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Episode 13 - Streaming Narrative Games and Cressup
1.9k Plays7 months ago
The charming and insightful Cressup joins Matt and PushingUpRoses to talk about the ethics and complexities of streaming narrative games. We talk about the finger puzzle in Monkey Island 2 a lot, a weird Greek FMV game, the creeping date range of “retro games” and just have a blast.
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Games Mentioned:
- Grim Fandango
- Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge
- Nick Delios - Conspiracies
- Phantasmagoria
- Black Dhalia
- Kings Quest 8
- Escape From Monkey Island
- Quest for Glory
- Curse of Monkey Island
- Harold Halibut
- Assemble With Care
- Eastshade
- Exit 8
- Shinkansen 0
- That Dragon, CancerGet
- Five Nights at Freddy’s
- Dead by Daylight
- At Dead of Night
- As Dusk Falls
- Please Touch the Artwork 2
- Cult of the Lamb
- Jackbox Party Pack
- King of the Castle
- Five Dates
- Clue
- Nancy Drew
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Icebreaker
00:00:00
Speaker
Yeah, you want to hear? Hey, check this out. Ready? I want to tell a joke. Hey, what's brown and sticky? Go on. A stick. Wow.
00:00:11
Speaker
And then there's also this gem. Love that one. Oh my God. That's for when that's for most of the jokes you tell us. Yeah, that's true. Where did that? Oh, no. Where did our baseball like grand slam thing? I'll say it's gone. I'll say, uh, Cressup, we never use these. No, it's like we're showing them off now. I was going to say, like when I've missed it before, I was like, I didn't want to play like this before. Yes, I will start. What Matt?
00:00:40
Speaker
You will start what? The music.
Show Introduction and Music Discussion
00:00:42
Speaker
Right now? Did you not want to? Are you not ready? I don't know. Do you feel like we've come up with a proper... Do you feel like we've come up with a proper opening zinger? All right. Well, tell me a zinger, Matt. I don't know. I don't have one. I'm just wondering if you feel like we've come up with one. Go ahead, Matt. We're all waiting for you. I believe in you. You can do it. Tell us something important.
00:01:05
Speaker
uh geez uh something important yeah something important well uh you know the state of the waterways in the United States is actually pretty okay that's that's enough of that all right we're in the intro
00:01:36
Speaker
Hey, everybody, and welcome to Save Your Game.
Meet the Hosts and Guest
00:01:40
Speaker
I am your host, Matt Aucamp, and with me is my special co-host, Pushing Up Rezes. How you doing, Rezes?
00:01:49
Speaker
Everyone pushing up roses here. How's it going? And with both of us, we have a special guest. What? What? What? You didn't know that? You didn't see there's another person in the in the stream room. Oh my God. Oh, there you are. Hey. We have with us a cross up. Thank you so much for joining us. Cross up. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about yourself. No pressure though. Something you want to say.
Crassup's Adventure Game Involvement
00:02:19
Speaker
Yo, I'm Crassup. Hello. Well, this is all very exciting. Yeah. I mean, thanks for having me on. This is I'm just I'm just I'm just thrilled to be here, to be honest, and be chatting to you guys. We are thrilled to have you. Crassup does a lot of adventure games. You've been just around the game.
00:02:43
Speaker
Did I should I pick myself up or? Oh, no, I'll be. I'll bring you up. I can do it for you. You've been around the adventure game community for a long time. I think I first heard you in the adventure game podcast. Do you still do that? Are you still a regular?
00:02:59
Speaker
Oh, I haunt that place, yes. No, yes, so I do a little bit with that. As a reviewer, yeah, whenever Shorsha is doing kind of his review episodes, if I've got something to review, I'll hop on that.
00:03:15
Speaker
I just kind of like to go on all these things. I'm on the Adventure Game podcast. I used to write a bit for Adventure Gamers. Now it's Adventure Game Hotspot. And then I just stream them as well. So I just get about with my little thing. I don't really know how I have the time to do it, but you know.
00:03:32
Speaker
I ask myself that every day. How do any of us, I go through my daily life thinking like, oh, I have absolutely no time for anything. I'm busy all the time. I'm so stressed out. And then we get on an episode of the show and Rose is like, what have you been playing? And I'm like, oh, seven things. I'm like, I've been playing nothing. I've been too busy. It's just a hot mess. But I actually, you know what? I would like, I always, Matt.
00:04:00
Speaker
This is directed towards you. I want to ask our guests what their favorite adventure games are. I don't think I've been doing that, but I'm inspired now because Kressup does stream a lot of adventure games. She's been in the community for a long time. This is something that interests me.
Favorite Adventure Games
00:04:16
Speaker
Kressup, what is your favorite adventure game of all time? And if you can't name one baby, because there are babies, you can name three.
00:04:23
Speaker
Oh, okay. I'll give some leeway. If you gain more than three, we are hanging up this call. Yeah, we're hanging up. It's over. Oh, my God. Yeah, so I do have an answer for this because, you know, funnily enough, this does get asked a fair amount when I speak to adventure game fans. But it's interesting because for a long time, and this is still true, I would say Grim Fandango because I think it's great, isn't it? I mean, it is great.
00:04:53
Speaker
But I have a fear. I think if I played it now, I don't know if I'd love it as much. So I haven't, I have replayed it once, but actually more than once probably, but I've not replayed it really recently. And I have a slight fear. Would I? I think I still would love it. I don't know. I mean, but it's just, it's everything for me. It's the, it's the dialogue. It's the music. The soundtrack is amazing. The locations. Yeah. Yeah. That is my favorite game of all time. Yeah.
00:05:21
Speaker
And I do play it every couple of years or so. So maybe this will, and I still love it. Um, okay. Yeah. So maybe that'll encourage you to like, give it a, give it a go. I do play the remastered version without like, look, it's my favorite game. I like the tank controls is a hot take, but I do play it remastered just so I can be in the living room, like on my PS4.
00:05:44
Speaker
I do feel that it does. It is a little bit slow compared to maybe more modern games when I have gone back to revisit it. There's a lot of set up, I think. I remember I've watched other people stream it and people who are playing it for the first time quite recently. And there is a lot of at the beginning, you know, there's so many different steps you've got to do. And I think
00:06:08
Speaker
It can put some people off, just the amount of things you've got to do. But I don't know, I think there's something about it's just so unusual.
Humor in Monkey Island 2
00:06:16
Speaker
I think that I really love, I mean, I think if I was allowed to do more, I think probably Monkey Island 2 would be in there. Really? Yes. Revenge, okay.
00:06:28
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Is that is that an unusual choice? I think it is. I would say that. Yes, I think that not unusual, but different. So I'm intrigued. Yeah, I think a lot of people say either secret of Monkey Island or curse of Monkey Island, though I do think Monkey Island two is probably like the most influential of the games. When I'm going back, when I'm looking at like modern throwbacks to the point and click era, it seems like everybody
00:06:58
Speaker
their like primary piece of inspiration was Monkey Island 2. I just think it's just so, there's just so much to do in this. It's so well constructed and everything works so well off each other. I mean, I love Curse as well, don't get me wrong, and Secret. So I find it really difficult when people talk about Monkey Islands when people are sort of saying, you know, which is your fave, because they all have different good things about them, but yeah. Right.
00:07:25
Speaker
Gabriel Knight too. Gabriel Knight too. Oh, Gabriel Knight is a journey. It is. It is. It's wild. I love the writing of Jane Jensen. I love Gabriel Knight. And for Monkey Island too, I think I did a video on this. I did a video on the ending.
