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Episode 54 - Ranking More Every Adventure Game Ever
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On this podcast, we're not afraid to venture the bravest, boldest opinions. The opinions THEY don't want you to hear. Opinions like: Myst should have a jump button.
A LOT of Chicago talk in this one, because Roses had a birthday and Matt went out to celebrate. We talk about pizza, Malort, a weird collectibles store... you know, Chicago stuff!
But the TRUE STAR of this episode is our now-infamous list of EVERY ADVENTURE GAME EVER where we pull games up at random and rank them whether we've played them or not! In this episode, we reach 100 games! Enjoy and feel free to email us to argue if we get something wrong!
Email us! mattandroses@gmail.com
Games Mentioned - Look, it's way too many to list, so this time? I'm just gonna list the three we talk about that don't have to do with our ranking list:
- Myst
- Blue Prince
- Rosewater
Recommended
Transcript
Quake Collectibles Adventure
00:00:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, even in their like promotional pictures, it is just piles of action figures, and some of them broken, a lot of them dirty. So if anybody's wondering what the fuck we're talking about, we went to Quake Collectibles, Chicago. chicago yeah And Matt, you...
00:00:20
Speaker
made me, you, Matt, ah made me loaf around. I'm Matt. Well, you looked at how many boxes of comic books? I'm trying to remember. It was at least six.
00:00:33
Speaker
It was at least, that's at least how many there were. There was another one on the floor. Oh, there's a picture of it. It was nine. And then there was another one to the side. So it was, um it was 10, but.
00:00:46
Speaker
ah lot of questionable comics in there. a lot of weird shit. there Also some weird comic storing practices. They put. like a big sign or something on top of the comics with two, um like let like, two legs sticking down that just went into the, like, smooshing the comic books.
00:01:09
Speaker
Oh, God. I didn't know i didn't notice that. it' Just, like, a chunk of two of the boxes were just completely crushed. But that's how, like, this store works. Like, half of the boxes, like, as you were walking around, you were looking at something.
00:01:22
Speaker
Just boxes would fall. know. And the guy didn't blink eye. know. It was absolutely not. Yeah. Floundering. And like that, I was wearing that large vampire coat and I was, ah you probably didn't see, I was knocking over everything but because the aisles were so dense.
00:01:42
Speaker
There was it. There were so many just piled on top of stuff that I ended up just like chucking them. Right. I would just come to one and I'd just throw it to the side because it like, what else am I supposed to do here? ah You feel like don't have any.
00:01:58
Speaker
I think this is what you're asking of me, actually. This is the type of store that if one other person was in the quote aisle, because these are manufactured aisles because the aisles, the walls are made up of stuff.
00:02:14
Speaker
Yeah. Like, does it? Yeah. it's It's just made up of more stuff. So if there is one single other person in the aisle, you can't get through. You have to like backtrack and be like, sorry, sorry, sorry. and While you're knocking over 50 versions of Wolverine.
00:02:28
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. thats
00:02:33
Speaker
I mean, on that subject, you just kept picking up every action figure you saw and asking me if it was an X-Man. ah Excuse me. I was asking if it was an X-Men. And.
00:02:43
Speaker
because that was cuter. There's a good chunk of time. There's a good chunk of them that were. You didn't realize it. Yeah, that star rocked.
00:02:57
Speaker
I want to go back to that store. Let's go back to that store. Let's turn off the podcast right now and go
Introductions and Birthday Fun
00:03:01
Speaker
back to that store. i All right. We're going. We're going. All right. I'm going to start the music. that' was fun That's fine.
00:03:09
Speaker
What was that um action figure with no head? Oh, it's just an action figure. I have no idea what it was. Oh, yeah, but I'm sorry.
00:03:19
Speaker
Holy shit! I'm sorry. You scared the fuck out of me.
00:03:35
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to Save Your Game. i am one of your hosts, Pushing Up Roses, and I am one year older, making me 25 years old.
00:03:47
Speaker
With me, as always, Aukamp, my co-host. Hey, Matt. Hey! How's it going? Man, you are fucking old. Wow.
00:03:58
Speaker
25? know. five i know You like the skin falling off of your body at this point? Yeah, I am absolutely falling apart, decrepit.
00:04:08
Speaker
um I mean, you saw me the other day, and it was a a sad sight to behold. I had a cane. Yeah, yeah you threw out you throw at least three backs.
00:04:23
Speaker
It was hard, man. Yeah, I don't know how. I don't know how, but you did. That's why I kept knocking over everything in the collectibles store. was just trying to hobble my way through these. That's why we went into the collectibles store to begin with. So you could try to find some more backs.
00:04:43
Speaker
They didn't have any. Just FYI. We looked. How was your birthday? It was really great. It was really, really great. I felt very, very loved. Okay.
00:04:53
Speaker
Good. Yeah. I have really amazing friends. I feel very fortunate. going to cry if we keep talking about it. But I had two friends. Well, they're also all my friends now. I took them.
00:05:06
Speaker
I know. I know. Which I was a little scared about. Yeah. Now they're all mine and they all hang with I really don't need coworkers like mumbling. Yeah. And they're all moving here.
00:05:16
Speaker
All moving to Philly? Yeah. Well, that's a lie. They're all moving to Philly because they can't stand to be away from me. It's, you know, it's... Yeah, I know. i know that is completely false. Because all my Chicago friends would never leave Chicago.
00:05:32
Speaker
But I did have two... obviously two friends who came in from out of town and one was you you came in from philly and you got here a little early so we could hang out and play mist and go do all the things yes so we did play mist we did i beat people are gonna be so excited I beat Myst, guys.
00:05:51
Speaker
Okay, well, we're going to have to talk about it. talk about it. um Honestly, I posted that on Blue Sky, and now people think I really beat it. That you really beat Myst.
Myst: The Game's Challenges and Nostalgia
00:06:00
Speaker
feeling a little bad.
00:06:02
Speaker
I should say something. I'm going to say right now, you didn't beat Myst, but you did get further than you ever got before, and that's something to be proud of. In my heart, I beat this game. Yeah. yeah The other person who came out was my friend April from Milwaukee. That's a little bit easier. That's about an hour and a half train ride.
00:06:20
Speaker
But it's still a big deal. Like anybody who comes from, you know, over an hour to come spend time with me is awesome. And we had Atomic Cake ah that Matt was confused by.
00:06:33
Speaker
you know, I just don't like the combination of fruit and chocolate. Yeah, that's weird. Well, no, it's just to the thing is it's not good is the only thing. thing is it's not good.
00:06:44
Speaker
That's the only thing. Everything else about it I like. The only thing I don't like is that it's actually not good. Yeah, except for that it tastes like trash. But everything else is fine about it. You get it. You get it. Yeah, get it I got you.
00:06:57
Speaker
um But it's the key that the what is it called? I almost called it king cake like king cake, the atomic cake, and topic um yeah you know, was totally edible.
00:07:13
Speaker
but You need to above the chocolate and below the chocolate. You can take the chocolate out. And there's there's really only a layer of chocolate cake. So it's not like you're dodging ah like filling or syrup. You're just literally dodging dry cake.
00:07:25
Speaker
And there you go. um But the real question is, yeah what did you think of the pizza that we ordered? We did order a deep dish. um i yeah umm but I know people are going to be bothered by this and there's going to be a lot of argument.
00:07:41
Speaker
What did you think? I want to preface this by saying we got back pretty late and my favorite place was closed. So I went to something else. So this was not my favorite deep dish. But what's what's your opinion?
00:07:54
Speaker
i liked it i mean i i don't i don't feel very strongly either way about chicago people pizza like sometimes i will make fun of because sometimes chicagoans seem like that's what they want they seem like they want somebody to challenge them on their pizza so sometimes i will make fun of chicagoans uh and say that their pizza isn't a pizza it's just a casserole but yeah um it's I mean, it's it's good. It's pizza.
00:08:23
Speaker
It's good. It's just a very thick pizza. So you end up ah feeling
00:08:34
Speaker
a lot sicker, a lot quicker is the good old Chicago rhyme.
00:08:41
Speaker
feeling yeah talking Speaking of feeling sicker quicker, how about the Malort shot? It burns the tongue is the thing. That's the thing about a Malort shot. That's the thing that you guys don't realize about a Malort shot if you've never had one. Is you're used to alcohol, maybe burning your throat a little bit.
00:08:57
Speaker
um Maybe warming your esophagus on its way down. maybe even Maybe even like ah little like shock to the mouth. But the thing is, Malort sits on your tongue and burns it.
00:09:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's good yeah it's as if um it's it's as if you you put you rubbed like um poison oak or something across your tongue.
00:09:24
Speaker
Yeah, you know, like we Chicagoans, we're an aggressive people. And we like to, quote, surprise unsuspecting non-Chicagoans with a celebratory shot of malort.
00:09:36
Speaker
And I also had one. So, you know, not above it. I had one. And actually, a group of our friends had one because we were we were at at a bar, you know, yeah coming off of a, my friends were in a show. so um everybody was ordered Malort.
00:09:51
Speaker
And I think we collectively were like, oh! Yeah. Yeah. i I've had Malort before, too, and it was still just a massive
Myst's Legacy in Gaming
00:10:01
Speaker
shock to my system. Yeah.
00:10:04
Speaker
No, I have too. And it it was worse than I remembered somehow. And i already knew. i already knew I was going to hate this thing. And it was like, oh, no. And I didn't have a chaser. i had to like go run to the bar to get a chaser.
00:10:18
Speaker
Somebody told us later in the in the weekend – that it is possible to get a bad batch of Malort. That's another thing you have to contend with, apparently. It was like, oh, this the worst tasting thing on the face of the earth could also be ah Bad.
00:10:38
Speaker
Bad batch, yeah. yeah Here's another interesting thing. So it took us a while to get those Malort shots because the bar they were out at the bar, meaning that people do drink this.
00:10:52
Speaker
They had to like go into the back and see if they had more bottles of Malort because they had run out in the front. So people be drinking Malort. yeah people ah Yeah, people also swallow fire. People also... That would be better.
00:11:09
Speaker
i would much rather do that than take Malort again. um Yeah, but ah overall... was a real fun time. And you didn't, but you did, but you really didn't beat Myst.
