Transcript
Speaker: They always get the little two packs, you know, the little fun size things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I might be the only person alive who does not like the pink ones.
Speaker: Everyone else is obsessed with the pink ones.
Speaker: And I think Starburst, I like all the other flavors so much better than the pink ones.
Speaker: And I think Starburst knows that everyone likes them because there is an...
Speaker: Inordinate number of double pinks.
Speaker: Oh, double pinks.
Speaker: Double pinks.
Speaker: And you have no, and I, and I'm not going to like toss them back in the candy jar.
Speaker: So that's so fucked up.
Speaker: So if I'm like, I'm like, this is my piece of candy for the day.
Speaker: I'm really going to enjoy this.
Speaker: And I open it up and it's two pinks, which happens a lot.
Speaker: The level of anger that it's.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's, that's just terrible.
Speaker: You know, it's never double pinks.
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there everybody!
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel It!
Speaker: Right off the bat, getting kinda graphic.
Speaker: I mean, I guess you could go there.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me, as always, is Phil.
Speaker: Hello.
Speaker: Today, we're starting a brand new series.
Speaker: Where... I put... You have it?
Speaker: I left my book in the bedroom.
Speaker: Don't worry.
Speaker: Don't worry.
Speaker: I got one.
Speaker: I got it.
Speaker: I got it.
Speaker: You got it.
Speaker: We're starting King's Quest, The Floating Castle by Craig Mills.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, yeah, so King's Quest, for those of you who don't know, was a...
Speaker: Pretty popular series in the mid 80s to mid 90s thereabouts.
Speaker: It started out in 1984 with King's Quest.
Speaker: You know, if you look at the Wikipedia page, it's funny.
Speaker: It actually lists a game called The Wizard and the Princess as technically the first King's Quest game.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yeah, that was like a prelude to King's Quest four years before.
Speaker: But after King's Quest hits, it's a pretty regular game.
Speaker: series for the next 10 or so years and then the last one in 1998.
Speaker: And they rebooted it, so to speak, in 2015, but obviously we haven't really seen much beyond that for King's Quest.
Speaker: But it was a series that followed a number of different protagonists.
Speaker: Most of the time it was a man named King Graham and his adventures through the lands of Daventry.
Speaker: Sometimes it was his son, Prince Alexander.
Speaker: Couple times, or at least one time it was his daughter and his wife, I believe were the protagonists in the game.
Speaker: So yeah, we're gonna dive into a book
Speaker: called The Floating Castle, which takes place in between somewhere in the timeline of King's Quest, in between King's Quest IV, The Perils of Rosella, and King's Quest VI, Air Today, Gone Tomorrow, with Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder, somewhere in the middle layer.
Speaker: That's just one of the main themes with King's Quest games, those kind of punny...
Speaker: It's really punishing titles.
Speaker: Well, the whole game was like that.
Speaker: The whole game was filled with that stuff.
Speaker: It was a lot.
Speaker: And I was never a Sierra kid.
Speaker: I played the Lucas games, LucasArts, Lucasfilm games games.
Speaker: And he's got the Sierra tee right on there.
Speaker: See, that was my point and click.
Speaker: You were the LucasArts guy.
Speaker: It's not even a Sierra t-shirt.
Speaker: It's a Sierra tank top.
Speaker: Oh, look at those.
Speaker: Look at those.
Speaker: The sun damaged shoulders.
Speaker: Sun damaged shoulders of an Irishman.
Speaker: Of an Irishman.
Speaker: Oh, man, we never learned.
Speaker: We never learned.
Speaker: We did not wear sunscreen.
Speaker: That is a fact.
Speaker: It didn't work out.
Speaker: So, yeah, King's Quest.
Speaker: Most a good chunk of the series is text parser where it would be like, go yonder.
Speaker: And another half of the series is point and click.
Speaker: And they were brutally hard.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's yes.
Speaker: That was kind of the thing they.
Speaker: So something both Sierra and Lucasfilm LucasArts games had in common was the moon logic where it was basically like, why would you ever do that?
Speaker: That's not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's not a puzzle.
Speaker: That's just to what?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they both kind of had problems with that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they had these unbreakable failure states where if you didn't do something at a specific time, you could not progress.
Speaker: And you wouldn't necessarily find out about that until like way down the line.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And you as a kid without the internet or something like that would just sit there and stare like wondering what the fuck am I supposed to do here?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, there's yeah, there's a like I remember and and Zack McCracken, which was Lucas Films games.
Speaker: There's a failure state early on where if you you can accidentally throw away some breadcrumbs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you wouldn't know it until much later in the game that you can't do the thing that you needed to do anymore with those breadcrumbs.
Speaker: It is literally like 75% of the way through the game.
Speaker: It's freaking nuts.
Speaker: Just like, and I know that they have those, you know, phone lines that they were trying to get money for.
Speaker: Yes, they had the phone lines.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But you do kind of understand it when you, if you revisit these now in the modern day where you've got walkthroughs and everything like that and you go, oh, this took 45 minutes to beat.
Speaker: No wonder.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, they're not very long experiences overall.
Speaker: I mean, I remember, I think, Maniac Mansion you can get through ridiculously fast if you know the exact things to do.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And honestly, that kind of game design doesn't really die out until, I mean, Monkey Island is the first of the Lucas games that totally gets rid of failure states.
Speaker: Like, basically, it just, it stops you from, there's only one fail state in The Curse of Monkey Island, and that is...
Speaker: At some point in the game, Guybrush says he can hold his breath for 10 minutes.
Speaker: There's a point in which he's thrown underwater.
Speaker: If you sit on that screen for 10 minutes, he dies.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that was just like, you know, you think about games like Castlevania even, where if it weren't for just the basically unfair rhythmic patterns of the monsters and stuff that you had to basically get down to rote memorization.
Speaker: Castlevania, you watch people just playing through Castlevania who played it a million times.
Speaker: It takes them an hour and a half.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's not that these are huge, epic games.
Speaker: They just felt that way because they were so difficult.
Speaker: But they made I feel like the Sierra and LucasArts games, though, made up for it because they did give you a great big weird world.
Speaker: And it was so much fun to pick your way through it.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So this book has an author.
Speaker: Phil, what do you know about him?
Speaker: This is Craig Mills, and we actually don't know a ton about him.
