Mai Tai. No, no, that doesn't matter. What you're meant to do is to say, buy drink. And then you automatically buy her a Mai Tai. And then she says, why don't you buy me a Mai Tai? And you say, didn't I just do that? And she says, why don't you buy me a Mai Tai?
01:12:30
Speaker
So then you buy yourself a Mai Tai, which you are close enough to buy your own, you're not close enough to buy one for her. And then you drink enough that she gets so drunk that they have to drag her out. But make sure you don't drink so much that you pass out because that'll end the game. Yes, if you drink too much, you you pass out. And then now that she's gone, unrelated to anything, you've unlocked the capacity to walk up to a different woman and buy her champagne.
01:12:55
Speaker
You guys, this is... I know this is going to be hard for you to understand at this point. You are at the good part. You will... Yeah, it's true. It's worth it for the stories that we're telling now. We just got to the pendulum. A while later in this game, you will wish you were still on this beach having bad interactions with women. Yeah, really?
01:13:19
Speaker
ah if This game gets so much worse. You haven't even got to the luck based gambling game that you have to win. To me, this turns into a submarine simulator and it like teases you with this like leisure suit Larry esque like beginning and then all of a sudden you have to buy the manual learn how to drive a submarine. It is the most boring thing I've ever done. We definitely had to find the manual so that we could learn how to give CPR to a woman on a beach. So I take it they've used more than one. Good to know. Which I thought, I'm shocked it happened again, because I thought that was going to be like, it's like... This was just the early game piracy. It's the DRM thing, right? It's the how do we know they bought the game. Well, you have to give a woman CPR.
01:14:07
Speaker
it's oh my god It's an unbelievable game. ah Okay.
Ranking adventure games: Opinions and debates
01:14:11
Speaker
As much as I want to talk about Code in Iceman for fucking ever because it's the wildest thing. We'll give you a regular update. Please, please. All right. This segment is this a segment in which we're trying to rank every adventure game ever. I have a list of three almost 4,000 adventure games here um ah that have been released throughout time as is a little over 3,000. Sorry. and I use a random number generator to pick five of them, again, at random, and we put them on a list, whether we've played them or not, of the best adventure games of all time. I've played one of them. Right, no, right, right. Okay, I am adding a new wrinkle as of this episode, where we have the opportunity to, if we have not played it, and we don't feel like we can judge it from screenshots, we can skip one.
01:15:05
Speaker
Per episode. So, um all right. So, just to give you guys context, here's our list as of now. so by The 21 best adventure games of all time. Number one, Portal. okay Number two, Fran Bow. Three papers please. ah Scratches. Amnesia Rebirth.
01:15:31
Speaker
Amos Green's Final Repose. ah Byzantine the Betrayal. The Murder a murder She Wrote. ah Video game. Could be great. Legend of Hand. Ben Jordan Paranormal Investigator Case 7, The Cardinal Sins. where Number 10. Okay. Hell a Cyberpunk Thriller. Dark Grim Mariupolis.
01:15:58
Speaker
Crabot and the Secret of the s Sorbian King. Again, Elena displaced reality. Number 16, Minecraft Story Mode. so oh that's higher than i That's higher than I remember. bal me and little Batman Partners in Peril, Blue Force, The Fan, which appears to be an FMV game where you just torture a woman, wild Wild Wild West, The Steel Assassin, and the worst adventure game of all time, Weird Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction. Are you guys ready to add five new games to this list? Absolutely. I'm and i'm on board.
01:16:32
Speaker
Okay, our first one, ah I pulled these up last episode, so I'm not gonna have to search for them. The first one, 1635 is Deponia Doomsday. Oh, Deponia. Have you guys played the Deponia games? I know of it, but mostly through like daily game guessing games. I'm like, oh, Deponia's popped up again. um But I feel like the first Deponia people liked, right? Like, Deponia's good.