00:11:25
Speaker
tell Tell the fine people about Myst. So little bit of an origin story here. ah You know, we were talking as as you do, you know, you tend to talk to your co-host about games. um how Somehow Myst came up and I don't remember why. And I just remember deflatingly,
00:11:45
Speaker
asking, will you play Myst with me? And I think that's how I asked too. Just like, we will you play Myst with me? Like, i really wanted to get somewhere in this game. I don't know why. i just maybe because I owned it as a kid and and never got anywhere and then tried to play it an adult and got stuck in the tree. i don't know. It was a thing.
00:12:03
Speaker
ah And you're just like, yeah, yeah, we'll play Myst. Yeah. So we did. i didn't own it. I own it in box, strange strangely enough. But ah we had to buy it on Steam. We bought the the Masterpiece Edition or something. It's the regular. That was the first that was the first puzzle.
00:12:21
Speaker
That was the first puzzle. Which of these versions of Myst do we buy? i can't tell any difference between them. I know. i was like, I just want, this is insane. I just want the the regular old Myst.
00:12:35
Speaker
And I guess you we could probably tell by the prices because like the newer versions of Myst, they're like $20, $25. The original is like $6. So I'm like, okay, this is $6. This has to be, you know, the original version.
00:12:50
Speaker
um So, you know, the first thing I do, I'm like, I'm just going to show you how I play. And I did. And I just, you know, I farted around. I thought you could jump off of that ledge by the dock. You can't.
00:13:01
Speaker
You could not get that through your head. I also want people to get this in their mind is like it's not just you tried to climb up. and by Okay. This is at the very beginning.
00:13:14
Speaker
There's a doorway that looks kind of slanted. Yes. um By the docks. And Roses kept trying to climb up the doorway like it was a little ramp. And it what wouldn't go. She wouldn't go. as she was getting more and more frustrated.
00:13:29
Speaker
and I just had to be like, and she's like, why won't it? And I was like, you can't do that. You gotta go around. And then when she was on the other side, kept trying to jump down off the cliff.
00:13:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:43
Speaker
And not just one time, you've understood. No, so many times!
00:13:50
Speaker
And you wouldn't even stop me. i would just wait until you laughed at me. And then I'm like, oh my There should be a jump button.
00:14:01
Speaker
There should be a jump button in Myst. yeah Well, maybe maybe though maybe one of these future... ah Updates, they'll add a a jump button.
00:14:12
Speaker
I mean, do you guys know what I'm talking about? There's got to be other people who wanted to jump off that ledge.
00:14:21
Speaker
there's ah I mean, most people who play Myst want to jump off a ledge at some point. but Yeah, that's true. That just that is true. um So remind them, how long has it been since you've played Myst?
Matt's Take on Blueprints
00:14:33
Speaker
who i I'm going to say five years. Okay, so that's enough time for you to maybe- would say, let me change that. I think it's six years because I think it was the vacation I took the year before the pandemic.
00:14:48
Speaker
So it would have been 2019. Holy shit. Yeah, so that's far than um more than enough time to kind of quote forget some of these puzzles.
00:15:00
Speaker
I think so. ah Yeah. So we went around and my only goal was to get off the first island. That was my only goal. I never i had never done it until adulthood. I didn't know you could.
00:15:13
Speaker
I thought the whole game was on like the mist island. i And now I think I understand. i think I said something semi-controversial during ah the game, which I think will spark maybe an argument.
00:15:26
Speaker
But I'm like, you know what? Myst isn't a bad game. This is actually pretty this is a pretty good game. um Which is controversial. There are adventure gamers who really hate this game with like every fiber of their being.
00:15:40
Speaker
Yeah, well, here's why they're wrong. It's a good game, and i think i think one of i think there's a couple of things. I think first, people ah are resentful of the Myst clones.
00:15:54
Speaker
Sure, sure. um That happened in, you know, from... When did Myst come out? 95?
00:16:05
Speaker
ah So, from the, you know, release of Myst... all the way up to 93. So from 93 all the way up to like 2005, people stopped making and click adventure games and just started making
Casual Gaming Chats & Podcast Plans
00:16:21
Speaker
yeah clones of Myst.
00:16:24
Speaker
And so that's- kind to strike gold again you know Yeah, and so that's frustrating to see when you might be thinking, well, hey, art isn't in competition with each other.
00:16:36
Speaker
um In this case, it kind of was because Myst was popular and point and clicks were losing popularity. So people like literally studios were choosing, do we want to do a point and click or do we want to do Myst clone? And they would choose Myst clone.
00:16:53
Speaker
so Right, yeah. Yeah. it was it was It's kind of the same thing as when ah Adventure Games saw people do 3D and they thought that was the future. So everybody started doing 3D games and Monkey Island in 3D and Gabriel Knight in 3D.
00:17:08
Speaker
Yeah, the two worst examples. Yeah. ah The three worst examples. I'm sorry. I forgot about King's Quest. Holy cow. I kind of liked that game. But anyway. but Yeah, some people do for sure.
00:17:20
Speaker
It's not as good. Yeah. It's not a good game, and it's not a good adventure game, but it is a game I enjoyed. You know what? And that's fair. that's that's That's how I feel about a lot of games, honestly.
00:17:34
Speaker
But yeah, so I kind of conceded, like, this is a good game. um It looks really cool. It's got a vibe to it. It's got an atmosphere. It's kind of spooky. it's not i don't It's not meant to be. There's, like, literally nobody in this game, but...
00:17:49
Speaker
I did like it, even though I'm not good at it. I want to disagree. I think it is meant to be spooky. Oh, okay. I don't think it's meant to be scary, but I think you are meant to feel a little spooked out and uncomfortable the whole time.
00:18:04
Speaker
That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. Otherwise, I don't think they would put those like music stings. but Like when you go into like a ah basement or something, there's like these kind of spooky music. stuff Right, right.
00:18:16
Speaker
ah Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that sets a tone and that tone is almost entirely spookiness. Yeah. And plus you're alone. Like I've definitely described these games as lonely and that's why they're not some of my favorite. I definitely like an adventure game where there's many characters to talk to, but I would say because the vibes are so strong in this game and you're reading books and you're getting, you you are understanding that people were on these islands. It's,
00:18:43
Speaker
Better. Right. um But I'm not good at this game. These are puzzles I am not good at for whatever. Like I was telling you, we were looking at the puzzle in the but in that pool room.
00:18:57
Speaker
And it wasn't hitting my head to look at the pool every time I did something. It just wasn't because in point and clicks, things happen on screen where you can see them. I want to just, ah for the listener, there's a room with a ah image projector. And the image that is projecting when you go into the room is a rippling pool.
00:19:18
Speaker
And you can press a button on the bottom and it turns off the rippling pool and just shows you a bunch of, like, ah lenses. Right. um And, what yeah, what you were...
00:19:32
Speaker
mistaking there was thinking that the pool was the thing being off and the lenses was the thing being on. Right. Which isn't, I don't like, might sound ridiculous while explaining it out loud, but in, it was a perfectly reasonable assumption in that situation. and Yeah.
00:19:52
Speaker
Yeah, you had to kind of steer me in the in the right direction. Like, I think it is on. You know, when the the pool was filled, I'm like, oh, it is on already. Oh, my God. i i had to be like, um so know how it says, um what was it?
00:20:08
Speaker
I forget what it says, like disturbed water or disturbed pool or something like that. Water turbulence pool. I have it written down. Yeah, water turbulence. said it and you're And I was like, you know, that does kind of look like turbulent water.
00:20:21
Speaker
does. And like I said, that didn't come naturally to me because usually in point and clicks or in any really at any adventure game, you see things happening on screen.
00:20:32
Speaker
So I put in like a number. Saw that I didn't get a response right away because I'm not actually when you're putting inputting numbers, you're not looking at the ah the image projector. You're looking at the control box.
00:20:45
Speaker
So, you know, I didn't I didn't get any soundbite of affirmation. Like I was just like, OK, I don't I don't don't know what I did. And a lot of mist is like that.
00:20:55
Speaker
You know, like there's those cable boxes, those electric boxes that when you pull them, I think something did happen. but there's no real confirmation that it did. There's no like electric buzzing sound, for example. you know There's just nothing to indicate. So I feel like in this game, you are doing things, but you're not really sure what you did until you discover it. yeah that's even It's even worse in Riven.
00:21:21
Speaker
um yeah I think the idea behind Myst, as I usually describe it, is it's like if you have a piece of I mean, just imagine a piece of, say, Earth technology, just regular old technology in front of you that you've never seen before, and you don't even know the context in which it was used.
00:21:40
Speaker
Right. um The question is, would you if you did something correct, would you even know it? Right. Right. if you um If you set a blender to the right setting when it's off...
00:21:56
Speaker
You don't know it until you turn the blender on, right? Right. And you won't know either it's on or that the blender's running until you plug it in. And some of the things in the Myst series don't have those frames of reference, like plugs or on buttons or – some do.
00:22:17
Speaker
But, you know, the technology is entirely different. So it's – um
00:22:25
Speaker
you know, you could get lucky and do it all in the exact correct order and everything in Myst seems like the easiest shit in the world. ah But, you know, chances are you won't.
00:22:36
Speaker
And yeah, you're just going to be flipping switches and turning things and then having to go around, you know, be like, oh, I didn't try this switch while that lever was pulled. Oh, I didn't try this number in this screen while that that lever was pulled and this switch was...
00:22:55
Speaker
red instead of green you know stuff like that um and that can be really tough especially if those things are five screens away from each other which in this case it wasn't but in some other cases it is Yeah, it was tough. And like I i did, and don't get me wrong, I did understand some of these puzzles. I got the the markers right away. I knew we had to do something with the markers and the rotating a tower. And so some things are intuitive, but like I even hesitate to call these like logic puzzles because they're a little bit beyond that to me. they're they're more than a lot They're more than a logic puzzle to me because you are traveling to get places.
00:23:34
Speaker
You are... really trying to figure something out and I think it really starts out abstract I don't think it starts out logical so while I understand that their logic in the way that oh that made sense now that I did it it's not you know dream logic but it's also like more than that okay does that make sense yeah it does make sense my argument would be though that everything you're doing is logical you just don't know the logic yet So I totally get it. At the beginning, you don't feel like you're using logic as much as you feel like you are just exploring and trying and um invoking trial and error.
