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Narrative Devices
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The lads discuss different approaches to narration in adventure games, from the tried-and-true "describe everything out loud" approach from classic LucasArts games to the "internal film-noir-ish monologue" of the Tex Murphy series. Which work best and which are a bit weird when you think about them?
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Transcript
00:00:30
Speaker
Who cares? We'll cut this out. It's always a good start to an episode. Who cares? We'll cut this out. yeah Yes, we were having a discussion earlier. We can cut right here and let you finish.
00:00:46
Speaker
We can restart right here and keep going.
Introduction of Co-hosts
00:00:52
Speaker
cool right yes hello uh welcome back to backseat designers i am your host space quest historian but in fairness i am the co-host i have two other lovely gents in the room i would like to introduce you to gorgon the destroyer and tiffany say hello hello Hello. I'm trying to work out which one I am, but yes. I thought it was obvious. Yes, i thought Fred is Tiffany.
00:01:18
Speaker
um so Always.
Challenges of Adventure Game Narration
00:01:20
Speaker
Today's topic is one that i'm I frankly have a lot of things to say about. It gives me a very... welcome opportunity to bitch about one thing that I've always found annoying in adventure games and that everyone else seems to just let slide. And that is when you play an adventure game, your adventure game protagonist walks around and describes every object in the room out loud as if no one can hear them. And I would love to have a little chat you guys about how to narrate adventure games. Obviously, if you've got a novel, I know Frederick is just like bouncing in his seat trying to get a word in. No, I'm not finished yet. I can tell you how to narrate. And this is exactly why. Very, very slowly.
00:02:07
Speaker
So the the point is, when you've got a novel, when you've got ah a piece of literature, the narration typically tends to take the form of either a first-person inner monologue thing or a third-person narrator. But when you've got an interactive entertainment piece, obviously the narration is a bit more tenuous. Like, where is it coming from? How much does the narrator know? In in literature, we take this shit for granted, but in adventure games, not so much. So I'm going to finally shut up and let you guys have a go at what is your ideal sort of adventure game narration? Third-person omniscience, first-person none? I don't know.
00:02:48
Speaker
It really depends on the game, doesn't it? It really depends on the narrative. And that's it, we're done. No, I mean, really, you know, we we have to give a shout out to the late, great Gary Owens, who was the perfect narrator for those games, you know, that that would never have worked as a first-person thing. But not every single game can carry, a you know, a third-person narrator of that statute either. Yeah.
00:03:16
Speaker
I think we should also give a shout out to Virginia Capers, who you did such an excellent impression I'm a bit under the weather, so she's ah it's Virginia Capers tonight.
00:03:28
Speaker
But of course, we are not organized enough to have done this in time, but ah Virginia Capers a couple of months ago would have turned 100 years old, so I give her a shout out for her birthday.
00:03:38
Speaker
Insert audience clap sound effect here. yes
00:03:44
Speaker
Good on you, Mrs. Capers. Hope she wouldn't have given a speech. yeah Well, here's the thing about Virginia Capers. The script for Gabriel Knight's Sins of the Fathers is a mile and a half long. And she had to go through a lot of narration because pretty much everything in that game has like a unique response or a unique quip or something. And she went through the
Adapting Game Scripts into Novels
00:04:06
Speaker
whole thing. in this very slow drawl. The fun thing about this is you mentioned novels, and now that we're talking and about Gabriel Knight, I'm also thinking back to the first novel where you can tell that the way they wrote wrote the script for the game, translating that to a novel, it actually fell apart. I can't remember the exact moment, but there's like one point in the game where When you get to the specific solution of one puzzle, it's like trial and error. You're only doing this because you're desperate.
00:04:40
Speaker
And Jane Jensen is very clearly struggling in the novel to figure out how to make that work. And eventually she just winds up having Gabriel Knight lay down in the park on his ass. And then something clicks in his head. And he realizes just what to do. And I know the design is obviously to blame, but I can't help but think that if the script had been written in a way to focus on Gabriel's thoughts, as opposed to someone describing Gabriel from the outside, that particular moment might have played out differently in the novel.
00:05:19
Speaker
Well, Trolls, you've said that you've said that you ah get really annoyed by ah the narrator just kind of being, kind of takes you out of the moment, I guess, that the narrator is just sort of doing something really annoying. I can think of three recent examples that deal with it quite well because of the structure of the game.
00:05:39
Speaker
But I wondered if you wanted to say a little bit more about why it is that it pisses you off. ah the um I'm just going to describe everything out loud narration. well it's Well, first of all, it's it's if if a person walked into a room ah in real life and started going, that's a table, that's a closet, I shouldn't go through this person's closet and just start saying that out loud, you'd you'd have that person committed. that's That's insane behavior. And second, it seems...
00:06:06
Speaker
rather inconsistent. um And you know, this this is how the old LucasArts games work. So this is like one of those tried and true mechanics that a lot of modern adventure games ape, but they always seem quite inconsistent with, is the other person in the room able to hear you?
00:06:23
Speaker
Or is this just someone who's muttering under their breath? Sometimes other characters respond, sometimes they don't. Sometimes a character will literally say, i shouldn't go through their closet while they're still here. And the person is like 10 feet away. They could easily hear you.
00:06:37
Speaker
um So that's, its it's immersion breaking is what it is. That's
Narration and Immersion: Games vs. Plays
00:06:41
Speaker
what pisses me off about it Well, where sometimes it's used for comedic effects, I'm struggling to find an example, but I'm pretty sure there's at least like one game, probably a Monkey Island game or something where someone goes, I heard that, you know, or Sam and Max or something. Oh, Monkey Island 2 does it all the time. Monkey Island 2 does it all the time. Yeah, right. i've I've seen it played for comedic effect, and that really ruins it whenever you have one of those moments where you the character goes through a potential puzzle solution that will wrong the character standing with an earshot. Yeah. And you know do you know what actually really pisses me off about it? And this is going to get a little high-flying, a little, you know...
00:07:21
Speaker
buttoned down kind of thing, but it's it's because i really want adventure games and narrative-driven games to be seen as a literary art form in the same style as as novels and and the same style as comic books are now regarded. um But when you have those narrative inconsistencies, I know they work ah for a game. like if you If you just look at it as a game, and it seems to be something that adventure game players are just sort of used to by now, so we don't question it, but It is insane behavior, and you would never get away with something of this sort in a movie or a book or TV series, things we always come back back to. especially you would
Creative Narration in Modern Games
00:08:00
Speaker
But you would in a play.
