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When Sierra Edutained
150 Plays2 days ago
Back to school after our one week summer break. Ben & Jess talk Ecoquest, Dr. Brain, and the great Pepper's Adventures in Time!
Quest Quest podcast is Ben Vigeant and Jess Morrissette.
Editing by Ben Vigeant
Show art by Kevin "WilcoWeb" Wallace
Watch us on Twitch!
Ben: https://www.twitch.tv/ps_garak
Jess: https://www.twitch.tv/decafjedi
Give us a review, they help people find this show! Unless you hated it, in which case, don't.
Talk with us on Discord!
https://discord.gg/ve9fqjgPp2
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Transcript
Returning to Podcasting
00:00:30
Speaker
Hey, and welcome back after a week off. An entire ha week off. yeah That's right. we we took We took the the a Tuesday of no significance ah off so we could drop a podcast on the day after a holiday.
00:00:54
Speaker
Yeah, you see a lot of your favorite podcasts in America. In America. Well, I guess Labor Day sober. One our many great American holidays. The Dutch are furious.
00:01:05
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Some of your favorite podcasts will be taking Labor Day week off. And we were like, what going to listen to if you know you can't you can't hear your favorite like WTF? or you know oh WTF is ending. I mean, I don't know.
00:01:21
Speaker
I don't think it's ended yet. but yeah I mean, they have a lot of listeners. How many do you think we will get from that podcast? longer sucking up on the air in the room.
00:01:32
Speaker
3,000 and that's like that that's just a crumb that's just a crumb of the WTF but yeah a lot of WTF listeners when it's over are going to be like all right well I need one podcast to fill in that slot and a lot of Marco come to us we're not like saying we're going to millions of listeners 3,000 is not that many in the grand scheme yeah of WTF yeah the what the fuck fuck nicks yeah That's right. Yeah.
Pets and Daily Routines
00:02:04
Speaker
So how how are your cats and your garage, Ben? well Well, I don't have a garage, but I do have cats. Yeah, they're they're they're fine. They're being cute lately. My my orange. Oh, and I'm Ben. This is Quest Quest PS underscore Garrett Twitch and YouTube. but and I'm just decaf Jedi that everywhere as well.
00:02:24
Speaker
For instance, master or cut. um but Yeah. Yeah. i But ah the cats are good. I have. So my orange cat has bad teeth.
00:02:36
Speaker
Oh, man. To the point where ah the the vet told me on a checkup, you're going to have to start brushing his teeth. And I remember thinking like i remember like I was like, OK.
00:02:50
Speaker
I think I've seen this Garfield strip. I think I know how this ends. It's not great for you. Okay. Like who brushes a cat's teeth? Are you fucking nuts? Come on.
00:03:01
Speaker
And then like, ah and then I ah took, took him in for an unrelated thing. And the vet was like, Hey, have you been brushing this cat's teeth because his breath stinks and wow and i was like i haven't and they're like you really have brush his teeth or you're going to have to pay us exorbitant cat teeth cleaning uh and so let me tell you veterinary eight medicine is just there to rob you blood uh it's uh yeah i mean it's it's just any vets
00:03:34
Speaker
Just my wife. And I know that yeah she is yeah she's dead for the money. Yeah. hey Hey, you know, our cameras are on. that This is an audio. But, Jez, could you tell ah your butler to please leave the frame? It's a little...
00:03:51
Speaker
um who's gonna hold my mineral water if he's not here very good uh but but teddy so i do brush his teeth now and i i i got him to do it and even recently he'll like stand next to the toothpaste because he's so excited for that treat and let me tell you something he hates Like, he doesn't let me clip his nails.
00:04:18
Speaker
Like, i have to have, like, the vet clip his nails. But for some reason, like, teeth seem a lot more daunting than nails, but he lets me brush his teeth.
00:04:30
Speaker
ah I think because, like, I've i've gotten him... pretty like he doesn't love it yeah but well no that'd be weird if he did i mean do you have any kind of ritual around it other than the tree like you singing to him while you do it or anything like that i think i sing i sing to my cats all the time yeah do you just sing constantly i do i have a song in my heart hmm I have like a lot of nonsense. ah Like, obviously, i have a lot of little nonsense songs. and i wait like And I don't even remember them. And they'd be honestly boring for the podcast. yeah But it's like, you know, I'll look at the cats and just like, you know, sing little nonsense, little rhymes or whatever at them, which is a beautiful thing you could do when you live alone with two cats.
00:05:13
Speaker
Cats love that. They love that shit. How are you doing, Jess? I'm doing pretty well, Ben. i am.
Back to School and Work
00:05:21
Speaker
I'm having exciting day. I'm back to back to school and doing doing all. Yeah, it's a yes. No, doing all my back to school stuff and learning what it's like to, you know, have to work a full four hour day again and just.
00:05:38
Speaker
yeah oh and john you just get back in the groove of it all uh you know uh just uh just doing my thing man you know just chilling relaxing yeah chillaxing uh well uh i worked all summer yeah weird i'm going to continue working gonna work tomorrow we're recording this you know like on a work night weird uh But, well, you know, ah bless you and all of your students.
00:06:08
Speaker
um have you Have you eaten anything interesting
Cupcake Adventures
00:06:13
Speaker
lately? Well, I something very interesting yesterday, but I haven't pinned down what yet.
00:06:21
Speaker
Does this have anything to do with why we didn't have a podcast out last week? No, that was just entirely, again, to give people something to listen to, know, post WTF.
00:06:33
Speaker
Whenever that's actually ending. i don't know if it's next week, but, you know, it's a great time for new listeners to jump on any episode. But, um I mean, I guess, you know, the... ah most interesting thing I've eaten lately we we had the West Virginia cupcake festival in town over the weekend and then I went to the cupcake festival and I sampled some delicious cupcakes now what what makes a good cupcake for you what's what's what what what's a good cupcake
00:07:03
Speaker
Now I've had this discussion with my family and my pastor already this week. so
00:07:12
Speaker
Cause you know, that's something that everyone needs to decide for themselves. ah For me, and I differ from my family on this, I'm a cakesman. Like for me,
00:07:23
Speaker
It's all about a nice, not too moist. Like I want to be soggy. There's nothing where I had a soggy cupcake at the cupcake festival and I threw it in the garbage.
00:07:34
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, I was like, I had a cupcake so soggy, I couldn't eat it, which doesn't even seem possible. Now, was it undercooked or was it just like, did it have a filling or why? Let me tell you what I think went wrong with this cupcake, Ben.
00:07:50
Speaker
First of all, the flavor was strawberry jalapeno. Okay. Which honestly, right off the bat, it would have been a hundred times better if it was strawberry basil. I think they would have gotten a lot of what they were going for, but I think what they did, I'm not sure about this. I think they may have poured like a little bit of the juice from a jar pickled jalapeno over the complete cupcake.
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah, so probably just a few drops, like with hoping like for like a soaked rum cake kind of vibe sort of thing, but with basically pickle juice into an otherwise normal strawberry cake.
00:08:29
Speaker
And it just like it was falling apart. It was soggy. It was a mess. It was a disaster. That sounds awful. There's a reason they didn't get a ribbon at the, uh, at the festival. No, the blue ribbon, the number one, I just had a lovely red velvet cupcake there.
00:08:46
Speaker
Um, I'm not even a red velvet guy. Absolutely fabulous. Best cupcake I've ever had. Nice firm cake. Now, are you an icing or a cake cake kind of guy?
00:08:57
Speaker
Uh, I, I mean, I'll prefer the, the cake to the, like, I, I, icing doesn't do too much for me generally, but I've had great icing. Like, I think the thing is that most icing is bad.
00:09:11
Speaker
Yes. And, uh, no, like it's just garbage. It's just low quality. Like it's like too sweet is just part of it. Like, it's just bad. Like, like if you're going to the grocery store and you just get the grocery store cupcakes,
00:09:26
Speaker
the cake might be fine. Like it will be acceptable, but that like store, like the Betty Crocker in a can frosting, that stuff is just garbage. Like it's just, it's it's not now fit to feed a dog.
00:09:41
Speaker
Like no it's, it's, it's lousy. um Like Betty Crocker. Yeah. ah hope And I mean this personally. And, ah but like a homemade frosting,
00:09:55
Speaker
ah can be spectacular, can can change, like can make me a person that will like, you know, scrape like at the bottom of the plate, like, oh, I got to have a little bit more of this frosting. It's just that it's like the, it feels like the average quality of a frosting that you're going to get out there is just lousy.
00:10:20
Speaker
Yeah, I would agree. And Ben, this actually ties back to
Cupcakes vs. Muffins
00:10:24
Speaker
something. I wasn't like, I wasn't completely honest a few minutes ago when, when you asked me podcast over.
00:10:33
Speaker
i
00:10:36
Speaker
When you asked me like what kind of cupcake I go for. I mean, this is going to get me into a trail mix gate kind of territory. But the first thing that popped to mind when you said, what's your favorite kind of cupcake?