00:24:13
Speaker
But yeah there is there is a very defined logic behind like relating to everything you do. So that's that's why I would still call it a logic game.
00:24:24
Speaker
But I can see what you mean. I think they're a step up. I think, yes, they're logic, but they're better than your typical slider puzzle. hi Oh, right. if Like, I think they're better than that. Yeah.
00:24:37
Speaker
Yeah. I agree. Yeah. If you're, yes, if you're, yes, if if we're using like that colloquial, when you say logic puzzle, you're imagining, ah move this match move one matchstick so this changes from four to nine or whatever yeah yeah um yeah no they're just well i think they're well thought out very different yeah um and so that being said i got off the island i got off the first island there are more islands than i could even remember
00:25:09
Speaker
It's like four other islands. So you beat Myst. So I beat Myst. Guys, I beat Myst. You have to get off the island. It's a game about getting off the island. And you did it. And it keeps going after that, but only as a joke.
00:25:25
Speaker
You're not actually supposed to solve it. Yeah, you don't need to do all that. You just got to get off the island. And I did that, you know? No, it was fun. And I will continue it. In fact, I might even might even do a video on it called, Is Myst Actually a Bad Game?
00:25:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:45
Speaker
That'll be fun. Maybe I'll become a huge Myst fan. That would be a strange ah story arc for me as a as a character. on Right! If you just start gobbling up all the Myst. Yeah. yeah yeah i Hey.
00:26:01
Speaker
I can see it. Yeah, I see it. it that's That's just what I do. i see i I find new things and then it becomes my personality and now my personality is missed.
00:26:11
Speaker
Now your personality is missed. yeah Well, thankfully, Blueprints is out so you can focus on that. like that's that' oh That'll scratch the missed itch. I mean, hopefully... Ew.
00:26:22
Speaker
so mr I mean, hopefully that won't be as... what I went into the swamp and it came out with the mist itch.
00:26:34
Speaker
Hopefully blueprints will be like even a little easier for me. Because I i do feel like mist had some obtuse things going on that I found. Like, I just don't know if I would have ever gotten there without your guidance.
00:26:48
Speaker
But I think there's more going on in blueprints. So we'll see. well yeah Well, yeah, I mean, at the very least, sometimes in Myst, you're like, there are four things for me to touch.
00:26:59
Speaker
And no matter how I touch them, ah nothing seems to happen. In Blueprints, there's a million things for you to do. It's just that after a while, it's going to feel like you're if you don't know how to make progress. If you haven't figured out how to make progress, progress it's just going feel like you're doing the same thing over and over and over.
00:27:17
Speaker
Right. um Which I'm sure can be very frustrating and sometimes frustrates me. Sometimes I'm like, I'm not making progress and I have to sit and make like a, a like a to-do list. Yeah.
00:27:29
Speaker
And that's, ah what's the date here? Is that out now, today?
00:27:35
Speaker
um it was It came out. Or yesterday? Nine days ago. Blueprint, really? Sorry. One, two, three, four, five, six. Sorry. I forgot. i In my brain, I made a week be 10 days.
00:27:50
Speaker
It came out six days ago. We're good at stuff. ah So yeah, you should be able to play that now. And if you guys want to let us know what you guys think of Blueprint. Matt seems to think that this is the future.
00:28:02
Speaker
That this game is going to be a big deal. Only time will tell. We shall see. which i Yeah, we'll see. I mean, you know, I i really don't know. ah I just know in the, again, in the Discord for people with a press copy that I'm in every games journalist and on earth is freaking out about this.
00:28:27
Speaker
Oh, really? Okay. ah So, i you know, I know I'm not alone, but sometimes stuff that um people who are really into the thing... love don't ah don't gain an audience amongst you know like ah casual fans yeah so it might end up being like a cult classic but either way um if anyone read my um review on Adventure Game Hotspot you'll know i gave it a 100% that's that's so crazy
00:29:03
Speaker
i think it is a is a ah There are things about it that frustrate me, but I think it is a perfect um
00:29:12
Speaker
it is a perfect representation of what it wanted to be. ah's a great thing That's a great thing to say. yeah And I think what it wanted to be is something really unique and really ambitious.
00:29:24
Speaker
yeah So it was hard to find actual criticisms of it. um Because even the things that i found myself frustrated by... felt like they were on me and not on the game, right? It felt like um this was still, even even the things that frustrate me were a triumph.
00:29:46
Speaker
That's awesome. So yeah, that's that's why I gave it a perfect score. And I doubt I'm going to be the only one who did. But I am now 60 hours into Blueprints.
00:30:02
Speaker
And just today, I discovered some like huge things. Really? Yeah. And you beat the game. Oh, you rolled credits. Yeah, you rolled credits. I rolled credits at about 10 hours.
00:30:16
Speaker
Okay. Oh, shit. That's insane. So I've played about 50 hours since. Oh, my God. Okay. Well, that is a great review, honestly. You don't anything else. The man puts like 60 hours into this game.
00:30:31
Speaker
I mean, I'm going to have to retire it because... Either I'm going to have to beat it or retire it because at some point, like, I'm thinking about it all the time.
00:30:42
Speaker
yeah i need to I need to, you know, put my energy into other things. But, phew. That's awesome, though. I love that. i love that. um But other than those things, we have been busy.
00:30:55
Speaker
So we we haven't played anything else. But I'm happy that we played Myst. I think that's an accomplishment. We played Myst? I'm proud of We played Blueprints. Yeah. Yeah. We played Myst. I played boo Blueprints. These are accomplishments.
00:31:06
Speaker
These are accomplishments. Thank you for why are we listening to what are we Why are we even doing an episode today, then, if we didn't talk about... If we didn't play any games? Well, Matt, we've noticed...
00:31:20
Speaker
or I've noticed, or somebody noticed, that we haven't done a ranking in a while. You know, we've had a lot of great guests on our show lately. We like to give our guests sufficient amount of time to talk about things, especially when it's Dare to Dream. i know you all understand.
00:31:36
Speaker
And we haven't done a ranking in a while. So we are going to dedicate some time to ranking every single adventure game, whether we've played them or not. Whoa. I know. That sounds fucking exciting.
00:31:49
Speaker
Is it ever clear that when we start to come to the end of this that I'm playing for time because I didn't have up the swanky backs amino? No, it's not. Well, now it is. Now people are going to be like... i People are going to... Yeah, if you go back and listen to every episode right before Swayke MacCaminough plays right before our first break, you'll see me kind of treading... where You'll start to hear me kind of treading water for a little bit. Or like I'll just... You'll be like, why didn't that seem to start a thought that you didn't have it? and Like, you didn't really thought. It's like really meandering. I don't know what's going on here.
00:32:25
Speaker
um But what I would like you to do is play pranky cargarino and we'll come back and we'll rank every adventure game that's ever been made
00:32:53
Speaker
everybody welcome back to save your game i am matt this is roses
00:32:59
Speaker
What up? um Nothing. I'm just hanging here thinking maybe I'll ah try and figure out how good and or bad every adventure game ever made is.
00:33:11
Speaker
I think about that all the time, to be honest. like You think about blueprints all the time. i think about 4,000 adventure games in like a numeral like a numerical list type thing. That's what I think about.
00:33:26
Speaker
Well, that's normal, I think. That's just normal, yeah. I think that's just what normal people do. Hey, yeah Roses. Yes. Well, first, I guess, let's say the ah rules.
00:33:37
Speaker
This is... and We have a list of every adventure game ah ever made on a... It's just a big, long Excel spreadsheet. um Has around 4,000 games on it by now.
00:33:49
Speaker
um And we... have them all linked to a number uh i pull up a random number generator roll a number and we put that game whether we've played it or not on a ranked list of the best adventure games of all time and so if you know If there is, if we only have pulled one adventure game, we're we're up to 67 now.
00:34:16
Speaker
But if we'd only pulled one, it's the best and worst adventure game of all time. If that makes sense. ah Yes. So, Rosas, do you want to, might have to get this to you.
00:34:28
Speaker
Do you want to quick read everybody, if we're going to spend the whole episode doing it, do you want quick read everybody our Yeah. Top 67. Yeah. top sixty seven that We only have 67?
00:34:40
Speaker
I feel like we had so much more. Sorry, our top 86? Okay, I was just like, I thought we had like 80-something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. right, so we've got a list. part We've got a list of 86 adventure games ranked ah in order of best to worst of all time. And remember, we haven't played all these. The other rule is we can only change.
00:35:01
Speaker
We can skip one per ah episode. And we can only change a ranking if we play the game for the first time.
00:35:12
Speaker
Right. Which is probably not going to happen very often. Not very often. Unless we get like really inspired, I guess. But yeah. let's You want me to rattle off? We'll start off with our top 10 so far.
00:35:25
Speaker
All right? Yeah. Number one, Portal. Followed by Portal 2. Yeah. The Last Door Season 1, Chance of Sinar, Tangle Tower, The Cat Lady, Fran Bow, Papers, Please, Pajama Sam 2, Thunder and Lightning Ain't So Frightening or Aren't So Frightening. I don't know why said ain't. And at number 10, Lamplight City. That's like a pretty good top 10, too.
00:35:50
Speaker
It's pretty good. Yeah. It's pretty good. um And we're still, I consider this, that I consider like 1 to 30 are like, these are pretty good games. Okay. All right. So let's keep going.
00:36:01
Speaker
ah Continuing with 11. Embracelet. Cube Escape. The Lake. The Slaughter. Act 1. Phantasmagoria. How did that not get in our top 10?
00:36:13
Speaker
You know how it didn't get in our top 10. Fine. Fine. i will concede to that. ah Number 15. Scratches. Dreamfall Chapters. Been There. Damn That.
00:36:24
Speaker
Erica. The Book of Unwritten Tales. The Critter Chronicles. Clam Man. Yeah. ah Amnesia Rebirth, Orion Burger, Wavetail, Midnight Girl, Lily Looking Through, Related, Chapter One, Everything is Back. Yes, we are going to get some weird weird titles in here.