Speaker: I've been digging through some of his information here.
Speaker: Apparently, he passed in 2002.
Speaker: So unfortunately, we won't we won't have him to harass for an interview on this particular one.
Speaker: But there were three of these King's Quest novels.
Speaker: This is the first one.
Speaker: And this is the only one he wrote.
Speaker: He's mostly known after that for some of these very kind of, they're kind of glorious looking.
Speaker: I want to get them because they're cheap and they look like my childhood.
Speaker: This one, this was written in 1995, but...
Speaker: He also wrote books like Shadow of the Crown, Bane of Lord Caladon, and Dreamer in Discord.
Speaker: And you see the 80s fantasy art that's playing in your head when I say those titles?
Speaker: That's the cover of these paperbacks.
Speaker: These are 80s fantasy.
Speaker: Is it Frank Frazetta?
Speaker: Not quite that cool.
Speaker: It's, but it's that kind of the schlockier D and D kind of thing.
Speaker: And, and, and I, I love it.
Speaker: When I, when Frank for Zeta, by the way, when you say it, it's not cool.
Speaker: Isn't the word it's the word is horny is the word.
Speaker: Well, I mean that to me, the horny will never be anything less than cool.
Speaker: But no,
Speaker: If you look up the Bane of Lord Caledon in particular, that is just, that is classic 80s fantasy cheese.
Speaker: It came out in 1982.
Speaker: You can probably, you can get it like online for a handful of bucks.
Speaker: I just want this on the shelf.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just got like a big, big fucking green dragon.
Speaker: Some knight.
Speaker: And a guy on a horse.
Speaker: Just going, ah, I got a sword.
Speaker: I love this stuff.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: And he's like in no position to deal with this dragon.
Speaker: None.
Speaker: None whatsoever.
Speaker: None whatsoever.
Speaker: I love this kind of thing.
Speaker: So it fills me with hope.
Speaker: After that, I find, you know, there isn't much after that, except for I am actually seeing he's been attributed credit for a few word search books.
Speaker: Like the newspaper style ones your grandmother got at the Winn-Dixie.
Speaker: That is something apparently he did for a little while.
Speaker: I mean, you know what?
Speaker: Whatever pays the bills.
Speaker: Whatever pays the bills.
Speaker: No shade, Craig.
Speaker: And rest in peace, sir.
Speaker: Rest in peace, Craig.
Speaker: So that's what we've got.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, all right.
Speaker: Well, that's the game.
Speaker: That's the author.
Speaker: So let's talk about the book and let's go ahead and put this body in the mosh.
Speaker: Let's put the body in the mosh.
Speaker: Put the body in the mosh.
Speaker: When I say put the body in the mosh, you put the body in the fucking mosh.
Speaker: Put the body in the mosh.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Now we're some guy from John Hancock.
Speaker: That's a...
Speaker: We can keep up with this, see?
Speaker: See?
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I don't know what we're doing.
Speaker: Floating Castle, chapter one.
Speaker: We got Alexander.
Speaker: Alexander is our main character in this book.
Speaker: He would eventually get his own game.
Speaker: He has his own game, which is the heir today, gone tomorrow.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And so Alexander, Prince Alexander,
Speaker: Book opens with him returning to the castle from a walk he was taking, collecting his thoughts.
Speaker: There's a storm brewing, though, and he's getting back into the castle because he doesn't want to get caught in the rain.
Speaker: Too late, he gets caught in the rain.
Speaker: As he's walking in, he talks to the guard at the gate, and he's like, hey, buddy.
Speaker: The guard's like, my name's Henry.
Speaker: And he's like, I know Henry.
Speaker: All right, Henry comes back later for reasons that are unclear.
Speaker: For reasons that are unclear.
Speaker: And he looks up at the dark clouds in the sky and he thinks he sees a castle floating in the cloud.
Speaker: That's impossible.
Speaker: And if it weren't for the title of this book, I would be like, these seeing things.
Speaker: Yeah, of course.
Speaker: If Kevin came to me, I respect Kevin.
Speaker: He's one of my best friends.
Speaker: I see him as a brother.
Speaker: And if Kevin said to me, I saw a castle floating in the clouds, I'd say, Kevin, you're full of shit and probably mescaline.
Speaker: So that's probably you getting into that fentanyl again.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's not about disrespecting Prince Alexander.
Speaker: It's about being real.
Speaker: It's about being real.
Speaker: And we got a bunch of Sierra characters, put them in a house.
Speaker: And that's when things stop being fake and start to get real.
Speaker: Start getting real.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Can you imagine Sierra?
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: I would I produce that.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: You put leisure suit Larry King Graham fucking.
Speaker: What was the janitor in Space Quest?
Speaker: And like all the.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: All in there.
Speaker: Oh, the cop from police quests.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Get Ken and Roberta Williams on the line.
Speaker: Get him on the horn.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: He's not a cop.
Speaker: He's not a no fucking cop.
Speaker: I'm not a no fucking cop.
Speaker: Two weeks.
Speaker: Two weeks with pay.
Speaker: World needs plenty of bartenders.
Speaker: Are you guys still listening?
Speaker: Are you still listening?
Speaker: Please be listening.
Speaker: Validate us, please.
Speaker: So he gets inside the castle.
Speaker: He visits with his parents.
Speaker: And his parents are like, why are you so fucking wet?
Speaker: And his father, King Graham, his father, King Graham, is very troubled because the magic mirror that he uses to look into the future is
Speaker: No longer working.
Speaker: And normally, you know, the magic mirror would have warned him that a big ass storm was coming and it didn't.
Speaker: In fact, when Alexander looks into it, it seems to have a touch of evil.
Speaker: Shout out to Orson Welles embedded into it.
Speaker: And then we go one long take as we follow Alexander from the room up into his bedroom.
Speaker: It's a touch of evil reference for those of you.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: The film majors.
Speaker: The film majors in the audience.
Speaker: The next morning, Alexander wakes up, gets dressed, goes to the top of the castle.
Speaker: He's sipping his coffee and he...
Speaker: The castle that he saw in the sky is has settled down like just downriver from from where their castle is.
Speaker: So it's no longer a floating castle.
Speaker: It is a landed castle.
Speaker: It's a castle castle.
Speaker: It's a regular castle.