00:10:50
Speaker
My brain said blueberry muffin. It's you just came with something that isn't cupcake. And that is like the, that is the most annoying answer that you can get to that question. I feel like it's like, I just prefer a blueberry muffin, please.
00:11:02
Speaker
I don't want, I like a blueberry muffin though. I think that I don't care for most frosting. And I would just like, I want go to go a sweet muffin instead. Give me a, like a pumpkin bread muffin over a cupcake.
00:11:15
Speaker
I know they're different foods. When I was a broke college student and a broke adult, graduate i my my meal of choice at a place would be a like a a split corn muffin with like a pat of butter and that that can float you and usually it was like two dollars yeah that's right yeah i think i've i think i've had that exact treat at like a perkins uh before and uh gotta tell you nothing wrong with the corn muffin little pat it's it's it's it's fine um but yeah you know like i think the thing is that there's just you know i'm i'm gonna say i'm gonna stand up on a soapbox right now i'm gonna say that
00:12:06
Speaker
At least here, I can only speak, you know, for for the the the places for which I
Critique on Cake Quality
00:12:12
Speaker
live. i ah the The average quality of cake, of cupcakes in this country, it's fucking lousy.
00:12:20
Speaker
Yes. And, like, to the point, because there there are things that, like, the average is is good, Yeah.
00:12:31
Speaker
right Like, I think you could have, like, the average hamburger that you would have in the United States is probably decent burger. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, you're not going to get a terrible one, probably. Yeah.
00:12:45
Speaker
Like, but the average cake that you're going to have, or, like, a cupcake, is... going to be bad you have to like go up like you have to go up but several rungs of quality before I think you have like a good cake yeah ah like for ah like on on my birthday i like my ah my boyfriend and I had cupcakes like he got like you know it was just the two of us so he just got two cupcakes but they were excellent
00:13:23
Speaker
cupcakes you know so yeah it was fine like and the the the frosting was good was they were mango they were from one of my favorite bakeries in the city like you know so so this is this is the thing i think that like if you're honestly if you offer it like if i'm at like in the office or like you know a generic birthday party or something i'm probably not going to be interested in the cake No,
Marie Antoinette and Cake
00:13:55
Speaker
I'm there with you. I would almost rather not have cake than have disappointing cake, which is, yeah. And I think that's probably what Marie Antoinette was getting at as well, right? That's right. She was killed. Yeah.
00:14:07
Speaker
Just like it was more about the quality of cake available than it was just who could have cake and who couldn't. That's right. We lost a lot of that nuance. Yeah, well, you know, history has been extremely cruel to Marie Antoinette. yeah And, um you know, I think we should all sit down and listen and then apologize in some sort of order.
00:14:29
Speaker
It turns out the monarchy, you could do worse.
00:14:35
Speaker
You know, I was going to try out this. I think we've had food food ah talk for a little long, so you know what?
Maupedi Island Game Discussion
00:14:44
Speaker
think it's time for us to talk, uh, for me to read some emails.
00:14:51
Speaker
Wow. There it is. There's the email music, Ben. Uh, I've got an email here from, uh, Mike, also known as robot space. It begins.
00:15:04
Speaker
Hello. I enjoyed your international games episode. Probably my favorite game from a f French developer is Maupedi Island, a point and click mystery game by Lancor.
00:15:18
Speaker
You play as Jerome Lange, a detective who takes refuge from a hurricane on his way to Japan. When he arrives at Maupedi Island, he's asked to investigate the disappearance of a woman named Marie.
00:15:33
Speaker
Have you played this, Jess? I tell you not. I've never played this. I've seen Mike streaming this on his Twitch channel, Robot Spacer, though. So, yeah, I'm curious.
00:15:45
Speaker
Oh, okay. It's like i always say, my pity the fool who hasn't played this game. And this this game came out in 1990. Okay, interesting. Like I'm looking at it now.
00:15:57
Speaker
It is an incredibly difficult game, easily the most challenging I've ever played, but it's just as rewarding you're willing to put in the work it requires. It's common for modern detective games to help you along quite a bit. If you click around enough and try all the dialogue options, the mystery is often explained to you in the end.
00:16:14
Speaker
It does not happen here. You need to piece it together yourself, even speculate to fill in gaps to understand what happened and complete the game. There are even puzzles that require you to learn things outside of the game.
00:16:26
Speaker
You don't already know them. Time is always passing. Mike, this is, this is, you're not selling this game to me. am I went to learn something. Yeah. And Tom's got this.
00:16:39
Speaker
And you only have a couple of days to solve the case. There's a large list of verbs, a debate menu. She's how you interact with characters and an extensive list of conversation topics that expands as you've learned more.
00:16:52
Speaker
There's a huge number of objects to pick up. ah But you'll need to forget the standard adventure game advice of pick everything that's not nailed down. Your inventory is limited to just six items.
00:17:03
Speaker
The more most things you find are just everyday objects in spy to hide or you can hide to spy on people, but you'll need to be careful. or You might get spotted or knocked out or kill.
00:17:15
Speaker
You can follow characters as they move around the island. But if you keep it up for too long, they'll distrust you and refuse to talk. Speaking of talking, the game uses synthesis synthesized speech for character dialogue, a feature pioneered by its predecessor, Mortville Manor.
00:17:31
Speaker
The art is also gorgeous. The color palette of each scene changes throughout the day, not just day and night. There are distinct palettes for early days, sunset, and so on. And they all look great. In the end, the game is more ambitious than it is polished. Yeah, i bet. 1990? Yeah, this sounds like a very complex simulation for... Expects more of the player than most people are willing to give. I spent around 140 hours streaming it. It was absolutely worth the time.
00:18:01
Speaker
Wish more people knew about it because it's worth talking about. for game devs, it's worth learning from. Mike, Robot Spacer. Sorry, it takes me two months to send an email.
00:18:11
Speaker
It's okay, Mike. That sounds fascinating. That absolutely sounds like a game that would defeat me. Yeah. It sounds incredible. It's very pretty. Like, I'm looking at screenshots of it.
00:18:27
Speaker
I mean, it may have a little bit of Amiga palette. I'm not sure. But it's a great looking game.
00:18:35
Speaker
We're always talking about how we wish more adventure games were 140 hours long.
00:18:41
Speaker
PC gamer writer, this is on Wikipedia. PC gamer writer, Richard Cobbett, who I believe we met once, felt that despite the games only takes 10 minutes to complete,
00:18:56
Speaker
I'm, I'm, I'm reading that verbatim. going read that again. Richard Cobbett felt that despite the game only takes 10 minutes to complete, it's have a legitimately clue, which has, could go on for months or years.
00:19:14
Speaker
You know, I didn't want to say anything about Richard's grammar while we had him on as a guest, but sometimes it can be.
00:19:25
Speaker
Something tells you that but maybe a transcription error. I don't know. I mean, this is a friend. Like, maybe it's ah maybe this is translated like maybe maybe a French person whose English isn't great or something like that. I don't know, Richard.
00:19:42
Speaker
I mean, well, when he talked to us, though, he did speak in sentences like that. And I was just like, oh, it's because he's British. Yeah, it must be. It must actually be better English. Yeah. Yeah.
00:19:54
Speaker
We have another email. ah Thank you very much, Mike. That sounds interesting. And again, like a game that would defeat my squishy brain.
00:20:09
Speaker
Though, according to PC gamer, Richard Cobbett felt that despite the game only takes 10 minutes to complete, it took you 140 hours to complete.
00:20:20
Speaker
Yes. What has you done wrong?
00:20:24
Speaker
I'm gonna have to call it my Wikipedia guy. Um, uh...
Speedrunning Debate
00:20:29
Speaker
This is from Yap, our friend. Hi, Ben and Jess. After a recent playthrough of King's Quest VI, I stumbled upon a YouTube video by OneShortEye, ah, no, highlighting the progress of dedicated gamers to speedrunning this game and finding all sorts of glitches finish the game as quickly as possible. OneShortEye has several videos on speedrunning out of their classics, including Space Quest IV, King's Quest one and II, or, uh, I and III, uh, King's Quest III-1 is one of my favorites of his. Yes. and Secret of Monkey Island.
00:21:01
Speaker
He also has one and Conquest of the Longbow, if I recall correctly. It's also very good. um And it's a bizarre game. Like you learn how bizarre that game is under the hood. yeah And you appreciate even more. Yeah. Like what ah what a fun title that is.
00:21:15
Speaker
On the one hand, I'm impressed by their strategies and dedication to find glitches. On the other hand, I feel ah adventure games are not suited for speedrunning. So it's all about enjoying the story and contextual puzzles. That's why I always thought Control-W combination in Monkey Island that precedes you to the end screen was hilarious.