00:36:46
Speaker
The Pawn, Agatha Christie, and Then There Were None. Nancy Drew, Ghost of Thornton Hall. And at number 30, Amos Green's Final Repose. That fucking classic. All right. Classic. Absolute classic.
00:36:59
Speaker
right. Continuing. Last Tap Darkness, Beyond the Spirit's Eye. Byzantine, The Betrayal. Murder, She Wrote, which should be way higher. Legend of Hand, Valiant Hearts, The Great War. Ben Jordan, Paranormal.
00:37:11
Speaker
Why are you laughing? I know these are horrible names. ah Ben Jordan, paranormal investigator case seven, the cardinal sins, followed by Jordan, paranormal investigator case one in search of the skunk ape. We got two Ben Jordans on here.
00:37:30
Speaker
Pine Hearts threw abandoned the underground city. We were here forever. The will of Arthur Flabbington. Anachronist, many happy returns. Mission Critical. Hell, a cyberpunk thriller, which got in at 44. don't know how that how and when that happened. I don't know.
00:37:48
Speaker
Art of Murder, Cards of Destiny. Dark Grim Mariopolis. Baker Street Breakouts, a Sherlockian escape adventure. and the lord Sentient. oh Oh my God, at number 49, The Seventh Guest.
00:38:02
Speaker
It's too high. It's too high. I was to say, wow, we went real low for that. And rounding out at number 50, Whisper in the Twilight. All right, we're getting into the kind of mediocre block here.
00:38:14
Speaker
Deponia Doomsday, Lifeless Moon, the Mazovian Adventure, Missing since January. Kravat and the Secret of the Sorbian King. I'll never get tired of saying that.
00:38:26
Speaker
ah Cosmo, how do you pronounce this? Cosmonauts? I think it is Cosmonauts. Yeah, I think it is. ah Cosmonauts, Escape Reality, Randall's Monday, The Dark Crystal, Ankh, Heart of Osiris, again, in there's a game called a again. There's a game called, that's number 60, again.
00:38:47
Speaker
Elena, dis Displaced Reality, Astronomica, The Quest for the Edge of the Universe. Moons of Madness, Voyage, inspired by Jules Verne. No, that we didn't put that. That's the name of the game. hans Christian Andersen, the Ugly Prince Duckling.
00:39:04
Speaker
I forgot about that.
00:39:08
Speaker
Violet, Long Count, Minecraft Story Mode, number 68. Oh my gosh. Five Magical Amulets, Batman, Partners in Peril.
00:39:20
Speaker
Miasmata, Super Jazz Man, which sounds better than it is. ah Blue Force, Dallas Quest, The Fan, James Paris 2, The Fountain of Eternal Drunkenness, Wild Wild West, The Steel Assassin, The Crystal Key, Free DC, Mystery of the Nautilus, Of Light and Darkness, The Prophecy, Enola, Madness of the Architect, and our last three worst games of all time at 84. Weird,
00:39:47
Speaker
weird Truth is stranger than fiction. McGraw-Hill. By McGraw-Hill Home Interactive. Unbelievable. ah Secret Doctrine.
00:39:59
Speaker
And at 86, the worst game of all time, Limbo of the Lost by Majestic Studios. Phew. That's a lot. That's so many. That's a lot. It's a lot. And we can't change them, even though Phantasmagoria should be number one.
00:40:13
Speaker
But we can't. We can't do it. We can't do it. So... All that being said, give me a number between 1 and 10. 7. You're going to be really happy you picked 7. Oh, yeah.
00:40:28
Speaker
And this might be an an argument. This is a Sierra game. Oh, my God. From 1985. Oh, boy. it is number 37 on our list. It is... do you want to take a guess?
00:40:41
Speaker
Is it one of the King's Quests? It is one of the King's Quests. Is it...
00:40:48
Speaker
You said 85? Yeah. yeah Is it King's Quest 3? It is King's Quest 2. to Damn it! Nancing the throne. Well, that's awesome!
00:41:01
Speaker
but Okay. King's Quest 1 would have gone really high. King's Quest 3 would have gone really high. King's Quest 2, I don't feel as strongly about as as the other two, but it's still going to go pretty high, right?
00:41:14
Speaker
It's going go pretty high. yeah Yeah. You know, King's Quest 2, I think, is a really interesting game. um It's got an interesting mechanic with the the multiple doors that you have to open. it does have that, like, very classic, like, ah girl in the tower.
00:41:28
Speaker
got to go get her and I got to find my wife. But there is something really magical to me about King's Quest 2 just because it's it's very fantastical. You get to go in Dracula's mansion.
00:41:41
Speaker
You get to go in Little Red Riding's house. You get to ah like ride a golden fish. like they's stay oh it's wait And if you cross a bridge too many times, you yeah from that can't you lose the whole game.
00:41:54
Speaker
Yeah, you lose. And that kind of fucking sucks. It really sucks. And I think this is the game where there's like um like a cute little elf house. I think there's a lot to like.
00:42:07
Speaker
I like it better than King's Quest 1. i'm I'm going to put that out there. Oh, okay. I think King's Quest 1, I would put it King's Quest 1 higher just because King's Quest, but King's Quest 1 is not up for debate.
00:42:19
Speaker
That's not here. not up. So. man that's tough. Oh my gosh. Where do I put that? I mean, it's such a classic. Right. i my feeling, my just gut feeling is I think it goes
00:42:37
Speaker
ah above Pajama Sam. I don't know if it cracks. I don't know if it beats Papers, Please. It's tough. Well, like, how do we compare Papers, Please to King's Quest 2?
00:42:53
Speaker
It's, yeah, it's a completely ridiculous endeavor. that That's, I guess that's kind of the bit, huh? I think that... Is that you can't, you honestly can't compare games in this way. But... There's one comparison we can make.
00:43:09
Speaker
What's that? I think that King's Quest 2 is more of a classically structured adventure game with the parser. Papers, Please has a little, it is an adventure game, but it is a little bit of a different thing. So I don't know.
00:43:24
Speaker
king's ah But Papers, Please is saying something while King's Quest 2 is just playing around. ah if It's interesting. I think Papers, Please might be too low because maybe i I have this feeling that it should go below Papers, Please, but I have a feeling it should go above Fran Bow and the Cat Lady.
00:43:45
Speaker
Yeah, that's tough, but we can't change it. we've now we can't change it. This what we Well, let's put it below papers, please, and above Pajama Sam. Okay. You feel comfortable with it there?
00:43:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I think if if eventually we get other King's Quests, say King's Quest 3 would probably go way up, like... yeah Above Last Door or... No, that game is terrible. King's Quest 3?
00:44:12
Speaker
King's Quest 3 has a charm to it. Like, it's one of my favorite games, but it is not a good game. Okay, all right, all right, right. Here's the next one. This is number 2218 from 2019, developed by Her Studios.
00:44:29
Speaker
Oh. It is Nancy Drew, Midnight in Salem. Okay. Okay, so here's what we can do. Here's what we have to think about. are we going When we get games like this, since they're from franchises, do we want to put them next to each other? Do we want to put them close to each other on the list?
00:44:51
Speaker
ah i I think in the case of like Ben Jordan... Yeah. I think yes, because ah they're all so similar in tone and, you know, artistic vision.
00:45:05
Speaker
But the Nancy Drew games are so wildly different, right? Like, yeah there are some that people love. Yes. Yes. um And there are some people hate. So if you go to like, if you like, I know this is, this is such a ah bullshit way to do kind of anything, but if you go to like Nancy drew ah games ranked, like, yeah like search that and you go to like Buzzfeed or it looks like there's one, and somebody called
00:45:38
Speaker
a full of salt. Yeah. Yeah. um both of them have things like uh the deadly device is very high yeah um ghost of thornton hall is high but so is the uh so is the werewolf one that one's really good actually but um midnight in salem
00:46:06
Speaker
Is not. Yes. Okay. It's not even on either of these lists. Yeah. It's a newer. It's 2019. And I think the newer they are, the more people are like, these have gotten like not good. Right. um It's a thousand reviews and they're mixed.
00:46:23
Speaker
And the last two reviews are bad. There's a medium article by Kristen Beale who puts it as the last ah in the, in her bottom three. Okay.
00:46:34
Speaker
Um,
00:46:37
Speaker
Yeah, there is a there's a a Reddit thread from seven months ago that compiles data from all sorts of different places, and it puts Midnight Salem as the second to last.
00:46:50
Speaker
All right, it's got to go kind of low. And my my first like instinct was like maybe below the seventh gust in this kind of block where we have Deponia Doomsday, we have a Sherlockian escape adventure.
00:47:04
Speaker
like Maybe it goes in that block. um you know but nancy drew the other game the the one that people liked ghost of thornton hall isn't that much higher than that oh it's not where is that let me look that's number 30 i guess that is a lot higher i yeah i think you're right maybe we put it around is it okay let's ask questions is it better than onc heart of osiris do you think I think Ankh is better than Nancy Drew.
00:47:33
Speaker
Then I'm going to jump down a little bit. how about Moons of Madness? Is it better or worse than Moons of Madness? I'm going to say better in my personal like opinion.
00:47:44
Speaker
I would say better. Okay, so Astronomica, the quest for the edge of the universe.
00:47:52
Speaker
Astro... wow Why do these have to be so hard? I mean, Astronomica Quest for the Edge of the Universe looks really, really bad, but it has FMV.
00:48:04
Speaker
Oh, it sure does. oh I remember this one now. I think it's better than this. I think it is better than Astronomica. and Okay. And Elena Displaced Reality, um the more I look at it, the more I'm wondering why we put it so high.
00:48:19
Speaker
Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to like ah it's hard to really like manage this many games. ah youre think you're right, though. I think that maybe should have gone maybe lower.
00:48:33
Speaker
Well, so then let's put it and then and then again by seeing entertainment in um which is a Nintendo DS game ah with FMV cut scenes. Yeah. Why don't we put it above that or below that, but above Elena displaced reality.
00:48:53
Speaker
So it goes under 62. What do you think about that? Yeah, that's fine. I'm actually quite intrigued by again. i i feel like that is one of those games that I would have found in like junior high. And I would have been like, oh yeah, this game's good.