00:08:01
Speaker
So this is ah this is a typical um literary device that's used in plays of the the soliloquy that's given out to the audience that technically everybody else in the scene isn't supposed to be able to hear. So there is sort of a precedent in Yeah, the fourth wall, they they turn around, face the audience, a single spotlight comes down. Yeah, I guess that, but but would that be distracting if every time the protagonist had something to say that wasn't meant to be near shot, like the whole scene fades down?
00:08:27
Speaker
i mean, it's it's it it was used going all the way back to the greek Greek tragedies where you have the chorus and the conductor of the chorus commenting on the goings on and even engaging in dialogue with the main character, you know, ah ah Oedipus standing at the edge of the stage going, gee, I wonder if I should fuck my mother and this guy going, I think you should go for it. Best motherfucking play of all time. Oh yeah.
00:08:54
Speaker
And the first. See, that's another narrative device that we could get into, which is when ah when there When there is a not omniscient narrator, but a third person narrator, like the Leisure Suit Larry games, where the main protagonist, in this case, Larry, is somehow able to hear the narrator, whether he's a voice in his head or if it's it is a voice like on the outside or or something. If Larry's a schizophrenic or it hears voices and shit, no one knows. But they are able to have a conversation with each other.
00:09:26
Speaker
Like there's this third person floating in the void somewhere telling Larry, whenever he does something, this is what's going to happen. And this is what happens to him. And and and Larry sometimes responds back, which is a but like a fun, I mean, it's a comedy game. So obviously it it works in that sense. Like you are having a conversation with the voice in your head and the voice in your head just happens to be a sarcastic bastard. um That's funny, but it's a you know arguably I'd say that works even better than the first person to describe everything out loud even though the whole fourth wall breaking thing is also quite overused and adventurous yeah it's definitely overused once you discover that kind of trick it is quite fun for a little while but then it does tend to to roll on so What I'm getting here is that we should have the spotlight come down on the narrator. Do you think we're early enough in the development cycle for Guilt, which is Ben Chandler's new game that should be coming out soon? do you think it's early enough that we can get Ben Chandler to do this and then he can do a new episode of Blue Cup Tools and explain why this is a terrible idea? but Oh, do you know what? do you know and
00:10:33
Speaker
Ben Chandler is, from what I've seen from screenshots, he's doing the Dave Gilbert thing, which I think is an ingenious way of doing this. What he's doing... printing money? ah Yes, also that. But in terms of narration, he... Instead of having a narrator or instead of having the main character describe shit out loud, he goes an entirely third route. The the mouse over hover description is not just bench or door or key or whatever. It is a full on look description.
00:11:02
Speaker
So you don't need the narrator. You don't need anyone telling you what's going on because the mouse itself is, you know, the hover message is the narrator. Obviously very short narration, but it gives you everything you need to know in the scene and the characters never have to open their fucking mouths.
00:11:20
Speaker
Well, look, we'll definitely have Dave on again because that with this podcast is like 25% Dave episodes. Oh, Dave is, yeah. He's our second spirit animal.
00:11:31
Speaker
yeah so Yeah, exactly. and we we we we We won't apologize for having you on because he's he's a lovely, lovely man. He's the front seat designer, isn't he? Oh, yeah. Very much, yeah. He's in the front seat and we're just at the back just joking popcorn at the back of his head trying to get him to to get distracted. But actually, um it was it was a Wadjet Eye game that was going to be one of my sort of first example of this doing quite well because you see it to a certain extent in the Blackwell games.
00:11:55
Speaker
but definitely in Old Skies where the the conceit is that you're not talking just out loud to nobody. You're actually having
Unreliable Narrators and Narrative Techniques
00:12:04
Speaker
a conversation with the person that the rest of the people in the scene can't see, but is actually a character in either the form of Joey or in the form of Nos.
00:12:13
Speaker
So you can have these big, long descriptions and this this back and forth with the narrator to add more colour to the world. without it necessarily having to be, as you were rightly saying, Trolls, this kind of annoying um spotlight on the on the person, either talking to themselves or just some disembodied voice coming through your speakers.
00:12:33
Speaker
Yeah, and and Francisco, our first spirit animal, did something very clever and very similar in Lamplight City, which was that the narrator the or the role of the narrator was the protagonist's dead friend who was haunting him. So it was a it was a voice canonically that only the narrator protagonist could hear and it had a snarky sensibility to it and and he functioned both as sort of a you know plot point because one of the things was like who who the fuck killed this guy let's go find out who killed my my dead friend and also he was the game's narrator i thought that was that was a fun way of working the idea of third person narrator into the game itself
00:13:13
Speaker
Absolutely. And i think the other thing that you have the possibility with there is that your dead friend can be unreliable, right? yeah they can They can refuse to divulge information that they could have divulged, or they can maybe ah deliberately steer you down a wrong path in order for that story to develop, which I really quite like.
00:13:30
Speaker
Which is it is a good thing. I don't remember much of Lamplight City. it Many years ago, I played it. And i i mean, i I played it with Francisco on on stream and I purposely played it so I could get all the bad endings. I played it as as terribly as I could. And he was right along with me, helping me do an absolute piss poor job. um I don't recall if that, but I have the slight inkling that yes, there is in fact...
00:13:55
Speaker
you know, some revelation down the line where the protagonist starts going, hey, wait a minute, have you been bullshitting me all this time? Kind of thing. It's a brilliant plot point, absolutely. Unavowed did something ah pretty cool as well with, you know ah you know, the protagonists being flipped on their head. and not going to spoil it too much, but it happens around halfway through the game. um Not in a narrative sense, of course, but that whole...
00:14:20
Speaker
unreliableness in the narration is something I'm a really big fan of and it takes a lot of balls to pull off rightly so I got a little off track there help help me help me out guys you no i you know I mean I'm also my mind drifts instantly to the drifter not only because it's one of the most recent adventure games I've played so it's actually in memory I mean in that case I think the first person narration works on
Writing Strengths in Games
00:14:45
Speaker
account of the writing being deliciously savory Because a problem that I also have with this is if if you have exciting narration, if you have if your character has something interesting to say, even about people who are within earshot, who probably shouldn't be hearing it, blah, blah, blah, I don't necessarily mind. If if if if the writing engages me, I'm
00:15:07
Speaker
cool with it it doesn't annoy me to the extent it annoys you and I think the drifter just did really well on account of being extremely well written it's a very literary game you know to to go back to your earlier point about wanting adventure games to be taken seriously have ah Well, no no question that The Drifter is is magnificently written and and voice acted as well.
