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Episode 48 - Gaming As We Age and Dave Gilbert
1.7k Plays1 month ago
You know him, you love him; The one and only Dave Gilbert is on the show this week to talk about our relationships to gaming as we all get older. Is nostalgia inherently good or bad? Is ET for Atari as artistic a feat as Perfect Tides? We get really really deep into it.
Also, Roses and Matt each played a few Next Fext demos (maybe more to come next week?) and Dave Gilbert played Obsidian’s answer to Unavowed, Avowed!
Email us! mattandroses@gmail.com
Games Mentioned:
- Old Skies
- Avowed
- Unavowed
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
- Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping
- Do No Harm
- The Alpinist
- Getting Over It w/ Bennett Foddy
- Deck of Haunts
- Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer
- Horizon Zero Dawn
- Assassin’s Creed: Oddysey/Valhalla
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Curse of Monkey Island
- Blackwell series
- Perfect Tides
- Dragon’s Dogma II
- Citizen Sleeper
- Cloudpunk
- Quest for Glory series
- Knights of the Old Republic
- Hypnospace Outlaw
- Crow Country
- Sanitarium
Communal Actions:
- Amazon Boycott March 7-14.
- Nestle Boycott March 21-28.
- Walmart Boycott April 7-14
Recommended
Transcript
Casual Opening and Pizza Debate
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, guys. How you doing? Why are you already laughing, Matt? I just love how you you like to go into our cold opens, even like with a little intro.
00:00:11
Speaker
Hey, everybody. It's the cold open before we started the show. I can't help it. It's always started on my videos. I always say hi to non-existent people in front my microphone.
00:00:23
Speaker
But I have a question for both of you. What do you think of when I say like Chicago? I'm from Chicago. What do you think Chicago is all about? Ooh.
00:00:36
Speaker
Like I've never been. and i'm And I'm a New Yorker. So this is this is a hard question for me. No, this will make the answer even better. This will make it even better. Yeah. All right. So are we going to have to like fight about whose pizza is better? Is that what we're going to have to do?
00:00:49
Speaker
Like you and me, we have to a pizza off. i You know what? Listen, this is what this is this is my point, right? There is no bad pizza, and I would like to call off the war on pizza. This is this is my official statement that there is no bad pizza.
00:01:05
Speaker
i It's all good pizza. You know what? I think I'm on the record, though, on this show, podcast. I think early on, I went to visit um New Orleans.
00:01:17
Speaker
ah Well, like i think episode like three or four of this show. And I had the worst pizza of my entire life oh no on Bourbon Street in New Orleans because that's not what New Orleans That was your first mistake, man.
00:01:32
Speaker
know, right? So then I tried. You want good anything, you don't go to Bourbon Street. It's just to get good and drunk. Well, yeah, I mean, yeah. So, I mean, I did have pizza somewhere else. And because i I why I didn't give up immediately, I don't know. But I did have pizza somewhere else in New Orleans.
00:01:52
Speaker
Also horrible. and And then i had a pizza at a friend's house in New Orleans. Like she made um frozen pizza. It was also horrible.
00:02:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:06
Speaker
Okay. So what you're saying is there is one bad pizza and it's in New Orleans. And the best pizza is in probably New Jersey, but Philadelphia gets so oh who no if you get runoff. gets so runoff.
00:02:19
Speaker
Philadelphia, the Eastern PA has well very good pizza, but I think, man, I think it's a runoff from New Jersey, unfortunately. he's pissed off both of us now. What are we going to do The New Jersey pizza, they just get them from New York. That's what's there.
00:02:36
Speaker
And I'm from Chicago and all pizza is good here. and that's that You are? Did you know? did you know I'm from Chicago? Actually, I did know you were from sha Chicago. She's never mentioned it to me before. I'm up to date on my roses trivia. yeah I'm also an artist. I don't know if you knew that. And apparently you like a show called Murder, She Wrote, so I hear.
00:02:58
Speaker
so you know. Yeah.
Introduction to Dave Gilbert and Indie Gaming
00:03:01
Speaker
I didn't know any of this. Oh, my God.
00:03:22
Speaker
everybody, welcome to Save Your Game. i am your host, Matt Aukamp. With me is ah this other person who is also a host. Her name is PushingUpRoses.
00:03:34
Speaker
hi How's it going, Roses? Good, how are you? I'm doing well. ah I can't can't complain, as as I guess they say. ah ah Someone says that, sure.
00:03:48
Speaker
With us today... is a look here here on this show we talk about all sorts of video games usually indie games mostly adventure games and this this man if you know especially the crossover between those two genres indie games and adventure games you know who this man is he is the creative force behind wajidai games he made the but blackwell series this is dave gilbert
00:04:22
Speaker
How's it going, Dave? Wow. That was some intro, man. Thank you. It's it's going well. I am a huge fan. Okay. I'm a huge fan. He's the father of Ron Gilbert.
00:04:32
Speaker
Hey, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. How old do you think I am? I do i think Rod Gilbert's 17 years old.
00:04:44
Speaker
that That is hilarious how many people think there is a relation. There is no relation. there No relation, you guys. It's really funny. There's no relation. we yeah That is like the primary like topic of conversation whenever like we're in the same room. It's like, oh, yeah, we got the same name. Yeah.
00:05:01
Speaker
How about that? You know guys... Definitely have more interesting things to talk to other about. The hours just fly by, you know. So what's your favorite letter? Is it the Is it the Maybe good old S. I love an S. Wait. That's funny.
00:05:21
Speaker
What? There's no S in Gilbert? I... Oh, I thought you just meant... Oh, you thought we were just talking about the alphabet in general. Like people just hang out and talk about what they like about the alphabet. What letter about the... Yeah, the alphabet.
00:05:34
Speaker
No, that's a good place to start. dam We are both writers, so... What like what letter do you like most in the alphabet? The letter I like most... The the Curse of Z is very fun to write.
00:05:48
Speaker
Oh, like that is pretty good. That is actually a good answer. Rosas, what do you like? What's your favorite letter in the alphabet?
00:05:59
Speaker
Let's go with a good old K. for Kermit the Frog. You've been thinking about Kermit a lot lately, huh? I know. It's weird. i Let's not talk about it. I like a i like a G because i i write I have such horrible handwriting, I have to write everything in uppercase. I only write in uppercase.
00:06:19
Speaker
It's old school. like My parents used to write everything in uppercase, too. Really? Yes, both of them. It hurts the hand ah Yeah, it
Gaming Industry Insights and Challenges
00:06:28
Speaker
does. You should stop. But it's ill my own and writing is illegible in any other way.
00:06:35
Speaker
But because of that, I like the uppercase G because you just kind of you kind of get to do a little – you're doing like a round and then you just get to do a little jerk, jerk, jerk. And that's the – Okay.
00:06:45
Speaker
Phrasing? i like I like the uppercase as well for other reasons. Yeah. Not the jerking. It's because it's part of my name. Not the jerking. No.
00:06:58
Speaker
So, Dave, how are you doing? and I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Yeah, I'm doing good. Thank you. You are on the cusp Of the release of your brand new game.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. We haven't announced the release date yet because we just were waiting to hear back from Nintendo on whether they'll give us some promotion or not.
00:07:23
Speaker
Holy cow. And if if they don't, we'll announce like right away. If they do, we'll, you know, basically be announcing when they say we can. Oh, basically. Yeah. Do you mean here, and we can cut this out if it's two, if you're're you're not allowed to say, it does it mean does that mean whether or not you get into a Nintendo Direct?
00:07:41
Speaker
Oh, I don't know about that. No, um they're they're just, they they might like promote our trailer. They might just like put it on there, you know, whatever, which would be awesome because yeah we've never really had a good, a big marketing push on the deck. Cause whenever we released, not deck, I'm sorry, switch, I'm confusing my portable systems.
00:08:01
Speaker
um Whenever we released a game on the switch, it was always several years after the game came out or in the case of Hobbs Barrow, like several months. And so we've never done like a simultaneous launch before.
00:08:13
Speaker
And so if we can get some like extra marketing from them, awesome. If they say no, you know, all right, no big deal. We'll just, we'll just announce our, we have our launch date. We just don't want to announce it.
00:08:25
Speaker
And like, fair if they, if they want to like help push us, we're going to basically follow their lead and announce it when they want to, which would only be like a, yeah. That makes a lot of sense because, I mean, I don't know if either of you guys have seen that the big... and don Do you guys know the about the Matthew Ball state of video gaming PowerPoint that just came out?
00:08:47
Speaker
No. There's this this dude, this journalist who who like released this massive, basically, PowerPoint. His name's Matthew Ball. um And it is about like the state of the industry by the numbers right now.
00:09:03
Speaker
And... I'm not an expert in this stuff enough to really talk about it, but it's basically the video game industry is in shambles, except for Nintendo.
00:09:14
Speaker
Really? It's the only one that's doing well. Well, yeah, apparently video game usage, like or video game sales at least, are back down to pre- Like worse than they were pre-COVID.
00:09:27
Speaker
ah Wild. It is the first time, i guess, in history um that they have gone significantly downwards rather than upwards. That's wild. And they think, and i mean, there's a lot of reasons for it, but the big, one of the biggest takeaways of the presentation is that like, number one, the attention economy is rough.