00:21:32
Speaker
You won. What do you guys think? Especially curious how just feels about speed running Kings Quest three and his beloved space quest games. And then he has a, a, a second question, but this has been answered, I believe by a different podcast, maybe another topic of potential interest. What are your favorite soundtracks?
00:21:51
Speaker
We talked about music. i don't know if we necessarily said which our favorites were probably grease. Uh,
00:21:59
Speaker
I'm a good, a big fan of the Neverhood. Grim Fandango. That's an incredible one. The remakes of Monkey Island 1 and 2. Those are excellent. And some of the Sam and Max music. The stuff for for the Telltale. Like all the Sam and Max music. the yeah The original and the Telltale.
00:22:14
Speaker
ah Great. Thank you for making this great podcast. All right. First, speed running. So I have an answer on that of the, like, why why do it? Like, you know, it's kind of against, you know, because I think you have a better argument if it's like,
00:22:29
Speaker
you know, like Mario, right? Like, because just like, we're literally Sonic, you know? yeah Like, you know, I, the way, and perhaps, perhaps Jess and I have had a discussion about, ah ah you know, talking about speed running for an episode, who can say?
00:22:48
Speaker
to me, like,
00:22:54
Speaker
When I've watched speed runners and I enjoy watching ah Quest for Glory speed runners specifically because like those games have so much that can be bent and broken because of how they are is like what I see when i I watch people speed run those or any adventure game is Like, especially with like old Sierra games, and old LucasArts games and like others that you might have had when you were a kid.
00:23:27
Speaker
ah There's kind of a burnt in assumption that you've probably played this like dozens and dozens dozens of times. And think that like speed running them is kind of a way to enjoy it in a different way, because it's like if you're like, you know, playing Space Quest four for the, you know, 50th time, know, maybe you want to spice up the action in the bedroom a little bit.
00:23:54
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. That's what I always say about Space Quest four. You know, think for me, part of what I enjoy, like have to admit, I didn't watch a lot of speed runs until I got into One Short Eyes videos.
00:24:10
Speaker
Are you in one? Yeah, I was in one about StairQuest. That's right. I mean, I am a former world record holder in StairQuest, so I mean, I want to brag. I mean, that time has now been cut by like 94% or something, but there for a brief shining moment.
00:24:29
Speaker
But it was his videos that kind got me into it, have to admit, like, understanding how they iterate on these speed runs, which I think is what one short eyes videos do such a good job of is like walking you through how these speed runs evolve and how they discover these glitches and hacks and then how they just get better at exploiting them over time. I think it gave me more of an appreciation.
00:24:50
Speaker
I think in my head, speed run was just like, oh, that's just people who have quicker brains and hands than me. Yeah. And I think that gave me a better appreciation watching his videos of how much research and work goes into making those runs. yeah go and In some ways, like when I watch them,
00:25:08
Speaker
It's almost the same thrill I get from watching like pro sports. It's like, yeah, my body could never do those things, but it's kind cool to see someone else operating at like peak performance and pulling this sort of stuff off.
00:25:22
Speaker
So some of the shit, like, I think I was, it was, there's a, a quest for glory streamer. I think it was Mr. PR Miller.
00:25:34
Speaker
ah Uh, I think I saw him. And apologies if this was someone else or if this isn't something he's done. I think I saw him do like blindfolded or something like something really intense.
00:25:50
Speaker
Quest for Glory 1 EGA and like, or I just saw him do like just really impressive things where it's just like you can really precisely do like it becomes like this, this very precise set of movements that all have to be exactly timed.
00:26:13
Speaker
And when you watch someone do that, especially like, a ah you know, and there's, there's a bunch of, as I said, the quest for glory is my, my favorite one to watch because there's just a lot of really interesting stuff yeah happening in those games for that sort of thing.
00:26:28
Speaker
Like, You really get to see people do like all sorts of weird stuff with those games. And it's just like, like
00:26:39
Speaker
seeing these games that I've really inhabited the hell out like look different and be interacted in different ways. Like, you know, it's kind of like, you know, someone using it in like a, like a mixtape of some kind or something like they're, they're, they're using it in a way that it wasn't intended, producing entertainment nonetheless.
00:27:02
Speaker
So I think that's really cool. But yeah, and if you're for any of the listeners, if you haven't watched any of the one short videos on YouTube, they come highly recommended. They're all like, a sneak like as as has been evinced, like he just does a really good job of like taking these concepts and explaining them in a very entertaining way.
00:27:29
Speaker
Yeah. And to people who aren't part of these communities already and know that this hack was discovered three years ago and, you know, where all these things came from and how these speed runs suddenly go and you know, get cut in half after years of being stuck around, you know, one point, they really do a good job of narratively telling you the story of how speed runs develop. So yeah, check out one short eye and thank you so much.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yup for the question.
Gaming Experiences
00:27:56
Speaker
Yeah. And speaking of questions, what have you been playing? Wow. Not my best, you know? I mean, that's... You know, we spent so much time on those emails. yeah Segue into a question with the question, here's a question, isn't exactly... yeah But, I mean, all the same. i mean, I'm not here to tell you how to do your job, Ben. Yeah.
00:28:17
Speaker
I mean, that's a how would have done it. But I'm not here to tell you how to do it. Yeah. Well, I've been playing Ben. You know how recently there have been all the announcements about the long thought dead, maybe back from the dead is the is the metaphor I'm looking for here.
00:28:35
Speaker
Vampire the Massacre Bloodlines 2. Oh,
00:28:40
Speaker
I'm excited about this. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and that's that's an interesting story and of itself. You have some really sketchy looking characters day one DLC that locks up a couple of vampire clans and all kinds of other stuff, but literally just reading about it.
00:28:58
Speaker
in the news and what a possible disaster this game could be made me desperately want to go back and play Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. And that's what I've been doing lately. I've been spending some time.
00:29:10
Speaker
Those are some good streams, early, early just streams. Yeah, you know maybe I'll revisit it on stream sometime. because Those are good streams. I just love that game. I mean, like saying this is, there was a time we all pretended like this was an underappreciated classic, but now it is, know,
00:29:27
Speaker
receives universal acclaim, so it's kind of hard to treat it like anything but an absolute undisputed classic at this point. i You know, it's it's it's one of those things where it's just like...
00:29:39
Speaker
Uh, well, you know, at the time and even still like today, like it's still pretty buggy, right? Well, fan patches, like there's a fan patch that adds cut content that fixes countless bugs that re-implements features that never went, never appeared in the final version.
00:29:56
Speaker
Cause there were just a ton of assets seen on the disc for quests, for characters. like fully voiced, ready to go, that just didn't make it into the file disk. So fans have restored most of that. Like the fan-patched versions of of Bloodlines run really smoothly and just add so much content back into it. So every time I go back and play it, it's a few years later, and there's a new version of the patchout that's added even more quests that weren't there originally and fixed more broken quest lines and restored mechanics that didn't actually make it into the game.
00:30:30
Speaker
So that's always its own little adventure, just seeing this work that the fan community's put in in the intervening three or four years before between playthroughs that I do. i You know, it's it's funny, like, just how, like, it is acknowledged...
00:30:47
Speaker
classic, but it still has not, is still not a game that has been played by like a ton of people. Right. I mean, not like, not like, like Fallout New Vegas, let's say like that, I would say has a similar kind of situation, but I would say a lot more people played Fallout New Vegas.
00:31:09
Speaker
I think so. Yeah. I mean, I would say that's safe. So yeah. I mean, it's definitely one that I think This is like a Velvet Underground. Yeah. Like, yeah. But I mean, it, I mean, it is, it earns its reputation. It's a, it's a wonderful game for a reason. Everyone should, if you haven't yet, go back and play Vampire at the Masquerade Blood Lodge. You know, it's the game that I installed Steam for, for the first time.
00:31:37
Speaker
It's my first Steam game. had to activate on Steam.
00:31:43
Speaker
Oh. Yeah. I mean, it was because it was a Source Engine game that came out before Half-Life 2. That's right. And I think they had to delay release of it because of Half-Life 2. I think that in their contract, I believe recall correctly, they had to release after Half-Life 2, even though it was done well in advance of Half-Life 2, which makes you wonder why it released with so much broken content. And yeah.
00:32:05
Speaker
Which probably the answer is the game industry sucks. Business practices are horrible. yeah We know the answer to that question. like Yeah, for sure. But you know, when I think about questions, the question that I want to ask what have you been playing, Ben? Jess, I've been playing a brand new game. Brand new-ish. It hit...
00:32:25
Speaker
1.0, it came out of early access. It was in early access on Steam for ah like a year or so. And so had been interested and I had seen, like it was in a game that that hit 1.0.
00:32:40
Speaker
that I was interested in. And then I saw like two people say, oh, this is pretty good. I was like, good enough for me. And then I bought it. And you wanna know what? It is good enough for me.
00:32:51
Speaker
And the game I'm speaking of is the Rogue Prince of Persia.