01:16:59
Speaker
I want to say Daphony is good. I don't know. Okay. Hang on, Matt. matt it looks like ah It looks like a point and click game made by Penny Arcade. It really, really does. Yeah.
01:17:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I know that you here's the thing, though, Matt. Yes, I know that you don't like the tone of these games very much, right? Like I'm i'm correct in that, right? Yes. But this needs to not be in the mediocre section. So like, guys, we have like a mediocre section and then a below mediocre and then above mediocre. What we i feel like is hell, a cyberpunk thriller, dark and Mario, but let's krabat and the secret of the sword beginning in King again, Elena just plays reality in Minecraft story mode. To us, that's our mediocre block.
01:17:40
Speaker
right That's a group of games that aren't doing anything all that interesting. They're just doing what other games have already done. So when we make our decisions, it's like, oh, is it above the mediocre block or is it below?
01:17:55
Speaker
This is above mediocre. I think it's gotta be. It's barely, because the problem, okay, so all the Deponia games are pretty annoying. That's my biggest problem with them, right? And a lot of people will say, oh, you're not supposed to like the main character, but you're supposed to be able to tolerate them for an entire game that you have to spend with them. And there's sometimes where there's racism in the games,
01:18:21
Speaker
or sexism that does not just come from like a criticism of the main character, right? like The game's perspective on women or the game's perspective on trans people or ah black people, right? And got it that is a thing that bums me the fuck off. I know this is probably taken out of context. I have found a screenshot where the main character is visibly cringing in fear away from ah just a very happy looking black man.
01:18:50
Speaker
ah but oh yeah there are don out I don't think it's an accurate representation, but it really just looks like he's gone, oh my God, gotta to get out of here. There are about three black characters in the game um and one you ah sell into slavery. Oh my God! Yeah, so the Toponia games are rough. This game specifically is after the trilogy wrapped up and they did this really meta game about how everybody wanted a sequel, and there was no sequel to Give. So it was like this really convoluted ah time travel game. Some people loved it, some people didn't. So. That for me, because I think it's always a good sign like that Bill and Danny at least knew of this game. Like it was familiar. So that's always a good sign, yeah I think. But because you said that, now it's back into mediocre to me. I think maybe the other Pony games,
01:19:48
Speaker
You've convinced me. The other Napoleon games are the racist ones though. This one does not have the racism that the other ones do. Interesting. I saw a couple of screen grabs and I was into the art style. If not the characters themselves, the backgrounds, the sets, they look, they made me happy inside. But you do make a solid argument. The girl that you're trying to win the entire game, like that's, that's his whole motivation is to seduce a girl and make him self It seemed like a good guy so that she'll date him. Her name is Goal. G-O-A-L. Goal. Oh. It's very like 2000. This is so conflicting of do I find that funny or is that my sort of humor or not? Matt, since you seem to have, I think, Matt, that you need to do the final rating on this because you know so much about it. I apologize. Yeah, this is going to go below.
01:20:46
Speaker
All right. Do it. It's going to go above the mediocre block, I think, but it's going to go below everything else. So there I even think it's going to go below. dark I think it's going to go but below dark room. Marpy. Mario police above krabot in the secret of the scorpion king. I'm fine with that. All right. You've made a solid argument. Anybody have any problem with that?
01:21:09
Speaker
No,
Darkroom Mariupolis: Ranking based on visuals
01:21:10
Speaker
I'm very happy. I've just looked up a screenshot for Darkroom Mariupolis, and I don't think it should be above it. Look, at lu this looks great. I think it could be above it. We thought it looked kind of cool. Okay, next game. And remember, you guys can skip one. So just as we go on, keep that in
Wave Tail: Aesthetic and ranking comparisons
01:21:26
Speaker
mind. Okay, next game is ah number 2982, Wave Tail from 2022. Wave Tail, okay. I'm looking it up. I don't know this game. It looks kind of pretty.
01:21:40
Speaker
Okay, so wave tail as in telling a story, not like a cat's tail that I looked up. Well, this needs to go above mediocre. This looks know this looks good. loved It looks beautiful. It looks adventurey.