00:09:49
Speaker
Sure. I say i want on a podcast. Yeah. and number two the um number two, ah it's these ideas games that stick around long, long after their life cycle yeah um and become like the only games people play. So, ah you know, Fortnite, Roblox are the obvious ones. And then other ones like... um ah ah No Man's Sky is one that just keeps going. Yeah, people still play that. Yeah.
00:10:24
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, well, then there's Call of Duty and... Right. And PUBG, like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. And then there's one that shocked me, and I can't remember what it's called. But anyway...
00:10:36
Speaker
that's why i guess i'm saying ah don't envy the position you're in dave but that nintendo bump is gonna it would be so cool ah who knows it seems worth waiting an extra week or two to announce our launch date yeah um it's it's worth it so that's what we're gonna do which is frustrating because i like i want to want that dopamine hit of like hey the game is coming out on this day and i like here's our new trailer and here's our new promo stuff and all the, you know, just sitting on that and just waiting is is like making me just, you know, chew my nails off. I just, I want to talk about it more, but I'm i'm holding myself back for that reason. It's, ah but you know, it's, it's, it's good to be in that position.
00:11:19
Speaker
where that's that's possible. So, um yeah, although i'm I'm just crossing my fingers. But again, if not, then no big deal. Then I'll be able to like oh you know talk about it. and i won It'll be fine one way or the other.
00:11:33
Speaker
But getting that bump would be nice. Yeah, that would be sick. I mean, and i you know... This is a thing that I've complained about on the show before is this idea that as fans, we also have to understand like business, um which I don't think should be true. But in the 2020s seems to be true. Like you kind of have to if you're a fan of TV shows, you kind of have to understand like.
00:11:57
Speaker
the marketing of Netflix and shit now. and I mean, and I don't think anyone like resents an entertainment company from wanting to earn money so they can keep making stuff.
00:12:09
Speaker
And that's like there's easier way easier ways to earn a living than what I do, for sure. But i I can't think of anything less like more satisfying. But at the same time, it's like I can't just...
00:12:22
Speaker
I do have to make compromises just to like keep money coming in and ah get the next game out and so on. And it's it's stressful. But I like living this way. i don't think I've been good at much else.
00:12:33
Speaker
At this point, there's very little else I know how to do. Right. and but So, yeah. That's, I mean, it's awesome that you managed to find a way to make that your life.
00:12:46
Speaker
um i I think, but I think even just as like fans, like, like as, as a fan myself, right? Like, I feel like I more and more through time, I've had to pay attention to industry stuff.
00:12:56
Speaker
And so lately, so I resent it. But lately, i have been thinking a lot about the video game industry because of the place it's in. It can get a little much. Like if you're really into film and you start analyzing, you know, like what studios are doing and, you know, things like that, it can it can prevent you from like really just enjoying the the thing just on its own merits. it's It's sometimes hard to let all of that go just enjoy something. It's such big thing that happens. People that are into film, into video games, into into ah TV, into comic books is people being like,
00:13:30
Speaker
Like, when something's coming out, everybody has to talk about, like, ah oh, this won't do well because... Or, oh, what was its day one market... shit like Like, and it's just such a crazy thing that that's something we all have to be invested in now. But we've we've gotten to this very late-stage capitalism thing where it's like, if...
00:13:52
Speaker
If we don't pay attention to that stuff, then things that we like just go away really,
Social Media Marketing for Games
00:13:57
Speaker
really quick. And we're seeing that in the video game industry constantly now. um But even when video games do well, they still go away. Yeah, exactly.
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah. That's true. and So if anybody does have an interest in that that, like I said, the guy who released this, his name is... um ah Matthew Ball, and it's called The State of Video Gaming in 2025.
00:14:21
Speaker
It's really dire, but also pretty interesting. Matthew Ball's State of Gaming. Oh, wow. Okay. I'll have to read that. Thank you. 225-page presentation.
00:14:32
Speaker
ah I was like, all right, i'll just I'll just read this after the interview. Like, no, I need like a day to read this thing. I was talking to another adventure game producer ah the other day and he was saying how um he he he was like, oh, I just got off a call with my marketing people.
00:14:50
Speaker
And it's just like, apparently, if you don't have TikToks, ah think your games is not going to sell. I tried getting on TikTok. It didn't go very well. It's tough.
00:15:01
Speaker
all Especially it's like i joined TikTok just when America was about to like potentially ban it. And then it magically came back you know like a week later.
00:15:15
Speaker
yeah So I joined just around that time. And I found it just very, like, I talk to marketing people and I ask them, like, what do you do on TikTok? And again, this sort of plays into our theme because I feel very, very old when I have this conversation.
00:15:31
Speaker
And they tell me about all these things that, you know, TikTok does. Oh, I get like, yeah yeah this goes viral. And then I get all these followers. And I'm like, okay, but what do you actually put on TikTok? what do you actually do?
00:15:43
Speaker
And they don't know how to answer the question. Yeah. Yeah. but What do you mean? What do I put on TikTok? I just put things on TikTok. Like, okay, but what? And it just doesn't, like, I can never quite get the right answer.
00:15:55
Speaker
And I'm sure like all all your, all the the TikTok savvy folks who are listening to this are probably thinking I'm an idiot, but like, I don't get it. And I i try, like every time I put something on there, i would try various things and I feel like an idiot.
00:16:10
Speaker
um And I'm just like, you know what? I've managed so far without it, then maybe I'll be okay. Of course, that is the worry. I don't it either. And i i I don't know. I feel like I should because I do have like art things i use for Instagram.
00:16:25
Speaker
But it's it's just another thing, first of all. And I don't like phone editing. And that's what those applications are good for. us They're good for phone editing. And I'm not an editor on the phone. I edit videos on my desktop. So it's just not something that comes naturally. the same way.
00:16:42
Speaker
That's why I generally don't like Instagram because you have to send everything through your phone. yeah And so having to make an image, send it to my phone, then send it to TikTok. It's just extra staff that I don't bother with.
00:16:54
Speaker
You know, I'm pretty good friends with the jackx Jackbox people, and they do well on TikTok because they're like they're more, i guess, of a comedy game developer.
00:17:07
Speaker
So they're always using TikTok, and I think that works really well for them. But like I can't see it working for every dev, you know? Yeah, it also depends on your personality, and it's just – that's just not me. What's up, Matt?
00:17:21
Speaker
There's this thing, too, about – you're talking about like video ah editing on your phone versus editing on ah editing on a desktop. And, yeah you know, I have – um and Like I know people who either they edit – this is just on Instagram too.
00:17:36
Speaker
They either edit their like ah silly comedy videos on a desktop and then put them on a phone or they're like really good at editing on their phone. But you can always tell and it feels weird.
00:17:49
Speaker
anything like And like And also it's just more steps. It's like, all right, i did that I recorded this thing on my phone. I got to send it to the desktop. i'm going to edit it there. now I got to send it back to the phone. Like no.
00:18:00
Speaker
It's the same. Absolutely not. Yeah. And i remember, dave I remember feeling that way when ah Instagram started where I was like, so what do I even do? And people are just, you just post, you just put a post up.
00:18:12
Speaker
What does a post consist of? I don't know. Just post like a picture. It's like picture of what? And they're like, I don't know. It's just like, you can't, if somebody gets it, it is impossible for them to explain to you.
00:18:25
Speaker
I guess it's like trying to explain, well well, how do you use Twitter? you just post whatever you want. oh yeah and Yeah, it's the same exact thing. um Except when I speak, but I understand if you're just like a personality or whatever, or just some like attractive person dancing, like I get that.
00:18:42
Speaker
But if you're trying to sell a thing, if you're trying to market a thing, like, I don't know how you can do that while, while looking sincere. Yeah, it's hard. That's hard for me. Because I'm like, I just, whenever I'm recording myself talking about my work on TikTok, I just think, like, they can tell I just want them to buy shit. And that's how it goes. And like, i I feel like on Twitter, i' I could be more, or, you know, Blue Sky or whatever.
00:19:08
Speaker
yeah I feel like I can be a lot more genuine that way. um Have you considered the dancing, though? Have you considered dancing while marketing? want to gain fans. want to gain fans.
00:19:19
Speaker
you know i want to like grow my profile. i don't want to I don't want to make people run away.
00:19:26
Speaker
yeah i mean I've thought about that. I've tried just being incredibly physically attractive and seeing if that would help.
00:19:34
Speaker
how How did you find that, Matt? Did that that work out for you? That was very, very smart of you. Very clever. I should have tried that. I just sat around thinking about what could improve what could i do to improve my As the person with the least followers on this podcast. Well, have you tried like...
00:19:56
Speaker
Cat content? Because cat content. Dude, you post a photo your cat. Okay, I'll to be a cat now. Okay, being incredibly... Okay, so I tried being myself. Didn't work. I tried being incredibly physically attractive. Didn't work. Next time I'll try being a cat.
00:20:09
Speaker
let me Let me tell you guys a secret, okay? There is nothing more that the female population likes more than a nice guy with a fucking cute cat.
00:20:21
Speaker
It works. So you should try that. Okay, so Dave, we gotta go get cats. I have a cat. You gotta get another one, man. We gotta load up on these things.