00:33:07
Speaker
Cells. And it's by the people that did the Dead Cells DLC, most memorably the really good Castlevania Dead Cells DLC.
00:33:20
Speaker
And it feels like... You know, if you took Dead Cells and yeah you just added a little bit of Prince of Persia parkour magic to it and good enough for me. like And the the thing is, is like i've been ah like I've been having a great time with it. I'm not great.
00:33:47
Speaker
at Dead Cells, are in and to be clear, Dead Cells was, is, I mean, it's still around, you can buy it, an extremely good, kind of tough, roguelike, like, kind of like combat focused,
00:34:08
Speaker
semi, like it has a ah little bit inspired by Metroid, ah like in it. And it's it's a very fun and addictive game with very tight controls.
00:34:22
Speaker
It also had the benefit of like, they were constantly updating it for a very long time. So it has a very nice tight feeling to it.
00:34:33
Speaker
This only is out. Yes. This is only out of the oven, like just to 1.0. And there's like one or two things where I'm like, oh, dead cells did this better. But dead cells again, ah like 10 years of shit or whatever.
00:34:51
Speaker
Rogue Prince of Persia is absolutely beautiful. It has incredible music. It has a really fun, like, i you could, like, I watched a little video. they They talked about how they were kind of inspired by ah Prince of Persia Sands of Time's ah combat.
00:35:12
Speaker
like to to kind of try to do that in 2D. It is, it's a lot of fun. Like it is a Prince of Persia adventure where like it, you know, it sort of generates levels. it You know, it has very recognizable level parts that it,
00:35:36
Speaker
it smashes together. You're like, okay. Like, I mean, yes, this is randomly generated, but like, I've already seen like, you know, this chunk of tiles together or whatever. Yes. um But it's fine because you know what? It feels great. I, you know, Prince of Persia stuff can be hit or miss, but when it hits,
00:35:57
Speaker
prince of persia is amazing um yeah and i i think this is one ah i think this is good prince of persia um i'm i'm really enjoying it i'm not great at it i have not beaten the first boss he keeps kicking my ass but i'll i'll get there yeah i'm looking at gameplay footage i think i would be terrible at this game but kind of want to play it here's what i'll say to you jess and this is what i'll say to anybody like Uh, if, if you're curious, but you don't think you could do like, you know, you, you think it might be like too spicy, uh, try out dead cells, uh, because that will be sold like just base dead cells, which is, you know, without any DLC will probably be pretty like whenever, you know, the spring sale or whatever, or spring yeah all sale, uh, uh, losing track of time.
00:36:51
Speaker
Uh, Once a long episode. Get Dead Cells because the thing is, is that I i played Dead Cells. I had it on Game Pass when I had Game Pass. And I was like, people told me, oh, there's this game Dead Cells and it's really, really good. You should play it.
00:37:05
Speaker
And I was like, that's too hard for me. That's not the type of game I play. And it is just so tightly designed that it kept pulling me in anyway.
00:37:18
Speaker
And then I like, it ended up getting me. ah and And so now I'm already in the tank for Rogue Prince of Persia. But I would also say, you want to just get Rogue Prince of Persia, ah you should do that because more people need to get it so they support it the same way they support themselves.
00:37:37
Speaker
Because I don't think this is taking off in the same way. And that makes me a little sad. So ah Rogue Prince of Persia, a lot of fun. There you have it. check it out Thank you, Ben.
00:37:50
Speaker
Thank you. Yeah. Wow. We're a few minutes into this episode. Yep. Just three, four. Yeah. I'm realizing, you know, we should probably talk about our actual topic for this go around. Well, you know, yeah, yeah. Alluded to it a little bit before when this episode comes out, it will be September second We'll, you know, be, you know, it is outside right now.
Love for Autumn
00:38:19
Speaker
here Here in the beautiful city of Chicago, Illinois, it is 65 degrees. Ah, beautiful, beautiful. And I was walking around and there was a chill breeze coming off of Lake Michigan. I was wearing a hoodie.
00:38:33
Speaker
There was like, and that kind of fall air smell was starting to creep in. oh this is my favorite scene like i mean it's still the summer and i know they're they're those were hearing that and going like no no i spit on this uh but i love the fall i'm a big i'm a mean i'm a autumn's uh objectively the best season for sure i mean yeah i mean there's no question keen to wear a hoodie like why am i like if i could wear a hoodie year round i would but they're like several months of the year where i just die yeah
00:39:07
Speaker
um And so, ah you know, since it's a we're we're at the start of the the the autumn the autumnal ah season, ah we thought it would be time to to start ah discussing Back
Sierra's Edutainment Games
00:39:25
Speaker
to School. if We're going back to school. We're going to talk about the the Rodney Dangerfield film, Back to School.
00:39:33
Speaker
Oh, dude, Jess, I have been recently going to sleep with episodes. Someone just put every episode of Dr. Katz, yeah professional therapist on YouTube. I'm just put an episode of Dr. Katz on.
00:39:51
Speaker
go right to sleep because it's such a, like, it's it's a very cozy fall. It squiggles you to sleep. I get squiggled to bed. And i watched an episode, like I had an episode on last night that was like, they had Rodney Dangerfield and,
00:40:06
Speaker
I felt bad for the other standup that was on that episode because like he was, it was really funny because he was telling very nineties. It was like the most like kind of bog standard nineties standup.
00:40:18
Speaker
It was just like vegetarians. What the hell's up with that?
00:40:25
Speaker
Would you say that he was received as, as a comedy legend, was he receiving the respect due to him? You know, um I'm going to say it right now, he wasn't receiving any respect at all.
00:40:41
Speaker
That's his classic catchphrase. yeah I'm not receiving any respect. but Anyway, yeah, we're going back to school and we are going to talk about when ah Sierra Online ah taught us something.
00:40:53
Speaker
ah We are going to be talking about, in particular, they released three adventure games. i i like ah to edutame, which would be there were two Echo Quests and also Pepper's Adventures in Time. And we'll also talk about a ah a little bit about the games, ah the Dr. Brain games.
00:41:21
Speaker
And hell, you know, I'm even going to throw in Quirky and Quazoo's Turbo Science because I played that. That was a Dynamics game. Yeah, I mean, are we go to talk about learning with Leaper?
00:41:32
Speaker
We're going to talk about learning with Leaper. What about learning with Leaper? Have you seen Leaper? No. Oh, man. The movie, the Ryan ryan Johnson movie? No. Learning with Leaper. It's Sierra's 1983 edutainment title.
00:41:48
Speaker
You should look at least look up the cover art um for Learning with Leaper. That's L-E-E-P-E-R. Don't go L-E-P-E-R. That's Learning with Leaper, and that is a much darker program. Oh, my God. Yeah.
00:42:01
Speaker
but How do you like Leaper? Ben, could you describe this edutaining figure to me? So if you're driving a car, don't... you know pull out your phone and look at this but i urge everybody else that's listening uh please look up learning with leeper l-e-e-p-r which uh
00:42:24
Speaker
i mean so the The box for learning with Leaper, for learning games for ages i have three to six, is ah a ah giant like eyeball, ah lidded green, ah with like ah full legs that are striped, and then wearing like kind of a, what do you say, like a ah converse sneaker? Yeah. Yeah.
00:42:51
Speaker
Yeah, ah maybe some British nights. I'm not sure. But like, when I see this, like the first thing that I think of is like a piece of concept art from monsters Inc.
00:43:07
Speaker
Like of an early Mike Wachowski and like a Disney animators written beside it and like big red letters. No, with three exclamation points. And it's like a go back to the drawing board. Kids don't want to see this walking around green eyeball. This is the wrong walking around green eyeball.
00:43:24
Speaker
ah So, i you know, I want to once again pick on Wikipedia for a moment to say, under reception on Learning with Leaper, ah it says, Learning with Leaper was well well received.
00:43:40
Speaker
Citation needed. Yes. Well, I mean, we could think about its follow-up, Learning with Fuzzy Womp. Yeah, I saw that.
00:43:53
Speaker
I mean, it's just sort of lazy. I mean, it's just like, don't know, like a green paramecium. I don't know what that thing's supposed to be.
00:44:03
Speaker
Fuzzy Womp is a little, Fuzzy Womp kind of looks ah like a southpaw. He looks like an embryonic southpaw, the mascot of the White Sox.
00:44:18
Speaker
Okay. Like, take a look, Jess. Like, look up. Okay. Southpaw, white socks. Southpaw, white socks. I think he looks learning with Fuzzy Womp. Oh, wow. He really does. Yeah. Do you think that Fuzzy Womp grew up to be Southpaw?
00:44:34
Speaker
I am actually totally positive that... This is like him in his, like, boarding school days. Yeah. I mean, he is wearing a cute little bow tie.
00:44:47
Speaker
yeah Anyway... Those aren't the games we're talking about. Yeah, those aren't what we're talking about. We are not talking about. It seemed like we were for a minute, but we're not. ah But ah anyway, there's an interesting, yeah, there's an interesting thing about this.