00:49:08
Speaker
um All right.
00:49:12
Speaker
So our next game is number 1,672. It is from 2016 from C-Left Studios.
00:49:24
Speaker
It is called Sleuth Hounds, the Valentine's Vendetta. What in the world? Okay. Sleuth Hounds.
00:49:32
Speaker
Vendetta. Okay. So. Okay. This guy. you What's that? Is this not on Steam? It is on itch.io. This guy, so it is a single creator. It's Richard Hoover who ah writes for Adventure Game Hotspot.
00:49:55
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah.
00:49:59
Speaker
This is, he's released a bunch of free games, but Sleuth Hound's The Valentine's Vendetta, i believe, is one of his paid games. It's one of it's his bigger endeavors. Yeah. yeah um You know, it's sort of...
00:50:18
Speaker
ah think it looks kind of cute. It's cute. It's cute. But sort of um very hand-drawn artwork. yeah.
00:50:31
Speaker
Yes. um Possibly, well, by hand-drawn, I mean possibly made in, like, Microsoft Paint. Sure. um Or Photoshop. There is, it is full voice acting.
00:50:43
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Well, that's impressive. Yeah. some of the some of the puzzles look kind of interesting, right? they just There's some logic-y puzzles. There's some point-and-click puzzles. I think this one...
00:51:02
Speaker
the art reminds me of Arthur. like the Yeah, me too me too. It's so cute. I think this one goes... Above our mediocre block, but not much higher. What do you think?
00:51:15
Speaker
I would agree with that. Because it's it's cute. And it looks like a lot of work went into it. Yeah, I think this goes around the... um This looks like a very interesting amateur game block.
00:51:30
Speaker
Which is like Dark Grim Mariupolis and Baker Street Breakout. It's Sherlockian escape. It's fucking nasty.
00:51:38
Speaker
name However, I would put it below both of those. Okay. Well, Baker Street Breakouts was a RPG maker game. So maybe I'd put it ah above that and below Dark Rim Mariupolos. What do you think?
00:51:50
Speaker
I think that's fair. I think it should definitely go below Dark Rim Mariupolos. Yeah, because Dark Rim Mariupolos is doing some really interesting stuff. While this seems to be mostly just a guy who likes point and clicks making point and clicks.
00:52:04
Speaker
Yeah. Which, no no shade on that. And... you know, like always, we kind of want to a hype up um independent games. Absolutely. Creator-made games. And ah i i would I would fucking pay two bucks for this.
00:52:24
Speaker
I absolutely would. Heck yeah. If I saw this as a kid, I'd be like, I want that. All right, yeah. I think then let's leave it there. Okay. Okay. Our next...
00:52:37
Speaker
ah is um from it's 3174 i've seen this game i don't know anything about it i think it's been on like my yeah wish list on steam for a very long time okay uh and it seems interesting um it was from 2023 it's from indies eruption is the developer it's called vlad circus descend into madness um Vlad. Okay.
00:53:06
Speaker
Vlad circus. Vlad surface. Descend into madness.
00:53:12
Speaker
Oh my God. Is it about a circus? It is about. Also, yeah, this is going to knock it up in your book. It is about, you will play a clown. Heck yeah. ah A spooky clown.
00:53:23
Speaker
Who is going. ah Going insane. There's combat in it. Okay. And light survival mechanics. Oh, it's, uh, okay. So this is like survival horror adventure game. It's pixel art.
00:53:37
Speaker
Oh, I like, oh my God. I like how it looks. Yeah. I thought you would. Oh, I like how it looks. But it is, you know, it is a little, you know, how people feel about combat in their adventure games and survival mechanics in their adventure games. It does have a really cool look to it. I'll say that.
00:53:59
Speaker
It really does. And it says it is story rich. I would say this is a hybrid for sure. but like ah one of my favorite games is Clock Tower for the Super Famicom. That's what it reminds me of. and And that is survival horror, which I talk about on my channel. I do think that is ah genre of adventure game. Right. So don't know where I would put this because it looks so cool. It looks really cool.
00:54:25
Speaker
It's got a spooky vibe The art is really nice. It's got very positive reviews. Oh, man. It really looks good. would be tempted to put it pretty high.
00:54:37
Speaker
i do wonder if the art bumps it up in the reviews. um Because most of most of the professional reviews I'm reading do say the gameplay gets a little samey.
00:54:49
Speaker
um Okay. So...
00:54:54
Speaker
I don't know. I i do. You think it goes above the mediocre block? of course. Okay. Yes, this game looks like it has some impressive things that it's doing. I don't remember where our mediocre block starts and ends because we have so many things on here. um mean we have so much stuff by now.
00:55:13
Speaker
Yeah, i'm a little confused. Okay. I don't think it goes as high as, say, Book of Unwritten Tales. I'd agree with that.
00:55:26
Speaker
where did but from Where did that end up? But I don't think it goes much below. i don't know. What do you think? I don't think it. Okay. Well, comparing Nancy Drew, Ghost of Thornton Hall, because that's also kind of a spooky thing. Right.
00:55:43
Speaker
Or like Last Half a Darkness. You know what? I think it's thinking.
00:55:52
Speaker
I am very tempted Yeah. Put it above last half of darkness beyond the spirit's eye. Okay. But then. But below Amis Green's Final Repose.
00:56:03
Speaker
Yeah. But that's hard because then that means it's going above Ben Jordan. But those Ben Jordan games are older now. They're older. Yeah. I think it does go above Ben Jordan. Sorry. oh yeah Sorry. knislav Oh, speaking of which, everybody, we should have announced this a while back. I mean, it's not our it's not for us to announce, but, you know, I think it's of interest to our listeners. listeners Rosewater is out.
00:56:28
Speaker
Woohoo! Rosewater! Grunaslav Games. Grunaslav Games. Rosewater. Yes. And I haven't had the chance to really play it. I played just the very opening. It looks really fucking good. So Rosewater's out, everybody. Go get Rosewater. Leave it reviews.
00:56:43
Speaker
You know, Francisco's been on the show twice. He is good pal. And he makes fucking good games, right? He makes great games, yeah. wouldn't say, i wouldn't tell people to do this if he was just our friend. He also makes great games.
00:56:58
Speaker
yeah, absolutely. That being said, we are putting this game above the Ben Jordan game. Yes, we are putting it above the Ben. I like where you have it. I think I'm going to leave it here at um number 32.
00:57:12
Speaker
Nice. Okay. Very nice. years Here's our last one for this block. And um we didn't skip any, so our bonus one just gets kicked over to another list, unless you want to skip this one. So it is number 939 from Frogwares.
00:57:25
Speaker
from frogwes
00:57:29
Speaker
in ah released in 2008. Here's one of these names that you're going to fucking love, Roses. Oh, boy. This is Secret Missions Mata Hari and the Kaiser Submarines.
00:57:42
Speaker
God damn it!
00:57:45
Speaker
Stop it! Everyone stop it. What is going on?
00:57:53
Speaker
ah um It looks kind of... I guess it was distributed by big fish gate. It looks kind of, it looks kind of, um, uh, hidden object to you, which generally we leave off these lists, but I don't know if this one has, I mean, we put, we put murder. She wrote on there. That's true. But it was, I think that was more out of it being murder. She wrote, you know, uh, I mean, uh,
00:58:20
Speaker
i mean In 2009, we have a review by Jack Allen, ah and he gave it a three and a half. But that was in 2009, so we have to think about those kind of things. you know And Frogwares is you know frog wearars this up and down. Have you ever played the Sherlock Holmes Frogsword games?
00:58:39
Speaker
I have not. They are...
00:58:45
Speaker
ah they They just they are. you know I think we've got to put this pretty low. I think it goes low. I think it goes um in the media. Like, I think it goes like low mediocre block is where I'm thinking.
00:59:00
Speaker
It does have ah fucking killer name. Secret missions, Mata Hari and the Kaiser, Mata Hari and the Kaiser submarines, which makes me want to put it next to Hans Christian Andersen, the ugly Prince duckling.
00:59:14
Speaker
do it yeah put it they just feel good next to each other no that makes that actually makes sense brilliant okay so it is our new 69 nice fuck yeah all right so we didn't skip any so that so i'm not even gonna say this last one so give me a number between one and ten let's do three three oh interesting okay So first one from this block is, and if anybody's curious what the fuck I'm talking about, I pull these ahead of time but and i and I put them in little blocks and I do five at a time and then I do ah a little sixth one in case we skip one. Yeah. yeah um
01:00:00
Speaker
So this is called the good or the bad, the ugly and the sober. By litera Literra Laboratories from 2008.
01:00:14
Speaker
Yes. We are getting lot of, I guess, what you call like extremely indie games. These are not games that are on like Steam. ah But this is on Internet Archive.
01:00:27
Speaker
Is it? Yes. It looks like you could play it for free if you wanted to Let me look up the... It looks fucking weird, dude.
01:00:38
Speaker
Yeah, this looks bad. looks fucking really weird. It looks like a really weird game. i don't know. I just watched a cutscene from it um that had all the people's mouths moving, but no sound coming out of no No, this looks really strange. what I don't know if you can even play it in English, which, you know, whatever. It's not English isn't the beginning and end of all things, but yeah.
01:01:08
Speaker
um But it does look really weird. The main character is a farmer called Jack, once a very accurate shooter. One day, an injured Indian being chased by Black Bill's bandits comes to his ranch. Jack manages to save his life, but in return gets his farm burned down by the bandits.
01:01:26
Speaker
In need of money to rebuild his farm, Jack decides to participate in a bandit tournament. It was tough! Oh my god. This tour tournament is organized in memory of the famous robber James Starr, where the main prize is a bag full of dollars and an old portrait of him. and In order to win, Jack has to succeed in a number of mini quests like catching and riding a bull. However, as the old portrait includes a map to James Starr's concealed treasure, Jack has to face many competitors, including Black Bill's fearless bandits.
01:01:56
Speaker
It's like a classic Western story with a little, yeah some kind of cool little bits to it. Apparently it is Russian. Okay. And I guess it's also called West Law. Did you see that?
01:02:10
Speaker
I did not see that. and On Moby Games, it's also called West Law. It has a pretty bad score. Gamer Node was really looking forward to it in 2008. It's like one of those.