00:15:32
Speaker
Perhaps a little overwrought when he starts, you know, going blind and things start going weird for him. But yeah, pretty much. But wonderfully overwrought. I've gone on about these old 50s to 70s films that I love watching and, you know, I I love overwrought. I love over the top. Sometimes it's the best, you know. yeah It's not something you want to overuse. I wouldn't want to play another adventure game in that style necessarily. But this one that just did that style really, really well, I adore. Oh, yeah, absolutely. So but my my my point being that you seem to be one of those people, and I'm not knocking it, I'm just i'm just ah was slightly bewildered by it, I should say, that it's that it's one of those things that you will let slide because it's a narrative device that's been used so often in in games that you've gotten used to it. And if the writing is good enough, the the immersion isn't broken for you. No, I will let a lot of things slide on account of the adventure games that I have played. You know, I've played Sierra and LucasArts games, obviously. I'm willing to let a lot of stuff slide. ah I can see where you're coming from, and it's an interesting point. um
00:16:45
Speaker
But yeah, I don't know if it's because it's been used often or if it just it's just something that's easy to break away from for me if if the writing keeps my brain engaged otherwise. i think the advantage
Humor and Engagement in Third-Person Narratives
00:17:02
Speaker
though with The Drifter is that the and not that the voice is different, as in it's a different actor playing it, but when he's doing narrative stuff, it's like you're playing one of these pulp kind of slasher novels right and so he's like i open a door i put my hand in the box it'll never be in a bundle you know that sort of thing it's like hanging out with michael council uh um i do not believe those two are from the same region of australia you might you might be in for a fight there they're all cunts they're all cunts I agree. And there is, I forgot my previous point, but I'll i'll roll on to, let's talk about the classic Sierra games. We've covered the LucasArts talking about everything out loud to no one in particular, but the old Sierra games had the third person narrator. And I thought, well,
00:17:57
Speaker
A lot of people grew up with that one, probably because it is a natural extension from the text adventures of yore, which famously Roberta Williams was very inspired by. And she's sort of led the way of ah but basically everyone at Sierra just felt like, okay, what Roberta did it. um She's the co-founder of the company. We're going to do the same. It just...
00:18:15
Speaker
was sort of a natural thing for Sierra games to always have third-person narration. And it's one of those... Yeah, sorry, it' sorry to interrupt, but you know I don't necessarily know if that's true because I think someone like Scott Murphy relishes the idea of writing about Roger Wilco being roger wilcoe being slowly digested by a mushroom alien. Yeah.
00:18:37
Speaker
grisly third-person details. I don't necessarily know if the writing for Space Quest would be as funny had it been first-person. Absolutely not. But here's the thing about the Space Quest games, particularly the early ones. and There's a subtle little difference between narr typical third-person narration and the type of narration in Space Quest and probably other Sierra games as well, but particularly in Space Quest. And that is that the the narrator is not talking...
00:19:06
Speaker
uh you know it's not talking to the character itself it's not talking to roger he's talking directly to the player as if as if they embody the protagonist and it's this weird roundabout way of saying you are now this person you have just fucked up not the main character is fucked up you just fucked up on it sort of on a on behalf of this avatar you're inhabiting that's true I mean, I think I think Scott Murphy in Space Quest 2 is the sort of the ah the apex of that. I oh yeah just adore the narrator in in Space Quest 2. And I guess the the issue then is when you have to move from that late 80s, early 90s text thing to go, OK, well, those boxes we had, we'll just get some guy to read that out. and And I guess that's where that disconnect comes from in that you're trying to give a a literal voice to something that probably ought to be
00:20:01
Speaker
more of a text thing, and it maybe makes more sense when you are also talking to the game through text, through the parser. Maybe with a point-and-click and a voice, it starts to break down.
00:20:12
Speaker
yeah It's really, really fun to note that the games where that worked were the ones that got a voice that was was purposely over-the-top. Gary Owens, John Riss-Davies, you know, that sort of... Virginia Capers.
00:20:26
Speaker
Exactly, that sort of voice. and Yeah, her. ah
Narration in Comics vs. Games
00:20:30
Speaker
The ones that are less interesting would be stuff like King's Quest V that has a total nobody reading out lines in a board voice in a washroom. He sounds like the mall Santa who just decided to read his entire list of naughty kids out loud. it's it's real Because he he sounds like Grandpa on on his fifth eggnog just going, and then I opened the door.
00:20:53
Speaker
Oh, watch out for the big old bear, Graham. Oh, yeah, he's also compressed to utter shit. and That doesn't help. And it sounds like he's recording in a fucking wind tunnel, which also doesn't help. They all do, to be fair. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's that's like the early episodes of our podcast.
00:21:07
Speaker
yeah but Well, yeah, he's got a point there. We can't really argue you with that one. Now, we would talk on the phone years ago and a phone was something you could talk to someone else who went in the room with you. I could go on for hours, so and it stop me. I forgot to mention, Gareth, we've got a new running in-joke. It was born outside of your purview. Well, then I don't want to hear about it. Actually, it's Gilbert Gottfried's in-joke. He would impersonate Groucho Marx, but not – this is sidetracking, but it's backseat designers, but fuck it. He would impersonate Groucho Marx, but not Groucho Marx in his prime, like Groucho Marx when he went back to showbiz in the 1970s and got on to Dick Cavett. Places, you know, his his hand on his chin and leans forward because everything this old guy has to say is very interesting. And he just goes on and on and on. The men would go to another room and tell doity jokes.
00:22:11
Speaker
The women would probably tell doity jokes as well. And then he always over-defines things like, a joke was when you would say something to the amusement of the other people in the room, but if you fail to amuse them, it would not be a joke. It would be an image.
00:22:34
Speaker
Because Chico needed the money.
00:22:39
Speaker
So, i mean, what i'm what I'm getting from this is, a you've had fun without me, which is absolutely unacceptable. But B, it's a shame that Gilbert Godfrey's dead because now he can't be the narrator on the next big adventure game. Good God, that would have been amazing. You open that door! We can always get Francisco to do He doesn't. I mean, Francisco would absolutely have cast him had he been able to. No question. Okay, back on track. Gareth, you brought up a very interesting point, which was that the whole text adventure influence of Sierra started going a bit to shit when they started hiring voice actors, which was the style at the time. That's the worst Grandpa Simpson I've ever heard. I apologize. No, no, no. I've heard worse. Don't worry. All right. Well, yeah, because if you're Gary Owens, you can get away with it. But even somehow they managed to fuck up Gary Owens between four and six, because in six, he's not the omniscient narrator anymore. He sometimes talks directly to Roger. Roger responds and Stella goes, did you hear that? And Roger goes, no, that's probably just the engines rumbling or something. And it starts getting a little disconnected. I love the omniscient narration from Space Quest IV, where again, you have this contract that you, the player, fucked up on behalf of the Avatar you inhabit.