Speaker: Regular castle.
Speaker: So the floating portion of this castle from the title lasted all of chapter one.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: Because that's the end of chapter one.
Speaker: We're on chapter two now.
Speaker: In the throne room, the king is talking with peasants.
Speaker: It's been a few days and he's there.
Speaker: They're bringing their troubles to him.
Speaker: Things have gone to shit since the castle's landed.
Speaker: There's there's knights, black knights with their their black armor and the swords and stuff.
Speaker: They're going out and they're raiding everything.
Speaker: And crops are being stolen.
Speaker: Valuables taken.
Speaker: And Graham and Alexander discuss what to do next.
Speaker: And Alexander's like, I'm going to kick his ass.
Speaker: And Graham's like, no, you're not.
Speaker: You're not going to do that.
Speaker: I'm going to call in the Knights of Daventry, which is the kingdom.
Speaker: And we're going to talk about it, buddy.
Speaker: Yeah, because that's that's way more on brand for Graham and his and his ilk.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like, let's be a little more pragmatic, you know?
Speaker: Another few days pass, and there's a large meeting between the king and all of the knights, and each of the knights has a debate about what should be done, and they just take turns saying meaningless bullshit.
Speaker: And then there's a disturbance in the courtyard, and in comes our villain, a sorcerer named Telgrin.
Speaker: And two of his black knights walk into the throne room and he declares himself the king of Daventry.
Speaker: Dun, dun, dun.
Speaker: Very confident, this guy.
Speaker: He is very confident.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Graham moves to attack the man and Telgrin casts a spell on him, causing him to faint.
Speaker: Alexander debates whether he should attack Telgrin or go to his father.
Speaker: He decides to go to his father, being a good son.
Speaker: And Graham is he's out cold.
Speaker: So Telgrin leaves and Alexander follows Telgrin outside.
Speaker: And he asks Henry, who we set up earlier, the guard at the gate, because there's a guard at the gate named Henry.
Speaker: We set him up.
Speaker: Remember Henry?
Speaker: Remember Henry?
Speaker: You guys paid attention, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, he asked Henry where they went and Henry goes that way.
Speaker: He sure does.
Speaker: That way is with the best of them.
Speaker: He's just he's damn good at his job.
Speaker: He's damn good at his job.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Alexander asks Henry for a horse, and Henry's like, you shouldn't do that because you don't have a plan.
Speaker: Like, okay, look at Henry.
Speaker: Look at Henry.
Speaker: Look at Henry being smart.
Speaker: Now that your father is out of the picture, I'm your father.
Speaker: I'm your father now, Alexander.
Speaker: In fact, I always was your father.
Speaker: Your mother has something to say.
Speaker: What a twist.
Speaker: What a twist.
Speaker: What a twist.
Speaker: Henry is the true king of Daventry, and he spent his entire time as a guard getting to know the people.
Speaker: He just dealt with it.
Speaker: He just let King Graham cuck him into a shitty, probably, let's face it, minimum wage, front-facing guard job.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Henry, you moron.
Speaker: Henry, you fucking lobster.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I was thinking Incel and then Jordan Peterson, and then I thought lobsters.
Speaker: I feel like I saw where you were going with it.
Speaker: I just needed to hear it in your own words.
Speaker: Ladies and gentlemen, I think we're just a little slap happy tonight.
Speaker: You're just going to have to...
Speaker: It's just because this book is so weird, man.
Speaker: It's like, this is the, we've been through two chapters and I make it seem like things are happening, but it's like these things don't take very long to happen over the course.
Speaker: This has been like 35 pages and like four beats have happened.
Speaker: Most of these pages that I just kind of glossed over were Alexander walking places.
Speaker: And the thing is, is we get all of these details that...
Speaker: Like they literally will tell you like he had, he's on his way out the door and he takes with him something.
Speaker: Whereas any other book, it would say he took a little something to eat along the way.
Speaker: And in this book, it says he took a crust of bread, a small pear, a wedge of cheese and a knife to cut it all up and everything like that.
Speaker: And the first time the author does this, you go, okay, well, King's Quest is very much an items based, all of these kinds of games.
Speaker: Sure, yeah.
Speaker: They're all about all the shit you bring with you.
Speaker: And so you go, okay, this makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: And then nothing happens with it.
Speaker: And so by the fifth or sixth or seventh time, he mentions the cobblestones under his feet or some other random superfluous detail.
Speaker: You realize we're not going anywhere with this.
Speaker: He liked the feel of the sun on his face.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, he sure does.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: This is the third time you've mentioned it.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: He likes the sun.
Speaker: That's how a lot of us are, as it turns out.
Speaker: It provides us with nutrients.
Speaker: Can we get to the story, please?
Speaker: Yeah, let's get to the story.
Speaker: Chapter three, the physician comes down, says nothing he can do for the king.
Speaker: He's physically fine, but there's something else wrong with him.
Speaker: Something.
Speaker: Something the matter.
Speaker: Magical.
Speaker: So Alexander is like, all right, I'm going to go see the wizard.
Speaker: The wizard's name is Morrowind.
Speaker: I could not let that one drop.
Speaker: As an Elder Scrolls fan, I couldn't.
Speaker: I couldn't.
Speaker: Every time they said the wizard's name, I imagined like riding some long legged beetle creature across the red desert or something like that.
Speaker: I'm like, this is I can't let go of this.
Speaker: I just can't.
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker: I literally failed a college course because of that fucking game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I could have been a doctor or something if it wasn't for Morrowind.
Speaker: That's not true.
Speaker: That's not true.
Speaker: That's not true.
Speaker: We love you just the way you are, Phil.
Speaker: And we love you.
Speaker: You got no choice.
Speaker: Just as we love you with the degrees you have.
Speaker: Thank God.
Speaker: Celsius.
Speaker: Celsius.
Speaker: Kelvin.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: He goes to see Morrowind.
Speaker: Alexander takes a long journey to see the wizard.
Speaker: It's four and a half pages long and takes most of the day.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: It sure does.
Speaker: Four and a half pages of just him walking.
Speaker: I'm just describing his walk.
Speaker: And I'm going to emphasize this one more time.
Speaker: It's not important.
Speaker: It doesn't get used in any way.
Speaker: If you're a starting out writer...