Gaming Events and Demos
00:20:34
Speaker
He's not very, um, I don't know. Like, he, I try, he's not a very, like, snuggly cat. Like, i what kind of is He steps on my lap and then that's adorable and then he just sort of looks at me and jumps off and that's the extent. He just is. i guys
00:20:52
Speaker
I got two guinea pigs. He's not doing his job. He's not doing his job of being cute. and he's just Actually, he's cute. They don't walk around the house and do fun things. Oh your guinea pigs are kind of useless, dude. I don't know. They just sit there and sleep and they make a lot of bathroom.
00:21:09
Speaker
Guys, we've been going to i want to talk before we start talking about today's topic um there was a steam net next f or there was one going on right now and i played a bunch of demos ah roses have you played any i played two demos Dave, have you gotten a chance to check out any NextFest?
00:21:35
Speaker
next I haven't. I've been working on a new trailer all week. I haven't. But I released a demo about two weeks ago that was up there for a limited time. i took it down um because I couldn't do NextFest because i i did the game was in NextFest.
00:21:49
Speaker
Two years ago, which just shows how long this game has been in production. um i shouldn't say that. No, I shouldn't say effing game. It's just that that that's my internal word for it. um No, this game has been in the works for a long time. yeah And it was in Next Fest, which is why I couldn't put it in Next Fest, which is why I didn't look at I mean, art art takes time.
00:22:08
Speaker
That's just does sos how it is. Before me and Rose's talk about the games that we play, the NextFest games that we played, Dave, do you have any games that you've been playing at all lately? Or is it just been work?
00:22:20
Speaker
Yes, actually. Because I had to. i had to to buy this. ah because of Just because of what it was called. I had to try Avowed. For the obvious reasons.
00:22:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the answer. It's the answer. It's the answer.
00:22:39
Speaker
Oh, dear. And it's all right. like so yeah Yeah, I know. Right. um And it's all right. Like, I'm i'm enjoying it. It's a Bethesda like. And I liked Pillars of Eternity back in the day.
00:22:51
Speaker
um Although there's so many references to Pillars of Eternity that I don't know how anyone who didn't play pillar Pillars of Eternity would. understand what's going on but I'm enjoying it it's pretty it runs decently on my computer and uh I I can put avowed and unavowed uh next to each other in my steam library and and think well that's funny and then go to that's a great tiktok though yeah it's a great tiktok there you go all right well all right that's my next tiktok right there you'll sell a million copies so else yeah
00:23:26
Speaker
and here What I've heard about Avowed, and tell me if this is correct, is like the best way to play it is to just not expect Skyrim. yeah I mean, it's kind of Skyrim-ish. It's kind of in that vein. like it's you You wander around a world and you encounter stuff. and you know But there's not a lot of like um systems fighting against each other like you got in Skyrim.
00:23:50
Speaker
Yeah. ah You don't get a lot of that, like random creatures interacting with each other and fighting with each other. You don't see any of that stuff. But it's just you you wander around, encounter a little story. you You do it and you experience it. You move on to another thing.
00:24:04
Speaker
um ah The characters are fun. The animation is very pretty. ah You know, it's it's it's very good at what it's trying to be. And I appreciate that. It's not trying to be anything else. And I'm enjoying it.
00:24:18
Speaker
I think I'm waiting on, I'm waiting on, so I do want to play Avowed and i want to play that Indiana Jones game that came out, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. I think I'm waiting on one more big AAA release before I Game Pass again. And then just knock them all out in one month. I'm a PS, I'm a PlayStation guy, so I want to play that one on console.
00:24:41
Speaker
So I'm waiting for that. Apparently it's going to be ported to um PlayStation eventually. I'm just, I'm waiting for that. And actually, no, it's supposed to come out on PlayStation in um like, I don't want to give the date, but it's, it's after my um launch date for old skies. So that'll be my reward for, nice oh that's awesome yeah ah assuming, assuming they hit that launch date. I don't know.
00:25:09
Speaker
um Roses, what did you play for Next Fest? I played, it was a short demo, but I played the demo for the next Duck Detective. It's very cute.
00:25:22
Speaker
it was a short It was a very short demo, so i there's not much I want to say about it because I want you to play the demo. But I will say that my favorite character... which is Freddy Frederson, the crocodile, back. And I love that character. He's so cute. I have a crush on this weird crocodile character from Duck Detective. It's very strange.
00:25:44
Speaker
And the other demo I played was called Do No Harm. And I played it because, yeah, I got a text from Matt saying it reminded him of Strange Horticulture. And I was like on it. I'm like, all right, here it is. This is it. I'm going to find another game like Strange Horticulture. And I really like it.
00:26:02
Speaker
um i i I started it on the Steam Deck and it wasn't great with the Steam Deck. So I switched to ah PC and i and I had a really good time. But basically, you're a doctor.
00:26:14
Speaker
In a weird and a weird town, because we've got some Lovecraftian. know you're all sick of hearing us say Lovecraftian, but it it is. It's Lovecraftian. I was thinking that yeah before we recorded. i was like walking around my house like, oh, man, I'm going to have to say Lovecraftian. We've got say Lovecraftian again. it it it is. It is a Lovecraftian story.
00:26:32
Speaker
And you're playing a doctor. And you are this town is full of sick people. I don't even know how anyone's alive. She's bounced it. And yeah, it's kind of a a simulation, kind of like Strange Horticulture. You're looking up, ah you know, medicine cures for people. You're giving them shots and trying to figure out what kind of illness they have. It's fun. I really like it. yeah And it's based on that old, like, humor, humoric system of medicine. So you have, and this sounds grosser than it is in the game, and but you have you have blood, you have black bile, you have yellow bile, and you have phlegm.
00:27:11
Speaker
Phlegm, yeah. Again, sounds grosser than it is in the game. It's just a blue vial of red vialy, black vialy. Yeah, it's not gross. yeah and It is not a gross game. It is gross, though, when you do have to, you know, diagnose people's boils. That can be a little gross.
00:27:27
Speaker
You know that I'm a freak, Matt, and I love medical anomalies, so I don't even care. Bring it on. ha ha!
00:27:36
Speaker
I love it. ah Yeah, but I had fun with that. I had fun with that demo. What else? What other demos did you play besides do no harm? um Okay, so I played a game for my these aren't adventure games. Mostly i didn't play adventure games, which is interesting.
00:27:52
Speaker
I played a game called the Alpinist Alpinist. okay um ah By Vianney Thomas or Vianley Thomas. I can't read my own notes, ah notes but ah even though they're in uppercase, um it is, but it's a little platforming game that ah appears to be hand drawn. And you're just this yeah know yeah little mountain climbing girl with a ah grappling hook kind of thing.
00:28:21
Speaker
Works a lot like a bow and arrow. And You're just trying to see how high you can climb. It looks really cute. There's glowing little dots. Like pink makes you like jettison in whatever direction you hit it in.
00:28:36
Speaker
Orange hangs statically in the air so you can attach your grappling hook to it and swing around. And blue sucks you in and kind of then you can choose which direction it jettisons. Oh, looks cute. It does look cute. It kind of reminds me of Owlboy, you guys have...
00:28:51
Speaker
Played that one. Oh, wow. Yeah. I never did finish that. Why did I never finish that? That was cute. It got hard. Maybe that it got difficult at the end. Yeah. So this game, there's no enemies or anything. It's just climbing. And the game is straight.
00:29:06
Speaker
Like there's there's a little bit horizontal, so horizontality to it, but it's pretty much straight vertical. And so you can get up to, say, you know, 600 meters or whatever.
00:29:18
Speaker
and fuck up and fall all the way back down to the beginning oh lord but that reminds me of um was it like i think get over it getting over it by benny yeah yeah um yeah it's like that only not nearly as hard and not as absurd um but you uh But it is, you know, the the music is really good and really inspiring, which is helpful because it can be really dispiriting and to fall 500 feet and then or meters or whatever, it however it measures measures it and have to climb all the way yeah back up again. But it's also the fact that there's some horizontality to it is cool because then you can just try a different path up and that can be fun.
00:30:05
Speaker
Yeah, it looks really it looks really cute. I might give it a go. um the next game i played today actually uh which was but like so unbelievably addicting and um and not also not an adventure game it's called deck of haunts and you play as a haunted house true one and every i don't know why that makes me laugh Every night people come in to kind of explore your haunt, your haunt, you, you, you, the house.
00:30:40
Speaker
Okay. And you have a you have a series of cards that can do things like move them from room to room or um pause them in a room for one turn.
00:30:52
Speaker
um And you, ultimately are trying to kill or drive insane everybody that comes into your house. um And that like feeds you with energy that the, then you can use to build more rooms or upgrade your rooms.
00:31:10
Speaker
um It's kind of like a digital board game. A little bit. right People keep moving around the house at random except for some people know where your heart is. So the house has a heart and the heart has a health bar.
00:31:24
Speaker
And so some if people get into the room with your heart, they will try to... they will They will take health from it. um And so you just have to last as many nights as you can.
00:31:36
Speaker
um the poor house. And if you... there are There are certain things you can do. Like if you kill somebody in the same room as somebody else. um Or if somebody that isn't there to kill you sees... Like there's special roles some people have.
00:31:51
Speaker
If like a normal person sees your heart, they will... that will cause the people to run away. And if they run away, then you have more hunters next, the next night. weird So it's really, it gets really difficult, really fast, but it was really, really fun, incredibly addictive.
00:32:11
Speaker
I think I will be buying it as soon as it comes. I'm just looking at the, looking at the screenshots. It looks amazing. It's got this like isometric. It's got isometric. I hate that.