00:23:56
Speaker
That's not what we're doing in Star Wars. But again, the reason that that works with Gary Owens is because what he's borrowing from is those sort of 1950s kids kind of serial um sci-fi things, right? Where he's this over-the-top sort of howdy-doody kind of narrator telling you what's going to happen next time on the show. And I think... I think that works for Space Quest 4 with the kind of tone that they're going for, because it has this kind of, um you know, this kind of nineteen fifty s sort of thing going on. And it's very gritty. And at the same time, you've got this ridiculous kind of over the top narrator. the The whole thing in that sense, anyway, yeah hangs together absolutely quite well.
00:24:37
Speaker
Yeah. And bad people always say, I wonder what would happen if we got Gary Owens for Space Quest V. And I'm like, yeah, it probably would have worked because Gary Owens is awesome. But also it's ah it's an entirely different tone. when you see i mean, it is funny. Don't get me wrong. Space Quest V is fucking hilarious.
00:24:53
Speaker
But we just oh god we just turned into the Space Quest Historian podcast, didn't we? Well, I mean, they've been on Quest Quest this month. They've been doing Space
Improving Storytelling in Games
00:25:02
Speaker
Quest and they've done one, two, ah one, two and three. And then they ended with an episode just this week on the the virtual broom closet, which is where we three met.
00:25:13
Speaker
Yes. Yes. And he's been playing fan games too. So he's been playing, Jess has been playing Bohol Strikes Back and and Incinerations. So, I mean, it's fair to me that this turns into the Space Quest Historian podcast, because this would be uploaded your YouTube channel. Oh, here we go. At time of recording, I am still in YouTube jail. Yeah, because because of a cock in a sock.
00:25:41
Speaker
You couldn't wait. You just couldn't wait for us to get our OnlyFans together. You had to try and test the waters. It's not my Swedish cock in a sock. we We are at the stage of this where Trolls is being a talk about it, but I don't think it's funny yet.
00:25:55
Speaker
is i'm i' I'm honestly okay with it. ah But yes, so from a sort of helicopter view... That's a good segue from cocking us up. Let's move away from cocking us up towards a helicopter, day yeah. Let's swivel the cock around until we're airborne. If ah if if we have...
00:26:17
Speaker
if we If we were to like roughly say that you have three types of narration, classical narration anyway, and you and you adapt those into an adventure game setting. Omniscient, third person.
00:26:28
Speaker
ah Say everything out loud, first person. And Bane character thinks in the first person. Which one would you prefer? My Void void vo by void is on the ladder.
00:26:41
Speaker
And I don't know why more games don't do that. Yeah, I yeah, it's a it's a tricky one, because I think what Fred Fred said at the beginning is kind of a joke. Oh, it depends. But I think it does depend to a certain extent, because it's about the the the sort of the ah the atmosphere that the game is trying to invoke. i mean, I think some games work quite well where you're really sort of. inside the main character and you're supposed to embody them. I think having the main character do it all kind of helps you to be sucked into that. But there are other ones where, I mean, especially like a character like, sorry to keep coming back to it, a character like Roger Wilco, you're not really supposed to want to be Roger Wilco, are you? I mean, he is meant to be this every man kind of blank slate. Everything that's happening around Roger Wilco is what's interesting. And therefore that's why a narrator like Gary Owens works really well in that kind of,
00:27:36
Speaker
setting if that makes sense. Yeah, you don't really want to hear from Roger. Conversely, another one that works extremely well and could not work in another way where you're inside the main character's head, that's the Tex Murphy games. Yes, I was going to bring that up, but go ahead. um though Those are brilliant. I don't know how much I have to add to it, but it's it's just that perfect Phil Noir vibe. And, you know, obviously, we've had the pleasure of having that guy on the show, and he still speaks from the diaphragm. Yeah. Not as low, low, low as Josh Mandel when digitally manipulated, but still stood pretty convincing.
00:28:15
Speaker
But that's just perfect. I mean, that reverby, monotone way of expressing his thoughts, you know, sort of like the Blade Runner narration of Harrison Ford had given a shit. yeah you do you know what the thing about uh the text murphy games is people are going to say well obviously it works because it's film noir and film noir uh not just blade run but an actual film noir back from the you know 50s uh 40s and fifty s all had that internal monologue the detective is always thinking to themselves kind of thing but i would argue it it works just as well with with other adventure like imagine if guy bros three wood was walking around and actually thought to himself instead of saying shit out loud wouldn't that have worked a treat
00:29:03
Speaker
I mean, it's it's basically the Garfield thing where
Puzzles Enhancing Storytelling
00:29:07
Speaker
everyone's, you know, Garfield has speech bubbles, but then you read a couple of strips and you realize first and foremost, okay, this is not funny. But another thing you realize is is that he's got thought bubbles and everyone else has speech bubbles. So everyone around him is... is talking but he's got these internal thoughts going i don't necessarily know if i agree but one thing i do know about tex murphy is they completely broke it for tesla effect by introducing what's his face from mystery science theater as someone to riff with and it just it doesn't make sense and it completely disrupts the flow of everything that was awesome about it and it It's as if they had Tex do comedic stuff as well. you know
00:29:54
Speaker
Suddenly he's yelling, tsunami, out of nowhere. and Oh, he's always had moments like that. But you're you're right. I didn't actually think about that because his his little robot companion sometimes like responds to what Tex is thinking. That's a narrative disconnect. all Yes. so and it's And it's just not as funny as as the bumbling...
00:30:17
Speaker
incompetence of text on its own. Because, you know, the thing, that voice is so deadly serious, that voice in his head, and he's got the echo and everything. I'm pretty sure he himself hears the echo because he wants to be that kind of hard-boiled film noir detective. But he's he's and he's an idiot most of the time. So...
00:30:40
Speaker
That's a knowing disconnect, I would say. The way he narrates his adventures is so disconnected from his adventures, but that makes it work really well. It's a very subtle form of comedy that doesn't draw a lot of attention to itself. I don't know if I'd agree that
The Shift Towards Story-Driven Games
00:30:58
Speaker
it's serious. He's got a very snarky side. He loves, like, quipping, especially if there's a room full of photographs. He will have some sort of sarcastic quip about every photo in the room that's like a Tex Murphy stable. But I'm glad you brought up comic books, actually. Not Garfield in particular. Oh, sorry about that. But...