Speaker: Don't do this stuff.
Speaker: Don't do it.
Speaker: Don't describe a walk for four and a half pages unless it's truly, is it important to the character or the plot?
Speaker: If the answer is no, both times, then you could probably cut it.
Speaker: There are writers out there that can take a minute to just describe the beauty of the surroundings and that sort of thing to help establish, you know, but this is not, I'm sorry to the late Craig Mills.
Speaker: He's not one of those writers.
Speaker: So we need to, we need to move it on.
Speaker: That's the thing is we bring up the writer of the Far Cry novel, Urban Weight, a lot.
Speaker: And Urban Weight was actually really good at like this poetic description of the surroundings in, is it Montana?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, it was beautiful, you know?
Speaker: This is just like random fantasy bullshit.
Speaker: Like there's a field and there's trees and the sun.
Speaker: It's barely that, though.
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: It's barely that.
Speaker: And he's eating pears.
Speaker: It's like...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, like a great example is Shadowkeep, which we read last year, which is also 80s pulp fantasy and ultimately wasn't an amazing book.
Speaker: But holy shit, we got sucked into that world there for a minute.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And a lot of that was 80s fantasy bullshit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Peak 80s fantasy bullshit.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: This is almost more like a laundry list.
Speaker: It's just like, you know, it's like you ever, I think it was the old man of the sea opens with, he went to the sea, the sea was there.
Speaker: It's like a somehow less interesting version of that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He went to the woods.
Speaker: They were there.
Speaker: There were leaves on the ends of trees.
Speaker: The leaves were there.
Speaker: The bugs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The bugs were there too.
Speaker: Bugs were there too.
Speaker: There were birds.
Speaker: Oh, he does talk about the birds and how the birds like fucking Disney princess him a few times where they like fly along with him as he's walking.
Speaker: Well, and I'll tell you what, and I'll tell you the most confusing thing about this because it sounds like I'm coming down pretty hard on this and maybe I am, but
Speaker: It's still incredibly in world.
Speaker: It is insanely appropriate and in tune with the King's Quake because it is very fairy tale, very squeaky clean.
Speaker: It really does work as far as getting the world across.
Speaker: It's just not as interesting in book form so far as it is in the game.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We haven't had any inventory puzzles yet.
Speaker: We can get one later, but we'll get there.
Speaker: So he gets to the wizard's house and Morrowind has been turning into a tree.
Speaker: He messed up a spell about nine months ago that would extend his life.
Speaker: And now he's turning into a tree because trees live longer than people.
Speaker: Uh, Marwan says based on the information provided that it seems like Graham's soul has been stolen and he will die if he doesn't get it back.
Speaker: Uh, and he also says he can't move, but his apprentice Cyril can help.
Speaker: Um, and Cyril is just, you know, a, a chubby little 16 year olds, you know, me just.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Did you, did you feel a connection to this guy?
Speaker: I felt like I felt an immediate connection to Cyril.
Speaker: Oh, oh, so, um, chapter four, uh,
Speaker: We get the information from Morrowind.
Speaker: Oh, by the way, Cyril is not allowed to use magic because it would mess up his learning right now.
Speaker: So, yeah, he doesn't.
Speaker: He's not ready.
Speaker: He's not ready.
Speaker: He's not ready to actually cast spells.
Speaker: He's like he knows a lot about magic.
Speaker: Don't worry.
Speaker: But don't ask him to cast any spells.
Speaker: He hasn't.
Speaker: He's not there yet.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It would be a bad idea.
Speaker: It would be a bad idea.
Speaker: So Cyril and Alexander, they bond a little bit as they walk back to Castle Daventry.
Speaker: Takes another like 50 pages for the walk back.
Speaker: And not much happens.
Speaker: Alexander and his mother, Queen Valenice.
Speaker: Is it Valenice?
Speaker: Valenice?
Speaker: Valenice, I think.
Speaker: Valenice takes Cyril to where the king is laying.
Speaker: And Cyril says, yep, Morrowind had it right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He literally goes over and goes, yeah, what he said, what he said.
Speaker: I'm confirming the diagnosis.
Speaker: The differential diagnosis is confirmed.
Speaker: It's a stolen soul.
Speaker: We got to get this soul back in there.
Speaker: And we got to get it back fast AF, I wrote in my notes.
Speaker: Because the longer the soul is in the hands of Telegram, it's going to...
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Telegram.
Speaker: Telegram.
Speaker: Canneagram.
Speaker: Canneagram.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The longer it's in his hands, the more corrupt it's going to be.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And also, is this where they imply that he likes to... He doesn't just collect the souls.
Speaker: He does things to the souls.
Speaker: He does things to the souls.
Speaker: Which in like...
Speaker: age appropriate thought process.
Speaker: It's like, oh, he tortures them.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But, you know, you can get real in the gutter with that.
Speaker: You.
Speaker: Oh, it's super easy.
Speaker: It's super easy.
Speaker: So that was chapter four or chapter five.
Speaker: Now the chapter is moving a little bit faster now.
Speaker: Cyril convinces Alexander to take him along for the journey because he can help.
Speaker: They leave in the morning and travel and Alexander has no plans on how to get into the castle, but he thinks he can figure out something.
Speaker: And he just straight up says like, I'm going to fucking, you know, wing this.
Speaker: I'm going to totally wing every bit of this plan.
Speaker: Like, okay.
Speaker: We're going.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So no plan Alexander.
Speaker: They're walking along the path.
Speaker: They hear a horse coming.
Speaker: It's one of the black knights and they have to hide in the woods.
Speaker: It's the end of chapter five.
Speaker: It's it's such a it's such a what is it?
Speaker: The witch kings and and Frodo kind of see it like I totally totally expect him to pull a ring out of nowhere.
Speaker: It's just disappear.
Speaker: Chapter six, they had successfully hidden from the night, by the way.
Speaker: So that night, and I, not K-N.
Speaker: That night, Alexander wakes up and he finds himself in the court of Kulatha, a queen of the fairy.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And she asked Alexander if he's going to get rid of the dark castle.
Speaker: And he says...
Speaker: Yeah, that's the goal.
Speaker: And in return for that, she gives him a wallet filled with sweet bread that'll never run out.
Speaker: Now, I don't know about you, but I would probably just be like, all right, well, I think that was a good enough trip.