00:32:21
Speaker
ah really? i it's my least favorite. Except for in Sanitarium. Except for Sanitarium, which is one of my favorite games of all time. Literally, Matt pointed it out. Sanitarium has every element that I personally hate in adventure games. And yet, I love that game. It's called Classic. I still... Okay, I just... This is this is a ah funny old pet peeve of mine. in your Strangeland review a long time ago, you said that Abe Goldfarb in Strangeland sounded like the main guy in Sanitarium.
00:32:52
Speaker
Which... I, you know, like, it's a compliment to
00:33:03
Speaker
i I just had to get that out there. I'm not like saying anything one way the other. just abe I'm sorry. it was to me I'm a strange person. It was meant to be a compliment. That's so fucking funny.
00:33:18
Speaker
ah I want to touch on one other game that I played. I don't want to get too into it, but I played a little bit of the demo of Kathy rain too.
00:33:32
Speaker
um nice. Nice. And you know, I, I don't really love spending much time in a point and click game. If I, if I, if I'm going to get my in a demo for a point click game, sorry. If I'm going to get into a point and click game, ah I'm going to need to take some time to really get absorbed.
00:33:49
Speaker
Right. Yeah. So, um, it seemed It seemed fine. It seemed to have a lot of the flair of the last one. They made a weird choice, though, which I just, I really, I don't understand on any level.
00:34:01
Speaker
They softened Kathy Rain a lot. You know why? why is that? Because i wasn't directing her this time. Oh! Although, like we're we're talking about it. I just told them I'm way too busy with Old Skies right now. we'll We'll see if I'm i'll do directing her later. But like ah Ariel, I just love... I could listen to Ariel all day. adore her.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's the same. It's Ariel, the same voice actor. But ah she... Her voice seems a little softer um and a little more... ah a little more girlish maybe, and the, the um the so both the sprite and the ah portrait are both just a lot softer and like, again, just kind of more girlish. And it's like- you calling me out for the criticism that I gave the first game?
00:34:50
Speaker
I am not. that where this is going? What was your criticism of the first game? Oh, my God. Okay. i First of all, I loved the first game, and I gave it a very positive review. This is a game written by men.
00:35:03
Speaker
That's not a bad thing, but sometimes they don't always know how to write alternative women, okay? Or any women. womens Let's be honest. I said that her character was a bit...
00:35:16
Speaker
pick me ish it was a little bit like i'm not like other girls and i'm not sure i i didn't really like that vibe um and now i'm now i don't know they took that to heart it's that's an interesting it's an interesting thought but i it to me it just felt like a kind of just a different character it felt like a character that was just like she still rides a motorcycle she still wears the leather jacket but she was just very Yeah, I don't i don't know. i don't know. Maybe they were taking your your feedback. Maybe they got that feedback from other people, but it just seems... That's interesting. That's actually very useful if I do end up directing that again, voiceover directing again.
00:35:58
Speaker
That's something to be aware of. That's interesting. and yeah andrk If you're listening, Joel, I still want to do it. No matter what this loud mouth on the podcast says. They're clearly writing like an alt, like kind of a badass character. And those can be those can be difficult to write.
00:36:16
Speaker
ah But I like a badass, softer spoken person, like girl protagonist. Yeah, it can be hard to balance that. And again, I think you're right, especially for male writers is this idea of like, oh, this is a badass woman, but it is a woman who Like, you don't have to make a woman a man.
00:36:36
Speaker
don't have to give a woman manly traits just to make her tough. A person can be womanly and tough. I talk about that a lot. i have a ah i have a review. Not a review, but a video on Laura Bow specifically as a character.
00:36:51
Speaker
it's ah It's a character, i guess, analysis. And I do make a point because I say, look I would be like delighted to have more and bubbly female characters because we've gotten to the point where every female protagonist is the hardest thing you've ever seen in your life.
00:37:11
Speaker
And I love I love those characters. I relate to those characters. I I'm heavily tattooed and aggressive and that's great. But I would be delighted with more Laura Bow characters or even better, more Yvette Delacroix characters from Dagger of Amon Ra. I think that'd be fantastic.
00:37:28
Speaker
Well, What do you think about a character like Aloy from, um ah ah oh my God, what are the names of those games? Horizon Zero Dawn. Yeah, Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn. She clearly has, she's ah she's a she's tough, she's a badass, but she clearly has a femininity to her.
00:37:46
Speaker
I like that character a lot. yeah I think also, like the i bring this up again Ashley Birch's voice acting elevates her yeah to a ludicrous degree.
00:37:57
Speaker
yeah um It's the same reason why I think... um I always think of the two... I don't know if you play Assassin's Creed games, but there's Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Valhalla.
00:38:09
Speaker
um Cassandra in Odyssey is, there's not a lot to that character. She's just generic, has a generic ah backstory. She's just a very generic person, but the actress just elevates her to ludicrous levels. I could listen to Cassandra read the phone book, but then you have Ivor, the female Ivor in Valhalla, who has a very interesting backstory,
00:38:34
Speaker
There's a lot to her, like and it all ties into the story in very interesting ways, but the actress isn't nearly as good. And same thing with um Connor in Assassin's Creed 3. I think he's a very interesting character, but his voice actor is a freaking block of wood.
00:38:48
Speaker
And everyone thinks he's boring. Everyone thought he was so boring as a result. But I'm like, he's actually kind of interesting, but i don't I want him to shut up. um I think that that adds a lot, especially for a character like that.
00:39:00
Speaker
I think we should just get the voice actor for Max from Sanitarium to do everything. I thought you going to say Max from Sam and Max to do everything. that'd be cute too, actually. I'd love that. So, Roses.
00:39:13
Speaker
Yes. What are we, what, we've been talking for a while now, but what are we actually here to talk about today? Oh gosh, yeah, it's been about an hour. We are going to be talking about gaming while aging.
00:39:27
Speaker
Eh? Does that, does that not excite you? i I am happy to ponder my mortality with the both of you today. Thank you. It's a favorite pastime.
00:39:39
Speaker
ah It's something I think about a lot of because in our generation, think video games were primarily like, if you kind of remember the Nintendo days, not, not maybe not the computer days, but in early Nintendo days, gaming really was marketed towards kids.
00:39:56
Speaker
um It was a game, right? It was a gaming system. You could find it in the toy section, typically, so It's so interesting. Do you find that adventure games on the computer are different?
00:40:07
Speaker
Or do you think those were always marketed towards adults? I think we should. Here's what I think. I think we should play Auntie Slackarino and come back and make that part and make that part of our discussion.
00:40:22
Speaker
All right, let's do it. Auntie Slackarino.
00:40:27
Speaker
What if we just don't explain it to Dave? I feel like I'm missing reference.
00:40:58
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to Save Your Game. I'm your host, Pushing Up Roses. With me, as always, special boy, Matt Allcamp. Hi, Matt. Hey, what's up And our special guest, Dave Gilbert, not related to Ron Gilbert.
00:41:15
Speaker
Hello. Thank you for rejoining us for our next segment. You are related to Gilbert Gottfried, right? Yeah. No. my name My last name is, that's not how names work.
00:41:30
Speaker
I really don't care what you're Okay. My one brush with fame is that I was, I used to work out of, when I did voiceover directing, I worked in a studio in Midtown and I could hear his voice coming from the studio next to me.
00:41:47
Speaker
You know, who else? like who You know, you recognize that voice. Who else could it be? But it was too much of a chicken to like go in and like say hello. ah I just I just listened to him from the next year or while I was like recording Kathy Rain or something. I'm just hearing him.
00:42:03
Speaker
That's awesome. um OK, so, Rose, as you started, you ended their last segment with a question. Do you want to know pose that once more? Sure. So.
00:42:15
Speaker
A, I began with Nintendo, typically, and actually a lot of the consoles I think we can all agree on, especially the Nintendo consoles, they were marketed towards kids. ah If you guys are like me, you might have grown up more on adventure games, on PC games.
00:42:31
Speaker
It feels like those were more marketed maybe towards everyone, towards adults. What do you guys think of that? Like, can you imagine a kid being like, I definitely want King's Quest 1 so I can write in the text park as parser?
00:42:47
Speaker
I do admit, I don't know anyone who played those games when I was a kid. yeah So you might be right. But i think just home computers were more of an adult thing than a kid thing.
00:43:00
Speaker
yeah So they were more marketed towards people who had home computers. That's true. And if you were a kid who had one, then you probably wanted to play them.
00:43:12
Speaker
True. We've talked about this on the show before is the idea of the, like um the person with a computer programmer for a dad. or a dad with a with a with a computer job in that era are the people who ended up with, who ended up as adventure game fans because their dad would bring home a bunch of pirated, ah you know, LucasArts and Sierra games on floppy disks that were being passed around the office.
00:43:38
Speaker
um So I imagine that there must have been a marketing push towards, ah people in their, you know, 20s through 40s.
00:43:49
Speaker
But i also say I'll also say marketing wasn't as um laser targeted back then either. Right. I mean, Nintendo was. Nintendo was like, ah we need young boys playing our console and that's who's going to play it. Yeah, well, especially like Sega. Sega was 100% old people and girls, get the fuck out of here. We're going to sit around and talk about farts with Bubsy the Bobcat.