00:31:17
Speaker
Another genre of comic books that I'm not a huge fan of, but so that they they do narration in an interesting way, a superhero comic books, um where characters will often be like in the mid-air about to throw a punch, and they'll have a four-page monologue, internal monologue, going on about what they're going to do, when they've thrown the punch afterwards, what how they're going to celebrate, whose tits they're going to drown in, all this sort of stuff. Frank Miller does the Best comic book monologues. It's insane. Like having Batman reminisce about that. And I'm not making this up. Honestly, he reminisces about the night his parents were killed in one of the Frank Miller comics and goes, I touched my mother's breast.
00:32:01
Speaker
It bled on me. Good fucking Lord. Yeah. Well, well that that doesn't happen in King's Quest. no No, not until... What you mean to say is it hasn't happened in King's Quest yet.
00:32:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, the Williamses are back. Yeah, well, if ah if Microsoft ah does take the reins of the Sierra properties, we'll never know what happens. They might do the Netflix Gritty reboot. They already did the shitty cartoon reboot. Might as well do the Netflix Gritty one.
00:32:30
Speaker
But here's the thing. I mean, the whole ah the whole reason I brought up the comic book thing is that instead of having everything happen in real time and Guybrush is walking around describing everything out loud, he could essentially, you could essentially like Max Payne freeze time and really give him a chance to not just narrate what he is seeing, but also like...
00:32:54
Speaker
If it warrants it, like go into some full on explanation mode kind of thing. I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this because obviously you don't want to be too long winded about describing a desk chair. But record scratch. You're probably wondering how I ended up here. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you could either have that or you could have like you just reminded me of, you know, the Arrested Development narrator who is.
00:33:17
Speaker
you know, famous for undermining every step of their care of the character's lives and in a supremely snarky way. And also that whole set up payoff thing of someone of a character saying they're going to do something. And then the narrator, like in the next instant go, and that never happened.
00:33:34
Speaker
um But yeah, this this whole thing about what narration has to happen in real time. There's no pause. ah like That's another interesting mechanic that I don't think adventure games have ever explored where everything just sort of stops for a while and the character just goes, hmm...
00:33:50
Speaker
Well, maybe it has. like I can see you guys are riveted. No, it's it's just a matter of struggling to come up with examples and failing pretty badly. And I didn't want to draw attention to my own idiocy, but thanks a lot. Also, it might just be a really terrible idea because, so I mean, if we look at stuff like The Longest Journey, lengthy internal monologues or just indeed monologues of of any kind sort of tends to take people out of the experience.
00:34:17
Speaker
That's a good point is one of the things that I quite like about Dave's games. And I know that he said on our, uh, podcast before the Dave Gilbert, watch it. I games, you all know who are oh that guy. Yeah. That guy. Um, one of the things that he's always talked about is like, you have to fight your instinct to overwrite.
00:34:35
Speaker
Yes. Like you can't just throw all the exposition into the narrator. If you want people to get more law, you can have that dotted around the rooms and in the sort of the deep, deep chain of the, uh, of the dialogue trees, but yeah, you can't just have a narrator talking for eight hours ah in a 10 hour game.
00:34:55
Speaker
Oh, I beg your fucking pardon me. No, you're right. And and that's that's another thing that a lot of designers tend to forget. ah Some don't, and and they do and they and they don't in a brilliant way. But a lot of adventure gamers ah venture game designers tend to think that if we just have characters talk about shit, we don't need environmental storytelling at all. um i mean I love Hobbes Barrow, but there are segments where the characters are just standing face-to-face, talking for ages,
00:35:28
Speaker
And that's really it. I mean, the given that Hobbs Barrow is a slow-burning mystery, it's not if if you're bored playing Hobbs Barrow, you're playing it wrong. But it's it's it's one of those things but when you have nothing else going on on screen and when you just have like rooms that are, here's here's another forest, here's another bit of forest. here's a clearing.
00:35:49
Speaker
this
Evolving Narration Techniques
00:35:50
Speaker
This has a house in it. It's kind of like the environments aren't really telling much of the story. The dialogue has to carry all of it, but you can't do interesting close-ups. You can't like switch character frames. They have a couple of those animations in there, but realistically speaking, 90% of the time, it's just two sprites standing face-to-face talking to each other.
00:36:09
Speaker
So that ah my my my point is, one of the things that probably would alleviate most of the concerns about what type of narration to have is just to have more environmental storytelling. And that brings me to the third example that I was going to talk about, which was Rosewater, where you don't have a huge amount of this sort of ridiculous narration because the main character is very rarely alone. So because you've always got at least one companion with you, there's always a conversation that's being had. And there's always a way that there can be a back and forth between those two characters in order to explain what's going on in the ah in the environment. And I would i would much prefer, i think, that. But of course, it relies on a situation where you are always around other people, which is not always what's going to happen in every adventure game puzzle.
00:37:00
Speaker
It's an excellent point, actually. The whole thing about not just going, yeah, that's a door, it's probably locked, but actually asking the other character in the room, hey, do you think this door is locked?
00:37:10
Speaker
but all of a sudden you're having yeah you're you're you're having a dialogue instead of a modlock. yeah I like that. More realistic as well, no question. All right, here's another one for you. ah So ah one of my favorite games, Beneath the Steel Sky, has the let's walk around and describe everything out loud narration. so um But Beneath the Steel Sky is a fantastic game, so I'm going to give it a pass for that. However, um one of the things I noticed was post-Steel Sky, Broken Sword, and every game since from Revolution has used... um
00:37:43
Speaker
past tense voiceover where in the protagonist is basically you know he's got he's got you know someone on his lap or in his lounge and he's just telling the story and then i grabbed a handful of feathers those were the days it it it varies doesn't it you you have that in between chapters and in cut scenes but in game it's as if it's currently happening or i don't remember I mean, a Broken Sword, probably, ah yes, but i I think in Cold Blood did the thing where he's talking present tense, but he's retelling the story in a torture chamber somewhere, so...
00:38:20
Speaker
Cold Blood? Did anyone actually play that? No. Moving on. But here's the thing. Steel Sky 2 has the the past tense narration as well. The thing that annoys me about that is that there's no... It's it's like you can't really shape the story any way you want. Let's let's be honest. Typically, you can't anyway. But um having that past tense narration just means that you're basically just acting out someone's flashback. I don't know. There's just something about that that doesn't, it it it annoys me. even Even though I know most like novels are written in the past tense and then he went to the bathroom and let out a huge log.
00:38:57
Speaker
ah like It's very rare to find a novel that's written in the present tense. it's always It's also very rare to find a novel that includes that sentence that you just rattled off. Oh, that depends on which section of the library you go to, my friend. And the tradition of Dracula.