00:45:02
Speaker
and And I think this is what you were about to to bring up, which is that I played EcoQuest and Pepper's Adventures in Time, Island of Dr. Brain, and Quarking Quazoo's Turbo Science when I was like a 10-year-old.
00:45:22
Speaker
Yes, this is why wanted to ask. I thought that was the case. played them inappropriately. Yeah. And this was my, like, these are games I did not play at the time because I was old enough by the time we get to like 19, know, 92, 93, I'm an older teenager.
00:45:40
Speaker
And when I would flip through Interaction Magazine and see like something about Castle of Dr. Brain, I'm like, that's a baby game for babies. And there's no way I'm playing that. Give me something extreme like Inca 2.
00:45:55
Speaker
Well, Inca 2 doesn't have the beautiful music, so... uh you know yeah but no i mean so i'm curious like as a kid uh first of all uh were you edued and second of all i guess my follow-up question would be were you tamed uh would say i was mildly edued and uh definitely tamed okay good like i think probably turbo turbo science probably of of the ones i listed probably turbo science taught me the most uh i would say jess as a if if you played castle or island of dr brain uh at the like as a
00:46:40
Speaker
yeah snotty teen you would have been pretty perplexed ah because ah some of the ah ah exercises in those games are fucking hard I played about an hour of Castle of Dr. Brain in preparation let's talk about Castle of Dr. Brain ah designed by ah was it Laurie and Corey or just Corey I believe just might be just the Corey yeah i believe this is just a Corey this is just a Corey joint yeah And so of Quest for Glory and.
00:47:14
Speaker
um cor Glory. Yeah. ah So Castle of Dr. Brain is a game that I wouldn't necessarily classify as a like a full adventure. I would say it's more of a kind of a themed narrative puzzle compilation.
00:47:33
Speaker
A professor lighting them up. A little bit. It does. It kind of has a little bit of that, but it, it is in the, the SEI engine like everything else is. And it's also like, because it's made by like designed by Corey Cole, it's unbelievably charming.
00:47:55
Speaker
yeah the the The puzzle of it is, is that you have to like get through Dr. Dr. Brain's like diabolical, castle like what what's the story like you have to find him or something right like you want to become his lab assistant like the goal is you're like i'm dr brain you're applying for a job i guess is his lab assistant right and basically dr brain like when he hired his architect to design his castle like he also just had the architect like uh you know 101 fun puzzles book and i told him
00:48:28
Speaker
build rooms based on all these things it's like you like tangrams we got tangrams yeah like jigsaw puzzles we got one of those uh it's like a programming puzzle at least but i'm pretty sure that castle has one there's a circuit building like you know how you put together like current on a circuit puzzle a truth telling and lying robot scenario i mean it's kind of every like it feels like in and i say this complimentary uh in a complimentary fashion It feels like you just thought of like, what is every kind puzzle we can implement in SCR?
00:49:04
Speaker
And just like, let's cram it into this ding-ding game. And an Island of Dr. Brain is pretty much more of the same. Yes. With like a tropical theme, um which is pretty cool.
00:49:17
Speaker
Yeah. But the... but um the Like, you know, I, I think the, the, the, you know, edgy part of that, the like is, and I think this is what they, they had on all of them.
00:49:34
Speaker
ah Was it, it's like, they taught like kind of critical thinking. Yes. Like they're, they're there to like the circuits puzzle. Like, especially I can imagine with like the programming stuff. Like, it's like, if you start to get an aptitude for that as a small child, which I learned, I do not have.
00:49:51
Speaker
ah
00:49:54
Speaker
And I still don't like I still play like I'll i'll go back to dr Brain every now and again. And I mean, you like I didn't breeze through Dr. Brain. I want to be very clear. Like some of these puzzles, I mean, anyone who's ever watched me stream a game, no, this puzzles aren't really my strong suit ever.
00:50:11
Speaker
But yeah, i mean, they're on some of the higher difficulty. These are, you know, these are tough. i mean, this also sometimes it's hang man and that's pretty easy or, you know, it's, it's a maze. um I mean, one thing you mentioned, I mean, again, this is a Corey Cole game ah to its core, even though,
00:50:28
Speaker
I don't think it's strictly necessary. The game has a look icon. ah Oh, yeah. Dense descriptions like every room, every all of them are packed with a little hot spot. I would love it.
00:50:42
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. I mean, it is. It's just jam packed. And of course, everyone is basically a pun. I mean, it is packed to the gills with wordplay puns, just class.
00:50:53
Speaker
It's like some of your favorite messages from Quest for Glory. Just and that's all there is like it's just cut on top of pun on top of joke on top of wordplay.
00:51:04
Speaker
I wonder if. You know, all right, store this in the bank if we get to talk to Josh a third time. If him and Corey ever had like a pun off.
00:51:18
Speaker
It's question. Because that's something that they, the two of them seem to, and maybe Lori too. I don't know. i don't know what, where the, the, the balance, but like you think about like no man in
00:51:33
Speaker
and quest for glory five. Yeah. You know, But yeah, like those, i you know, i include the Dr. Brain games, even though they're not necessarily, you know, like full point and click adventure games in the way that we think of them, is that they they are intensely Sierra games.
00:51:53
Speaker
Yeah, something that jumped out about me at Castle was like, as I was playing it, I don't know what it was, but I kept thinking it's like, this feels like of all games, Space Quest 1 VGA to me. And I finally just got Moby Games and it shares a producer and an artist to Space Quest 1 VGA. PGA is like, Oh, this explains some of the some of the vibes here. I just something about the graphics. Yeah. And the style of it. It's like, Oh, this feels like and you for me, everything's just some at some level, everything's just riffing on some Space Quest game.
00:52:30
Speaker
You know, all games are somewhat derivative of Space Quest. Yeah, I'm looking, you know, like there's like a, you like I'm looking at this screenshot of like the, like the circuit room or something and the way that it, like who the person who did the art, like kind of ah like has things curved and uses certain gradients and stuff like that does look very much like Space Quest 1 BGA.
00:53:05
Speaker
Yeah, like the planetarium scene really sells it. Like, to me, that one looks like some Space Quest 1 VGA. so But I mean, that's beside the point. I really enjoyed Castle of Dr. Brain. I found it quite charming to go back and visit as an adult.
00:53:21
Speaker
ah It's a very chill hang, which I think is is the best thing it has going for it. yeah um i didn't realize this uh i was looking at some of the credits for these dr brain games because later we have the island of dr brain and then the lost mind of dr brain and the time i had lost mine so lot like yeah after after island i don't even think they're designed internally at sierra anymore don't think so i think it was like by a different company that like was swallowed up by sierra or uh you know
00:53:56
Speaker
ah you know farmed out yeah yeah but uh i had lost mind of dr brain and i loved that as a kid i i would like to revisit that i haven't played it since i was a kid yeah i don't think i realized that cory only cory cull only worked on they podcast castle yeah i think i just in my head that whole series was him i think i just associated it so closely with it island kind of maintains that feeling I would say, yeah, from what from watching playthroughs of Island, that's about it definitely feels like it is trying to keep that vibe of Castle, of Dr. Brain going.
00:54:38
Speaker
And some people, like, I will always have fondness for Island because that was the one that I had as a kid. ah But like, I do know that there are people that like I've i've read people that that say like, oh you know, island just doesn't quite have it in the way that castle does.
00:54:56
Speaker
There's also levels of difficulty it, too. Um, Island is more of the same, as I said, with the tropical. It also, I'll note, came with a pretty, uh, hefty manual, if I recall correctly. The manual was called the Encyclical Almanac Dictionaryography.
00:55:17
Speaker
Um, and you'll never guess who at Sierra came up with that wordy name. Who would that be? Josh Mandel. How interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:28
Speaker
Yeah, the Encyclopedia Almanac Dictionaryography. that was the That was the manual. All right, well, let's let's move on to... ah let's talk about Let's talk about Pepper's Adventures in Time.
00:55:46
Speaker
I really love... Yes. I love Pepper's and Adventures in Time. I think this one is the... I mean, I guess... I think this actually might be the best of the three straight adventures.
00:55:59
Speaker
I do, too. You know, I will say... PicoQuest 1 puts up a good argument. Yeah. But I think Pepper's... If i had a nickel for every time a 1993 adventure game involves someone named Fred sending other people back in time to meet Ben Franklin...
00:56:16
Speaker
You know, I'd only have two nickels, but it's kind wild that it happened twice. It's more nickels than you thought you'd have. 1993, right? Like, I mean, what are the odds that someone named Fred would send people back to meet Ben Franklin in both Day of the Tentacle and Pepper's Adventures in Time?
00:56:31
Speaker
And what i like about this one is it also asks the question the historians have been asking for generations. What if Ben Franklin had weed? what is What's the plot of Pepper's Adventures in Time?