Speaker: I don't think I really.
Speaker: Yeah, probably fine.
Speaker: We are all fed.
Speaker: My entire kingdom is fed.
Speaker: The kingdom is fed with this unending bread wallet, right?
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: That is totally worth the loss of my father.
Speaker: I mean, we've got we've got the bread wallet from the Fae.
Speaker: No one will ever go hungry ever again.
Speaker: I love you, Dad.
Speaker: We'll we'll erect several churches in your honor.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But holy shit.
Speaker: Bread wallet.
Speaker: We got we got some Jesus bread in this wallet.
Speaker: Jesus bread.
Speaker: It's apparently delicious.
Speaker: It's filling.
Speaker: You can have as much of it as you want.
Speaker: It gives you energy.
Speaker: You feel better after eating it.
Speaker: You don't feel like you got to poop or anything.
Speaker: Monster energy bread.
Speaker: Monster energy.
Speaker: It's delicious.
Speaker: No sugar.
Speaker: Have this sweet bread sponsored by Monster.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they all come out, there are three of them, they all come out in that weird little slashy M. Yeah, and it's for gamers.
Speaker: So it has RGB trim, like lighting trim on it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's, it's delicious.
Speaker: It's delicious.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The next morning he wakes up, Cyril's bums that he didn't get to see the fairies.
Speaker: They eat some bread.
Speaker: It's delicious.
Speaker: I write.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They eat it.
Speaker: They talk about how delicious we get, we get this little aside about him being a little nervous because, and I thought this was a great touch.
Speaker: The fae, the fairy people are very well known for being capricious and fickle and they're easily offended.
Speaker: And often with their gifts, there's something bad underlying it.
Speaker: But don't worry about it.
Speaker: Don't worry, this is fine.
Speaker: This is perfectly good bread.
Speaker: It's just endless bread.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: It's endless bread.
Speaker: Don't think about it.
Speaker: They pick some apples as they leave the forest.
Speaker: And Alexander has some...
Speaker: moral dilemma over it that lasts all of like a sentence.
Speaker: And then he's like, yeah, just fucking pick the apples.
Speaker: So they take the apples and they see smoke on the horizon.
Speaker: Like, oh no, let's check it out.
Speaker: And we're going to check that out in chapter seven.
Speaker: In chapter seven, they find a farm that it's been attacked and you know, people are all beat up and they tell the people there that they're on the way to the castle to deal with, with the guy that's causing all this.
Speaker: And also can we borrow that rope?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I thought, and I honestly thought these are people who had, they say like these, these nights came, they took all of our food, all of our, all of our everything.
Speaker: I thought this was going to be a moment where they would be like, Oh, well, we have this wallet of infinite bread.
Speaker: So you and the townsfolk, whatever might happen, we'll never go hungry.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And no, he fucking doesn't tell.
Speaker: They just say they just say we promised to figure things out.
Speaker: And can we borrow your rope?
Speaker: Didn't even leave him with bread.
Speaker: No, he didn't.
Speaker: Yeah, didn't even offer.
Speaker: Didn't even offer.
Speaker: Look, I'm sorry.
Speaker: I know that there's a level of nitpicking that can become kind of obnoxious in a fantasy magical land.
Speaker: This is not one I can get over.
Speaker: This is worse than the Eagles taking the hobbits to Mount Doom.
Speaker: He just got the bread in the previous chapter.
Speaker: He just got it.
Speaker: It's infinite.
Speaker: These people have nothing.
Speaker: You couldn't at least open it up and make it rain some bread and then leave?
Speaker: Even if you wanted to hold on to the fucking wallet, you can go, well, I could give you like 200 pieces of bread.
Speaker: You know, turn it into croutons or something so it doesn't go moldy.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It's magic bread.
Speaker: Take it.
Speaker: Take some magic bread.
Speaker: You know, rebuild your house out of bread.
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: Yeah, something.
Speaker: I got infinite bread.
Speaker: He doesn't even do this.
Speaker: This is why the monarchy is bullshit.
Speaker: Of course, the monarchy is bullshit.
Speaker: Of course, Alexander wouldn't know.
Speaker: He doesn't know.
Speaker: He doesn't know.
Speaker: He's a one percenter.
Speaker: He's a he's one percent of the one percent.
Speaker: He's rich.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he he doesn't know the struggle of of the peasant.
Speaker: No, his his his.
Speaker: You know,
Speaker: his intentions are good, but he doesn't even know where to begin with his intentions.
Speaker: No, he sees the big picture, which is dealing with the castle, but he's missing all the little details of like, Hey, keep people fed, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, being a king in these games is just going on adventures.
Speaker: So don't worry.
Speaker: Just walking around screens and collecting items and solving puzzles.
Speaker: That's pretty much the job.
Speaker: That's the job of the king.
Speaker: That's the job.
Speaker: That's the job.
Speaker: So honestly, Graham, Alexander, all of them.
Speaker: Guillotine?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Pixelit says eat the rich.
Speaker: Eat the rich.
Speaker: Especially the King's Quest heroes, protagonists.
Speaker: You did this to me.
Speaker: You did this to yourself, Graham.
Speaker: Eat the rich and steal their bread wallet.
Speaker: Steal their magic bread wallet.
Speaker: Let them eat infinite bread.
Speaker: Prince Alexander was quoted as saying...
Speaker: I got a magic infinite bread wallet.
Speaker: Why can't these kids just go out there and do the same thing I did?
Speaker: I worked hard for my infinite bread wallet.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: I was taking a walk and I found it.
Speaker: I found this.
Speaker: I found it.
Speaker: I earned it.
Speaker: I was taking a walk as, or that I earned as part of my Royal station.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: By inheritance.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So anyway, the people that live in the house also warn them about a Kelpie that lives in the water near the bridge.
Speaker: So they get to the bridge and form a plan.
Speaker: Now, is the plan to keep feeding the Kelpie like infinite bread until it gets sick?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I...
Speaker: I got to tell you, this is where I started to have flashbacks to these games where it was like, look, I know there's a specific answer to this, but I can think of like nine different ways to solve this with the things I already have at hand.
Speaker: And honestly, there's very little that...
Speaker: Infinite fairy bread can't solve.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So what the solution ultimately ends up being for this puzzle is Cyril throws apples into the water.