01:21:56
Speaker
Like sometimes so guys like I don't know if you heard of the website home of the underdog back in the day, but it's where ah I used to go to like download adventure games. And basically, I would look at the screencap and, and see if it's something that I like. And I know that's kind of judging a book by its cover. But now when we're rating these Matt, I always think like if I found this on home of the underdogs,
01:22:20
Speaker
You would i download it in a second. Yeah. Yeah. And I would, I would buy this, download this game just based on the images. Yeah. Where do you guys, what are you guys thinking? I honestly think that, like, I will trust good reviews enough to give something a try. Honestly, there are some things about the art style that make me go, oh yeah, this isn't so much my instinct. I found a great screenshot where the main character just looks like a me person. Yeah. yeah yeah That's true.
01:22:48
Speaker
Their eyebrows are doing a lot of work and their mouth shape. Yeah, the mouth is just a tiny little line. Okay, what do you guys think? Definitely above the mediocre line, right? oh Yeah, I think so. Where does it go? Do you think it goes ah above or below byzantine Byzantine the Betrayal, which is an an education FMV game from the Discovery Channel, okay?
01:23:16
Speaker
Okay, then I'm gonna jump up a little bit above or below amnesia below Okay and ah yeah that's but um just because evernesia Is such is so beloved I have a hard time putting things like ah which amnesia was it ah Rebirth the newest one No one lies to you. Everyone lies to you guys. No, no, I have faith. It's not the original Amnesia. No, that's fine. I'm good with Amnesia being higher.
Ben There, Dan That! and its adventure roots
01:23:43
Speaker
Okay, then, above or below the Carol Reed game, Amos Green's final repose. Come on! Okay, then it's Wavetail is our new number, actually.
01:23:54
Speaker
None of them has a better title than this one. i I have not played Amos Green, but I know of Amos Green. Wave Tail is our new number six. Okay, this next game, ah we're gonna have to speed along. 931, Bend There, Dan That, one of the Ben and Dan games. Has anyone played it? I've played a little bit of it.
01:24:19
Speaker
It is a ah funny and LucasArts inspired game. It's wild. We're getting like not absurd games today. Yeah, it's crazy. yeah um i i do I do like this game. I think i think because it came out in 2008, it's looking a little crude to me now because I know that Ben and Dan went on to do such amazing looking games. Yeah.
01:24:45
Speaker
So maybe it's a little aged, you know? This is their early work. Even on Steam, it's bundled with time. If I found this in, like, a flash window in 2008, I would not have been surprised, and I think I would have fallen in love with it. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, they do a lot more experimental stuff as they go on. This game is just, like, kind of a straightforward Day of the Tentacle kind of inspired game. A little funnier than your average AGS game, but Well then, I'm proud of them. I think that it should go high. Okay, okay. Stick it right at the top. Right at the top? Do we want to... What, above portal? Above portal. Above portal? Jesus Christ! Who needs a portal when you got fended and there? All right, you know what I'm going to do? I'm not saying this guy's near wave tail. What do you guys think? Or do you think it goes above amnesia? Hmm. Hmm.
01:25:37
Speaker
You know what? Here's my argument. And maybe you guys will disagree. But when I look at this game versus Amnesia, Ben there, Dan, that screams adventure game to me, whereas Amnesia, but also it screams survival work. So I'm going off of that. I think Ben there, Dan, that is a more accurate adventure game. That's fair. Yeah, that's, I think that's good. Stick it up on Amnesia. I like that. It is are now the fifth best adventure game of all time. Ben there, Dan that. All right. yeah I can't believe all these games are overtaken. Aim of screens, final
A Whisper in the Twilight: Visuals and puzzles
01:26:13
Speaker
repose. Okay, next game, A Whisper in the Twilight Chapter One. Oh Lord, okay, I gotta flip this one up. 23, it looks like a missed clone, sort of. Bottom. ah Remember, we can skip. I don't know, there's some dialogue, it looks like. Did anyone play, did anyone else other than us in the world play The Eyes of Ara?