00:56:44
Speaker
Well, I guess um but it's her Uncle Fred. That's right. Uncle Fred um is going to go back in time and inject some of the 1960s hippie spirit into colonial America. Mm-hmm.
00:57:03
Speaker
To what end? Why is he doing that again? think he wants like, it will help him take over the world or so. Like, I don't remember exactly. Legalize it, bro. Yeah. don't know. don't understand exactly what, yeah like, why why that was or not. But yeah. i Yeah.
00:57:22
Speaker
And Pepper is spunky kid with a grouchy dog named Lockjaw. And now she's back in colonial times, just stirring up trouble.
00:57:34
Speaker
Ah, shit. Josh worked on this. I guess we I should have asked him about this because I love this game. Yeah, I know. I realized. James Jensen worked on this too, right? thought that this Yeah, ja it's it's the design credited on ah and Moby Games. It says Gano Hain...
00:57:54
Speaker
Jane Jensen, Josh Mandel, and Lorelai Shannon. And I was always given the understanding, but now I'm having doubts. Like, i don't i don't recall where I saw, I always thought that this was kind of like Lorelai Shannon's game.
00:58:10
Speaker
but maybe, maybe I believe she did the text and dialogue. I think that's what she's created. in my blog yeah So it was a, a murderer's row, on design between, uh, Jane Jensen, Josh, Lorelai and, uh, and Gano who also did, of course, uh, the and eco quest games.
00:58:28
Speaker
Um, so I, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw out some, some big thoughts on Pepper's adventures in time, uh, which is to say, And so this is a straightforward point and click adventure game. um i I'm going to say that i Pepper's Adventures in Time is a a game where they tested out a bunch of ah concepts for ah later Sierra games that they would like come back to.
00:59:02
Speaker
it is in It is... think... like it is i think there is it is no accident that pepper's adventures in time has is broken into chapters which you can select at the start of the game and so you can just skip ahead to chapter three or chapter like you can i think it's six i i could be wrong um ah And then i just like one generation, like within Sierra later, like once they get to the like Windows CD games.
00:59:44
Speaker
So you have Phantasmagoria, King's Quest 7, Gabriel Knight 2, and so on. Yes. Those all are broken up in the same exact way as Pepper's Adventures in Time.
00:59:59
Speaker
um And I think that is entirely intentional. That would have been a great question for Josh. It would have been. i Maybe we'll get to interview him again someday. yeah But yeah I mean, and you get the feeling too, this is probably a proving ground for a lot of these, a lot of these designers as well. Yeah, I feel like this is a game that they were given their chance to, know, start making their mark as well. But I find this game so charming. The truth icon, I think is great. This is something that, you know, on the one hand, you know, what is it? What is it? Yeah.
01:00:34
Speaker
Pepper's back in time. Some of the timeline has changed now because we have hippie stuff in colonial times. So that's messed things like Ben Franklin's hanging out in a hot tub and stuff, if I recall.
01:00:46
Speaker
yeah ah And then there's also just yeah know regular colonial stuff happening alongside that. You have an icon in your icon bar called the truth icon. And when you click it, odd things you see on screen, it tells you whether or not it is historically accurate. So Some of them are just like, no, clearly this is an anachronism.
01:01:05
Speaker
This doesn't make sense to see this in colonial times. Other times it will tell you the truth about misunderstandings about how colonial times work. Like you see a guy in a pillory and it tells you like, you know, kind of what the popular perception of those sorts of public square punishments were versus the reality of it. So in that sense, it is very edutainable.
01:01:28
Speaker
<unk>able uh, educational. Uh, I don't know. It definitely offers kind of a neat insight into, uh, sort of playing with history. I mean, this was supposed to be the first game in a series of twisty history. Hands on a cliffhanger.
01:01:44
Speaker
Yeah. mean, nuts as a kid. Yeah. It's a bummer because I mean, this one, i feel like, I mean, there's a lot of gas in this tank. I feel like even more so maybe than Dr. Brain, uh, you could really just,
01:01:58
Speaker
pump out a few more sequels of this one and get some, uh, get some good results
Childhood Ambitions and History
01:02:03
Speaker
out of that. Yeah. I, I like also you get to, at one point, like, uh, at a couple of points, I think you get to control as lock jaw, the dog lock jaw has his own set of icons and verbs. Like he can chew and dig and like bark.
01:02:27
Speaker
Uh, and that's just fun. It's this is like Pepper's Adventures in Time is such a charming and sweet game.
01:02:37
Speaker
Yes. And like, you know, I'm not going to say that it's like hard, but it has like interesting puzzles in it. Like, a you know, is it isn't it treats the audience ah seriously.
01:02:52
Speaker
Like by the time that I played Peppers Adventures in time as a kid, um i already pretty much knew everything in the game. But also i grew up in like New England.
01:03:05
Speaker
um We're like, you know, a field trip to a like... yeah ah like a colonial town ah was like a thing you would do if you grew up in Connecticut where like a bunch of people are walking around in tricorn hats and We're talking about the whaling industry.
01:03:25
Speaker
So yeah, colonial history there was like the thing as well. I've never been to Williamsburg. I've never been to a colonial... Didn't you to school near Williamsburg? i went to a school in Fredericksburg.
01:03:39
Speaker
Okay, okay. A lot of people, so... This is very fascinating. I went to the University of Mary Washington. The school in...
01:03:52
Speaker
ah Williamsburg is William and Mary. Yeah. And a lot of people ah get those two mixed up. And ah that's often to the benefit of if you're a Mary Washington student, because William and Mary is a considerably better school.
01:04:11
Speaker
Yeah. I would never ever get into. Yeah. To be clear. This is Peppers adventures relevant. I think I spent a lot of time as a kid. like stating on numerous occasions that my dream job someday was to be a historical reenactor in Williamsburg. Like that's what I saw for myself as a potential career was someday like being one of those people in a track corner hat, or don't think I have what it takes to be a blacksmith.
01:04:37
Speaker
I don't think. You can actually hurt yourself. Yeah. and I don't have have to sign a waiver. Yeah. I don't have the raw sexuality to be. oh like that sexy blacksmith and return to Zork.
01:04:49
Speaker
Yeah, or that sexy blacksmith in Simon the Sorcerer. or that sexy blacksmith in Quest for Glory 2. Yeah, that's a sexy blacksmith. All right. Here, I'm going to read. I'm looking on... I've got Moby Games open for Pepper's Adventures in Time. This is ah what ah it does.
01:05:06
Speaker
Learn about Ben Franklin's life. It does. Check. Ben Franklin's experiments. Check. Yep. Reading for reading.
01:05:18
Speaker
Yeah, like, sure. Problem solving skills. Yeah. And then logical thinking, which I feel like those two, now we're starting to get into the, like the fillers.
01:05:32
Speaker
And then it says, and much more. It does all those things. But, you know, I'm going to say, if if you, like, are a fan of ah Sierra games and ah you you haven't played ah Peppers ah because it's kids stuff, it's like, this isn't, it's not going to, like, it's not going to blow your mind or, you know, anything. It's not like, you know, like this hidden and lost game great classic but it's a very like it's a fun like in its own right it's a very fun adventure game um and it's it's it's worth checking out if you if you want to see if there's something else uh in there i would i would really recommend it i think it's a lot of fun
01:06:19
Speaker
Yeah, you know, something i find interesting about too is i think it's reflective of what at the time, and I'd be curious to hear if this is something maybe I've cooked up in my brain or or if you've seen it too.
01:06:34
Speaker
It felt like Sierra was toying with a bit of a new like house style for some of these more cartoony. Yes, pretty
01:06:43
Speaker
uh yeah geometric key metricy and yeah it like it reminds me almost of like a cleaner version of the kind of like geometric animation of something like a duck man or something like that think it's like old like this like kind of like pomo like this post-modern 90s style like yeah like duck man because you see I think like you start to see characters like, because yeah, they experiment. You see it a couple in a couple of places. There's Jones in the fast lane. Yeah.
01:07:14
Speaker
You also see it in, I think one of the Christmas cards. Yes. Yes. And then I think maybe one the Hoyle games plays with this a little bit, doesn't it? With some of the characters. Yeah. Like yeah they, they, they, they that's ah That's a good call because, yes, they it's a very 90s style of art.
01:07:34
Speaker
Like, it's like these very strongly defined geometric shapes with then, like, kind of askew, like, kind of Picasso-inspired, like, huge facial elements. Like, not like a full Picasso, but, like, the eye will, like, the two eyes will be slightly off.
01:07:56
Speaker
but Like I'm looking at a screenshot of general Pew on a movie games, general Pew. i mean, just get a look at that guy.
01:08:06
Speaker
He's all kinds of shapes jammed together. Yeah, man. Yeah. That's a, yeah. I find that interesting. Like I think, Pepper's adventures looks good overall, but I find that style a little off putting.