01:02:23
Speaker
You know, it's one of those games from that era. Yeah. In three d that, I don't know, we probably were all looking forward to this kind of thing. Because like, oh, another adventure game. Yeah. In 2008. Amazing. And then you just get let down when it's Runaways. Or Runaway.
01:02:39
Speaker
I'm getting bad vibes. Yeah. I think it's going to go, i feel, it it feels very onk to me, but maybe even less.
01:02:49
Speaker
Yeah. Maybe even less. think it needs to go pretty low. i don't think it's going to go as low as, say, Super Jazz Man. What about ah around Violet? Because you played Violet, so you have, right, because so you have.
01:03:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'd rather play Violet than play this. I'd rather play Minecraft story mode than play this. would too. That's what I was just going to say. i would rather play Minecraft story mode. Let's put it ah right below Minecraft story mode.
01:03:18
Speaker
Okay. Can you imagine the designer of Minecraft story mode looking at this list and being like, what the fuck? What's wrong with them? My game is just slightly better the good or the bad, the ugly, and the sober from 2008.
01:03:35
Speaker
It's a compliment. Okay. This next game I've been curious about for a long time. and um i don't I don't think it's anybody's favorite game.
01:03:48
Speaker
Okay. but ah But there's it it seems interesting. ah From 2022, General Interactive Co. is the developer. It's called Chinatown Detective Agency. Okay.
01:04:04
Speaker
Chinatown. detective it's about a former interpol agent named amira dharma beginning a new career as a private investigator in uh singapore's chinatown district um her first case uh is trying trying to locate an accountant who has fled the country.
01:04:25
Speaker
Subsequently, she takes on a series of cases from a wealthy heir to return stamps to his philatelist father's collection to their originating... That sounds like it just a collective collection, and you know, side quest throughout the game. As she solves cases throughout the world, she begins to unravel a web of conspiracies back home, heavily inspired by Carmen Sandiego.
01:04:45
Speaker
Yeah, i can I can kind of see that. um It looks very nice. like It looks like a game that I i would gravitate towards. It does have an interesting array of reviews here.
01:05:00
Speaker
They are mixed, ah so definitely a good mix is good and bad here. Nintendo World Report gave it a 9 out of 10, while RPG Fan gave it a 58 out of 100. So it really runs the gamut.
01:05:14
Speaker
Yeah. a A few people are just saying it's not very polished, which honestly, I'm so over that phrase. um yeah Yeah. yeah um This is tough. Yeah, it's tough because obviously we haven't played it. And I do think it looks very intriguing.
01:05:32
Speaker
It does. That's why I think it's been on my wish list for a really long time. It's got these bright, it's got this like interesting kind of cyberpunk, like neon cyberpunk aesthetic, but with um some kind of like classic or natural elements thrown in. Yeah, and like you said, it's got a little bit of Carmen Sandiego.
01:05:59
Speaker
Yeah. Everything's really bright and lit up. Yeah. There's this amazing... um Even in the screenshots on Steam, there's this amazing night and day um back-to-back screenshots of the city, and each one looks beautiful in its own way. Yeah. I...
01:06:17
Speaker
I think the graphics kick it up a little bit. It does. Yeah. And just the fact that like I'm looking at a screenshot, it's like giving you that that classic Carmen Sandiego map with like flight information and to the side, looks like you have like your personal assistant or your phone or something, some kind of communication tool, which reminds me of the the game we just looked at not long ago.
01:06:40
Speaker
The, you know, the window, the CD-ROM, where in the world? So I would kick, I don't want to put this too low. ah Right. You know, okay, here's the feeling I'm getting from it.
01:06:51
Speaker
This is just initial reaction, right?
01:06:57
Speaker
I have, this is there's also ah this another game that intrigued me for a very long time, looked very cool, got bad, to mix mixed to bad reviews, and the gameplay is supposed to be not very good, and for whatever reason, I just never jumped at it, even though I've been looking at it for a very, very long time, is,
01:07:18
Speaker
Orion burger. Yep. Orion burger, man.
01:07:23
Speaker
So i want to put a bio um I would think about putting it by Orion burger, unless you think it goes much lower. No, no, I'm good with that. Remember, we can choose to play these games and then and then move them around. You're right. You're right. It's so much easier to place games that we ah haven't played because they don't we know they don't have to stay there. But we have to do a challenge to move them, actually play them.
01:07:50
Speaker
Yeah. all right. Then let's leave it there. It is the new number 24. Yay. twenty four hey Okay, this next one I think is going to be fun.
01:08:02
Speaker
i've never I've never played it. I don't know if you have. Okay. It's from a series by Cocktail.
01:08:14
Speaker
Oh, okay. I bet I've played it. pig It is Goblin's Quest. Goblin's Quest 3. Okay. 3? Mm-hmm. three
01:08:27
Speaker
These games, I think you would like, Matt, because they do veer on the more brain teaser puzzles, kind of logicky puzzles. A lot of people love it for the graphic style and and the quirkiness of the of the goblins. And it is an adventure game, but it's like... So it was it was released... So, okay, there was goblins. Mm-hmm.
01:08:55
Speaker
In 1991, then Goblins 2, The Prince Buffoon, in 1992. Then in 1993, they changed it to Goblins Quest because they were starting to be published by Sierra.
01:09:06
Speaker
So it was supposed to match their King's Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest, but Quest for Glory. Yeah. Bit. So... And then in 1994, that same ah developer did put out a very like classic point and click called The Bizarre Adventurers of Woodruff and the Schnibble.
01:09:24
Speaker
which is not ah It's not part of the Goblins like series, but it is an adventure game that they made. And i wrote that I hope that pops up at some point in our ranking. It's so interesting. okay But Goblins, you know, I find it hard to differentiate all the Goblins games because they are a little bit samey to me.
01:09:44
Speaker
Okay. But I think it does go pretty high. um Okay. I mean, yeah, they have they have some classic appeal to them. They are weird as shit. They look a little annoying, right? You you know the way that sometimes when you Simon the Sorcerer is like a perfectly fine adventure game, but there's something about it that's just a little annoying.
01:10:08
Speaker
I agree. um I think Goblins has that a little bit. Like it feels like if I was in the Riot If I was not in the right mood, it would just give me a headache. Yeah, I could see that. It is a little grating. um Like I said, these are very, like, quirky, like, bizarre games with strange-looking characters. But they are very beloved.
01:10:32
Speaker
How about this?
01:10:35
Speaker
i don't know. where Where are you thinking? Let me... i it Let me look at our list real quick, because I think this is going to sound insane, but I think it should go above Orion Burger.
01:10:48
Speaker
Okay. We're putting it, I mean, am comfortable putting it that high, because like I said, these these games are as staple in many people's right childhood games and adventure games.
01:11:00
Speaker
They're very unique looking, you know? And that makes some sense because Book of Unwritten Tales also has, like, this is the Book of Unwritten Tales, The Critter Chronicles, which is also a little annoying, but also part of ah a now classic series. Yeah. um And that's only two above that. Do we, okay, what about, is it better or worse than Amnesia Rebirth?
01:11:22
Speaker
Ooh. Again, this whole endeavor is just insane. This doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. We are comparing. I'm going to say no. I'm going to say no. It's not better than Amnesia Rebirth.
01:11:35
Speaker
All right. So it goes above Orion Burger, below Amnesia Rebirth. Man, adventure games are a wide like variety of genre. and Yeah, it's it's it's rough.
01:11:48
Speaker
um Remember, we have Minecraft story mode on this list. Okay. All right. All right. ah This next one, number 2,573 from 2020, not that called Shady Me. um from twenty twenty not that old called ah shady part of me Shady part of me. okay Shady part of me.
01:12:10
Speaker
Shady part of me. um Shady part of me. Shady part of me.
01:12:16
Speaker
Yeah. How do you say that? Shady part of me. I like how this looks. I kind of like how it looks. It's almost like if ah ah Little Nightmares had a little more point and click energy to it. Yeah. Yeah. or different, even like different perspectives as opposed to.
01:12:36
Speaker
Oh, yeah. there's There's some perspective playing. i can't tell. Maybe there's not point and click to it. It's just a little, it's just stylized and in some slightly cartoony.
01:12:47
Speaker
Yeah. I like this. I'm very intrigued by this. um ah Yeah, actually, this is already I'm already getting a bit of an idea about where this should go.
01:13:01
Speaker
OK. What do you think? Well, no, I want to hear what else you want to say about it. Well, I don't know. It just looks very beautiful. like and it's It's very much like hitting my more artistic side, like my pretentious artistic side, where I'm like, oh, I like some of these design choices here. i like the different perspectives on the different screens.
01:13:21
Speaker
I'm curious whether the how much the aesthetic carries this. um i don't ah you know I'm not reading much anywhere about the gameplay. Although like if the aesthetic is...
01:13:34
Speaker
which Which I think the aesthetic is part of the gameplay. It's like part of the experience. So I think that bumps it up a little bit. It's not just an aesthetic, right? It's it's there to serve part of the gameplay.
01:13:45
Speaker
It seems like maybe, yeah, you are sometimes, like, it seems like there's ah there are two elements. There's controlling you and controlling your shadow um in different ways.
01:13:57
Speaker
Okay. And people are saying it's very unique in terms of a puzzle game. That's cool. Yeah. This is hitting me really similarly to how Midnight Girl hit me.
01:14:10
Speaker
Sure, sure. Where we looked at it and it was kind of like, oh, wow, this looks interesting. I didn't know this existed. Yeah. um And I guess same thing with Wavetail, right? We felt the same about Wavetail.
01:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, I felt strongly. Yeah. How about putting it around there? We can put it around there. I know we're clumping everything from this episode together. you know, Chinatown, Detective Agency, Goblin Quest, Shady Part of Me.
01:14:37
Speaker
Remember, though, we can play this game and change it. So i don't feel... And it does sound like some of these games we might get around to playing. Like we might yeah might be intrigued enough.
01:14:49
Speaker
Yeah, so Shady Part of Me is our new 27. All right. Oh, it looks so cute. I really like it. It's 85% off. ah ah Okay. Get it. Buying it for $2. All right. um Is this, ah are we going to do one more block after this or is this going our last one?