01:26:40
Speaker
No. It's an Australian sort of indie puzzle game. And this is kind of reminding me of Eyes of Ara. I get what you mean. And it was very like you go, you're on an island, classic like mist. You're on an island and you warm up. You have to investigate an unusual house where people used to live in. And there's weird little things floating around and you just go around solving puzzles. And it was good fun. We played it. Until the end where we started to get mad at us. Yeah, you got a little mad at the end.
01:27:05
Speaker
Puzzle games are always hard to end because they're like, now we're going to give you our most complicated puzzle. And you're like, yeah, but now it's just a bit too much, man. What are you doing? It reminds me of that. And I don't like those kind of, you know me, Matt, I don't really, I see these kind of games and I'm like, no. Yeah, and it's chapter one is the other problem I'm having with it. So we'd be playing it unfulfilled, presumably. Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Granted, it just came out last year. Count the points, I found the little dog. Yeah, have you seen this? There's a little dog in it? There's a little dog, he's like a creepy little dog. He's like a little creepy monster dog.
01:27:40
Speaker
I'm going to say it goes. All
Astronomica: Educational gameplay
01:27:42
Speaker
right. I have it. I have a plan, but I feel like Rose is going to argue lower. I'm I would say between dark or mariopolis and a pony a doomsday. I'm not I'm not against that.
01:27:55
Speaker
It feels better than mediocre, but it feels kinda mediocre. Without having a single puzzle to judge it off, I agree. Because we might start to play it, do a puzzle, and be like, oh, this person's really bad at making puzzles. That sometimes happens. But maybe not. Maybe they're fantastic.
01:28:12
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. This last one, this could be the last one or we could skip it and there could be another last one. We'll see. We'll see. This game is ah number 3,000, no, number 265, an early one. it' curly It's from 1996. It is called 1994. I'm sorry. Astronomica, the quest for the edge of the universe. I love it already. Put it at the top.
01:28:36
Speaker
It is an educational game made by HyperQuest for Macintosh and Windows 3.x. Oh, this looks amazing.
01:28:48
Speaker
and b lady sit on a chair There's an FMV lady who looks very uncomfortable on myabandonedwear.com. Yeah, of course she looks uncomfortable. She's going to space. You're going to learn why she's so uncomfortable with education. Look at these people who are the FMV is in this game. They're just people. Henry the eighth. I don't. Whoa. Okay. Oh my God. Yeah. All right. So there is a puzzle in it.
01:29:14
Speaker
There's a screen that has like one of these weird, um ah what do you call it? Like these weird early 3D interfaces and below is a bunch of what look like historical characters ah in like a in like a, so there's a time machine. I truly can't tell if that's what it's meant to be, but. Hey look, it's got it's got five out of five based on the three notes on abandonware dot.com.
01:29:43
Speaker
oh Reception. Critical reception for Astronomica has been mixed with many outlets criticizing its difficulty of gameplay. Entertainment Weekly rated the game seep. Hey, Entertainment Weekly? Hey, Entertainment Weekly? Get good.
01:30:00
Speaker
I think I found a screenshot where you might be able to make lightning happen on Jupiter. just just little
01:30:10
Speaker
this just teas yeah so i am like very I love these kind of games. I just don't like to really play them so much. There's a scholarship factor. much like Iceman, they are good for the stories that you come out with afterwards. I would like to yeah i would like to try and describe the screenshots as I get through them on abandonware.com, right? There's the opening scene, there's the opening credits where it says the name of the show of the game. There's the opening menu where I have the option to go to my reference encyclopedia.