00:07:44
Speaker
And I think I'm going to quote myself correctly in saying that it's one of the funniest games I've ever played, just in terms of humor, even more than Secret and maybe more than Curse. There's something about the humor in LeChuck's Revenge that really stuck with me. And I found it extremely funny. I get what you mean about that. And I think maybe it's kind of just that it's so absurd as well. There are some really
00:08:10
Speaker
weird things in that game. And you could be quite cruel, to be honest. I mean, you can be in all of the Monkey Islands, but especially in that one. Yeah, definitely. Oh, yeah. Like you get a woman arrested for absolutely no reason. And then I'm trying to remember, do you steal her boat? No, you make her take her you out, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then you get her arrested.
00:08:34
Speaker
I'm never going to forgive Tim Schafer for that weird puzzle with the fingers and the door. Like if this is this, then what is this? Oh, yeah. Yeah, for listeners who haven't played, there is a puzzle where there's a man through a door and he is holding up fingers in front of you and he's telling you math problems. And the key to this puzzle is you have to not read
00:09:16
Speaker
a perfect puzzle, to be honest, because it subverts your expectations, makes you think in a way, and it's the sort of puzzle that if you do get it, you're like, oh my god, I'm a genius, and if you don't get it, you're like, oh, I'm so, you're not like, oh, this game sucks, you're like, oh, I'm so dumb, right? And I was in the second camp, I was the, oh man, I'm so dumb.
00:09:28
Speaker
the math problem, you only look at the fingers.
00:09:41
Speaker
I just got angry. I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm like, what is this? Why is this? And there was like a weird in grim. I don't know if you remember this cross up, but in Grim Fandango, there's a kind of a sort of similar puzzle where you're in a casino.
00:09:58
Speaker
Yes, you know, yeah, you know, and there's like the keynote, the numbers on the board. I forget how to do that puzzle, but that's another that's another Tim Shafer. Yeah, I was going to say, what's going on, Tim? Why are you putting these puzzles in there? We got to bring Tim on here and give him the what for. Hey, Tim, about that weird puzzle, that's the whole thing. That's the whole podcast. It's just that me ranting.
00:10:25
Speaker
You know, I actually remember playing the Monkey Island to the door puzzle that you were just talking about. I'm not sure if I ended up looking up a walkthrough, because I might have been too young, like it might have been too early on in the age of the internet. But I remember sitting down with a piece of paper and just writing every single number down.
00:10:45
Speaker
be like no addition no subtract okay what if I add this to the no okay what if what if they all subtract from 10 like just like any possible way to make a pattern and I think like
00:11:01
Speaker
Then, somewhere along the way, I started writing down the finger numbers. I was like, oh, that's the answer. It's just that. It's just that. Wow. I guess Tim had said it's something he did with family members or something. I'm like, that does not make a good puzzle, Tim.
00:11:20
Speaker
What is something we used to do? Yeah, it's just something we used to do, so we put it in a game. No. I think it's a great puzzle. I mean, it's better than doing the, you have a fox and a chicken and you have to cross the, and a bag of grain and you have to get them all across the river, but you can't leave any with the other one. Like we've done that puzzle in adventure games 700 times. I'm a fan of anything.
00:11:52
Speaker
I was just going to move on. So if you have something that you want to say about the finger puzzles. No, I'm done. I'm done ranting about the finger. OK, Chris, what have you been playing lately?
Unique FMV Game Experience
00:12:05
Speaker
Have you been playing any adventure games lately?
00:12:07
Speaker
You know what, funnily enough, I have, yes. What? I know, sorry, guys. If I just be like, no, not really. So I'm dipping my toe at the moment into quite an unusual game. It's an FMV game. It's a Greek FMV game. I don't know if you guys might have heard about this. It's called Nick De Leos, Conspiracies.
00:12:34
Speaker
Oh, not familiar. Oh, it's quite unusual. It came out in 2003. It's a Greek FV. I'm playing the dubbed version, which is interesting in itself because the actor of the main character is a British guy who sort of says, and I feel like he's sometimes just making up the script because he sort of says things like, oh, bloody hell.
00:13:02
Speaker
It's like, I don't think that's what the character is saying in Greek. And it's set in a futuristic, it's basically heavily stealing off Tex Murphy. And it's set in a futuristic Greece. And I don't really understand the plot at the moment, but it's been fabulous. I've been really enjoying it.
00:13:25
Speaker
Um, I've sort of gotten into a little bit of, uh, retro FMVs cause I, I just finished, um, Phantasmagoria recently as well. I have such a soft spot for live acted FMV games. They're atrocious to run these days. Like I would get, I would give anything to run black Dahlia smoothly on my, I know, I know it's been requested on GOG and on steam. Please put this, this game on there.
00:13:54
Speaker
So far, I just have my eight CDs, like my eight CDs that I can't do anything with. So I did just look up conspiracies just to see.
00:14:08
Speaker
And that looks real interesting. I can't believe there's a, there's a FMV in 2003. Does that seem late to you? It seems late for the time when those, yeah, well, cause obviously
00:14:27
Speaker
They then had a bit of resurgence around, I guess, sort of 2016, didn't they? Things like contradiction. But I think there was a big gap between there where they were just maybe too expensive and people just thought they looked a bit rubbish. I don't know. I'm sure there are some that came out around that time. But yeah, you really do need to look it up to understand.
00:14:51
Speaker
But it's been what I would say you're talking about kind of streaming games is it's been really fun to stream because everyone has enjoyed watching it.
00:15:03
Speaker
So is it, is it like, uh, when you're, you're enjoying it out of like the campiness of like, uh, okay. If you're like, no, actually it's really, really good. No, I mean, no offense. I, you know,
Challenges of Streaming Retro FMV Games
00:15:19
Speaker
I never want to kind of be down on, on games or anything when, you know, clearly they,
00:15:23
Speaker
had had some vision with this but it's to be fair it's it's more enjoyable than you know some games that I've played not necessarily adventure games but just in the point I have no idea where this is going there was an interesting bit where there was about a five minute song that a blues band performed
00:15:45
Speaker
Yeah, a real life Greek blues band called Blues Wire, I think they're called. And there's a strange part of the game where you have to get an autograph from them and you end up having to pretend that you're dying and then they give you an autograph because they feel bad for you. And it's just sort of very odd parts. It's weird because it's a mix of FMV and then it's kind of like first person in a 3D world with obviously quite
00:16:13
Speaker
uh retro graphics so it has got that it's very it's like i said it's very heavily borrowed from text yeah but i i guess the stream wise i've i've just been enjoying the campness the unexpectedness of it and and also the dubbing i think has also added an extra layer because sometimes there's some very weird lines and we've been trying to work out is that was that in the original dialogue or is that something this
00:16:39
Speaker
extra dubbing has added. It's interesting to say that. That's so good. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. And that's a game you're playing on stream.
00:16:50
Speaker
That's right. Yes. And again, that was, that was a, you know, you're talking about it's difficult to get these games working. I do play a mixture of like retro and new, but the more I've delved into the retrospect, you start to, you have to become a bit of a, an expert in working out how to do these things sometimes.
00:17:09
Speaker
There's so many old games that I have been like, oh, I really want to play this old game from my childhood. And then I spent days and days, hours just trying to get the game running. And then when I finally do, I'm like, this is all right. I play it for 10 minutes and then I'm done.
00:17:32
Speaker
It's about the journey, Matt. Yeah, it's not the destination. Yeah, exactly. I literally played Black Dahlia on original hardware and it still didn't work. So I don't know. There's just something about the era of the Windows 95 slash two Windows 98 era where everything is just broken and nothing works unless you have the perfect specific specs even on your original hardware.
00:17:59
Speaker
I remember bringing home games from the video game store, the computer game store, which doesn't exist anymore. Oh, that makes me feel old. I remember bringing home games from those and it was always like, yeah, there's about an 80% chance this thing will work.