00:44:19
Speaker
That's so interesting because like the Genesis was one of the first consoles I really wanted so badly yeah for because just I liked Sonic the Hedgehog so much. ah um Yeah, I mean...
00:44:33
Speaker
i i i I don't I don't know. I also didn't get, i didn't know anybody growing up that played adventure games. It was just That's true. that That is true. And it it goes back to computers were expensive at that time. And not everyone had one in their home. Personal computers, not many people had one. But i think and I think what we can agree on is that despite who was playing the games, who was actually playing them, feel like gaming has always had this reputation, maybe up until recently,
00:45:05
Speaker
of being for kids or slackers or lazy people um or angry men, which there might be some truth to that last one, but am I all of those things?
00:45:17
Speaker
that Is that all just me? Yeah, that's just you, Matt. Basically you're the target. um But as I get older though, and I play new indie adventure games, um I still feel some of that stigma.
00:45:31
Speaker
And I'm not saying we're repressed. Like, don't misunderstand me. I'm just saying if I go into my pottery class and say I've been playing Do No Harm, they're going be like, what? What are you doing? Why are you not making art like a productive person?
00:45:45
Speaker
um um And it... Yeah, and I i sometimes, like, wonder about it. um And maybe that's because... I guess our generation who started on these games are all getting older together.
00:45:59
Speaker
So we're still gaming together at the same time. Does that definitely, i know what you mean, but there definitely was like a sense of like, yeah, because the they were video games in general were marketed towards kids. And then we're kind of seen as like,
00:46:12
Speaker
ah Waste of time. it was kind of looked down on. And for the longest time, i was kind of even like becoming an adult, yeah like in my 20s and stuff, I was still kind of ashamed it. Like I would, you know, like ah but but I would like put the GameCube in the cupboard when girls came over, you know, I was like embarrassed, you know, it's obviously before I met my wife, cause she's more of a gamer than I am.
00:46:34
Speaker
But I, it wasn't until I started making them that I started to kind of like break free of that mindset. Cause suddenly it was like, I could now tell people when people ask me what I did for a living and I say, I make video games.
00:46:49
Speaker
that's cool. Like, even if you're the not a gamer, like that's interesting. And so that like, so suddenly it's not as like, doesn't feel as stigmatized to me anymore, but now people like everyone plays video games. Everyone's got games on their phone. Everyone games. yeah So they they grow up with that as being normal. And it's just not like, they don't have that same mindset that we had when we were kids.
00:47:13
Speaker
Yeah. It's really interesting. Like I, I, I thought about it even earlier when I was playing do no harm. Just thinking like, what kind of game is this? Who's the age demographic for this game? Because it's very story oriented. It's very beautiful.
00:47:29
Speaker
And I love it as an older adult now. ah Matt, what do you think? du did you Did you feel the same way Dave did where you felt for a while you kind of had to hide this hobby?
00:47:41
Speaker
Oh, imagine me walking into any social situation and somebody saying, so what do you do? And I say, oh, I do a podcast about video games.
00:47:52
Speaker
It's not. Yeah. ah But no, i I feel that a little bit. And I did get out of video games, I think, for that reason for a long time. and Right. When I was. Yeah.
00:48:05
Speaker
When I got into, you know, punk rock and women and ah philosophy, it was like, oh, I can't be playing video games anymore. And I didn't come back to them until podcasts became a big part of my life.
00:48:19
Speaker
And it felt like, oh, I'm wasting time while I'm doing other things. And then it turned into, oh there's a lot of these video games that are not wastes of time. and Like while I was gone for only like 10 years, things have changed so much where that's just a a storytelling medium now. And that was yes the AAA space, right? Like in the AAA space, there there was the Fallout games and the Uncharted games. And like you said,
00:48:48
Speaker
da The Assassin's Creed. Elder Scrolls. Yeah. now course There was these really interesting games happening in the AAA space that were like. ah Last of Us is another example where it's like these are some.
00:49:00
Speaker
These are clearly mature and um Well composed stories that. And that led me back to Adventure Games where it was like, oh, Adventure Games was always doing this. They were always telling complex and mature stories. Well, sometimes. But you get like, you know, mass produced junk in any in any medium, not just video games.
00:49:24
Speaker
But when i when i first like when I read my first commercial game and I was being interviewed about it, um it wasn't so much that I wasn't fascinated by that. People were interested in in my little game.
00:49:35
Speaker
But seeing what else was out there and what people were doing with games was fascinating. Because suddenly it's like, oh, like this isn't just you know kid stuff anymore. You could actually do serious things with this.
00:49:49
Speaker
Because folks like us who grew up with these games – hello? Y'all there? Yeah. Okay. Weird. My, my, my monitor just like went black. Oh God. And I just thought like my computer rebooted or something. No, it's fine.
00:50:00
Speaker
Sorry. It's, it's my spooky presence. Sometimes things die. Oh, that's, that's my bad. um My plants die every time we record. But if you grew up you know experiencing a certain you know medium of storytelling, even if it was like very very rudimentary and basic at the time because there were limits to what you could do, and um you're older and now you kind of want to tell stories yourself. And that's exactly what I wanted to do.
00:50:30
Speaker
um i think I wrote my first game just after nine eleven in 2001. was being in New York. I was had i but dr been recently laid off from a terrible corporate job.
00:50:42
Speaker
i was <unk> I wasn't working it happened and i was just looking for a way to creatively vent and i knew the language and tropes of adventure games.
00:50:54
Speaker
And so I decided to make one and that's ended up being my career for a long time. So, um well, I didn't start selling them until like maybe five years later, but it definitely, that's where it started.
00:51:07
Speaker
um Just as a desire to kind of tell my own stories using that, Medium. And that's just kind of what happens. Like if you grow up watching movies, you want to make a movie.
00:51:18
Speaker
You grow up reading books, you want to write a book of your own. I think there's a, but you know, as you're talking about that, I have two things. First, as you're talking about that, I'm thinking about the sort of things, gate like games that were being...
00:51:32
Speaker
People who that seems to be true for and games that are clearly just adult expressions of art. I'm thinking specifically of Perfect Tides. I'm thinking of Meredith Grand's game Perfect Tides, which is, you know, just in inspired and incredibly told piece of art I use that game. i i praise that game so often. And full disclosure, like we're i mean as you know, Matt, we're both semi – we live close by to Meredith. We're friends with Meredith.
00:52:01
Speaker
but feel like I played the game before I i knew Meredith lived down here. Also, I did not stalk her down here. That's a total coincidence. But no, I played Perfect Tide. He promises. i promise. He promises if anybody from court, the court is listening. He promises. i when i that that game, I always use those examples. The game that... yeah finally made me feel something and because It's so rare that ah a game, even an adventure game, especially an indie adventure game studio adventure game makes me feel something. yeah like there was And it did it didn't hurt that it took place on Long Island, which is where I grew up.
00:52:44
Speaker
um And so there was a lot that I was familiar with and there was just obviously something very personal there. And that really resonated with me. And so I played this game and I was just blown away. And like, yeah, it's just that type of thing you can only do in that kind of genre. so Right. yeah Because it is a game ah about everything.
00:53:07
Speaker
aging too right like you are watching somebody come of you're watching a young girl come of age and you're watching her come of age in the 2000s and generally like i I am playing that as a person who came of age in the 2000s and so like it is a to me Perfect Tides is a game about about me becoming an adult specifically you yeah yeah yeah this is a game about matt and i've talked to meredith many times and said your game is about me and i'm i'm upset that you didn't insult me but no it's um but i could see that like mara you could sort of get mara from matt
00:53:52
Speaker
um yeah i'm ah Yeah, I think i honestly I think I'm the perfect ah mix of Jason and Mara. But I i think Perfect Tides also gets at something I wanted to ask you specifically about, Dave, is you um
00:54:10
Speaker
you work in pixel art. Often. i think you've kind of gotten away from that more recently. Yeah. I mean, I keep in mind, eye I don't do the art myself. um There's an artist who does that for me.
00:54:25
Speaker
um But you started in Did you do the art for the Blackwell games? Or was that... I did not. no Oh, I don't think I knew that. But, okay, but the Blackwell games were a throwback to Point and Clicks, right? And Point and Clicks was sort of a retro genre.
00:54:40
Speaker
And they were made with pixel art. So... um how do you but How did you balance that idea of creativity, making new stories, making new things, being innovative, with the idea of like working in a retro aesthetic with a retro genre? You're trucking in nostalgia, and but trying to make something new.
00:55:05
Speaker
That's an interesting question, because um I didn't really think of it as like, oh, i want to I'm deliberately making it retro. Yeah. at the time it was, this is what I have like the budget to do.
00:55:18
Speaker
And it's like, you can like a good artist can really make that type of style sing, you know, with um limited time and limited budget, you know? yeah And, ah but above all, I've definitely learned that certain ah styles or certain genres um are like work better with that pixel art than others.
00:55:40
Speaker
um It also depends on on what you want. For something like Miradulous Games, where there's so much animation, everything is is just the animation, everything is in motion, everything looks amazing.
00:55:53
Speaker
like If that was really high def, she would still be working on it. You know, it would never get done. So keeping it to a low resolution pixel style enabled her to get a lot more of that done.
00:56:05
Speaker
And it it pays off. Everything just moves. It's gorgeous. But um for a lot of my earlier games, i think what the advantage was that it it gives gave this like gritty texture to because a lot of it was urban, you know, the ah like green.