01:30:40
Speaker
fantastic. There is a small window that is just like a, like a windows window that I can minus away. That is my rep, my, it it looks like I'm leaving in Riveting. Then there's a man who's clearly a retired cop the and one day for retirement. Stuck in a spaceship now. And suddenly he's on a spaceship and he doesn't know what to do. he He is sitting behind a seat where he exists only from the shoulders up somehow. i And really looks like he's like getting too old for this. And then there's an uncomfortable woman on a chair. Yeah. And ah then some point and click adventures. But I don't know why there's an old cop.
01:31:22
Speaker
I'm watching some videos and it it is one of those like still ah slideshow kind of games, where you have to click the edge of the screen to get to the next place. And all the puzzles look very self-contained. I see the Jupiter lightning thing. You know where I'm tempted to put this, Matt? It's got me giving me kind of like an almost like a weird doctor,
01:31:48
Speaker
but Wow, God, what was this name? The the games, Island of Dr. Brain, Dr. Brain Games. Like a weird version of that. I think this should kind of go, sorry guys, I think this should kind of go in the bad section, but higher, but higher up on the bad section because we're we're having a good time. talking about it. But according to Wikipedia, the main character is a girl because they specifically thought young girls were being left out of video games. He put it a little higher then. Here's what I'll say. the ah The long play on YouTube has several instances where they go back to Windows and have to reopen the game. Oh boy. I've also found a screenshot of a person with no pants climbing through a small window.
01:32:34
Speaker
All right. Yeah, I saw that too. Up, down, up, down. Holy cow! Where does this go? Okay. um I've also found a list. Apparently there's a list of games like Astronomica and it's listing Garena Free Fire, the Fallout clone on the iPad. So I don't know, not for, the Fortnite clone on the iPad.
01:33:00
Speaker
okay so it's all very much like it's It's also invented the Battle Royale genre. I think this is my favorite name. but um not stick it Stick it where you want. Maybe in the mediocre though. come on it still its pay It's had so many highs and lows, it feels like it's averaging out. It's almost like it's breaking up the mediocre. like It's not mediocre, but it belongs among them somehow. right and ah what's What's near the bottom of the mediocre list? What do we have in there? but Minecraft story mode this has been another late and Elena displaced reality. It's gotta be above those. Okay. And then again, which we don't know what that is. I don't know about again, but I would be tempted to put it above Minecraft. Put it above Minecraft.
01:33:48
Speaker
Yeah.
Reflecting on rankings and podcasting experience
01:33:49
Speaker
Just the story mode. Not Minecraft as a game. Not above Elena displaced reality, though. No, that one intrigues me. No, look, she's okay with reality. That's pretty cool. All right. All right. That is our new number 20. We have 26 games on our list, and I will save this last one for our next playthrough. Well, I feel very inspired. Because the next one was going to be one of those ones where it was all of you guys were going to be like, I've never heard of this game, and I would have got to be like, I have played it and reviewed it for a one second.
01:34:18
Speaker
Oh nice. ah But you'll have to tune in next week, everybody, to find out what it is. ah Well, Bill and Danny, thank you guys so much for coming on and helping us rank every adventure game ever. Our contributions were essential. We will get there. We will get there. I mean, honestly, you guys bumped up Astronomica from where I was going to put it. so Yeah, we saved Astronomica. If you're the developer of Astronomica and you're listening to this, I expect a muffin basket in the mail.
01:34:52
Speaker
Uh, well, thank you guys ah so much for coming on. I know you guys have got to get going, but we appreciate it and we'll ah talk to you soon. Thank you so much. all right i Roses. Yes. It's been a lovely time here with you. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's been a lovely time with film. Danny.
01:35:15
Speaker
It's been a lovely time with our games. Yes, it has. Are you going somewhere with this or are you just? are you just ki I'm just giving you space. I'm just giving you space. To exist in. For your to to inspire you oh at the end of our episode.
01:35:39
Speaker
i am very inspired I am very inspired. You know why I'm inspired? Why? Because podcast is art. Wow. That's really deep. I know. I'm so profound. I mean, art has also suffered, though, so be careful.