00:18:21
Speaker
Yeah, I bought King's Quest VII at a grocery store. Believe it or not, grocery stores, we are old, back in the day, had a little tech section. They had a little computing section. I bought King's Quest VII. I got it home and guess what? It didn't work.
00:18:41
Speaker
It was like my first PC game that I bought with my own money. I was so proud of myself and that it just didn't did not work. Not even a little.
00:18:53
Speaker
Well, that reminds me, you know, talking about Grim Fandango. I actually bought that from a Costco and I bought it because I didn't know anything about Grim Fandango. I wasn't like, hey, it's Grim Fandango. This is out. I just saw it and it had a picture of a skeleton with a gun on the cover. And I thought that looked really cool. And I was like, yeah, I want this game. This looks really cool.
00:19:14
Speaker
It is really cool. You know, as a young, I don't know how old I would have been, but I was like, this is really cool. This is neat. So I just bought it. Yeah. And you load up the game and you realize he's just basically like a travel. He's like, oh, this is.
00:19:38
Speaker
But luckily, I mean, I am trying to think how old I would have been when I bought that. But my first adventure game was actually Escape from Monkey Island, which is unusual. Yeah, I know.
00:19:53
Speaker
And again, I didn't really know anything. I didn't know about adventure games or anything because, you know, when I was growing up, I had friends who played some games, but no one was really playing those kind of games. And it wasn't in my head like, I like adventure games that I'm going to buy. You know, I didn't know about LucasArts or Sierra. I was just like, this is a fun game and I like this. And because I was mainly playing on my own, rather than like, if I was playing with friends, it'd be like, you know, Tekken or something, but I was playing on my own.
00:20:19
Speaker
Those were the kind of single player stuff that, that was kind of out that I could play on a PC. And yeah, I just saw that in a, in a gaming catalog that my dad had. So I was like, Oh, I'll get this. And I don't know if I was maybe confused at like, cause I didn't know anything of the story, but it didn't seem to matter. I still enjoyed it.
00:20:40
Speaker
I can imagine that being a little convinced in four games in, you're probably like, what, I'm supposed to know these characters. I did think I minded, but looking back, I think it's strange that I wasn't like, what, what is this weird zombie guy doing?
00:20:57
Speaker
I actually bought Quest for Glory 5 before I played any of the Quest for Glories and quickly realized that I'm supposed to know what these characters are and who they are. And I'm like, yes, of course. I don't know what's going on. Right. Like I thought it was like Final Fantasy. I thought like, oh, you know, they're different. Each one of them are different and they don't have recurring. No, completely wrong. I was so confused.
00:21:23
Speaker
So, Roses, have you been playing anything lately? Actually, since our last podcast, across up our last episode, which has not aired yet, it'll air in a couple days, we dove into Return to Monkey Island, the newest Monkey Island. Ah. Yeah, and we did kind of a look back at the Monkey Island games, and I felt extremely inspired to maybe do like a
00:21:48
Speaker
video essay on Monkey Island, so I've been replaying all of them. Yeah, right? Yeah, I'm replaying literally all of them, Matt. Thanks a lot. So you started with secret? Are you going chronologically? Absolutely not. I started with curse. Nice. So you're going the way your heart wants to. Yes, I'm following my heart, not my brain, as I usually do. And how are you feeling about it?
00:22:18
Speaker
pretty inspired, honestly, pretty good. We had such a good conversation about the Monkey Island games and what they mean to people and nostalgia and the characters. And I'm like, when we finished that episode, I felt like I wasn't finished. I was like, I don't want to stop talking about Monkey Island yet. So I got to put that somewhere. So I'm going to put it in the art. I'm going to put it in the videos.
00:22:45
Speaker
Well, I mean, that's the thing we talk about, we joke about on the show all the time, is that adventure game fans are people who have been talking about the same 40 games for 30 years. And it's like, it is, you know, I do feel like we could talk about Monkey Island for hours and hours and hours and then still feel like, all right, you wanna meet here tomorrow and talk about Monkey Island some more? Yeah, yeah.
00:23:14
Speaker
But that makes a good video topic, so I'm in it. So I start with curse, I have a plan. I'm gonna go from curse to probably secret, then escape, then Lechok's Revenge. And I don't know why, but that's what I'm doing.
00:23:29
Speaker
I was going to say, yeah, is there a method there or is it just kind of what you feel like going to? It's just what I feel just in my heart. Right. Matt, what have you been playing?
Current Games and Relaxation
00:23:42
Speaker
I'm ready for your 45 minute answer. Well, so yeah, I mean, I still have.
00:23:48
Speaker
Man, I have so many games that I'm juggling in the air right now. I'm still playing the Thaumaturge. I'm still playing Legend of Sky. I haven't picked up Harold Halibut anymore yet, but I will. I will give back to it. I haven't started that yet. I have got that to play.
00:24:05
Speaker
It's beautiful, it feels a little unpolished, but it is very beautiful and it's very, so far, I'm like, well, a half hour into it, it's pretty relaxing. I've heard, yeah, it's quite a slow pace. By unpolished, do you mean as in gameplay wise or dialogue or?
00:24:24
Speaker
Uh, yeah, the dialogue's a little, so all the voice acting is great, but the dialogue is, it's sort of that video game acting right where it doesn't feel like any of the characters are talking to each other. Uh, which is extra frustrating because they're all putting on some really great performances. Uh, but.
00:24:44
Speaker
Also unpolished as in, you know, you're clipping through desks and, you know, there's like really nice animations that don't actually sync with your environment around you. Your walk animation is really slow and you have to walk down really long hallways all the time. So, but I think if you're prepared for like a slower game so far, I'm really liking it.
00:25:14
Speaker
But the games that I wanna talk about today are two games that I was inspired by games that I've talked about on the show before. So last episode, I was talking about Botany Manor. Ooh, now I've got that to play as well. Yeah, and I've seen a little bit of people play that. It is really good. Yes. I'm a huge, huge fan. And I was...
00:25:42
Speaker
I was loving it so much that I wanted to find more games like it, and so I decided to look into the credits. And this designer, this video game designer, Laura DeMay, this was not, Botany Manor was not her first game. Her first game was this game called Assemble with Care. And you've played it?
00:26:09
Speaker
I have, again, I've heard of it, it's on the list. Oh yeah, it's, so Assemble with Cares, basically you're a woman who likes fixing things and you have just journeyed to this.
00:26:25
Speaker
a European town and people just keep bringing you things to fix like a little girl needs you to replace the batteries in her cassette deck or a woman can't figure out why her rotary phone won't make phone calls, right? So I think it might be a period piece but it hasn't really gone into it. But anyway, it's very relaxing. You are just taking apart mechanical objects
00:26:53
Speaker
replacing the pieces that need to be replaced and then putting them back together. And then as you do that, the people who you're fixing things for tell you a little bit about their lives. And it starts to broaden out the story of this town and the people in it. Oh, does it get dark?
00:27:08
Speaker
not so far damn well there's a fixing are you fixing like a cursed cassette tape no it's just they're sad there's like you fix a cassette tape that has a girl's dead mom singing a lullaby on it oh good okay that's a bit dark
00:27:26
Speaker
It's so sad way. Yeah, dark in the dark in the way that is like affecting and sad, maybe even a little maudlin, but I'm not far enough into criticize it in that way. So far, it's just it's really enjoyable and it has a similar sort of relaxing and touching feel that Botany Manor has without quite having as interesting puzzles.
00:27:48
Speaker
So I suggest if you're looking for kind of similar, I mean, I've not played Botany Manor, but I've just seen trailers and got the vibe of it. I don't know if you've ever played Eastshade. I would suggest that as a kind of relaxing game. I have never played Eastshade.