01:15:15
Speaker
I'm going to leave that up to you. Do you want to do one more block after this? Let's do this and one more block. Okay. Yeah. One more
Exploring 'Tell Me Why'
01:15:22
Speaker
block. So the last of this block Is a game I've played and a game I like a lot. It's from Don't Not Entertainment from 2020. It's called Tell Me Why.
01:15:33
Speaker
I've heard of this. It is the story about a a trans man and his sister returning to their ah rural Alaskan town to confront the...
01:15:50
Speaker
Their mother died in a sort of ah disturbing event years back, and everybody's kind of tiptoeing around it and takes a while to really understand what happened. um Tyler, the trans man, is very... um bitter about some of this um and the two have a uh have like it's kind of like um because it's don't nod so it's kind of like uh life is strange where there's yeah i was just gonna say this looks like like you know it's got that aesthetic and almost that drama of life is strange right yeah they have a little bit they have they have a telepathic connection um and by seeing
01:16:34
Speaker
some of the traumatic events from their past by each, from each other's perspective, and they both learn a little bit more. And
01:16:47
Speaker
you find out that one of the defining moments of their childhood is, uh, something that they've always misunderstood.
01:17:00
Speaker
Okay. Um,
01:17:05
Speaker
It's interesting. It's intriguing. It's it's it's moving. really loved it. was one of my favorite games of 2020. Okay, so I guess it needs to go pretty high because I'm seeing has a lot of reviews.
01:17:21
Speaker
It's very positive. Yeah, I'll let you i'll let you um kind of, because you've played this game and yeah it sounds like you reviewed it. um I didn't review it. I did do a write-up of it for um one like a like a ah game of the year kind of yeah deal.
01:17:40
Speaker
um But I think it goes – dude, I think it goes high. I think it goes –
01:17:50
Speaker
I don't, does it, I think it's going to go. it go above Papers, Please? It's above Embracelet. I know that. Okay. um It's above Pajama Sam for sure. It's above King's Quest 2.
01:18:05
Speaker
ah I think it's below Tangle Tower. I think it might go at our new number six, but i put that's really high and you haven't played it. So I wonder how you feel about that.
01:18:17
Speaker
i'm gonna trust your judgment on this because and the judgment of like 13 000 other people
01:18:24
Speaker
tell me why it was really good and i think you know better than life is strange okay yeah yeah oh that's that's high praise because that game is very beloved it is the best don't nod game that i've played so far yeah yeah so okay right well that was a fun one um what what Don't nod games have I played. I've played Jusson.
01:18:48
Speaker
And Tell Me Why and Life is Strange. What have you played? I've played Life is Strange. ah don't know if I've played anything else by them, though. Life is Strange, like...
01:19:00
Speaker
That was a weird game. It was a weird game. I didn't dislike it, but, ah you know, in fact, I got really into it. But it's one of those things where I got really into it at the time.
01:19:11
Speaker
And now if you if you even held me at gunpoint, I'd be like, I don't remember, like, anything I did. I just remember that I did enjoy it. Yeah.
01:19:23
Speaker
It's got that aesthetic that's not my favorite, you know? Yeah. Yeah. We have talked about it on this show. Yeah, we have. When played it, but.
01:19:31
Speaker
um It's worth playing. I'll just say that. It's worth playing. Okay.
Flight of the Amazon Queen Review
01:19:37
Speaker
Give me a number between 1 and 10, not or All right. Sounds
01:19:46
Speaker
like good choice. 9. all right sounds like a nine choice nine is an interesting choice well there's at least one interesting game on here i don't know anything about uh two interesting games in here okay first one number 312 from 1995 by interactive binary illusions okay i know it is flight of the amazon queen oh okay Let me just get that up on my... You know what?
01:20:18
Speaker
That's a cute little game. It's a cute little game, but it's not great. It's like... A lot of people love It's maybe a B-minus of a game. Yeah. It's a B-minus. You know, it is a little derivative. We've got some LucasArts-y Indiana Jones things going on.
01:20:35
Speaker
Here's how I feel about Flight of Animates on Queen. I played it. I played the whole thing. Yeah. And then a couple years later... I was like, you know, I've always kind of thought about playing this and I never finished it, so I should play it. And I, by the time I got to the end, I was like, oh, I already played this whole thing and completely forgot.
01:20:58
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's, um... It's not one of the more memorable adventure games, but it also is a pretty good adventure game. It's hard to place this one because, again, it is it does have its fans. like People really do like this game. They have good memories. And it was also freeware.
01:21:19
Speaker
Yeah, there's some interesting stuff. There's some... That's true that it was freeware. You're right. I forgot about that. Yeah. Which is, I guess that's going to bump it up. There's a little bit of racial othering.
01:21:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um There's a little bit of dramatic tone shifting. Yeah. Yeah. Where, you know, you're in the midst of something not not serious, but semi-realistic. And then all of a sudden there's just something absolutely bonkers in front of you. um And that can be jarring.
01:21:56
Speaker
Yeah. Like i said, it it is a little derivative of other LucasArts games. But again, it's freeware. So it's so much Since we've both played it, we can, i guess, expound on this a little bit. The game is you're a pilot.
01:22:11
Speaker
ah Like you're a pilot for hire who's kind of like an Indiana Jones style dude. Your name is Joe King. oh is that supposed to be? Joking. Yeah, I think so.
01:22:23
Speaker
and It's supposed to take place in like the forty s or something. And you are. 49. 1949. Yeah. nineteen forty nine yeah you're You're tasked with ah transporting this film actress um to, I don't remember where, but um you get, and you get attacked and like locked in a room for some reason. Mm-hmm.
01:22:46
Speaker
Do you remember what this plot is? that you're trying to You're trying to... You end up crashed in the Amazon and you're trying to save Faye.
01:22:58
Speaker
And there's like a weird mad scientist hi in a base turning women into dinosaurs. Yeah. ye Oh, yeah. It like goes unhinged. Like it's a little off the rails.
01:23:13
Speaker
And forgot about that. It's it's a very strange. It's really so it's a really strong cross between like Monkey Island and um ah the Indiana Jones games. But it's not. Yeah.
01:23:28
Speaker
It doesn't hit the quality of either of those. so Right. it It's sort of, I feel like it wants to be in that genre of grand adventure that i that I kind of talk about, but it it does it's not. It feels more, it feels shorter than that. It feels more dense.
01:23:42
Speaker
I think of this game as kind of like a wannabe, a wannabe classic. um And we we do have some of those on this list, right? Yes. Orion Burger, again, same area fucking document. Orion Burger is one of those. um One of those wannabe classics.
01:24:01
Speaker
Yeah.
01:24:04
Speaker
I think it's got to go lower than that, though, because Orion Burger, even though it is like it is familiar, i think it is doing something a little bit more unique. Really look at Flight of the Amazon Queen, and I just see a LucasArts game. It's really hard not to see those similarities. Yeah.
01:24:22
Speaker
And we bumped up Orion Burger because we had an emotional connection to it, even though we hadn't played it. Well, like, I feel more fondly about Orion Burger for some reason. i don't know why. i mean And maybe that's just just a testament to how kind of, and like, middle of the road yeah this game is. So um it definitely has to go below Phantasmagoria.
01:24:45
Speaker
are to get pissed because people do like this game a lot. i it's going to go below Saint Hezard. I think it's going to go... i would put it actually kind of... further down.
01:24:56
Speaker
Okay. Let's go down a little bit. Would you put it below Grim Mariupolos? No. I'd put it above that.
Frank and Drake: Art vs Gameplay
01:25:04
Speaker
Okay. How about... What about, what if it's right, what if it's, we say, Ben Jordan learned the lessons of Flight of ham Amazon and improved on it.
01:25:14
Speaker
so what I was kind of thinking that, but I didn't want to say What if we put immediately below Ben Jordan? That's fair. Okay. Yeah, that's fair. All right, it's our new 44.
01:25:29
Speaker
I actually do think that's fair. Okay. Yeah. All right, cool. All right. Okay. right All right. Number 3024 from 2023. I've never fucking heard this game. It's called Frank and Drake.
01:25:44
Speaker
Frank and Drake. Okay. It's a modern gothic tale that puts players at the heart of a supernatural mystery through its nonlinear branching paths, mini games and puzzles and unique rotoscoped art. I'm a little bored.
01:25:57
Speaker
Reading that description bored me a little bit. Um, yeah. um So, you know, I'm not getting, you know, I'm not getting like super excited vibes. Okay. This art is actually kind of really sweet.
01:26:10
Speaker
The art is strong. I'm just not getting like excited to play vibes. And i usually do if something's really striking me.
01:26:20
Speaker
A lot of first person.
01:26:24
Speaker
Story rage. Let's see. Yeah, a POC protagonist, which you don't see very often in adventure games. Yeah. A couple people saying like it is very like obviously an indie game or like an art house game.
01:26:41
Speaker
Yeah. But most people are recommending it.
01:26:46
Speaker
Some people say it's just not interesting enough to to compete with how good the art is. Yeah, that's interesting. um I mean, that being said, do we put it by a game where we loved the aesthetic and maybe it was just a little bit of a like a letdown?
01:27:03
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah. Okay. A game. Let's see. Yeah. Because I would play this game, but I wouldn't rush to play this game. Right. I would look at this game and be like, ah okay, all right, I'll get into it and then maybe enjoy it. But so what has that feel to it?
01:27:23
Speaker
So what i the the block I'm looking at right now is rand is the Randall's Monday block. um It's by Kerbat in The Secret of the Sorbian King. It's by Deponia Doomsday. I'm wondering if it goes somewhere in there.
01:27:36
Speaker
I would have put it above Kerbat in The Secret of the Sorbian King. Yeah. I do want to put it below The Seventh Guest, though. Okay. All right. So that gives like five. don't know why I'm saying that. but That gives us like five to play with. I want to put it above Deponia Doomsday.
01:27:50
Speaker
Well, no, that was the one of them that I thought was artistically interesting. Okay. So why don't we put a... But it is... Okay.
01:28:01
Speaker
I think it probably should go below Deponia. Okay. Because as much as we're not ah we're like not the biggest fan, it is doing something interesting with the plot, as opposed to people saying this is more of an arthouse game with a less interesting plot. All right. I'm sold.