01:08:23
Speaker
Maybe you don't like that style. I don't, I don't know if I do. i don't, it kind of makes me nostalgic. Yeah. i guess and it It puts me in a bind of, something very like something very cool in 1993 yeah no i get that yeah but no pepper's a great game like i said if if you're someone who's never checked out uh one of these sierra edutainment products and you're a fan of their adventure games i think this one's an easy recommend i think there's a lot to like here uh so then let's talk about the eco quest so eco quest one
01:09:04
Speaker
ah Search for Cetus.
EcoQuest and Environmental Messages
01:09:07
Speaker
um is that Is that how it's pronounced? Cetus? I think so. i always said Cetus. um EcoQuest 1 is also ah like ah pretty good straightforward adventure game.
01:09:25
Speaker
i I've never played... I don't think I've played it ah with the the the voices on. um i think I only played the disc version. Um, but, uh, let's, let's see here. I believe that the designers.
01:09:42
Speaker
Yeah. So this is, uh, Gano Hain again, and Jane Jensen. Yeah. Gano Hain. Just those two. Yeah, it was an elementary school teacher, I believe, who Sierra brought in work Oh, I didn't know that.
01:09:55
Speaker
Yeah, she had a background in education. Oh, how interesting. Yeah, brought that to the table. And since gone on to work on a bunch of other ah educational products and other products aimed at kids. I think she, like, worked on, at some point, like, an NSYNC game called, like, NSYNC Get Them to the Show or something like that. I mean,
01:10:19
Speaker
um' i've got her pulled up on the yeah i was i was like i'm gonna get my color and then she went on a couple dora the explorer uh games and i promise the tank she's on hero you look at that it looks like uh they they tagged in a lot of uh old pals yeah yeah yeah yeah anyway barbie generation girl got a groove cd-rom yes please But EcoQuest, I think what EcoQuest 1 really has to offer for it um is that this, and this this game, EcoQuest 1 is 91. This
01:10:59
Speaker
yes i e i this is you you really get a sense of ah Jane Jensen kind of, you know, kind of like, you know, slipping in clever Jane Jensen isms because there's like kind of a so and let's say what the plot is. Ego quest is a, you're Adam.
01:11:28
Speaker
i you one day a dolphin talks to you and says that I believe that the, the great whale Cetus has gone ah missing and he needs your help.
01:11:40
Speaker
And so ah you go with ah Delphinius down into ah like underwater into like this yeah world of sea, you know, sea life.
01:11:54
Speaker
and Under the sea. Yeah. ah you He likes it better down where it's wetter. Yeah. And you you learn all sorts about ah like you know life underwater, but then also about like pollution and how we're we're harming of the the ocean and how that's affecting ah the wildlife there.
01:12:20
Speaker
And also ah the coral reef. Yeah. And um it is... And then also, ah though, just just for the fun of it, there's like ah like like these like kind of Greek ruins or something there that it is ah like that this whole sea village is is built around, which is what I'm saying is like kind of like...
01:12:51
Speaker
there's there's kind of a underwater archaeology aspect of it. Yes. That's kind of like mysterious and kind of beckoning you to explore it. that That feels more like, and I could totally be wrong.
01:13:05
Speaker
Uh-huh. But that feels very, like, I remember playing it as a game and there were parts like that spooked me a little bit. it didn't scare me, but it spooked me. The fish apartments. Yeah.
01:13:19
Speaker
Yeah, the fish apartments. ah But like there there are parts like with like these, um like ah there's like this evil manta ray that like has been driven mad by like disgusting pollution.
01:13:34
Speaker
Like it looks pretty spooky in there. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, there's a great scene at one point where like, I guess Adam just surfaces in the middle of the ocean and has a conversation with a fisherman who's throwing garbage off his boat.
01:13:50
Speaker
And the fisherman's just like, what do I care about the environment? What's the ocean's gigantic. I can dump anything I want into and it won't matter. And Adam's like, but mister, it's hurting all the fish below.
01:14:01
Speaker
uh, you know, uh, we all learned a lesson that you shouldn't pollute. You should give a hoot. i Give a hoot. One of the other things is is that it's absolutely beautiful, too. It has really, like, ah there some of the the the background art, especially,
01:14:25
Speaker
is is just really like you know we're at peak sierra scanned in hand-drawn uh settings it it just looks really great um Yeah, just the coral reefs are gorgeous. I mean, and of course it gives them an opportunity to paint with a lot of the colors of the palette that yeah you maybe some of their other titles wouldn't be able to dip into. That's true.
01:14:52
Speaker
It's very colorful in a way. Like, yeah, that it exactly it. it It looks very, ah it just looks great. um I would say as a game, it's it's slightly less substantial.
01:15:08
Speaker
ah than peppers i think ah just fine it's a game made for children yeah can tell you my favorite thing about uh ecoquest one please go there's uh i've posted this on social media before but there is a fantastic letter in the fall 1992 oh yes yes yes yes yes yes yeah and magazine can i read a bit of this of course Okay, this is a letter in the fall 1992 issue of Interaction Magazine, the official house magazine of Sierra Online.
01:15:40
Speaker
Ahem. Please place this letter in the correspondence section of the next interaction. The truth should be known. I am a great fan of your programs. I have 21 of them. However, after I saw your articles about the new game EcoQuest and the spring 1992 issue of Interaction, along with news about new recycled boxes, recycled this, recycled that, I became infuriated.
01:16:01
Speaker
How can a company as great as Sierra give in to the doom and gloomers and wacko commie liberal environmentalists? How can you side with the same people who want to hold up the entire logging industry because of a spotted owl?
01:16:15
Speaker
I've observed some of the letters written by other people who are also being blindly led down the wrong path. I am 15 years old. I haven't been fooled by these people who want to hold up this country to save a seal or hug a tree.
01:16:28
Speaker
So why can't they avoid them? Let me tell you and your readers, there is nothing wrong with the environment. I repeat, all caps, there is nothing wrong with the environment. I want to know who we think we are that we can destroy a huge God-created world like this.
01:16:43
Speaker
Who do we think we are? It's too bad that Sierra and other readers have been sucked in by those people who are supported fully by the Democrats in Congress. The same members of Congress who bounce checks totaling $10 million dollars and favor a large socialist government.
01:16:59
Speaker
I hope you will publish this letter in your magazine and encourage other readers out there who feel the same way to respond. Also, I know you can't recall the game, but please rethink your decision on this issue in the future.
01:17:11
Speaker
Uh, who, who sent that Steven Miller? i on Mart's, uh, chagrin falls, Ohio.
01:17:22
Speaker
i mean that's amazing i mean it's like i i i hope that uh uh this this young man has uh ended up changing his mind but uh it's certainly uh possible that he uh works uh for the current uh he could be the undersecretary of the interior now or something like that yeah be in charge of the epa right now um
01:17:47
Speaker
is that a bit i mean and sierra to their credit after running this large like rant from a from a 15 year old um john williams uh president marketing responds as long as we keep getting letters like this we'll keep making games like ecoquest and they need to uh they made one more game like that yeah so they got one more letter like that uh now So EcoQuest 2, Lost Secret of the Rainforest, you know, and these are, you know, i yeah we can't talk about also EcoQuest 1 and 2, like Ocean and Rainforest, ah without also talking about how those were like kind of major environmental causes
01:18:36
Speaker
Yes, oh that was like the shorthand of the environmental movement. Like Ozone 2, EcoQuest 3, he would have been in space looking at the ozone.
01:18:48
Speaker
ah That's right. That's right. I mean, and by 1989, we'd already begun solving that with the Montreal Protocol. Mm-hmm. limiting the chlorofluorocarbons that we were expelling into the atmosphere.
01:18:59
Speaker
Yeah, that's held up Ben still today as the greatest example of international cooperation in the modern era, the Montreal Protocol to end ah the hole in the ozone.
01:19:11
Speaker
Is this something that you teach in your class? No, I just know this, Ben. I just happen to know this. i just happen to know a lot about the Montreal Protocol. Cool. Yeah, mean, this is something teach in my class, yeah. What?
01:19:26
Speaker
So last secret of the rainforest EcoQuest 2. ah It's just not as good. I'm sorry. And and i this is it's just Gano alone.
01:19:40
Speaker
um ah And like so I think it's... you know and I don't want to like you know pick on her or anything. It was just that the last one had like that kind of odd darkness...
01:19:55
Speaker
Yes. Jane Jensen brings to a game. he's like King's quest six also has that, which she also, yeah, weird little bit. on Yeah. Like she's, she's very good at like, just kind of making kind of a ah more mysterious world.