00:28:04
Speaker
It's sort of, it's set in this really like beautiful landscape and you're this photographer. It's kind of like a, I think they call it adventure photography, but you're basically like a traveling painter and you've got this canvas and you sort of capture images and stuff as you go along, but it's like a really beautiful, if you enjoyed like the garden sort of landscapes, I don't, it hasn't quite got the same kind of mechanics, I think, but yeah. Yeah, possibly.
00:28:31
Speaker
That's awesome. Yeah, that sounds up my alley. I'll check it out. That is that is definitely going on my share share link with you. Oh, thank you so much. And so then so that was Assemble with Care. The other game I played, I talked on the show a couple of weeks ago about a game called Exit 8. Were you still playing that?
00:28:52
Speaker
No, so. Oh, OK. Just to rehash, you're walking through like a subway tunnel and every time you see something weird in the subway tunnel, you have to turn around. So you're looking for anomalies. What I found out is that there's actually a game that I think is older than Exit 8 that has the same premise and it's called Shinkansen, Shinkansen Zero.
00:29:21
Speaker
It is what actually I take that back it is not older it is from March of this year so the premises
00:29:32
Speaker
very much the same. But this time you are walking through what appears to be a train and you continuously walk through the train cars over and over looking for anomalies. And if you see an anomaly, you got to turn around and you got to do it correctly eight times. And the thing that's interesting about this versus Exit 8 is the game doesn't end there, you move on to another harder level.
00:29:58
Speaker
like another train car are you going to train cars okay yeah and in that one the rules are reversed if you see an anomaly you got to keep walking if you don't find an anomaly you got to turn around which is actually like it increases the difficulty so much
00:30:17
Speaker
Becoming convinced you did not see an anomaly, and so you have to reset the thing is, for some reason, it's the same exact thing, just a different direction, but it is so stressful. And just like Exit 8, it's all the anomalies, most of the anomalies, some of them are silly or require really close attention to detail, but some of them are horrifying. I am looking up screenshots, and I gotta say,
00:30:45
Speaker
Nope. It's by this developer Chilla's art. Yes. Yeah. And very popular stream games. I bet they are. Yeah. Okay. Well, maybe that, yeah, that can.
00:31:01
Speaker
dovetail into our discussion today. Because Chilla's art, yeah, they make a lot of what seem like psychological horror games with very simple assets, like 3D assets. And supposedly some of these are really good. So now I'm going to check out Chilla's art games. And if anybody went and checked out Exit 8 based on our
00:31:22
Speaker
my prior recommendation, check out Shinkansen Zero, which is S-H
Streaming's Impact on Game Sales
00:31:28
Speaker
-I-N-K-A-N-S-E-N. It'll be in the show. Good news. Good news. All it seems, I'm on Chilla's art Steam page and they're all on sale, like all of them. Oh, now you can get all of their games for like 90 bucks, like in one fell swoop.
00:31:45
Speaker
And there's a lot of them. There's a lot. I'm shocked, actually, it just keeps going. So that's what I've been playing. I've been playing just like these are weird addendums to games I've brought to the show before, but they are both really, really interesting. And maybe by next week, I'll have beat some of those games I've been talking about for weeks.
00:32:12
Speaker
Probably not, but I believe in you, Matt. I believe in you, Matt. I'm actually going to put on our interstitial music because I think this is a good segue to talk about streaming games. Yes? Hell yeah. I'm into it. All right. I am going to turn on our swanky Max Amino music and we will be right back. Spanky Lex Remos.
00:33:02
Speaker
Hey everyone! Welcome back to Save Your Game. With me, as always, is Matt Aucamp. And of course, joining us for our second segment is Crossup. Hey guys!
00:33:16
Speaker
So today- How's your break? How's your break? People like to know. People like to know how everybody's break was. Okay, I got a protein shake and it's garbage. Cruss up how is your break? Yeah, nice. Yeah, pretty good here. Matt, you? Yeah, I took a couple more sips of this blueberry lemonade.
00:33:37
Speaker
Now most of you are just sitting here talking, like let's be honest. Yeah, let's just be honest. We were, we were, we were gossiping about it eventually. We like to pretend we like take real breaks, but we never ever do. I just sit here and like disassociate for like two minutes and then I come back and we're all good. I Google things that I said during the first segment to make sure I didn't say anything incredibly stupid.
00:34:05
Speaker
That's wise. I like that. That's a good idea. So today we're going to be talking about streaming games with an adventure game twist because we are a narrative driven podcast. And Kress Up has been streaming a lot of adventure games lately. Kress Up, I want to start with asking, are you familiar with the game that dragon cancer?
00:34:28
Speaker
I am, yes. It's not one that I've streamed myself, but I kind of am aware of the sort of topic and the nature of it. Yeah. Yeah. So basically what had happened was a mess. This game really did get a lot of traction because of the nature of the game. It was a father programming a game about his son who has cancer. It's about childhood cancer.
00:34:52
Speaker
So it's heavy topic right immediately. This is a very very heavy topic and What happened was a lot of people were interested in this and they streamed it and and when I say they streamed it like I think I think some of the higher-ups had been streaming it maybe markiplier jacksepticeye very popular streamers were streaming this game and was getting a lot of views and you know get re-uploaded to YouTube and This caused the developer a lot of stress. He actually wrote
00:35:22
Speaker
In my opinion, it got a little bit bitter, but we'll address it. He wrote a very angry post about how everybody is just streaming the game, this piece of art that he worked so hard on, and nobody's actually buying it. And so he didn't really make a profit. He didn't make a lot of money off of it because people could just go watch the stream of that Dragon Cancer.
00:35:48
Speaker
And it just kind of got me thinking about the not ethics, but the morality, I guess, of streaming some of these games, right? Because I'm sure you've you've also heard of Five Nights at Freddy's, right?
00:36:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stephanie Sterling did a video on that and the Five Nights Guy took it to heart and then ran with that and then it became a huge success. So I feel it could go either way, right? I feel like it could stream something and people might not buy it. They might rather watch it or people are like, I got to play this. I got to play this game and they're going to run and buy it. So were you aware of the that dragon cancer devs response to that? Do you remember this happening?
00:36:32
Speaker
No, I didn't know that. But I mean, it is it's kind of a discourse, I think, with other games as well, especially, you know, obviously adventure games or story based games. And I think that is something, you know, that I remember, for example, with Dead of Night, which was like a kind of FMV game. Right. Yeah. Horror game. Great game. And that came I think it came with a I can't remember exactly what it said, but it said something like
00:37:02
Speaker
Um, please, by all means stream this game, but just don't stream the ending. Um, or if you are going to do it, you know, give it, give it a bit of time before it comes out. So I, I'm, I'm aware of kind of developers definitely having this, this feeling sometimes about it. Sure. Uh, it's, it's very interesting. I remember.
00:37:25
Speaker
I remember reading that Dev's article about it. And I was kind of of two minds, right? Because I don't know. Games are very interesting to stream because you can play them differently, even narrative driven. You know, I can play Curse of Monkey Island differently than Matt. And my commentary would be different.
00:37:51
Speaker
But obviously, there were also people simply playing the game with no commentary or streaming the game with no commentary and putting it up as I guess we could call them a long play. Just so you know what I'm talking about. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where it's like no commentary. Not just yet. Yeah.
00:38:09
Speaker
Um, yeah, I, you know, it is something, and I think it, it kind of depends because I suppose, you know, if you're playing a retro game, you know, and we've got to call things like, you know, even curse now that's a retro game. It was in nineties. I'm sorry, but yeah. Um, you know, I, there's some games early 2000s I've, I've had to kind of call retro now and I kind of feel like what's going on with my life.
00:38:33
Speaker
But, um, you know, I feel with those kinds of games and there's, there's quite a few of those I stream, you get people coming in and most of the people who are in, you know, they've played it already. It's kind of a nostalgia for them. It's something they enjoy watching someone you play it and it's.