00:56:21
Speaker
dark urban noir-ish, urban fantasy kind of stuff. So that the pixel art did give it this gritty texture that you wouldn't have gotten with crisper high def art.
00:56:32
Speaker
um And also you're able to add, the animations could be a lot more smooth, wouldn't have to spend as much money on them, that kind of stuff. It was mostly a budget consideration than a, I want to make it retro. as you I didn't even think of it as being retro back then. And a lot of pixel, so many games done with pixel art now, you can't even think of it as retro. It's just sort of- yeah I don't. I don't. I feel like that kind of art... I feel like art as a style shouldn't age, if that makes sense. like i I still like Curse of Monkey Island.
00:57:01
Speaker
I think that game looks fantastic and I struggle to put an age on it because it's just so charming and it looks so good. So you prefer the the original pixel art than the remake?
00:57:13
Speaker
Yes, I do. I prefer the original. um But yeah, I... I don't know. I think people have weird opinions on pixel art these days.
00:57:23
Speaker
Yeah. I don't like the Monkey Island remake art, but it's not because I have a preference for piss pixel art. I just don't think it's very well It's not very good. yeah yeah Well, Monkey Island 2 is much, much better. It is. That's true. It is better. Yeah. um I think the reason is because they wanted to do the thing where you could switch back and forth between the two styles. Yeah.
00:57:46
Speaker
And so they had to limit it like the, like if the original, it couldn't be original had likes. Well, if the original, not ah that it couldn't be different, but if the original animation had only six frames, which worked well in a low res pixel art sprite, but with a larger high def sprite, those six frames look very, very janky.
00:58:07
Speaker
And i'm I'm wondering if that might've been part of the reason. I don't know. You also would have to, when I say it had it couldn't be different, meaning like if you're switching back and forth between the two, the screens have to be laid out exactly the same. You can't mess with the, you can't be looking from a different perspective or from different...
00:58:24
Speaker
um But I do want to push back a little bit. You guys both were talking about how pixel art isn't necessarily retro. But I want to push back because you definitely are invoking nostalgia in people when you create pixel art, right? Sure. You are, yeah. Because that's kind of where it started due to the limitations. So I think it's always going to have that feeling no matter how modern it is. I try to look at it still as modern art.
00:58:54
Speaker
yeah But yeah, because because of the limitations, it's always going to it's always going to remind people at least. Right. And so I do think if you are a person who creates something using pixel art, that is something you have to be thinking about at least a little bit is like what What is this going to trigger in the people who enjoy my art? Is it and if it's going to trigger nostalgia, what is that?
00:59:18
Speaker
What does that mean? i think, for example, this is one of the reasons I brought up um Perfect Tides earlier. I think that's something that Meredith Grand was really conscious of when she was making Perfect Tides.
00:59:29
Speaker
Right. um And if if not, it was just an incredible, it was just an incredibly coincidental situation. Speaking from experience, if like often i don't realize like the theme or you know, if I don't realize like,
00:59:46
Speaker
You're always pulling from something when you create something, whether you realize it or not. And I think a lot of the Blackwell stories, I think it took maybe to the third or fourth game when I realized, oh, this has been about urban isolation the whole time. And like yeah and then I was able to, once I figured that out, I was able to kind of you know focus more on on the themes, which is why I think people say the fourth one is like where iss like one of the better ones, because that's when I...
01:00:11
Speaker
realized this is what the game's about. um And I think with Meredith, think it's so with Perfect Tides, it's obviously so personal, whether she meant to or not, it was gonna like, when something comes from such a personal place, it's gonna have, it's gonna affect people.
01:00:27
Speaker
Because even though you don't know the exact circumstances of of where she pulled that from, it's relatable. It's she landed on something that's extraordinarily relatable to just about everyone.
01:00:39
Speaker
We do these deep dives on the show ah every, you know, every few episodes, we will pull up some, we'llll we'll both play some game and we will go really, really deep into it. And oftentimes I think we are pulling things out that like themes and ideas and connections that the, that were not intended that the people who made the games were either maybe not even aware of.
01:01:05
Speaker
And I think that, I think you're right. Like that's probably where that comes from is you are just drawing from within you and there are connections within you that you don't always recognize. And I always find that extremely important. Like if I don't have a connection to what I'm creating, then the, like the, then the player will not have a connection to the work. Like it's, it creates a certain sincerity that just cannot be faked.
01:01:30
Speaker
Yeah. And that's, I know that I always consider that like the one of the most important things whenever I create anything. It's like, why do I care about this? Because if I don't care, you're not gonna.
01:01:41
Speaker
And I think that's extremely important. Like, I'm i'm pretty sure that Meredith has ah deep personal, she cares a lot about Mara and what happens to her. And I think that- that shows even though horrible things happen to her, but still.
01:01:56
Speaker
um So roses, what, what sort of, in what ways has, yeah has your relationship to gaming changed as from between when you were young and today? I think now a little less young, but still very, very young.
01:02:10
Speaker
ah Sure, sure. um think that now as an as an older adult, unfortunately, and when I say that, I mean, I'm 29. And so is Matt.
01:02:22
Speaker
Actually, no, that's not even possible. 28. I'm What? I went backwards. but yeah That's not what we talked about. i I think I now consider... This is going sound trite, but I have to bring up like the conversation about video games as art, right?
01:02:42
Speaker
Because these days, I feel like more than ever, video games are art. And I feel something when I'm playing them, and they are done with intention and beauty.
01:02:52
Speaker
And it's not that... you know It's not that E.T. for the Atari wasn't art by definition, right? But it is more, I would consider it more artful, I guess, than just calling it like a grand piece of art.
01:03:08
Speaker
And so it kind of, for me, it went from like almost toy-like, you know, playing Sonic the Hedgehog, playing Super Mario, you even Even the King's Quest games, because I did play them as a kid, to now I'm an adult playing these intentionally written, beautiful stories that resonate with people, that are more serious in nature. And even if they're a comedy, they're they're smarter in their comedy than they ever were.
01:03:34
Speaker
And I think that that's kind of where it changed for me. It's like it kind of went from being an artful, almost like a toy character. you know, it ah Nintendo is called an entertainment system to like, this is art.
01:03:46
Speaker
I am read. I am being given a story and I am digesting that and really enjoying it.
01:03:54
Speaker
Yeah. How do you feel, ah Dave? How is what you're playing changed between when you were when you were young and now? I guess often, whenever I play something now, I guess when I guess want to consume any art, like whether it's a television show, a movie, a book, what have you, it's I do want to feel something.
01:04:16
Speaker
There is a certain connection you feel with you know ah someone who created something, especially if it's like an indie project, when there's definite connection. Rose is used in a fantastic word, which I'm going to steal, intention. Like it's something that's done with intention.
01:04:33
Speaker
It's not done purely. It's not created purely to entertain, although there's nothing wrong with that. There's a lot of like pure, you know, mindless entertainment that I enjoy, but I'm looking for meaning. I'm looking for a connection. I'm looking for i'm looking to feel something.
01:04:51
Speaker
I want to be like taken out of myself. That's what you're hoping for. you're I think it was um it was Terry Pratchett who said sun said something like, um is there's nothing wrong inherently wrong with escapism as long as it like ah gives you um ah place to return to as well as from. Oh, I like that.
01:05:11
Speaker
And you're better for the experience. yeah know That's what I want. I want to come out of the experience like feeling better off than I was when I started. theres There's a certain amount of trust that goes into like when you start, especially with video games, because video games can take a long time.
01:05:28
Speaker
And I think this is like why people go nuts over video games, um over like defending games, is because there is such a time investment. especially when you're older, like in you know time gets more precious.
01:05:41
Speaker
yeah There is such a time investment in playing a long video game that you have to believe that that time was worth something. Yeah, yeah. And if you know if if you play a game and then like the consensus is that it stinks, you feel like you have to defend all that time that you spent because otherwise what was it what was it all for?
01:06:03
Speaker
Right. Yeah, yeah. And I think with a lot of um like any lot of games, I do want to feel like that time was well spent. And sometimes if I'm playing something and I have no idea what's going on, or if it's not respecting my time, or you know there's a million microaggressions, um then i might I might bounce off of it.
01:06:25
Speaker
Sure. I think that I recently tried dragon dog Dragon's Dogma 2, which I heard good things about. But I felt that it was deliberately trying to waste my time, and I couldn't engage with it. I couldn't enjoy it. I couldn't... like I couldn't appreciate it. I didn't feel like I was coming out of it better.
01:06:43
Speaker
and And there's a lot of good things about it. It just wasn't for me. And I think that's that's what I look for when I sit down and play a game these days. What about you, Matt?
01:06:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think that actually hit something really ah resonant for me is this idea of time wasting, right? I think games video games used to be a thing I used to waste time. And um yeah and that's why like I didn't get back into them until the advent of podcasts, right? It's just like, I need to feel like I'm not wasting my time while I'm wasting my time.
01:07:17
Speaker
um And yeah
01:07:22
Speaker
I think I do react really, really negatively when I feel something wasting my time. And it it happens, ah honestly, it happens a lot in adventure games because somebody comes up with a story and they tell that story in as straightforward a way as you can, right?
01:07:42
Speaker
And then they say, oh, this is too short. We have to add in some mini games. We have to add in a maze. We have to add in a logic puzzle. We have to, impede the player's progress in order to make this a game. and And I would say, let your game be two hours long. I've cut puzzles all the time.
