Transcript
Speaker: Just weird when I tried to do it that one time.
Speaker: Just weird when you tried to do it.
Speaker: That's just that sounds about right.
Speaker: That sounds like, yeah, sounds like how things are supposed to work.
Speaker: An old town.
Speaker: You know what else is weird when you try to do it?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel.
Speaker: My name is Kevin with me as always is Phil.
Speaker: And today we're finishing Alan Wake.
Speaker: Alan Wake by Rick Burrows, a novel.
Speaker: Rick Burrows, the fakey fakerson, the fakey fakerson, a not real person who wrote the not real person, the the 100% Sam Jarvie, Sam Lake.
Speaker: It's pseudonym.
Speaker: So, you know, we'll
Speaker: We're going to get right to it.
Speaker: We're going to put the body in the marsh.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: Because this book is going to be in the marsh when we're done.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It works out very nicely in that sense.
Speaker: It works out very nicely.
Speaker: Marsh, body of water, you know, potato, potato.
Speaker: I'm embarrassed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we're picking it up at chapter 19.
Speaker: So where we last left off, they had just gotten into a car accident.
Speaker: Alan shuffles down the hill and finds Barry even further down, but they're separated, and they have to hoof it to the Anderson farm.
Speaker: On the way, Barry is attacked by the Taken and has to defend himself using a flare gun, and he gets pretty, like,
Speaker: Woo, yeah, don't mess with New Yorkers, baby.
Speaker: Yeah, it gets a little, this is not the first or last time this happens in this book, but it gets a little goofy.
Speaker: It's a touch goofy.
Speaker: A little goofy.
Speaker: Gooftastic.
Speaker: Along the way, Wake has a vision of the diver who tells him that he is trying to deliver each manuscript page to him at the right time and place.
Speaker: There's a plan.
Speaker: There is a plan, sort of like the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica.
Speaker: There was a plan.
Speaker: But as the seasons went along, we realized there was no plan.
Speaker: And Earth.
Speaker: That was the plan, kind of.
Speaker: Ancient, ancient alien.
Speaker: It's funny.
Speaker: It's, it's funny to think we were on a, it's probably not aliens when basically Battlestar Galactica is the ending of Battlestar Galactica is ancient alien theory.
Speaker: It's basically, yeah, it's just setting all that up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So afterwards, Wake gets a page about the shoebox, which would continue to exist despite Zane having written himself out of his existence.
Speaker: And then Wake has an encounter with a harvester that feels very rote and not tense at all.
Speaker: No, it was, I mean, I remember that boss fight.
Speaker: I remember those encounters and stuff like that.
Speaker: Always the big growling,
Speaker: angry vehicle you've got to jog around and somehow bring down and those were pretty effective boss fights and this this doesn't really hold up to the to the game and this situation no it's like alan points his flashlight at it yeah next sentence he points it at it again and it's defeated and it's done
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I guess, I guess it has become a little tedious.
Speaker: The process of shine the light, shoot it, shine the light, shoot it throughout the book.
Speaker: Cause at least in the game you're playing and you're having fun.
Speaker: You're doing it.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, this is a little abrupt and they could have come up with something else.
Speaker: They could have.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But they didn't.
Speaker: They didn't.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Rick Burroughs.
Speaker: I'll get you, Rick Burroughs.
Speaker: Next time.
Speaker: The chapter ends with a scene.
Speaker: Next time.
Speaker: Next time.
Speaker: Next time.
Speaker: The chapter ends with a scene that is probably the best moment in the game, but doesn't read nearly as fun in the book.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And I'm not sure what could have been done to make it better.
Speaker: Yeah, this one I don't think it was.
Speaker: And this is the bulk of the chapter.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't think this is the author's fault in this situation.
Speaker: It was just such a fun game moment.
Speaker: It's such an awesome game moment.
Speaker: So basically to break it down...
Speaker: You fight the harvester.
Speaker: You cut across the field.
Speaker: You get to the stage in the Anderson Brothers farm, the literal stage that they would perform at.