00:38:49
Speaker
it's that it's it's sort of you know watching someone experience it for the first time and there's that kind of element so when I'm streaming something like that I kind of I don't feel I'm not too bothered about that because you know most people will have played it if they haven't played it well that you know they get to experience it and then they might play something else connected with it or you know that they're aware of it so they might
00:39:12
Speaker
venture and like play another adventure game. So definitely, yeah, I think with that kind of thing, it's quite easy to sort of feel and, you know, on Twitch, for example, that there's a huge sort of community of people that watch retro stuff. There's a whole category just for retro. But yeah, I mean, I think it's an interesting thing when you say like, especially maybe with shorter games,
00:39:33
Speaker
or newer
Approach to Streaming New Games
00:39:34
Speaker
or games that have just come out, you know, where do you, do you play new sort of, do you stream story based games that have just come out? It's difficult. I don't know. I mean, for me.
00:39:48
Speaker
Uh, I, I tend to, maybe I leave it a little bit of time for perhaps if people, you know, like when return came out, I didn't stream it straight away. Um, I left a little bit of time, but I think also, you know, like, I don't know, I've got such, I, you know, I don't have a huge community of people. So I also, I'm a bit like, am I really spoiling it for that many people? I'm not, you know, I'm not a huge streamer, but you know, I guess a lot of people come in who say, Oh, I'm really glad you're streaming this. You know, I.
00:40:16
Speaker
Um, I really enjoy watching it, but I don't think I would ever actually go and play this game, but it's nice to like be in this kind of community and chat with people and watch you play it. So I dunno, it's tricky. There's that element as well, I think.
00:40:29
Speaker
It is tricky and I and I when I first read that guy's article, I was kind of put off by it. It felt it felt jaded and kind of bitter. But you know, but then I kind of turned around and I'm now I'm of two minds of it really. This is a piece of artwork. This is an indie dev. He's the only one that worked on it. And
00:40:52
Speaker
And it must be difficult to not, to get all the buzz about it, right? To have the buzz from these high end streamers, but then to actually not sell any. And I do wonder also, I'm just going to theorize this. I do also wonder about the content. I have to say, I think that might be part of it. Yeah. I want to know how many people wanted to buy it and play it.
00:41:17
Speaker
And if you look at some, you know, there's some types of games, I don't know if as much story based games, but some of them will. I mean, if you look at some types of games that have done, they've done really well with indie devs. Um, but because of them being streamed, like not necessarily an adventure game, but lethal company.
00:41:35
Speaker
which has done crazily well. And that's because people have seen clips of people streaming them and be like, what is this game? I've got to play this game, like you were saying. And sometimes when I'm streaming as well, I will get the developers of the game. They'll pop into the stream because they'll have seen that. And that's kind of fun because then you have this
00:41:57
Speaker
you know, conversation with them and, you know, as you're playing, you can have a little chat with them. And so, you know, I would say there are, you know, sub developers and they, you know, that might be the first time they've seen people properly.
00:42:10
Speaker
play their game once it's been out because, you know, they could, obviously they get reviews and things, but they're not seeing people play it. So I, I dunno, for some people, it might actually be quite interesting to, to watch people play their game, but maybe, yeah, I guess the commercial aspect of it, isn't it? It's the, it's the monetization of it that can be tricky.
00:42:28
Speaker
Yeah, because just think about the amount of money in views that the streamers got, especially if you're somebody like one of the higher upper echelons, Markiplier and PewDiePie. I think they both played it. And I just can't imagine I'm a YouTuber myself. I'm not as big as them, but I can imagine kind of the amount of revenue being made on that and this indie developer not seeing any of it. Right. Yeah. I wonder how many.
00:42:58
Speaker
I wonder how many copies that Dragon Cancer would have sold either way, right? I wonder if... And would we be talking about it at all? Would we have even heard of it? Right, I wonder if because those streams were so popular, because it's the sort of game people would want to watch rather than the sort of game people would want to play, and...
00:43:20
Speaker
Also, people like those particular streamers. And how many of those people would have been like, oh, how many people would have wanted to play it? And also, how many people would have played it because they really want to find out what happens, right? Like, one of the reasons that Five Nights at Freddy's
00:43:40
Speaker
sells so many copies, even though it's so widely streamed, is because people think it's fun to play and get the jump scares and whatnot. And it's hard to know where you draw the line. The Last of Us, for example, is a very story-based game.
00:44:02
Speaker
The appeal of The Last of Us is not the gameplay. I think it's safe to say the way you shoot zombies in that game is not like anyone's like, I love it so much. That's why I play The Last of Us.
00:44:18
Speaker
It's for the story, but even if you know what happens, you kind of want to experience it for yourself. And if you make a game that's more just like a movie, again, it's not that I'm trying to limit the way people can make games or the things that a game can be. It's just your audience is going to necessarily be limited. Yeah.
00:44:48
Speaker
Well, like, so for example, I'm actually also at the moment I'm streaming Unavowed. Oh, I love that game. Yeah. And I think that's, I wasn't sure how this would go down. I mean, I, I'll be honest, I stream adventure games just cause they're the games I like to play. I'm not really thinking of like, is this going to work as a stream game or like, um, they're just things I would be playing anyway. So that's why I play it. And I haven't.
00:45:12
Speaker
I, everyone has always been saying it's a really great game. So I was like, I've got to get round to actually playing that. It's a bit embarrassing that I haven't. Um, and I think that's an interesting one because there were so many different paths and, you know, different locations and different characters. So when I started, um, you know, there's three characters you can choose from and everyone was saying, Oh, you know, I've, I've already played as the actor. So could you play as the bartender? So I was like, yeah, okay, fine.
00:45:40
Speaker
So then people were interested because they're like, oh, I've actually not seen this. And, you know, they probably weren't going to go back through the whole game to see it. But I think that's an interesting game in that obviously it's an adventure game, but it's got all these different choices and dialogues and people will see things that they've never seen before in their own playthrough.
00:46:00
Speaker
I've definitely watched walkthroughs of adventure games that I didn't want to play through from the very beginning, but I wanted to see the different choices and the different endings. I think that is a valuable service. I also wonder, I was thinking about the thing about, you know, the games that are basically like similar to movies, right? Where the playing of them is not nearly as important as the story. And it does also strike me though that
00:46:29
Speaker
while your audience might be limited for that, it would never be allowed. Well, people would do it and then it'd get taken down. But streaming just a new movie. Right.
00:46:44
Speaker
without talking over it, would never- Yeah. Even with talking over it, you know, the- Even if you're talking over it, yeah. The most T3K guys, the Riff trucks, you got to buy rights for that, you know? Well, there used to be a strange thing. I don't think they do it anymore, but I know on Twitch they used to have watch parties where you could stream things on Prime.
00:47:05
Speaker
if everyone else also had Prime and everyone could watch it. I think they've stopped that now. But that used to be a weird subsection of Twitch that people could do that. That makes sense to me if everybody has Prime. That makes total sense to me. I wonder if somebody found a loophole and they just had to do away with it. I think Twitch is just cutting back on everything, basically. Yeah, it certainly seems like that, doesn't it?
Nintendo's Streaming Policy
00:47:34
Speaker
But yeah, Matt, I think you brought up a good point of would people have bought... That's actually what's really hard to prove, right? Would the game have sold even as many units as it did without the streamers because the content is so heavy?
00:47:53
Speaker
I mean, I was very, go ahead. Not only that, people are down on what they call walking simulators, right? Like, I love that kind of game. I also don't mind the derogatory term walking simulator. I know some people really, it really shapes some people's ears, but I love that kind of game. I think those games are incredibly valuable, and I think that's like an evolution of a branch of the genre of video game, right?