Speaker: Remember the apples?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Those were in the inventory.
Speaker: Use apple on water.
Speaker: And eventually that causes the Kelpie to come out of the water to try to eat the apple.
Speaker: But when he tries to come out and eat the apple, Alexander uses the rope to...
Speaker: To wrap around the kelp because a kelp.
Speaker: I forgot to explain what a kelpie is.
Speaker: Oh, please explain what a kelpie is.
Speaker: A kelpie is basically a horse that lives in the water.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like a horse.
Speaker: It's not a seahorse.
Speaker: No, it's it is a demon water.
Speaker: Yeah, demon.
Speaker: It's a horse.
Speaker: It looks like a horse, but with like.
Speaker: I don't know, like seaweed mane or detail they want to add to it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it lives underwater.
Speaker: So anyway, he has to break the Kelpie much like you break a horse.
Speaker: So he lasses it.
Speaker: He gets on its back.
Speaker: It tries to buck him off.
Speaker: There's a while where he's, you know, trying to buck Alexander off.
Speaker: He slams Alexander into the bridge a few times.
Speaker: And then he gives up.
Speaker: The Kelpie's like, fuck, fuck this.
Speaker: What do you this is terror.
Speaker: This is torture.
Speaker: The Kelpie starts talking to him like, what do you want, bro?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Really pissy.
Speaker: Dude.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: What is it?
Speaker: And he's like, let us pass the bridge.
Speaker: And the Kelby's like, no, it's in my nature to kill people that try to cross the bridge.
Speaker: And he's like, all right, Scorpion.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: Yeah, it's very Frog and Scorpion.
Speaker: It's very Frog and Scorpion.
Speaker: So he's like, just I'll stop trying to break you if you just leave and leave Daventry.
Speaker: And the Kelby's like, fine.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a, this is, this is honestly, this is intensely King's quest.
Speaker: Like this is where I was like, okay, now we're back on track.
Speaker: It still makes zero sense, but in a, in a King's quest kind of way.
Speaker: This is very King's quest and, you know, add apple to rope, put rope apple in water.
Speaker: And then you get a weird little pixelated animated scene of him riding the Kelpie and a voiceover of the Kelpie going, what are you doing in my lair?
Speaker: You know, it would be like really crunched because it's, you know, old audio.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause it's all on like floppy.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you just and he just goes, look, I'll stop writing you if you promise to leave and never, never harm a human again.
Speaker: Yeah, that's him.
Speaker: Never, never, like the guy just got over saying like, this is my nature.
Speaker: This is what I do.
Speaker: And he's like, I don't give a shit.
Speaker: I'm going to inconvenience you mildly until you promise.
Speaker: You're going to be mildly inconvenienced until you promise.
Speaker: Until you promise to fight against your nature and leave.
Speaker: And Kelpie goes, yeah, sure, fine.
Speaker: I don't, you're fine.
Speaker: You're annoying.
Speaker: You're that annoying.
Speaker: You are that annoying.
Speaker: And I'm like, I'm just going to, I'm just going to go down to the next town and kill some people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You won't be there.
Speaker: What are you going to do about it?
Speaker: You won't be there.
Speaker: What are you going to do?
Speaker: What are you going to do?
Speaker: You're going to follow me?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: You're not going to do that.
Speaker: Is your stupid dad's dying or something?
Speaker: Your stupid dad.
Speaker: Stupid dad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Kelpie leaves and says, fuck your father.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And they nap again.
Speaker: They set up camp on the opposite side across the bridge.
Speaker: Chapter eight, they continue getting closer to the castle.
Speaker: They're getting a little pissy as they have to climb up hills.
Speaker: And yeah, the next morning they continue on and they run into an ogre and the ogre is guarding a cart filled with stuff stolen from farms.
Speaker: And the ogre is just waiting for someone to come pick the food up.
Speaker: And while he waits, he's just sitting there munching on it.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And Alexander's like, hello, ogre.
Speaker: And the ogre's like, what?
Speaker: And he's like, what are you doing?
Speaker: And the ogre's like, guarding it.
Speaker: And Alexander's like, carry on.
Speaker: And continues.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Cyril's like, what if the ogre tried to follow us or eat us or attack us?
Speaker: And he's like, eh, ogres are lazy.
Speaker: Why would he follow us?
Speaker: He has a cart of food right there.
Speaker: He just racially profiles this ogre.
Speaker: Racially profiles this ogre.
Speaker: And they get to the castle and they realize there's no way in until...
Speaker: Suddenly, Alexander shapes a plan and they have to go back, dot, dot, dot, end of chapter eight and the end of the first 102 pages of the book.
Speaker: It feels like not a lot happened in 102 pages.
Speaker: That was 100 pages.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, okay.
Speaker: I feel like the could have been condensed a little bit.
Speaker: I feel like, yeah, I feel like.
Speaker: And I already know the solution to this puzzle.
Speaker: Like I didn't read forward, but I understand.
Speaker: I'm going to take I'm going to predict.
Speaker: Yeah, do it.
Speaker: Wild stab that what they're going to do is hide in the cart underneath the food.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then the cart's going to get taken into the castle and then they're in.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: That sounds about right.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So that's, that's, that's the first part of King's Quest.
Speaker: How are you feeling about it, Phil?
Speaker: You know, I, I,
Speaker: I have decided that before we meet again, I'm going to play through at least one of these games because I remember loving the King's Quest games.
Speaker: And this is making me paranoid that maybe they were all really boring.
Speaker: Maybe they were.
Speaker: Because this is intensely... This is true to the franchise.
Speaker: Like, it's meandering.
Speaker: It's very cute.
Speaker: But it's also...
Speaker: Really boring.
Speaker: And I am terrified that it's going to be one of those revisit something from your childhood and hate it kind of situations.
Speaker: Sure, sure.
Speaker: So that's something to look forward to.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't.
Speaker: And we were talking before the show.
Speaker: I don't have a lot to say about it.
Speaker: It's like it's hitting that mark of just like.
Speaker: existing at a level in which I, I just don't have anything.
Speaker: The best, the worst thing I can say about it is that it's boring.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I can't muster up a lot of anger.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's not that it's, it's not that it's badly written.