00:39:14
Speaker
Yes. And and here's the thing, like Monkey Island 2. Everyone loves Monkey Island 2, but it has the rare distinction of combining the suit my two least favorite narrative methods, which is one, Guybrush narrates everything out loud. And two, it is entirely in a flashback. Now the flashback narration only comes in like when when he's dangling off the rope and shit. But it's just... And i don't get me wrong. I love Monkey Island too. But you gotta poke holes in everyone else's darlings. don't know. Well, it's not flashback. That's what it says over the maternity ward. You gotta poke holes in everyone else's darlings. it's not a it's not a flashback that you know it takes place from the conclusion of the story so you know that's i don't i don't entirely agree and i did play in cold blood thank you very much and you don't know how the fuck the character gets out of the uh totally non-russian torture chamber and you don't know why guy brush three-foot is dangling at the end of a rope gee that's dark not like that um You become curious knowing, ah figuring out how they got to where they got to because um their story hasn't been told yet.
00:40:22
Speaker
No, you're right. You're right. um I'll give you that. I mean, but but three quarters of the story is technically a flashback, but yeah. And also, I mean, it's it's it's comedic genius that he's telling this entire story, hanging off the end of a rope by his hand, not his head. And then right right at the end, when he gets like, okay, and that's my story. Snap. The rope breaks some and falls out. That was very, very good.
00:40:46
Speaker
Yeah. So, yeah, but yeah, the the whole past tense thing. What what do what do you guys think? Because, you know, most literary pieces, like ah novels, even most TV shows these days have this sort of opening narration thing. For some reason, and Netflix can't get enough of first-person opening narration stuff, but ah which is always past tense. but it kind of annoys me in adventure games. I don't know if it's because I sort of expect that I'll be able to shape the story, even though I somehow deep down know that's not going to happen. You have to follow the designer's rules.
00:41:19
Speaker
the the narrative The narrative idea of once upon a time yeah is is very old and very ah almost universal. um So I guess it's just variations on the once upon a time and a galaxy far, far away. you know It's a... um it's um Yeah, but I do get what you mean, that if you are constantly relying on these old things, you're not trying anything different. i
Conclusion and Lighthearted Banter
00:41:48
Speaker
mean, that that again is what I really like about the Drifter and the way that it does the the narration, because in some ways it's a very old device of ah making it like one of these kind of schlocky ah sort of pulp things. But at the same time, it's doing something in a way that we don't often see in adventure games. And I feel like there is more scope to try
00:42:09
Speaker
a few more things than are currently being tried. Yeah, I think the Drifter is, ah it's first person, I'm sorry, it's present tense, also first person, but it's present tense for most of it. And I think i think i've I've just really figured out what it is about past tense narration that annoys me. It is Not just that I want to shape the story, but also that you're sort of being dragged along on a leash.
00:42:32
Speaker
And when you start stumbling, when you get stuck and you start stumbling up and you and you start looking at the same inventory items over and over again, and you're being told in the past tense that this is what that is. And and then, you know, it just starts getting, it sounds like the game's getting impatient with you.
00:42:47
Speaker
Well, the death scenes are even worse whenever games do that in past tense. And one goes, oh, that couldn't have happened because I'm still alive, which is basically another way of saying you're an idiot, which I don't appreciate particularly.
00:43:01
Speaker
Even Tex Murphy Overseer did that because Tex Murphy Overseer is also told in a flashback. And every time you die, he's just sitting there going, of course, I would be stupid to have done that. And then there's no try again. You have to restore a game. So basically he's just sitting in that restaurant for fucking ever. Yeah, i think I think you've hit on something that I hadn't really thought about before, but you're absolutely right. That when something's put in the past tense, the idea is you are now you now have to do what you're supposed to do.
00:43:26
Speaker
So the story can be what it was always meant to be. It doesn't feel like it gives you that same kind of idea that you are the protagonist in the moment making things happen, right?
00:43:38
Speaker
that only And that only works if the main character is in a predicament that you are genuinely interested to see how they got into. And I keep bringing it up, not because it's a terribly good game. Sorry, Charles Cecil. But...
00:43:53
Speaker
I do think In Cold Blood did this well because your main character is a secret agent who does wind up in a torture chamber where he's reminiscing about how he got there. And then at the point where I you know i never got to the end game, but at some point, of course, it picks up.
00:44:12
Speaker
in the present, and he has to escape. ah And, you know, that works for me, trying to figure out how he got to where he got to, not just figuring out how the story ended. m Yeah, maybe I should pick that up. But isn't it one of those but from when Revolution was all about pushing boxes and having stealth in their games? It's it's from that time where everyone wanted to do 3D and adventure games, but no one could figure out how to do it.
00:44:41
Speaker
At least it's not Simon the Sorcerer 3D. Okay, here's here's ah here's a fun little one, um which I'm now struggling to remember. I had it while Fred was talking, but then I went nearly comatose.
00:44:55
Speaker
This happens all the time. Yeah. i'm Sorry, lads. It just completely slipped my mind. um Someone will have to pick up it while I try to remember what it was.
00:45:06
Speaker
Okay, well, we've got a gap now in the recording. I was hoping for someone to pick up the slack after I finished talking. Oh, shit. It'll come to me. We'll edit this out. Yeah, sure. So you can't remember what you wanted to say. No, no. Where did it come from? Where that did it go? LAUGHTER
00:45:32
Speaker
applause. That's well done. Standing over here. ah Sitting here kind hoping that helped, but probably didn't. That's it. i'm I'm keeping this in. That was too good.
00:45:45
Speaker
Oh, shit. No, it was one of those minor little things about past tense narration. at you know let's let's just Let's just skip ahead. So um by and large, narration in adventure games is a tricky one because on the one hand, you want the player to feel like they are actively involved in the story right here right now. but the narrative device will always offer some sort of disconnect if you have a third-person narrator because then it becomes a question of, well, does this narrator know everything? Is it an unreliable narrator? Is it just your character's ah you know voice inside their head?
00:46:21
Speaker
Which arguably i would I would think works a lot better as long as it's in the present tense. um i'm I'm trying to waffle my way towards some kind of conclusion here. No, no, I think you think you are getting towards something because that is part of...
00:46:35
Speaker
That's part of the problem of games as a narrative device, right? that they They are, despite the fact that they've been around for quite a long time compared to our times on this earth, they're not a particularly old way of telling things compared to you know novels or or plays or or even film and radio. So that there is an issue in the, there are conventions that have built up that if you, if you think about them too much, they start to fall apart. um But we do think about them because they are still relatively new.