01:08:03
Speaker
Yeah. ah So again there's a game I talk about on the show a lot. And ah and one of the things it happens it does is it really ties its mechanics to its storytelling. And that's Citizen Sleeper, where it it is a game about trying to survive in this, ah in like a the worst um example of a capitalist world.
01:08:27
Speaker
And the mechanics are... You're trying to, you're scraping by, you're trying to ah make enough money to get through just the day so that you can tackle the next day and the problems it gives you.
01:08:43
Speaker
um And your resources and your ability to use those resources are both very, very limited. And I think there's something about something that ah adventure games could really take from that is the idea that like, if I am doing a um but well where you bring something from one person to another and then back to I have a word that Fetch quest.
01:09:08
Speaker
Oh, fetch quest. Sorry. I wasn't quite sure what you were... Yeah, fetch quest. If you're doing a fetch quest puzzle, it should say something about your story. Your story should in some way be enhanced by the fact that you are treading ground over again. it should be enhanced by what you're fetching and the quest you're doing. If you're doing a fucking ah logic puzzle, it should be in a moment where your character is pressed by their ability to logic something out right it should add to the feel of the characters the feel of the story it should be i mean i ideally right like i'm saying the word should a lot but it's it's obviously art so it yeah reminds me of a game i played not long ago called um oh my god come on dave you basically were like ah a courier driving a little flying car around a
01:09:59
Speaker
Vauxhall City, blanking on it. Cloudpunk. That's it. Cloudpunk. Yeah. um you're yes It's basically ah this awesome cyberpunk-looking city. Everyone's got flying cars. You have like a flying car and you do deliveries.
01:10:11
Speaker
um And this that's the game. you did That's just it. And it's just you, you know by i'm going from one place to another, like you you know sometimes you pick up passengers, you talk to someone the radio, and you learn about the history of this the city and all these characters just by doing that. And it never stops being engaging.
01:10:29
Speaker
Oh, nice. I like that. And the voice acting is incredible. um Definitely, ah while we're on this subject, another thing that I want to talk about is is nostalgia as a concept.
01:10:42
Speaker
um before i Before I sound off about my opinions, I want to know what you both think. What are your feelings on nostalgia in art? Oh, I have many opinions on that. Yeah. I mean, it can be both...
01:10:58
Speaker
it can be both dangerous and uplifting at the same time because you can get stuck in that. i mean, for me, you know I come from a little bit of a troubled background with a lot of a lot of problems. And so i would use gaming kind of to my detriment, I think, because I was relying on nostalgia to just make it better.
01:11:23
Speaker
um But you can't move forward that way. ah So I think nostalgia has to be used respect It sounds like I'm talking about drugs, but its it has to be used responsibly, right? but Nostalgia is a drug. that's yes what what That was where I kind of wanted to start off is this idea that like there's two things about nostalgia that you have to be very careful about. One is that it is a drug. It is addictive. It is um a distraction from...
01:11:53
Speaker
um From the concept of progress. And it it can really hold you back from um new thoughts, from revelation, from new experiences, from advancing yourself as a person.
01:12:10
Speaker
um But it can also feel really good. Yeah, and that's why you want more of it, like a drug, because it makes you feel good. The other thing that I think people have to be really ah ah careful of with nostalgia is that it's inherently conservative, right?
01:12:27
Speaker
It is inherently saying, um especially if you're making art from the point of nostalgia, inherently kind of what you're saying is things are different now than they used to be.
01:12:39
Speaker
I either don't understand or don't like or don't. don't relate to ah or am am confused by the way the way things are now value instead lays lie in the way things used to be when i understood the world better i think that i think that could be some of it go ahead dave I don't think you understood the world better.
01:13:05
Speaker
i think it's just more that um I think you and probably understood the world less and things made sense. Oh, Things made more sense because you didn't know enough. And so it's like, oh, things were so simple. It's like no they weren't. oh Well, maybe maybe things were a little simpler. Who knows?
01:13:22
Speaker
um I don't know. like i I can make no sense out of what's happening in the world these days, but we don't need to go there. but um But yeah, there is that sense of wanting to recreate like what you had when you were young. But a lot of the time, and I say this with all the love and respect for a lot of these old classic games, whenever I try replaying them,
01:13:44
Speaker
All I can see are the flaws. There are just so many design decisions i would never make. And there's so many like frustrating little things. I tried playing um some of the Quest for Glory games recently, and they just frustrated the crap out of me. i just They are frustrating. yeah I loved them in the 90s. I ah adored them, but I could not...
01:14:05
Speaker
play them now. They were just so janky and they were ah there's just no direction. there's just I don't know how I managed to get through these games because there's no direction about what to do. It's just wander around and stuff might happen.
01:14:17
Speaker
And somehow I managed to get through those games. And I just... the I think it's better, like you kind of want to maybe like evoke those feelings while creating something new.
01:14:30
Speaker
And I think that's what a lot of like the a lot of the developers now, that's what they do. They kind of evoke that feeling. A lot of like the, um there's like been a um I guess like, i don't want to call them walking simulators, but game like Cloudpunk, for example, does evoke this this nostalgic feeling of like Blade Runner and like these films that we watched when we were younger, but it does something really interesting with it. It lets you just immerse yourself in it and wander around.
01:15:02
Speaker
And that is something really refreshing. And I think that is any art you look at like, Oh, like you think of any nostalgic property. Like I saw this documentary about Ghostbusters once, and it talked about all the, all of the classic films and influences that Ghostbusters pulled from.
01:15:20
Speaker
Yeah. you know like nothing It just created something new out of that. nothing comes out Nothing comes from nothing. yeah So I think in some respects, you're right. Nostalgia can be good in small doses. It's when you overindulge and when it becomes a crutch that it becomes a problem.
01:15:38
Speaker
And kind of, Matt, I kind of want to ah give you a little pushback on kind of the inherently conservative thing. Because i I do get what you're saying. It's kind of like, oh, back in the good old days when blah, blah, blah. You see that on music video all the time. the only reason anyone listens to ska still.
01:15:57
Speaker
Oh, my God. But i also I also think that, because when I thought about it for myself, I... I think things are better
Nostalgia and Escapism in Gaming
01:16:07
Speaker
today. I think they are more progressive today and I wouldn't want to go back to a less progressive time, but I think it's a little more personal than that. i think about, well, I was doing better mentally then and Monkey Island 3 reminds me of when I was doing better mentally. And it's,
01:16:23
Speaker
It's I'm not saying that's a healthy thing to do at all, but I'm saying a lot of people do use nostalgia that way as opposed to like, I don't like the progress or the state of the world. It's more like I don't like the state that I'm in right now and I want to go back to my previous state, you know.
01:16:42
Speaker
But often you can use those feelings. I'm sorry, Matt, go ahead. No, please. Well, often you can use those feelings in the art you make. Like, I know that when I often thought of um like mid-era Bioware games, like Knights the Old Republic and Jade Empire and all of that, that comes from a point in my life when I was like, you know, just still, you know, I'm where I had like fewer worries and fewer cares. and i could like i was I was an adult, I was living on my own, but I still could take time to play a game and enjoy it just for its own sake and not worry about everything that I was ignoring. and so But I took that and I made Unavowed with it, which is very much inspired by those games.
01:17:26
Speaker
So it's not bad thing as long as you you know you focus it in the right direction. I think anything can be beneficial if you use it correctly. yeah i agree I think you gave a quote earlier that is really the Terry Pratchett quote about, you know, it if you're if you're going to use escapism, think about where you're escaping from and escaping to.
01:17:47
Speaker
I think it's really, really salient because it's like these this idea of like. Yeah. are you escaping from the problems of today to re-energize yourself?
01:17:59
Speaker
Or are you escaping from them to pretend they don't exist, right? There's a lot of ways to escape from ah something... There's a lot of ways to escape from, say, white supremacy, right? By looking at by looking at ah by by becoming race, race blind, right?
01:18:16
Speaker
By being like, oh we're all just the apps. We're all the absolute same. And there's there's no and and anything that mentions races is a ah ah impediment to that progress.
01:18:28
Speaker
That is a sort of escapism from recognizing that society treats people of different races differently and people of different races have different experiences.
01:18:38
Speaker
You're just saying like pretending the problem doesn't exist. Like that kind of escapism. Exactly. You're escaping from it by pretending it doesn't exist. And... There can be a something empowering about watching, say, a piece of ah utopian media where there is a, say, race-blind world, right?
01:18:57
Speaker
And that can energize you with, and you come back to this world and you employ some of those ideas. Or it can be the opposite, right? And you can, I think about South Park, right? Yeah. Quotable quotes from Matt. i thought that that is That was some segue, man. Bear with me for a second.
01:19:22
Speaker
I remember South Park has this like libertarian kind of ah utopianism but to it where there's this idea of like, I remember there being this episode where it was like there was this racist flag that the town had for years and years and years and it was a bunch of white stick figures lynching a black stick figure right and the people in the town were protesting it and they were like we have to get rid of it but the kids were saying we think this is important part of history and everyone was like what the hell what is with these racist kids and then it's not to the end of the episode where you realize the kids are saying we don't think that just because there's violence it should be deleted and it turned out none of the kids recognized that
01:20:07
Speaker
all the people in the flag were different races. Right. And they thought it was just people lynching a person. And there're you could see what they're getting at, right?