Speaker: It's not, it's not going to launch me into a political rant here.
Speaker: No, not this time.
Speaker: Not this time.
Speaker: Well, we did have a rant about the monarchy.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Well, you know what?
Speaker: Totally fair.
Speaker: That's how boring it is, though.
Speaker: We already put that out of our mind.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: God.
Speaker: Well, so King's Quest, we're going to power on through to the other side of this one.
Speaker: It was super easy to read, at least.
Speaker: It was a light read.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We got through it pretty quick.
Speaker: I feel like I read 100 pages in about an hour.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And there are two more of these books that were written by somebody else completely different.
Speaker: And now I'm kind of like forced to make sure that the next ones are also on the schedule at some point so we can find out how it compares with a different author.
Speaker: Yeah, I do like that kind of comparison.
Speaker: Yeah, so anyway, what are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, I, well, first and foremost, I finally beat Midnight Suns.
Speaker: Ooh, yeah.
Speaker: So I enjoyed it.
Speaker: My take on it essentially is that it's a Firaxis game, which means I enjoyed myself and was also deeply frustrated by it at various times.
Speaker: It is buggier than a grad student's apartment.
Speaker: It is just a mess.
Speaker: There were so many times that I had to like load old save games or restart and stuff.
Speaker: And it's just, but that's just Firaxis.
Speaker: They try to do so much with these things that they come out and they're just buggy as shit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But they're good enough that you keep at it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I finished that up and I actually started playing Tormented Souls this week.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Which you played last year, didn't you?
Speaker: Yeah, I might have.
Speaker: What is that?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Oh, yes, that's the Resident Evil-like, right?
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Very similar.
Speaker: I had some, I had some, like, I'm trying to remember what I thought of it.
Speaker: I think I said fine, except it has some weird relationship with disability.
Speaker: There's some weird ableist stuff in there.
Speaker: Weird, yeah.
Speaker: It goes...
Speaker: Yeah, it definitely goes into just old fashioned tropes of mental institution.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Which just they just it doesn't hit the same way it used to.
Speaker: It feels a little it just feels a little outdated.
Speaker: It's a little sleazier than some of the older Resident Evils are.
Speaker: Within the first five minutes, we get our main character completely nude and soapy in a tub.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's an evil tub.
Speaker: It's an evil tub.
Speaker: She wakes up having been knocked out in a tub, and her eye has been surgically removed.
Speaker: It has been removed, yeah.
Speaker: So I'm playing through it.
Speaker: I'm enjoying it.
Speaker: It does scratch that itch.
Speaker: I'm coming to realize that that Resident Evil...
Speaker: puzzly kind of thing is absolutely catnip for me.
Speaker: So it scratches that itch.
Speaker: The forced perspective aspect of it, which is such a hallmark of the older Resident Evil games, is
Speaker: it's a trip.
Speaker: It's so funny to do that again.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's, it's a little frustrating at times, but it can be.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's how it was back then too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And sometimes with that, I mean, there would be times where I would play that game and I'm like, all right, I gotta, I gotta look up what, what, where I went wrong and be like, oh yeah, go get the thing that you missed in this room.
Speaker: And I'll be like,
Speaker: Oh, I just didn't see it there because that has been 90%.
Speaker: If I get stuck, 90% of it is I just I didn't get close enough to this fucking shelf and have the button prompt to pick some damn thing up.
Speaker: That has been 90% of it.
Speaker: Having said that, I'm enjoying it.
Speaker: Yeah, that's probably I'll probably be done with it before too long.
Speaker: It's not I don't think it's super long.
Speaker: I think it's about on.
Speaker: It'll time out about as long as like a Resident Evil game on your first playthrough.
Speaker: It's got the camp.
Speaker: Some of the designs are a little... The character designs are kind of meh.
Speaker: I love the...
Speaker: The castle design, though.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: The environment design is amazing.
Speaker: Environment design is terrific.
Speaker: The character design is a little ho-hum.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: So, having fun.
Speaker: Good time.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: What about you?
Speaker: What are you playing, Kevin?
Speaker: Well, what am I playing?
Speaker: So I've been playing Dead Cells because the Castlevania update to Dead Cells is coming soon.
Speaker: And I was like, I'm going to I'm just going to I had I played Dead Cells years ago on the on the switch, which is what I think was like originally released on the switch or something like that.
Speaker: And Dead Cells, if you guys don't know, is a roguelike Metroidvania where you play basically this this dude who has died.
Speaker: He has lost his head, but his like soul kind of like goes back into his headless body.
Speaker: So he doesn't talk at all.
Speaker: Every character that he communicates, he usually just he can just like either shrug or he gives a thumbs up to.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's a cute little game.
Speaker: So, yeah, you just play.
Speaker: And over the years since it's released, I think it came out, I want to say 2015 or 2016 originally.
Speaker: Over the years since its release, it's kind of become like this...
Speaker: indie um it's almost like indie smash brothers um i want to say because a lot of other indie games have had their characters and weapons and stuff co-opted into it so like there's like shovel knight stuff in there um there is uh you can get the crowbar from um um what's it
Speaker: From a Half-Life.
Speaker: Half-Life.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You can get the Half-Life crowbar.
Speaker: You can get the nail from Hollow Knight, which was the super fun, which was the bugs.
Speaker: So we're just called a nail.
Speaker: It's really cute.
Speaker: And and oh, and my one of my favorites is you can get the baseball bat from Hotline Miami.
Speaker: Oh, gosh, I haven't played that in a thousand years.
Speaker: Oh, that's fun.
Speaker: And when you initially find all these weapons, you there will be like a because the Dead Cells, the the theming of the cat, it's like, you know, a castle.
Speaker: And then there's like, you know, sewers and there's all these different areas.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But they're all very castle like sometimes you run into like a special room.
Speaker: And the first time I walked into this one room where it was just like,
Speaker: regular furniture and a TV.
Speaker: And there's a there's a like a telephone on the table and you like pick it up.
Speaker: And it's it's basically the Hotline Miami telephone that you pick up.
Speaker: With the guy talking to you.
Speaker: And when you use the hotline Miami baseball bat, the numbers, the damage numbers above the enemies changes to that font.
Speaker: Oh, that's hilarious.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: Okay, that's great.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: It's it's there's it's like such fun little stuff.