Speaker: And you get on there, and there's all these taking flooding in after you.
Speaker: And as you're fighting them off, Barry is in the background, like, firing up the pyrotechnics and the music and the lights.
Speaker: And you have this, you know, you have this, like, heavy metal going in the background, like, well, 80s, you know, hair metal.
Speaker: And it's, you know, it's like, oh, wow.
Speaker: And you're like blasting and shooting and the lights are flying and the pyrotechnics are going.
Speaker: And it's an awesome moment in the game.
Speaker: It's actually probably, it's the best moment in the entire game.
Speaker: It's easily the most memorable moment of the entire game and probably the most fun too.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: I don't know how they were going to translate that into the book and make it even a quarter as effectively fun.
Speaker: It just doesn't work that way sometimes.
Speaker: So I hold nothing against Burroughs for this one.
Speaker: That one, what are you supposed to do?
Speaker: yeah burrows burrows quotation marks if that is your real if that is your real name and it's not it's uh yeah so anyway uh there basically there's it's it's page pages after pages of describing this encounter this rock and roll encounter from the stage in the book and it's
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: I mean, he did his best, but it's not great.
Speaker: It's just not, it's not the same format, you know, it's not, it's not gonna work.
Speaker: It's not gonna work.
Speaker: I think that's, that's, it really is.
Speaker: It speaks to the difference between a video game and a book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That interactivity is what makes this moment, you know?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It could be pulled off maybe in a movie.
Speaker: Yes, I was just going to say, in a more visual medium, it would absolutely work.
Speaker: But when you're being more thoughtful and introspective, which is what the power of the written word is, then it doesn't quite work just to describe fireworks going off and Barry to be air guitaring and shit.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: The chapter ends with like a manuscript segment about Agent Nightingale, also known as the most underdeveloped plot in the game and the book.
Speaker: What the fuck?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I just don't know.
Speaker: I don't know what it goes nowhere.
Speaker: It does nothing.
Speaker: It does nothing for me.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: Chapter 20, Alan and Barry are chilling on the stage listening to Agent Nightingale's interactions with Hartman that were recorded because Hartman was annoyed by Nightingale.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Then they decide to cut through the barn.
Speaker: And they see the Andersons' full-sized Viking ship in all its glory hanging in there.
Speaker: And Barry finds a moonshine still.
Speaker: And he grabs a bottle of the good old moonshine.
Speaker: White lightning.
Speaker: White lightning.
Speaker: They get into the Anderson house.
Speaker: And while Alan looks around, Barry sits down and starts drinking.
Speaker: Can anyone tell me why this happens?
Speaker: It's so random.
Speaker: Why, what happens?
Speaker: They find Moonshine and decide they're just, after everything that's happened, they're just like, let's just get fucked up on Shine.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's funny because it's like the Andersons told him to drink the Moonshine, but there's no moment of realization that that's what he's supposed to do.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: He doesn't go, oh, right, they told me to do this.
Speaker: He just goes, ah, fuck it, let's have us a drink.
Speaker: It's so random and...
Speaker: Yeah, it didn't really make sense.
Speaker: It didn't work.
Speaker: The scene doesn't really work.
Speaker: It's just like we're getting drunk now, I guess.
Speaker: I guess it will provide us with nothing.
Speaker: It'll provide us with like magical illusions.
Speaker: Send the storyline forward a handful of hours.
Speaker: Juice.
Speaker: That's pretty much what it is.
Speaker: That's what it does.
Speaker: They put on the record player while they're drinking.
Speaker: And the record, the song that is on the record has lyrics about finding the lady of the night.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Lady of the light, rather.
Speaker: The lady of the night would be something completely different.
Speaker: Something completely different.
Speaker: Also fun.
Speaker: And also something that rock stars are partial to writing about.
Speaker: But just not this time.
Speaker: Roxanne!
Speaker: You don't have to put on that dress tonight.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Thank you, Sting.
Speaker: Thank you, Sting.
Speaker: It's crazy that you got him on for a cameo at such late notice.