00:48:22
Speaker
that audience is always going to be limited. Because so many people, when they play a video game, they want interaction. They want to turn their brains off and stab bad guys. Right. And I wonder as well if it's, I mean, I don't know how, did they enjoy the games, the streamers, or did they, what kind of reaction did they give? Because I'm always kind of a bit wary of that as well if I'm,
00:48:51
Speaker
playing a game especially if it's a new game and I think well actually a developer could check out this stream I mean not that I mean it does happen that they come into the streams and have a chat and I'm always a bit you know I don't want to I'll you know I can give fair criticism of things but I don't want to be too down but I know sometimes streamers obviously much bigger streamers they might want to give sort of over-the-top reactions to things and that could have a negative effect as well
00:49:16
Speaker
You know, that's a great point. I think that Dragon Cancer did upset a lot of people. And thus the reactions are going to be hyperbolic and even probably even more sad than what the streamer is actually feeling just to drive the point home that this is an experience. This is a game about childhood cancer.
00:49:40
Speaker
Um, so you're not going to get the same reactions as say five nights at Freddy's or dead by daylight. Uh, did I say that right? Dead dead by daylight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yay. I did it. Oh, you're not going to get the same reactions. It's not going to inspire.
00:49:56
Speaker
wanting to play that game. Now I'll say this, not a lot of people want to be sad. And yet a lot of people want to be scared. It's interesting. You know, horror games do so well, especially on the stream. You were talking about Chila's art. I see so many people, you know, stream that game and to the extent, you know, it's part of their schedule. They're kind of like, oh, I'm going to play another one. Yeah.
00:50:24
Speaker
Yeah, scared? That's fine. That's adrenaline pumping. Don't really want to be sad or reminded of reality, you know, because zombies, whatever, who cares? They are not real. Cancer is very real. And I just wonder if
00:50:42
Speaker
I just wonder if people would have rather watched the streamers because the content was so heavy and they didn't, they didn't like want to interact with it. Um, I kind of suffer with that sometimes with horror games. Sometimes I don't want to interact with it. So like, I'll give the controller to someone else. It's not that I can't watch it. I just can't interact. I'm too afraid to interact with it. Yeah. Yeah. That I was just kind of wondering if people would rather just watched instead of interacted with such a heavy thing.
00:51:12
Speaker
It's interesting that, Chris, you brought up At Dead of Night because I did play At Dead of Night after watching a stream. See, it was an interesting one for me because I was a bit like, well, if I'm going to stream it until the end, I kind of feel like I've got to give something back to the viewers who've been bothered to watch that journey to view the end. It feels kind of cruel to then say, OK, guys,
00:51:40
Speaker
Because I feel like, you know, let's be honest, if they've if they enjoyed it, they'll buy it and, you know, experience it themselves. But if they, you know, they're not going to be like, oh, I didn't see that last five minutes, so I'm going to buy it. I just don't think that's, you know, and I don't think the ending paid off that well anyway. Right. Yeah. The ending might be the worst part of the whole game. Well, you know, you're also not part of the marketing team.
00:52:10
Speaker
Right, you are a person who's out there making your own thing. And, you know, it is valuable to comment on art, right? Like culture critique, culture commentary has been the other side of art for as long as arts existed, right? And combined, like wrapping that up, like making culture critics
00:52:39
Speaker
implying that they owe something to the creators of the art they're critiquing, to me, is a little gross. It seems a little anti-journalistic. Right. And I guess the thing is, at the end of the day, maybe it's different for maybe huge, huge streamers, but we're sort of middling streamers, such as myself.
00:53:06
Speaker
who are gonna watch that they're just gonna watch and if they don't want to it to be spoiled they won't watch and that's what I've had some people say sometimes they'll be like oh you know I'll watch the first you know stream of you doing this but then I'm not gonna watch like when when you do others because I want to play it myself you know people people will see if they like the game and then they'll go oh actually I kind of want to play this so I'm gonna
00:53:29
Speaker
not watch it and get it myself so sometimes you're kind of giving people a little bit of a preview and they can go oh actually this looks really good okay i'm not going to watch this stream i'm going to go buy it and i have had people say that and that's fair enough i mean i i don't mind that
00:53:44
Speaker
I just thought about something wildly interesting that's kind of on the other side of things. Do you remember when Nintendo, a very controversial company when it comes to streaming, they actually tried to stop streamers from streaming. This is Nintendo.
00:54:07
Speaker
And I do look at that differently now. It's like I see an indie dev maybe. And you're right, Matt, it is kind of gross for indie devs to rely on us to get them sales, right? We're not marketers. We're just content creators. You're not part of the PR team. You are creating a completely separate, like if you want to be, you know,
00:54:34
Speaker
If you want to be highfalutin about it, there's an actual word for that, but I could not think of it, so I turned into a cowboy. If you want to be a highfalutin about it, you could say it's a form of journalism, right? And journalists are bound by a code of ethics that requires them not to act just as the promoters for some other entity.
00:55:01
Speaker
But even if you wanna just say, oh, it's a silly thing I create, you're still the creator of the thing. They- It's your reaction. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, although it's interesting with that because obviously I feel like with content creators, that line can be blurred a little bit sometimes as opposed to critics and so on.
00:55:26
Speaker
Uh, and even with critics sometimes as well, but yeah, it's, it's, it's tricky. It is tricky. I mean, even, I mean, going back to it at dead of night as well, I think what they didn't realize with that is loads of people wanted to play that because it's just a scary game. And you know, those kinds of games, you can replay because you're feeling that for the first time yourself. And it's just a great experience. I think with those kinds of things, you don't need to worry about people wanting to play them because they want to experience it.
00:55:55
Speaker
Right. Right. It's interesting. I want to I kind of wanted to backtrack a little bit back to the Nintendo thing. People were very angry about this, by the way, of it's just interesting the reactions people had to the that drag and cancer developer and the reactions that people had to Nintendo. So is that to say that
00:56:21
Speaker
Is it more okay to stream something from a very big company that makes a lot of AAA company, that makes a lot of money versus an indie devs game where they're dependent on you playing their game. You know, at Nintendo, they're kind of snobby anyway. They're very much
00:56:41
Speaker
I thought in the wrong with what they were doing. But I think that does ask a question. Is it more okay to stream AAA big company games versus one guy that programmed a video game?
AAA vs Indie Game Streaming Debate
00:57:02
Speaker
How could we draw a line though? How could you sit down and draw a line between, yeah. I mean, what about seven people that run a video game studio? What about 30 people that run a video game studio? What about one guy who happened to get a publishing deal with a major studio? It's hard to say, should you not stream Stardew Valley? That's just one guy, but that guy's a millionaire.
00:57:29
Speaker
Yeah, and also I I might be wrong but with the Nintendo thing wasn't there were they annoyed was it with people streaming early or Was it just with I know there was definitely an issue with streamers who were playing a game early on stream But I don't know if that's if that's the same thing you're talking about or something different
00:57:50
Speaker
I think what was happening, if I'm recalling correctly, is it wasn't an early thing. It was more of like Nintendo wanted money for the content that they were making. So they wanted to try to monetize like the street. If you're going to play a Nintendo game, we're going to get a cut of that money, essentially.
00:58:09
Speaker
This is the most cursory reading of news since you've said that, Roses. So there's a lot that I could be getting wrong here, but it appears as if Nintendo wanted to sort of build a premium service that allowed you to stream their games.
00:58:26
Speaker
Correct. Yeah, that's the key word there. Allows you to stream your games. Which is wild. I just think that's wild. We have fair use laws for a reason. And it's Nintendo. Their games are built specifically to be the funnest things you could play on Earth.