01:20:20
Speaker
You could see the point they're trying to make. But they are failing so deeply because that is pretending that it doesn't it isn't real, that it doesn't exist. And that like, oh, kids these days, they don't even see race. That's not true. Right.
01:20:37
Speaker
It's not. No. And are they trying to say that? ah But I think South Park is one of those shows where the kids are the adult narrator. Almost you're supposed to be focused on on the kids.
01:20:50
Speaker
So ah is it trying to say that? I know i know it's like super confusing now and they kind of failed to portray their idea. But I'm wondering if that does represent um a certain type of adult today.
01:21:03
Speaker
That is that is that is. quote unquote race blind, which I mean, I think it it doesn't necessarily represent a type of adult, but I think there's plenty of adults who would say it represents them.
01:21:16
Speaker
Yes. that is think I don't think, I mean, you have to be very willfully ignorant to actually look at something like that and not see what everyone else saw.
01:21:29
Speaker
You have to be very willingly ignorant chair to really believe that. um And again, I don't care how like woke or unwoke you are. like that yeah Like, yeah, like you can't deny what that is yeah Right. And and so I think like that is what I've been thinking of as I've been thinking of this idea of like when you overutilize escapism, you are running the risk.
01:21:56
Speaker
And like like you said, not always you like you said, it depends what you're running from running to. um But you were running the risk of ignoring The world you live in trying to pretend you live in a different world. um and I think the same can be said about nostalgia, right? You can ignore the modern world. You can ignore the changes.
01:22:20
Speaker
You know, there's so many people who put who are like a rap. Right. Like ah rap when in my day, right day in music had guitars. well and Here's the funny thing about that. It's like, i went you know, when I was like, ah you know, in the 90s, you know, i was ah in college and hearing like the Spice Girls and I would just be like, oh, yeah they're so lame.
01:22:40
Speaker
But now I hear them and I'm like, oh. It's nice to hear this song again. I love the Spice Girls. like like a reverse nostalgia. You're talking about nostalgia for both sides.
01:22:51
Speaker
What I mean is it's like your mindless path entertainment today is like your nostalgia tomorrow. so your mindless path entertainment today is like your nostalgia tomorrow And then it becomes the things that people try to recreate. It's really weird. Like I've seen, there's so many games that are kind of recreating that awful, like early two thousands, like geo cities kind of style.
01:23:17
Speaker
You know, there's like pixelated gifts and just all these things like your hypnospace outlaw. And there's a lot of games that are trying to recreate that ugly, ugly, ugly style. don't know. understand it. But like, was a little, I was a little,
01:23:32
Speaker
older um ah than them at that time, but like they're nostalgic for that. And so they want to recreate it I don't get it. At the time we all thought it was terrible, but now people want to bring it back. Yeah. But then there's a game like Crow Country who, what that is trying to bring that that back, that ugly aesthetic in their game yet they're doing it with the purpose because they're kind of commenting on the mechanics ah and story of resident evil.
01:23:59
Speaker
um Yeah. So again, I think there are are ways to utilize these things. There's ways to utilize escapism. There's ways to utilize nostalgia um without ah without doing it just for their own sakes.
01:24:15
Speaker
yeah that's That's the trick. That's the trick. Yeah. And honestly, when Spice Girls was mentioned. We've got to do it with intention. Yes. Yeah. yeah yeah i I love saying that. I'm so pretentious. No, I love it. Oh, thank you.
01:24:29
Speaker
it's It encapsulates like pretty much everything. It's like you have, you know, yeah it's a set goal in mind. is teachers you and It's with intention. I love it.
01:24:40
Speaker
But Matt, or what I think, who brought up the Spice Girls? That was me. Okay.
01:24:47
Speaker
I just want to say that we were talking about kind of like, can nostalgia you know refresh you? And can you use it that way? And the Spice Girls does that for me. It's not a sad nostalgia. I see that and I become inspired, honestly. But what did you think of them when they were popular?
01:25:04
Speaker
I don't... Listen, Dave... no
01:25:10
Speaker
No, I was a weird goth girl in denial about what I liked. So I think privately I love the Spice Girls. But if you were to ask me at school, I'd like, now yeah yeah you know, but I've always I've always actually really liked them.
01:25:25
Speaker
okay Well, yeah, I mean, I think one thing I look back at pop music and see what it did yeah in what it what the the media did for the social narrative. Right. And There was a bunch of stuff I fucking hated as music, but I see the way that it evolved culture. um Yeah.
01:25:44
Speaker
And some of it can be really, you know, it can be really interesting sometimes. um And anyway, I do think...
01:25:55
Speaker
I think these two, yeah, I think these discussions are linked. what is What gaming as we age and what is the role of nostalgia? I think we've talked about them almost as two completely separate subjects. But they hold hands. They hold hands, yeah. And I do think both are interesting discussions. And I wonder if either of you have any last thoughts before we sort of go for the decent.
01:26:18
Speaker
Man, I feel inspired to go play Sanitarium again. I don't know that's the best takeaway from this conversation. you mean You mean that game starring Abe Goldfarb, right? Yeah, the Abe Goldfarb game.
01:26:35
Speaker
I'm so sorry, Abe.
01:26:38
Speaker
Well, I want to say, Dave Gilbert, thanks so much for being here and chatting with us. um Oh, thank you for having me. I've been a fan for a while. Oh, thank you you. Thank you.
01:26:50
Speaker
i have to say that Unavowed is still one of my favorite adventure games of all time. Man, I binged that game when it came out. There was that amazing actress who played that goth girl outside of the nightclub.
01:27:02
Speaker
She's in it! Game She was just fantastic.
01:27:07
Speaker
And there's that hologram bartender in Old Skies. She was pretty cool, too. Yeah, I i love, I love, i love camming. kemi Thank you so much. Thank you so much for doing those caming.
01:27:17
Speaker
That was, it really meant a lot. to you Anytime. Honestly, I love it. No one puts me in any of your games. Shut up, Matt.
01:27:26
Speaker
God, somebody hired this man. We are looking. Well, I don't. You don't even have to pay me. I want to do voice. No. So i um I I'm really looking forward to old skies, Dave. And I appreciate you being here. And we'll have to talk. We'll have to bring it up again.
01:27:43
Speaker
ah let us know when that ah release date comes out and we will make sure we tell our listeners is what I'm trying to say. Oh, sure. sure Definitely. and just went Once, once I'm off the leash, like everyone's going to know. Hell yeah. um Roses. What's anything to say to the listeners before we start saying the goodbye?
01:28:05
Speaker
um I just I said that that way because I'm trying not to I'm not trying to prompt you with the good yeah the final words like I did that by accident last week is like I wasn't ready for us to close the show and I was like and I like prompted you and it like I was ah fuck I have nothing to say okay all right which is rare so be thankful I'm going to, again, before we close out, and I probably will do this for the next few episodes, um I'm going to talk
Call to Action and Contact Information
01:28:39
Speaker
about the, I want to remind everybody of the boycotts that are happening right now.
01:28:45
Speaker
um All right. So if you are upset about the state of the world today, how could you not be? If you're upset about the state of um the tech giants, and if you're upset about the current situation in the United States, and there's,
01:29:00
Speaker
ah a couple things you can do but right we what we're going to amplify is the um what they're calling the economic blackout tour which i really like um they're calling it a tour yeah yeah so march 7th through 14th do your best to boycott that's the amazon boycott um collective actions works a lot better than individual actions so ah You know, even if you're kind of like, oh, what's it going to help?
01:29:29
Speaker
The more people that do even a tiny little thing, the better. So March 7th through 14th, if you have a if you have ama Amazon Echoes, turn them off. If you have Goodreads on your phone, uninstall it. And if you have Amazon Prime, unsubscribe. If you buy from Amazon, just wait a week, right?
01:29:49
Speaker
um March 21st through the 28th is the Nestle boycott. um I think on our next episode, I'll try to have like a list of Nestle companies for you guys too because they own so much. They own everything. that' It's unbelievable. That's rough. Yeah. They're huge company.
01:30:05
Speaker
April 7th through 14th is the Walmart boycott. That one's a lot easier.
01:30:11
Speaker
We'll keep talking about these every every week as as new as we get closer to different weeks of this tour. um tumor We ah can be found on Instagram at Save Your Game Podcast.
01:30:29
Speaker
I did it right. You did it right. You feel still, up me you you still, you still like made it sound like a question, like podcast question mark. ah You can email us at maddenroses at gmail.com.
01:30:43
Speaker
um What else? Do we have anything else we want to tell people? you You find me on YouTube. Find her on YouTube. Go find me. fine pleasureingpresses on youtube Find Dave Gilbert at WadgetEyeGames. Yes. I'm very online. It's not hard to find me. um i'm on I'm on Blue Sky. i'm on I have a Discord.
01:31:07
Speaker
WadgetEyeGames.com. That's Wadget with a J, not a G. I'm also still on Twitter. ah And you can find me there if you're still on there. um I'm very online. Just look me up. You'll find me. Trust me.
01:31:21
Speaker
All right. ah All right. And i I do have one last thing to say, Roses, before we go. Yes. And I've been thinking about this a lot and it's weighing heavily on my soul, but I do think that podcast is art.
01:31:35
Speaker
I agree with you because artists suffer.