00:47:10
Speaker
In a way that there are all sorts of storytelling conventions in drama that actually make absolutely no sense from a, this is not a documentary a documentary of reality, right? But we kind of accept them if they're done in the right way because we fall into the story. And I think that's one of the things with narration is that when it's done badly, it just pulls you completely out of uh out of the experience when it's done well you hardly notice it um or you you sort of fall in love with the whole atmosphere that the narration can bring to it along with the visuals along with the characters and along with the story um so i think it is something that it's important to get right absolutely and i just remembered what it was i wanted to bring up uh which actually segues nicely into this um yay i actually remembered something hooray uh which is that um
00:48:02
Speaker
I almost slipped again there. Okay, I got it. I got it this time. So ah the thing is, we've been talking about narration for this entire episode ah because we believe in storytelling in adventure games. Adventure games are a storytelling medium.
00:48:19
Speaker
But there are adventure games where storytelling is not front and center focused. You wouldn't go out of your way to describe Monkey Island 2 as a great story per se. It is a great adventure game. Same with Day of the Tentacle. The story is sort of almost perfunctorily there, but it's really just an excuse to flex and have really intricate puzzle design that doesn't necessarily make a whole lot of real-world sense.
00:48:42
Speaker
And let's be let's be absolutely honest, a lot of adventure games that even try to like really attempt some sort of real-world realism kind of way, like this is a person in the real world doing real-world shit, it's still... that the puzzles start becoming really contrived. So a lot of adventure games, let's face it, are not necessarily storytelling vehicles. And at that point, does it really matter what type of narration you've got?
00:49:10
Speaker
That's a fair point. I feel like we've kind of I don't know, maybe it's because I just am not interested interested in those games at all and therefore don't go anywhere near them. But I feel like i feel like those kind of ah adventure games where the story was almost incidental, I feel like that's kind of melted away. I feel like most of the points and clicks that are being... produced now, the whole point of them is the story, primarily because this is the one genre where that can still be ah the the thing that can be pushed. Like, if you are really interested in puzzles, there are puzzle games. If you're interested in action, there are action games. But there's something about the point and click that is meant to be this kind of narrative-driven thing. Oh, well, here's the thing, right? Yes, yes, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. Most modern, if not all, modern point and click adventure games are story first, and the puzzles are sort of...
00:49:58
Speaker
They're there, but we really want to tell the story first and foremost. I think we can blame Ragnar Ternkvist for that, by the way. Longest Journey really went a long way to pave the ground for that one. But um ah a lot of the really, really, really good games of the so-called golden era...
00:50:14
Speaker
Were these, for me at least, were these types of games, Day of the Tentacle, Lisa Suit Larry 6, games where the story almost was just a backdrop for having these really, really great interconnected puzzle chains that were satisfying to solve and the reward for solving them were not to advance the story per se. It was to just see what happened and what opens up to you and you start exploring ah the game world further.
00:50:39
Speaker
which is something I'm kind of missing from modern day point and clicks. It's because we've talked about this previously. A lot of modern day point and clicks kind of feels like they're shoehorning puzzles in between their oh so well crafted lore and storytelling.
00:50:53
Speaker
Yeah, very true. I kind of miss the former. And you get disconnected very quickly from these recent games if you do not care for the story. yeah Everything hinges on that. So if you get into something and you realize, I don't actually care for what's going on, you don't really want to continue. You just kind of leave it on your Steam account for the longest time. Yeah, that's the and that's the trouble, right? Like like you said, if if the story doesn't grip you, then what have you got to hold on to? The the like scraps of puzzles that are included for your benefit? Dialogue puzzles most of the time. There's nothing wrong with that if the story is absolutely riveting. Let's go back to Old Skies, for instance. Most of that game is dialogue puzzles.
00:51:39
Speaker
and and and And it works because the dialogue is fantastically written and the story is interesting and it, you know, fucks with your mind in all the right ways. So I i will happily play Old Skies, even though as a puzzle game, you aren't really solving that many puzzles. Here's the thing about puzzle games, though. If you, and I know we're we're not having a debate here. I just want the listener to know the the difference between... The listener should know why he's wrong. This is why you are wrong. And and and this is why you can stick your cock in a sock. ah The reason why there's a difference between puzzle games and adventure games is that puzzle games typically tend to rely on, you know, seventh guest type logic, possibly shit.
00:52:22
Speaker
There could be a story, but every time there's a puzzle, the whole story just stops dead in its tracks until you figure out a way past this cock block. And adventure games have this ebb and flow to their puzzle design. Sometimes they will cock block you. Sometimes you will get stuck. But if it's a really good, really well designed game, like at least a suit of Larry 6, like Day of the Tentacle, like Monkey Island 2 for that matter,
00:52:46
Speaker
Where you have multiple puzzle chains going at once. If you get stuck in one corner, you go to the you go to another corner and try to work on that instead. And i i miss those kinds of games where you're not necessarily hinging on the story to do all the puzzles.
00:53:03
Speaker
work for you that you could like Lisa's suit Larry six I'm not playing Lisa's suit Larry six because I want to like get with a lot of chicks and be humiliated I'm I'm not really I don't really think Larry is that interesting of a guy nor is the environment he inhabits really all that interesting it's the it's the puzzles that drive you certainly some of the narrator's quips and and and the writing and some of the set pieces the ones that aren't blatantly homophobic but um yeah Well, Al Lowe was always kind of into that, wasn't he? I mean, Leisure Suit Larry 1 has a very definite goal, but Leisure Suit Larry 2 just has you fucking around and stumbling on this story. And so many airplane jokes. And and airplane jokes are usually like the... the bottom of the barrel scraping type comedy material, but he just makes it work. That endless conveyor to the terminal that is unskippable. Larry won't walk, but if if you don't do everything prior to that, and it's on a timer, basically, if you don't do anything everything prior to that, and you then get on that ah conveyor, you won't reach the terminal in time and the game is softlocked. It's just...