00:58:47
Speaker
Anybody watching a stream of a Nintendo game is naturally going to want to play that game because Nintendo games are fun as hell. Like that's their whole thing. Yeah, I just I think with this, you know, I think it really is.
00:59:03
Speaker
I don't think it should be about, you know, big company or small company. I guess for me, I just always think I've never had kind of a bad experience with it. And I think that's because people who know that this is a game for them
00:59:18
Speaker
decide to opt out. And if it's not for them, it's not for them. If they want to play it, that's fine. So I don't know. And also, there's quite a lot of games. I've just played As Dusk Falls quite recently, which is built for Twitch interaction. So there's a whole new ream of games that they're actually thinking, please do stream this game, because that's what we want. And that's where chat can interact with
00:59:47
Speaker
your choices so basically they vote on what you're supposed to do next and that's built into the game you don't have to play it like that but that's like a big part of it and that's made it very successful and then more people have played it because of that so i don't know i feel like it you know obviously it's i feel bad for that guy that the developer of that dragon cancer that it was such a difficult experience for him but i think
01:00:12
Speaker
I do feel that it's more because of the game than necessarily because of it being streamed.
01:00:19
Speaker
Yeah, I go back and forth on on on that. Is it the game's topic or is it or is it because people just wanted to watch it? And is he justified in his anger? I think he got a little too angry and a little bit too entitled. Well, he publicly apologized, right? He released a whole statement about like
01:00:44
Speaker
my whole life I've been called a bully and I guess I haven't gotten over it yet, like. Oh, good Lord. Yeah, he said he had a whole apology thing, so that's good. But yeah, you know, I have a question. OK, what games have either of you played because you saw them streaming, if any?
Games Discovered Through Streaming
01:01:07
Speaker
I have to, so I will, I'm really bad with like memory, like in terms of like remembering what I've played. So I always have to, I really like that steam has a library that can be like, just look down. Oh yes. I, yeah. All through so often in this podcast, I just, I always have my steam library open to reference. Uh, and sometimes, uh, do you guys ever use backlog to.com?
01:01:30
Speaker
No, what's that? I have in the past, yeah. It is like a good reads, but for video games. Backlogged.
01:01:39
Speaker
It's the word backlogged, but without an E. Because on the internet, we don't use E's. But yeah, you can just keep track of all your games. You can rate them all. You can write little reviews on all of them. And they can be private if you just want to keep your reviews. You can log what you're playing, what's on your backlog, what's on your wish list. It's a pretty good website.
01:02:06
Speaker
I mad all camp here for backlogged hashtag not sponsored yes send us money backlogged um no no don't
01:02:21
Speaker
So, yeah, I mean, I would say there's a fair few because I guess I do follow a lot of streamers. And also I kind of pick up sometimes if I start seeing a game that's just come out and I'm like, a lot of fair few people are playing this. So there must be, you know, something good about it. I mean, just recently I played a game, a free game actually called Please Touch the Artwork 2. I don't know if you've heard that. We have. I played the demo. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:02:48
Speaker
Yeah very nice game that because it uses real life paintings or it uses assets from real life paintings and it's kind of you clicking around the different pages and exploring them it's just a hidden object game basically but I just saw someone playing that and I thought oh that looks really cool that's like a nice art style and it looked like quite an easy
01:03:12
Speaker
game that you could sort of chat along with. So yeah, that's that's one where I was like, yeah, this and I guess I sometimes from a sort of streamers perspective, I'm looking at people playing and be like, yes, this could be good for my stream. I'll pinch that idea. But yeah, so I yeah, I would say actually, there's quite a lot of things that I see other people and I'm like, potentially.
01:03:35
Speaker
I bought Cult of the Lamb because people were... Oh, yeah. Now that's a good stream game. Again, that's Twitch integrated. You can have your cult named as your chat. And I guess obviously the biggest thing I've bought...
01:03:52
Speaker
is probably the Jackbox games. Like you see people streaming them, you will buy them. And it's not just because one of my close friends is a lead writer, I swear. Oh, really? They're based in Chicago. So shout out.
01:04:08
Speaker
Shout out to CJ Tour, one of the lead writers. Good job. Keep writing those jokes, CJ. Good job. Doing great. But man, talk about a game that, or a franchise rather, that embraced the idea of streaming.
01:04:26
Speaker
wants you to stream the games, wants you to buy them, play with your friends, and not worried at all, you know, if, if the streaming like, I think they know it doesn't hamper people from buying the games. But I think that's, that's one of the games since a party game that I think embraced streaming, like some of the most enthusiastically.
01:04:48
Speaker
Yeah, completely. And I, you know, there's another one actually, King of the Castle, which I don't know if you've heard of, but that's a really fun, it's a bit like Jackbox, where again, it's all about sort of community. You play as a monarch and then your chats are your sort of noblemen.
01:05:05
Speaker
And yeah, it's really cool. I definitely check that out. You don't have to be on Twitch, you can play it as a group as well. And they have to vote on decisions. And basically, they're always trying to hamper you and do different things. And it's really well written as well. There's some really interesting scenarios. There was a weird thing where like,
01:05:27
Speaker
some massive spiders over on a village and then we had to decide what to do. It's really well-written and there's loads of scenarios. Again, with something like that, I don't mind playing that because I knew the developers quite well and I was thinking, if I play this, is this going to stop people playing because they'll have experienced it. But they've written so many different scenarios with that in mind, thinking, people will want to play this.
01:05:54
Speaker
So it doesn't matter because it's very rare you're going to have the same experience as somebody else. Right. I think those are the best games to stream. And I guess keeping that in mind, even though that guy apologized, Matt, which I'm happy to hear, I do still sympathize with what he was feeling, even if he went a bit hard. And now I'm wondering,
01:06:21
Speaker
like how I just want to be more conscious I guess about when I scream narrative driven games.
01:06:28
Speaker
And I think that's what you, you know, I think that's a good way to be. And that's, that's very conscious of you. That's very, um, but I think that is a good, and you know, I, I do even, even if I'm thinking a little bit egotistically, and I'm thinking if I stream this, when it's just come out, people won't want to watch me because they'll want to, you know, play the game. So, you know, even if you're thinking from that perspective, you know, you're thinking that there's no point. That's let's leave it a little bit. I think it, you know, with new games is worth just.
01:06:58
Speaker
you know, having that, maybe even having that dialogue with a developer, because, you know, a lot of them, if they're indie developers, some of them might want you to, they might be like, oh yeah, it'd be really great, you know, to, you know, see someone play it and, you know, kind of have that conversation. So sometimes even maybe consider doing that, it could, could be good.
01:07:17
Speaker
I think so too, and it's more accessible than ever to be able to talk to game developers. It's not like when we were young and we wanted to talk to Tim Schafer and there's no way to reach out to him. A lot of indie devs are very receptive to talking about their game, enthusiastic even, I would say. You just had to call the LucasArts hint line and then just keep asking to speak to their manager until you got up to Tim Schafer.
01:07:50
Speaker
That guy is hard to get hold of I can tell you that I I met him at Yeah, that would make sense yeah, yeah, do we have to answer yeah Yeah
01:08:08
Speaker
Yeah, I met him at PAX like 20, oh God, oh no. We're so old, like 2014 or something. I'm only 19, so. Okay.
01:08:21
Speaker
You don't look a day over 18. He was very pleasant. He signed my day of the tentacle poster that I had. That was very pleasant. We got to get him on the podcast. We all should confront him about that finger door puzzle, all three of us at once. I'll say, no notes, it was a great puzzle.
01:08:47
Speaker
And be like, okay, thanks. Bye. Okay. It's like, that's the best interview I've ever had. A cross up. What is the most fun game that you have? Or what, I mean, not fun game, but what is the most enjoyable time you've had with a game streaming something?