01:28:19
Speaker
Why don't we put it right below Deponia Doomsday. So persuasive. Okay. So the next one, this one's a little exciting, although it makes me um upset that I didn't play this game
Cosmic Void's Innovative Style
01:28:36
Speaker
yet.
01:28:36
Speaker
um It is by cosmic void. it is from 2024. It is twilight Oracle. twilight i didn't play that me neither and i'm bummed out because yeah ah now it's in our face that we didn't play it and we should have oh no oh and it looks so good and it has everyone said everyone just review it looks good everyone said it's good cosmic void makes good games we don't have another cosmic void game on here yet um i mean it's gonna go fucking high dude
01:29:08
Speaker
It's going to go. Let's think about it the same way we felt about Orion burger, where we just had, there's something about it where we had to play this game. I think that's a similar vibe. i but we know ori beger yeah But we know Orion burger is going to be a little bit bad Yes, we do. While I bet this one's going to be a little, going to be not a little, going to be very good.
01:29:28
Speaker
Okay. That being said, does it go below or above phantasmagoria? I think it's got to go below. Below, because it doesn't have the clip. but ah I think it goes above Ben there, Dan that.
01:29:43
Speaker
I love you that game, but I i think Twilight Oracle probably just objectively a better game. i think it has to go below Scratches. And I think it goes below Dreamfall Chapters. There you go.
01:29:57
Speaker
Boom! All right. We got it. Wow. What a... This is ah fucking well-oiled machine here. Do we want to talk about Cosmic Void for a minute? ah Yeah, yeah.
01:30:08
Speaker
They make really good games. And I just... I haven't... I haven't had time to really dive through them. But everything I see them put out looks really intriguing to me. Like, they did Devil's Hideout.
01:30:19
Speaker
last year. Which I think was really good. Wow, I missed it then. Yeah, they did two awesome games last year. They did Blood Nova, which I loved. Well, I liked.
01:30:31
Speaker
They did Corruption which in Within, which I liked a lot. ah They do really interesting work. They have this, like, what do you what do you even call this? Like this dreamy, neon, futuristic aesthetic?
01:30:45
Speaker
That's a little but also surreal, yeah. that also um is kind of pixely. So it is a throwback and futuristic at the same time. Yeah. I mean, honestly, i feel like they could be up there and get to the, get to the level of like Wadged Eye with the, the quality of, of adventure games that they put, that they put out, you know? Yeah. i I agree.
01:31:12
Speaker
i think they're still working Yeah. Yeah. I mean, sure. It kind of reminds me of, like, Dave Gilbert ironing out, like, the Blackwell series. Like, of course he didn't start, like, at the top. But you can kind of, I think you can kind of tell when somebody is, like, on a good path. Like, when the quality's there.
01:31:33
Speaker
When art is happening. Right. And Cosmic Void, they just work and work and work. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:31:44
Speaker
they just keep putting out stuff and they keep a the the things they put out, keep being impressive. yeah So I think that, Yeah. So, and you know, ah even though... So this is going... Where did we put it?
01:31:58
Speaker
um Number 19. Okay. But Cosmic Void is also just like a very interesting company. And I think um if you if if you have not played their games, ah you should check them out.
01:32:09
Speaker
Yeah. So... Yeah. If you're an adventure game fan, go check them out. Yeah. they are the They are one of those like kind of like... ah They're on the cutting edge of... um point and not adventure games entirely, but on the cutting edge of point and clicks.
01:32:24
Speaker
Yeah, fair. um At the moment. All right, this one's going to be fucking weird, dude.
Archangel: House of Seven Stars Critique
01:32:30
Speaker
Sorry I keep prefacing everything with this one's going to be fucking blank, dude. This one. yeah Okay, this is by Winter Night Games from 2018. It's one thousand number our list.
01:32:43
Speaker
um it is called
01:32:46
Speaker
Archangel, the house of seven stars. Oh my god! And it's arc not like Archangel, but like Archangel. What? A-R-K-H.
01:32:59
Speaker
Oh, I see. Okay. I see what you mean. Okay. Alright, let's look into this. Um... okay This looks fucking weird. Here's some interesting things.
01:33:11
Speaker
In 2018, a reviewer named Kevin Lin on Adventure Game Hotspot gave it a 2. Whoa! 2! oh ah ah Shallow characters and unimaginative dialogue, cumbersome and unresponsive controls, quick time events may sour some players, puzzles may sour some players. that's so ah That's Jack Allen's editing right there. can i I could spot it from a million miles away. Puzzles could present more challenge.
01:33:39
Speaker
um The good, brimming with lore to discover competent emulation of Lovecraft horror, pleasantly simple aesthetic with striking orchestral soundtrack. Puzzles won't impede product won't impede progress for long.
01:33:55
Speaker
um um This is certainly not my type of game that I would gravitate towards. And yet on Steam, people seem to love it. They do. Very positive reviews. And maybe that... I would think because it's Lovecraftian, maybe the lore is really drawing people in It's got WASDE controls.
01:34:16
Speaker
Okay. Tank controls. Yeah. I mean, apparently the controls were so difficult, they had to put a screenshot of the... no....controller...
01:34:26
Speaker
As one of their Steam screenshots. I see that.
01:34:31
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I see that. So don't want to put this too high. Because, it if you know, I had never heard of it. It didn't have staying power. I'm a little sick of Lovecraftian horror.
01:34:44
Speaker
There are better Lovecraftian horror. Yeah. um And this is just not an aesthetic that I'm drawn to. I think you're right. I'm looking somewhere around...
01:34:56
Speaker
I think I'm looking somewhere around like
01:35:01
Speaker
maybe like above moons of madness, right? Yeah. Somewhere in the 70s is where I'm thinking. Yeah. Let me take Why don't you look at the 70s and tell me tell me if you agree and what you think.
01:35:13
Speaker
All right, well, here's our, like, is it going above or below Blue Force by our bringing balls? Like, seriously, would put it maybe above Blue Force, just because it's got a little bit more going on.
01:35:28
Speaker
Okay, so um where I've been upating those i've been updating from... the spreadsheet from my computer and not from the dock so you're not seeing so i think it goes above blue force okay but try and jump up around 10 around 10 because okay your your 80s your 70s are my 80s okay so around violet um yeah like above violet oh i see moons of madness so yep yep yep okay yeah yeah yeah okay then again should it go that high should it go below how does it okay
01:36:07
Speaker
Does this look better or worse than Voyage inspired by Jules Verne? tim I mean, this is going to be subjective. I think it looks worse, but that's just me Okay. All right. um what Better or worse than Hans Christian Andersen, the ugly Prince Duckling?
01:36:22
Speaker
Worse? Oh, wow. Okay. But here's, I thought that was cute. It's hard to compare. It's look, it's hard to compare the ugly duckling to Lovecraftian horror game. All right.
01:36:34
Speaker
How about this? Better or worse than the bad, the ugly, and the sober? Better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Better or worse than Minecraft story mode? Better. Okay.
01:36:45
Speaker
Better or worse than long count? Okay.
01:36:51
Speaker
I'm having to look. I can't remember that one fucking at all. No, I know. These are really, really hard to remember. Long Count was that one that was like kind of 3D, kind of 2D and clearly based on. um Right, right. Like Gabriel Knight and and had like photo backgrounds at some point. Yes, I think this is better than that. I think this is better than Long Count.
01:37:13
Speaker
All right. And I think this looks a little less annoying than Violet. So I think it goes at our new 78 between Hans Christian Andersen and Violet. So that's our new list. I think we'll, man, I don't even know how we're going to post this on ah on Instagram, but we'll figure out a way. Maybe it's a gallery. yeah We'll figure it out.
01:37:33
Speaker
That was a good amount of games, honestly. That's a solid like three episodes in one.
Episode Wrap-Up and Future Plans
01:37:40
Speaker
We have now ranked 100 adventure games.
01:37:44
Speaker
Man, we are awesome. So if you guys are ever wondering what the top 100 adventure games are, they start with Limbo of the Lost and end with Portal and Portal 2 as number one and two.
01:37:59
Speaker
We got, you know, we got two new games in the top 10. Tell me why and King's Quest 2. Yeah. Wow. That's kind of rare, actually. and then And then even one more in the top 20, which is Twilight Oracle.
01:38:13
Speaker
Yeah. This is a good run. This is a really good – it's the King's Quest 2 set the tone there. And I was like, oh, heck yeah. Right. And, you know, it's interesting. We only – you know, we're getting there. We only have 3,551 to go Yeah, well, we got to move this along because I'm dying at 75.
01:38:35
Speaker
So
01:38:39
Speaker
got to make sure we we get these ranked before then. um All right. Well,
01:38:47
Speaker
Roses, I think we did it. We did it. think that's our episode. We beat Myst. I mean, we got the episode. We beat Myst. Everybody, thank you for listening. Check us out.
01:39:00
Speaker
Save Your Game podcast on Instagram. Email us mattandroses at gmail.com. You can check out my new podcast. mutant menace we should be on our fourth episode by now knocking them out and uh they're released every thursday um what what do you want to promote roses um what have i done lately You know what?
01:39:27
Speaker
I got nothing to promote right now. And that's okay. That's okay. That's perfectly fine. That's so okay. We may or may not have an episode next week. We're not sure because ah Pushing Up Roses.
01:39:42
Speaker
You are going to be in Mexico. Yes. Holy cow. Yeah, I'm pretty stoked going to Mexico City for my birthday. That's where I yeah yeah I am chronically online, so I will still be around.
01:39:57
Speaker
ah posting all the things um but we say we we may or may not have an episode it depends if we can if we have a topic and time to fit it in.
01:40:12
Speaker
If not, yeah you guys can do without us for a single week. It'll be fine. It's fine. we'll just We'll just post weird stuff on the Instagram. Okay, sounds good. um All right.
01:40:24
Speaker
Well, I guess all that's left to say is and it's never more true than when we have to look at all these ridiculous games.
01:40:37
Speaker
But, I mean, well, first, podcast is art. Right. But as you said, art is suffer. And especially today. Especially today.
01:40:49
Speaker
Yeah.