00:54:11
Speaker
Oh, man, it's such a brutal ah but but very funny way to look at that. And can only do that in an adventure game. You can only really capture the utter frustration of fucking up at the airport, something Frederick will gladly regale you with in private, because let's not do it here. am... I am an absolute master at fucking up at airports. I warned you about that. No, that is actually the narrative method you call a callback because I warned you about that fucking suitcase on the train in Denmark. It went through three flights, no complaints. But yeah, the fourth flight. sure now it's too heavy no that's a leashes suit larry 2 turn of events yes and it is and and nothing i think captures that frustration better than the airport scenes in leashes suit larry 2 anyway that was actually kind of a tangent i didn't really want to talk about leashes suit larry uh but you're absolutely right yeah larry 2 has you fucking around locales that aren't really that interesting and the story is really very much like oh mistaken identity i'm suddenly carrying you know a microfilm from the kgb for some i mean it's like a thousand stories have told that but the funny thing is when when you get to those locales and the things the shit you get up to that's where the real fun is for me i miss that modern adventure gamers developers actually
00:55:32
Speaker
Yeah, so take that as a, you know, um shit, I can't even find the word. Please, by request from the backseat designers, fuck around in your games a bit more.
00:55:44
Speaker
Put that in your sock and smoke it. um Do you know what? That actually has nothing to do with the narration in in particular. I think i just I just completely derailed this episode. some extent it does, because early on we also touched about how the design influences the narration, and you might say in some ways vice versa.
00:56:05
Speaker
How do you want to tell your story? What kind of story do you want to tell? How do you want to convey that story to the player? I think it all hangs pretty tightly together. Shit, you're right. We just went full circle back to your... Oh, hey, I'm terribly sorry. You are actually a genius, sir, because if you were to make the argument for games that are not necessarily narrative-driven but are excellent adventure games in and of themselves, I would not personally give too much of a shit about the type of narration they employ. They can walk around and describe tables out loud to their heart's content if the puzzles actually make me, of but you know...
00:56:45
Speaker
make me feel rewarded for for solving them. I mean, I might still get a bit annoyed because you got monkeys stuff like Monkey Island 2. For some reason, it rubs me the wrong way because I know it's a comedy game. I know it's fantasy. I know it's... and but But Monkey Island 2 is as close you as you'll get to story-driven Monkey Island game that's not complete shit. So...
00:57:05
Speaker
Oh, I snuck that one in there, didn't I mean, the thing about that is also that, and I'm i'm about to throw a a wrench into the cocks here, but... Not a sock. Not not the cocks, the cocks. Oh, the cocks, yes. Right.
00:57:20
Speaker
ah In the same case. I would argue, aside from the framing story, the vast majority of narration in Monkey Island 2 is optional because you don't necessarily have to look at everything. You don't have to make Guybrush three-put talk. I mean, on your first playthrough, you may have to to try to figure out where you're at and get your bearings. but you don't necessarily need to think of this as a constructed narrative. You're the one building it. You're the one making him talk into thin air most of the time, whereas you can't really skip over Gary Owens talking to you.
00:57:58
Speaker
True, but Duke's up here because the the one thing that's been drilled into every season adventure game players from the get-go was look at everything, touch everything, fuck with everything. ah yeah You will be rewarded for doing so if the game is is written properly. ah So, I don't know. Agree to disagree on that one.
00:58:16
Speaker
ah Yeah, you could you could make like a wordless speed run. It would be like the the adventure game equivalent of an any percent. Like you just speed right through it and not look at anything and not talk to anyone. But where's where's the fun in that?
00:58:29
Speaker
well for speedrunner there is fun in that hello hello every speedrunner i'm not dissing you or anything you you kind of were well i'm dissing everyone at this point it's all because of swedish uradance yes yes swedish uradance can get fucked shame on them yeah i know i know at least at least you didn't get copyright uh stricken by dr bombay No, I'm actually kind of surprised at that. i had like five different bands in that in that video and none none of them gave a shit except Rednecks.
00:59:00
Speaker
um I promised I wouldn't talk about it. this is all too In fact, if people are listening to this like a month in the future, no one's going to give a shit. No one gives a shit at the moment, actually. We hold grutches.
00:59:14
Speaker
Yeah, we will turn this into a running joke, I'm sure. There's airplane suitcases and Swedish Urodance bands giving me the finger. It's basically all, this is all just a really interesting therapy session where the point is not to build me up, but to remind me of every mistake I've ever made.
00:59:33
Speaker
And with that, actually, no, no, just keep going. No, with that, we have pretty much reach an hour. Okay, yeah, that's actually true. With that, ah we will end this on a very sobering note, I guess. um So, um yeah, I guess that's it. we are ah tech We are technically on my YouTube channel. I will be allowed to upload this ah at some point. No, no joke. They actually barred me from from uploading for a week.
01:00:02
Speaker
because you know we will be allowed to upload it it if you don't fuck up in the meantime or more gay porn more cocks and socks i would perhaps suggest you keep a level head in the comments which i know is not your strong suit but nope do make an attempt but uh for those of you listening to this if you want to date this we're recording this on thanksgiving yes uh 2025
01:00:27
Speaker
2025 Thanksgiving. Yeah, yeah. It depends on how long you're banned for, doesn't it, mate? It does. We keep telling people to go back to listen to our old shit even though we probably shouldn't. Have you even said thank you?
01:00:39
Speaker
<unk>ve i've so I've said a lot of words these past couple of days, but none of them were thank you. um No, I think you said fuck you at one point. Oh, I did. Oh, a lot of times. I also use the word cunt a lot.
01:00:51
Speaker
We're recording this on Foxgiving. Foxgiving. So and that was my very roundabout way of saying yeah our podcast is on my YouTube channel, Space Quest Historian. But we also have RSS feeds and we are on Apple Podcast. It's called Apple Podcast or iTunes Podcast. It's Apple Podcast, isn't it? Yeah, who gives a shit?
01:01:11
Speaker
um But yes, we do have those. So if you want to subscribe and actually listen to us on the go, we have an RSS feed and we have an Apple podcasty kind of link, which we will put in the description of the YouTube version of this. I'm actually, I'm just, I'm really just talking to the YouTube audience at this point, because the people who are subscribed to us will probably not watch this on YouTube. I mean, who the fuck watches podcasts on YouTube?
01:01:34
Speaker
And that was pretty much it. We don't have a social media presence anymore, and we don't have a website. No, thank you for ruining that, everyone. Yeah. but yeah but but I suppose if if we want to talk blame, we can only really blame one person for the no website thing.
01:01:49
Speaker
That'll become. Yep. So say goodbye, Gorgon.
01:01:56
Speaker
I thought you guys decided. I was told explicitly I was Tiffany. yeah That's true. that's Sorry. Sorry. i Do that again. so Okay. Say goodbye, Gorgon. Say goodbye, Tiffany.
01:02:10
Speaker
say goodbye tiffany Tiffany looks at the microphone and says, goodbye. and I have been Björn Björkkel, and we'll see you next time. Goodbye.
01:02:21
Speaker
Now, goodbye was something you would say. No, deliquity.
01:02:38
Speaker
le it