01:09:08
Speaker
Oh, that's a good, I mean, I'm having a great time with this Nick Daley ass conspiracies at the moment. I'm not going to lie. That is a fun, there's been some fun stuff uncovered. And, you know, I've had people afterwards being like, Oh, I really enjoyed that. Cause I think they just, it's an unheard of game. So that's the good thing with that. I feel like there's, it's very unlikely that people are going to have a heard of this and be, be able to play it, you know, be able to load it, all that kind of thing. So I don't feel bad about that. I'm, if anything, I'm.
01:09:36
Speaker
bringing it to light to people. But I guess I've had quite a lot of fun actually playing some FMV games like there was one called Five Dates or there's a sequel called Ten Dates and that was a lot of fun because it was literally it's sort of like a dating game but not in a kind of
01:09:59
Speaker
creepy sense or anything that's quite fun. That's where you were going too. Is it in a creepy way? No, it's in a very fun light and with actors it's like full motion video and it's about you going on the first one is you go on five dates and you kind of choose who you want to see but it's there's some weird
01:10:19
Speaker
It's quite weirdly acted. There's some weird characters. And that was just a lot of fun to play and have people get involved with. Again, because, you know, there's so many options with that, that you don't feel like you're spoiling it for anybody. But it's, it was, yeah, that was really good fun. I mean, I don't know, I quite, I quite like to play, I would say I do veer towards more the sort of fun
01:10:43
Speaker
Either so bad, they're good. There's quite a few in that category I like to play, I'll be honest. Oh man, if we could just get Black Dahlia running. I don't know. It must be a way. Someone must be able to help, surely.
01:10:57
Speaker
I think with with a good virtual machine, like maybe like a Windows 98 virtual machine, you could probably get it running. It's just finicky. And I've always found that FMV games of the past were finicky anyway. Yeah, I don't know why I've always had a problem with them. There is a crescent if you could like stream this game and get it working, I'll be your number one fan. It's the clue FMV game by Hasbro.
01:11:25
Speaker
You know what? I think I have not streamed it, but I think I know what you're talking about. I think I had the original CD of that. Yeah. It was live people, right? Yeah.
01:11:42
Speaker
I don't know if I've got it anymore. I don't know where it would be. I will send you the discs. I have like five copies. It feels like it'd be a great game to stream, honestly, because it's a murder mystery. It's not a clue board game. It's more
01:12:04
Speaker
I need to look this up if this is the same one I had. But that reminds me a bit, you know, like a bit like with the Nancy Drew games, which have had a huge popularity on social media and Twitch as well, people streaming them because it's got that nostalgia feel. And it's also at times quite ridiculous with some of those. Absolutely.
01:12:27
Speaker
Is it just me, or have FMV live-acted games become very fun to stream lately?
FMV Games and Nostalgia in Streaming
01:12:33
Speaker
Have they found their limelight? Is this it? I think so, but... Are we in the golden age of FMV? Hey, yeah, forget venture games.
01:12:44
Speaker
is live acted games. I mean, video is so, like we're in an age where you could just take a video at any moment for any reason and it looks pretty good. So I guess it makes sense having a Renaissance.
01:12:58
Speaker
I think it's almost, on the other hand, I think some of it's getting a bit too oversaturated. I mean, there's a great publisher, actually they did five dates and 10 dates called Wales Interactive and they are just pumping out FMVs. There's like maybe three.
01:13:16
Speaker
three or four a year and I'm like, what? You know, and sometimes that, you know, it'd be like, maybe you should have just spent a little more time on doing one. Yeah, they did. They did the complex, right? Yes, that's right.
01:13:32
Speaker
And, oh yeah, then Isle Tide Hotel people were a big fan of. And we've talked about on the show a couple times who pressed mute on Uncle Marcus. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah. I'm still mad at that game. I'm so mad. Listen, Cressup, here's what happened. This is what happened. Something's wrong on my PS4, and I can't skip cutscenes. Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah, exactly. Oh, no.
01:13:57
Speaker
So I never beat it because I got so tired of not being, I don't know what went wrong. If you can't skip cutscenes, that's the right choice. You should not have to sit through those cutscenes over and over and over again. Well, listen, we are coming towards the end of our time with you, Cressup. You've been very generous with your time. We appreciate you being here so much. Is there anything else you want to say on the subject before we head for the descent?
01:14:27
Speaker
No, I mean, I think, yeah, we're way up high. No, I mean, just that. We do this podcast from a hot air balloon and then we slowly lower it.
01:14:44
Speaker
I think it's something I think about sometimes and hopefully other streamers do as well. But it's just really lovely to have people come in and enjoy it and either say that they're going to go and play it or if they're the developers having that back and forth and just being able to have that connection really. So I think
01:15:08
Speaker
definitely streaming does you can have a connection with the game as well as you know possibly not you know I think yeah yeah I you know I think there is there is some benefits to be had from it all absolutely do we want to throw up some music real quick and then say goodbye
01:15:31
Speaker
Oh, why not? I just want to sit here and talk about Monkey Island.
01:16:06
Speaker
Well, Cressep, thank you so much for being here on Save Your Game. It was really a pleasure to have you. Is there any place that people should go to see all your stuff?
01:16:20
Speaker
Surely there is, yes. Oh, good, cute. Oh, thank God. Yeah, I mean, thankfully, you know, if you search, if you pretty much put Gressup somewhere, you'll find me. But on Twitch, yeah, I'm Gressup on Twitch. I've got a YouTube channel where I, as well as doing some Let's Plays, it's more about interviewing game developers and people connected with games. So, Tim Schafer is on there. I did do an interview with him.
01:16:49
Speaker
Like I said, he was difficult to get hold of, but I got him in the end. And hoping to speak to a couple of more developers in the near future. The people who are making Simon the Sorcerer, Orange Inn's game. I've got a little chat with them coming up. So yeah, just crass up basically, just search that and I'll pop up here and there.
01:17:15
Speaker
Kressip is a great interviewer. So if you are going to be, if you're looking for sort of...
01:17:21
Speaker
the best possible interview you can have with some of these classic adventure game creators. Why don't you chat? Yeah, you don't have to be sure about it. I can be sure of it. I've got a trick though, Matt. My trick is I do these, cause I often do them live on my Twitch as a Q and A. So the best questions are just the ones that the people on the chat have asked, you see? And I just asked them.
01:17:46
Speaker
And that way you can be humble about your very good interviews. Well, yeah, again, thank you so much for being on and everybody go check out Cressup's work. Roses, you got anything coming up this week?
01:18:02
Speaker
No. Physically. I had to realize I don't know if you guys saw that my brain had a mini stroke there, like a million things ran through it. I am. Well, I guess I already mentioned I'm trying to work on a Monkey Island video, but that's going to be a little bit of a more comprehensive topic, so please bear with me. Right.
01:18:27
Speaker
Yeah. I don't even know. You know what? I start every video with, hey, everyone pushing up roses here and that helps me. That actually does help me get into the groove and then I just try to stream unconscious. But beyond that, I've got a video on diagnosis murder coming up pretty soon and art. Yeah, art.
01:18:54
Speaker
Why are you giggling? Why did that make you giggle? I'm just a giggly guy. I'm just a guy who giggles. I'm just a giggly guy. I'm a quite giggly guy. Thank you. Thank you. I'm a giggle guy. That's what everybody calls me. GG. I believe next episode we're going to be taking audience questions. You probably will not have time to get your questions in between when you hear this episode and when we've recorded the episode. So hopefully you already did it.
01:19:26
Speaker
And I guess we will see you guys all next week. Roses. Yes, Matt. Give us our outro. Okay, I will surely do that. And it is. Podcast is art and art is sufferer.