01:20:12
Speaker
Lost secret of the rainforest is fine, but it's, it's a, I would say it's ultimately pretty forgettable. it just, it lacks, it lacks,
01:20:24
Speaker
ah that that certain something ah that i the first EcoQuest has. And also slightly, it doesn't entirely have that Pomo style that Peppers has, but it does have something different It's stylized more than the first game was. Certainly. Yeah. I mean, it is. Yeah. It's definitely a little bit of a different look and one that I don't think is quite as successful as, yeah and again, it's a lot different palettes. Now we're back in like forest greens and a lot of muddy Browns in this game, which, you know, the last game had like,
01:21:02
Speaker
Neon coral reefs and some really, you know, more beautiful settings like that. i mean, this one's interesting in that. I mean, on the one hand, you mentioned before, it's like you at the time ozone layer saved the whales, ah you know, deforestation in the Amazon. Those were our big sort of environmental issues that people are focusing on.
01:21:21
Speaker
This engages really thoughtfully with deforestation. it tries to engage with the rights of indigenous peoples as well with varying degrees of success. I mean, I think this falls into that sort category of 90s. Well intentioned, yeah you know, not not mean spirited sort of handling. So yeah, it's i nothing there that I think, you know, I would hold against it necessarily, even though it may not be the story we tell exactly the same way today. But it's it's grappling with some interesting stuff i mean it's probably for a kid who played it at the time i imagine they might be challenged to think about you know the deforestation and indigenous peoples in a way maybe they hadn't up to that point so i imagine this one yeah there's room to be edued in this is there room to be tamed though
01:22:14
Speaker
Yeah, i you know, the tame value, i think if I had it as a kid, I i i probably would have enjoyed it okay. Yeah. um If this is, I remember as a kid, enjoyed the first EcoQuest enough that I asked ah my mom buy this, Lost Secrets, because I wanted to play this.
01:22:41
Speaker
And it was already like discontinued by the time that wow my mom called Sierra to order. And so i just assumed that they did whatever, like, you know, short first run of it. And we're just like, okay. Yeah.
01:22:58
Speaker
Remaindered it out from there. Which is a, which is a shame. Like, You know, I'm not as enthusiastic about about this this one.
01:23:11
Speaker
Like, I would say EcoQuest 1 and Pepper's Adventures in Time and also Dr. Brain are are worth revisiting. This you don't have to unless you feel that you have to yeah play everything.
01:23:23
Speaker
You know, have to say my whole experience with EcoQuest is also, like, the first time I experienced these games was watching you stream them. And I feel like in the context of watching your streams of these, they almost became the story of Adam's dad as much as they did.
01:23:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, who seems little, I think, especially in the second one, he's pretty neglectful, right? Of his kids, like have fun in the Amazon, son. I've got work to do. And i mean, he's just like off on his own. don't know. Maybe it was more dangerous to be at the bottom of the sea with a talking dolphin. Yeah. In...
01:23:59
Speaker
In EcoQuest 2, Adam gets like separated from his father. Like, yeah, like in and the plot of it is, it's like you have to stop these evil guys destroying the rainforest.
01:24:11
Speaker
That's the story. um Yeah. Bulldozers, you know, the whole deal. Adam gets separated from his dad really early. And in the first game, it doesn't seem as much of a problem. It's just like his dad leaves the room and then Adam's like, I'm going to go for a swim. And then goes on this wild undersea adventure.
01:24:31
Speaker
But in like Eagle Quest 2, like they're in a foreign country and they're on a trip together and like Adam's dad like has like, if I recall correctly, like a customs problem or something.
01:24:44
Speaker
Yeah. And like, it just is like trying to handle that. And then Adam wanders off and like gets separated from his father into the rainforest. And I remember like playing the game and being like,
01:24:59
Speaker
This is, I mean, I guess also like a kid vanishing who says he's going for a swim is also quite terrifying. Yes. Something about Adam vanishing when his dad is like getting his papers straightened out.
01:25:14
Speaker
That's a little more real. Yeah. At a like developing nations airport. Because it's like, it's, it's portrayed as like kind of a, like a rundown airport. Yeah. Cause Adam's what, like 10, 12 year old kid, right? I mean, he's not, yeah, he's, he's a young kid.
01:25:30
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you could just imagine the first game the talking dolphin. Maybe that's just a dream sequence with Adam, and but this one feels very real. He's been, yeah, he's just like separated from his dad and walking around the And you his dad at the end of EcoQuest 2. It's just kind of like, all right, he's saved the rainforest and like...
01:25:48
Speaker
you And he did. It turns out, uh, hasn't been a problem since then. All these, uh, logging companies gave up after playing EcoQuest 2. So problem
Educational Games and Their Impact
01:26:00
Speaker
solved. We're all like, yeah, that's that.
01:26:03
Speaker
Um, so yeah, I mean, You know, i you know, I have such a soft spot for these games. Like I, you know, as I said, I played them. I mentioned already also Quarkin Quazoo's Turbo Science, which is like a Dynamics...
01:26:22
Speaker
uh like kind of science quiz game set around a race and it's in that uh wally beamish engine like that same one that he used for all the dynamics games yeah i think turbo learning there's another something which i've ever played um But it has a great dynamics, like kind of cartoon, like art in the same way that like the Beamish game was.
01:26:50
Speaker
And then also, um like e it has like the dynamics started to i really coalesce around a couple ah tunes that they like to use because you start to see it were or maybe more specifically Jeff Tunnel yes ah like you you start to hear those tunes and then they show up in the incredible like every iteration of the incredible machine and then like a bunch of the 3d ultra games all of which were Jeff Tunnel ah ah games I wonder what he's up to can we find Jeff Tunnel
01:27:37
Speaker
Yeah. Where is Jeff Tunnel these days? He hasn't, uh, he, he, his last three credits listed on, uh, Moby games are special thanks. And so the last thing that he actually has a credit on is in 2006, uh, puzzle poker, puzzle, puzzle, poker, puzzle, poker, puzzle, poker, you hear about this puzzle, but, uh,
01:28:02
Speaker
but ah But yeah, I mean, i don't know. Turbo Science is a lot fun. it's It's very, like, if you've played any, like, if you've played ah Wally Beamish or you've played The Incredible Machine, just kind of get that, you know, you you you get the vibe. but Yeah.
01:28:22
Speaker
You got it. You got it. yeah yeah You know what I'm talking about. You all, yeah yeah you got it but is drift in In summary here, it's just like, I think the idea of point-and-click adventure games that are, like, maybe, like, half-edgy or even maybe 40% educational and then 60%, like, you know, just kind of fairly...
01:28:48
Speaker
like you know just kind of fairly you know, not that hard. Yeah. ah ah ah Adventure game is really good. Like, again, as a kid, I loved it because it was also a game that I could like solve, um which I yeah had a lot of difficulty with.
01:29:09
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, i feel like, As a genre, adventure games make a good platform for some light learning. Like, I feel like the the genre tropes of how adventure game puzzles tend to be designed and how they spit out narrative at you and everything.
01:29:26
Speaker
feels ready-made to throw a little bit of learning on top of. You know, it just, to me, that's a ah very reasonable match. I think, yeah, to with varying degrees of success. I think maybe the one that does this most elegantly, balancing out being a pretty fun adventure game and a pretty educational experience. i think Peppers, for me, is the one that, yeah, works the best.
01:29:48
Speaker
But, I mean, all of these in their own way hit at that. And, yeah, it's an interesting... experimental approach to like what you can do with an adventure game and uh yeah i mean it's definitely ccr playing this at the time yeah and like a couple years like we'll we'll like there's the all the the really great humongous like humongous took this idea and then ran away with it those games like i've only so those at that point i I didn't play those as a kid, but I know I would have loved them as a kid.
01:30:23
Speaker
um And I've talked to people who played them as a kid. Yeah. Adored them. Yeah. But, i i like, you know, perhaps we will we will talk about those, but I have to play. I've only played two of the Freddy Fishes I would be interested in checking out.
01:30:41
Speaker
Um, like ah any the like the other ah Yeah, i played a little bit of Spy Fox at one point. i a museum Yeah. And what putt putt I guess was their big one that was there was like for the the youngest I think.
01:30:56
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I think I had that as like a CD ROM demo with some CD ROM drive i bought and I was like, probably 16 or 17. I learned I was like, Yeah, that definitely is multimedia. All right. ah But possibly I'd aged out of the demographic for it. So you know, maybe today I could go back and be like, putt putt now that I have the wisdom of adulthood, I could see the value of it.
01:31:19
Speaker
ah but But yeah, i mean, i i yeah I'm interested in ah checking those out.
Listener Interaction and Teasers
01:31:26
Speaker
And if you have ah favorite edutainable...
01:31:31
Speaker
ah youtain mo and ah adventure game uh and if there's one of those humongous games that you adore um shoot us an email at quest quest podcast at gmail.com or let us know on our discord or in the comment section uh on uh spotify yeah reach out to us edutanimals and uh but uh but uh thank you so much for listening please give us a five star review
01:32:02
Speaker
Yeah. And if you're having trouble with that, um, learning with Leaper can help you learn to count to five. Uh, yeah. So check that out first. Uh, and, uh, be sure to join us next week when Jess will explain in detail the Montreal protocol.
01:32:21
Speaker
We'll be there.