Speaker: And so there's they have an update coming.
Speaker: Dead Cells return to Castlevania where basically it's like the entire game gets themed like like like a roguelike Castlevania, so to speak.
Speaker: So that's what I'm really waiting for and looking forward to when that comes out.
Speaker: So fun.
Speaker: But yeah, I played Dead Cells and warmed up a bit on it.
Speaker: I don't remember a lot about that game, but I remember it felt amazing to play.
Speaker: Yeah, it does.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh-oh.
Speaker: Let's... Do I got another one?
Speaker: Is there another one coming?
Speaker: Allergic to greatness.
Speaker: I'm allergic to greatness.
Speaker: That's why we have to do this podcast long distance, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: But yeah, it's it's a lot of fun to play.
Speaker: And I recommend I recommend it.
Speaker: Like if you're, you know, if you just need a side scrolling action platformer row like that, you really can't go wrong with Dead Cells.
Speaker: I mean, it can just be basically be like a forever game, you know, just a game you return to from time to time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: So Dead Cells and I'm playing Dead Space, the remake.
Speaker: Oh, OK.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: I need to hear it.
Speaker: Because I only played the trilogy of this game.
Speaker: Yeah, you played the trilogy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Last year.
Speaker: That was my introduction to it.
Speaker: So there's a part of me that's kind of excited about this remake.
Speaker: But at the same time, I'm kind of like, eh, I played it last year.
Speaker: Yeah, you could probably, so if you've just played the Dead Space, the original,
Speaker: You could probably wait a little bit before jumping into the remake.
Speaker: That being said, there is enough difference between the original and the remake to like the lighting is complete.
Speaker: It's amazing that there will be some areas where the I didn't remember having to like basically keep my gun up.
Speaker: Because there's a flashlight on Isaac's like weapon.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: In the remake, you need to basically in some areas, you just need to have that flashlight up all the time because you are not going to see anything.
Speaker: Oh, there's just like some ambient lighting and some of this thing scurrying like around the corner or whatever.
Speaker: And you just like flashlight up.
Speaker: It's, it's got some really nice lighting.
Speaker: Um, I'm having a lot of fun with it and I've, um, it's weird.
Speaker: All I don't, I was two years ago that I played dead space for the first time.
Speaker: Um, and it was, um, I love it.
Speaker: I love, I mean, one and two I love, and I don't hate three as much as other people do.
Speaker: It wasn't,
Speaker: it wasn't that offensively bad.
Speaker: It wasn't that offensive.
Speaker: It was just frustrating.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: So I'll be like, Oh, I don't really remember this.
Speaker: And then suddenly there'll be, I'll get into a room.
Speaker: They're like,
Speaker: where there will be like a puzzle and be like, oh, no, I remember exactly what I got to do.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, right.
Speaker: I'm doing the tram thing where it's like, oh, there it's I got to get the old tram car off the track so the new one can make its way.
Speaker: But the thing the arm won't attach.
Speaker: We're like, oh, yeah, I got to do the stasis on the one arm and run all the way to the side and
Speaker: And send out the other arm.
Speaker: So I remember those puzzle solutions just kind of click back in there since it's only been a little bit since I played it.
Speaker: But yeah, Dead Space Remake, a lot of fun.
Speaker: There was some... I think there were some weird bug issues on the PC version.
Speaker: I think those have been squashed.
Speaker: Where it was like not...
Speaker: You get soft locked because of the auto save.
Speaker: So the game, like when you start the game, it starts you, you just turn it on and it just loads right into your continued your save file.
Speaker: Like you're just standing there with Isaac.
Speaker: Somebody I know, Mitch from the YouTube channel, Heavy-Eyed, he was having an issue where he he got auto saved right as a necromorph was killing him.
Speaker: So as when it would reload that auto save, it would reload right to when the Necromorph was killing him.
Speaker: And then even if he exited the game and tried to load back in, it would just go right into it.
Speaker: So he couldn't even get to the menu to load a previous manual save.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: That sucks.
Speaker: So he figured out a way around it.
Speaker: I think they just they they actually just fixed that problem.
Speaker: He figured out a way around it by like deleting some auto saves, like going into the folder and right, like deleting stuff.
Speaker: And yeah,
Speaker: I think they just they launched a fix today where it now loads like when you start, it actually loads on the pause menu rather than right into the right into the action.
Speaker: But otherwise, I'm having a good good time with it.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: OK, great.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Yeah, it looks beautiful.
Speaker: It looks.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, it's it's totally beautiful.
Speaker: But that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: If you can, you know, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Pixel It Pod, at Pixel It Pod.
Speaker: You know what it is.
Speaker: You've heard, you know, you've heard us talk about it before.
Speaker: Go to PixelItPod.com.
Speaker: Click on the subscribe to our newsletter button if you want to get the episodes early.
Speaker: Most of the time, sometimes I don't have time to get them out early, but most of the time I can get them out early to you.
Speaker: And from there, you can join our Discord.
Speaker: We've actually had some new people popping up in the Discord recently.
Speaker: And if you go to the Discord, maybe you could talk to Phil about getting in on one of his vampire, the old timey, what's the name?
Speaker: The Dark Ages.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Vampire the old timey.
Speaker: Well, I am thinking, I think, because I've wanted to start playing tabletop games more often.
Speaker: And the problem for me is that I don't mind being the DM.
Speaker: I don't mind.
Speaker: I'm a forever DM.
Speaker: It's just how it kind of always worked for me.
Speaker: And I don't really mind that all that much.
Speaker: But what I...
Speaker: have a problem with is being intensely ADHD and and it's hard for me to do a big long term campaign without feeling like I'm I'm missing things or leaving things out or getting bored or wanting to try something new.
Speaker: So I think what I'm going to start doing on our discord is do some one shots here and there and see if anyone's interested in this particular one shot and just play with it.
Speaker: And, and our discord people, if you want to play with us, I'll put it out to regular social media too, but I think we should make sure that our discord people have priority if they're interested because they made the jump.
Speaker: They made the jump to the cord.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So if there are any games you want to play, let me know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Maybe we'll set it up.
Speaker: That could be fun.
Speaker: Hop in there and talk to us.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're there.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: That's what we're there for.
Speaker: That'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Have a good night, everybody.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: Bye.