Speaker: Such late notice, but Sting and the police were... Actually, the whole band was here.
Speaker: The police were here.
Speaker: They almost never get back together.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: They never get back together.
Speaker: Never.
Speaker: Even though his only real good work was with the police and we've somehow been deluding ourselves to thinking Desert Rose.
Speaker: How did we trick ourselves into thinking that?
Speaker: That his solo career is what we really wanted.
Speaker: And they were like, we just want the police sting.
Speaker: And he just, yeah, he just, I mean, sorry, sting.
Speaker: I know you're still in the room.
Speaker: I'm just telling you the truth.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're just, we're trying to, we're trying to help you out, buddy.
Speaker: We're, we're just as, as from one, uh, set of insanely successful entertainment, uh, uh, geniuses, uh, to, uh, a reasonably intelligent, uh, uh, musical guy.
Speaker: You just gotta, you gotta hear from us on this one.
Speaker: You got to hear from us.
Speaker: Listen to us.
Speaker: Reform the police, but change the name because fucking the police, really?
Speaker: Yeah, come on.
Speaker: Doesn't really fly in 2023, buddy.
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: Especially not if you're singing about Roxanne.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love that song.
Speaker: I really love that song.
Speaker: So he realizes that Cynthia Weaver is that lady and she has something that'll get him back into the cabin.
Speaker: And then they pass out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: From drinking to moonshine.
Speaker: That moonshine.
Speaker: It made me think, this is a little tangent.
Speaker: I remember when I was younger and in high school, I would play D&D and shit like that with my friends in chat rooms on AOL because none of us could drive.
Speaker: And so we would just do chat rooms and stuff.
Speaker: And that was the big thing.
Speaker: thing at the time uh because it was 1990 and uh and that was just what you did and but my parents didn't like me staying up late and playing dnd because they were still my mother at least still had uh residual scars from the satanic panic and i was supposed to be in bed anyway and we'd stay up until like two or three in the morning playing and um
Speaker: And so anytime it became a running gag, because anytime my mom would like start walking towards the, the family communal computer room, I would write that my character passes out and it became this running gag that he had like narcolepsy or something like that.
Speaker: And they'd go, Oh, okay.
Speaker: Well, I guess fills out.
Speaker: So they, they have to get creative, do something with my body while they finished up.
Speaker: the session.
Speaker: And that was immediately when I thought about it, I was like, we're just, that's the end of that scene.
Speaker: I guess we'll drink some shine and boom, we were chapter, whatever it's it's that it gave me flashbacks.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: AOL instant messenger.
Speaker: Actually, it wouldn't have even been instant messenger.
Speaker: You would have just been in a chat room, right?
Speaker: We just had a private chat room.
Speaker: We'd all meet up in and we had some friends from out of town that we met through public gaming chat rooms.
Speaker: And that was back in the day where you would just go into free.
Speaker: free form role-playing game chat rooms and I'm a dragon, I'm a vampire.
Speaker: It's it, it, it all, it, you can take a direct line and connect that to the current like fan fiction subculture.
Speaker: It's all the same thing.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's, and a lot of us were writing fan fiction anyway.
Speaker: So yeah, it's all the same.
Speaker: Nothing changes.
Speaker: Nothing changes.
Speaker: Time is a flat circle.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: The internet might have evolved, but actually I do miss the days of the internet being a little bit weirder.
Speaker: Like it was like, it's, it's weird.
Speaker: Like it has, it's like you could go out on a voyage on the internet and the internet was like a million tiny islands.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: There's some bigger ones.
Speaker: like, Hey, well, or whatever, but it was like this, it was a million tiny islands out there for you to explore, uh, explore and find and, and, and, and see new things.
Speaker: And now it's just like, I guess fucking open Twitter.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's, it's all very homogenous now.
Speaker: You've got your apps and your shit that you, and this is, this is, this is the old men, uh, yelling at a cloud portion of the show.
Speaker: But if I know a lot of our listeners are, are,
Speaker: younger than us and at least one generation behind us.
Speaker: Uh, and it's one of those things that if you've ever heard an older geek talk about how the internet back in the day was kind of like the wild West and you did not know what you were going to get to see and everything.
Speaker: Well, that was actually, that's a pretty good example of not knowing what the hell we're going to see.
Speaker: She's getting scarier, man.
Speaker: Like, I don't know what,
Speaker: You letting her read spooky books or something?
Speaker: I don't know what that... She watches too much YouTube and sometimes I think it just goes creepypasta route.
Speaker: Hey, at least she's watching YouTube and not rotten.com.
Speaker: So that was... Speaking of an island in the internet that was... That was the thing is you had these like...
Speaker: It's like, how daring do you wish to be?
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: You heard tale of whispers of rotten.com.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: What is rotten.com?
Speaker: And you wouldn't even dare to put in the URL.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or if you did, you'd see that first creepy image that was on the header and you'd like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker: And just turn it off immediately.
Speaker: It just, it was all.
Speaker: And that's the thing.
Speaker: I, I, I do have a fondness for every now and then dipping my toe in the water of creepy pastas and shit like that, because it comes from the same place.
Speaker: And I, I recognize in them what they're trying to do.
Speaker: It's just, I feel like sometimes our version of that was actually sometimes illegal.
Speaker: So it was,
Speaker: There wasn't a lot of dark web in the AOL days, but just a dollop of it.
Speaker: Just a dollop of it.
Speaker: Like sour cream in the middle of a bowl of chili.
Speaker: Just right there.
Speaker: I could go for that.
Speaker: I might register sour cream in the middle of a bowl of chili dot com.
Speaker: It'll just be our shared blog of old internet experiences.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I think that works.
Speaker: I think that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: We're still talking about Alan Wake, though.
Speaker: Yes, we are.
Speaker: Yes, we are.
Speaker: We're in, oh, it's still at the end of chapter 20.
Speaker: There's a manuscript segment where it's details about how the darkness got a hold of Rose.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So we're in chapter 21, and Alan has a dream or vision of the night he walked out on Alice and what happened next.
Speaker: In the game, this is kind of...
Speaker: done as like an out of body experience where you're like a ghost version of him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Following the real version of him in the dream around and just seeing what happened.
Speaker: And you're like, no, stop doing that.
Speaker: You dummy.
Speaker: So he was captured by the darkness in and he was in the cabin and he was just forced to write whatever the darkness wanted.
Speaker: He just had to write this story.
Speaker: And as he was writing the story, he eventually figured out that the darkness believed in a thing called love.
Speaker: Was using I'm I'm actually it's the dark presence, not the darkness.
Speaker: The darkness is a band.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: A very good band, but a band.
Speaker: A very good band.
Speaker: I believe in a thing called love.
Speaker: Just listen to the rhythm of your heart.
Speaker: Musicals.
Speaker: The dark presence was using him and he wrote himself an exit strategy from the story using Thomas Zane to weaken her.
Speaker: So he shows up with his light and he he weakens her and he's while she's distracted.
Speaker: He gets out of the cabin, ran to his car, drove, got into a car accident.
Speaker: And that's where he woke up from is that car accident.
Speaker: As he wakes up from the dream, Agent Nightingale is pointing a gun at him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, this chapter ends.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This chapter ends with a segment about Walter being scared of a man he saw on the porch.
Speaker: I don't understand.
Speaker: I didn't understand this.
Speaker: I was hoping you were going to explain that one to me because I didn't follow that one either.
Speaker: Didn't follow it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Chapter 22.
Speaker: Alan and Barry are in jail.
Speaker: And then Alan has a vision.
Speaker: Yeah, finally.
Speaker: Our long national nightmare has come to an end.
Speaker: Alan has a vision of Cynthia Weaver saying that she has something that will be given when the time is right.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Her virginity.
Speaker: Finally, finally, we've come to the part in the book that Kevin and I were both waiting for the hardcore pornography.
Speaker: I think we both knew that that was coming.
Speaker: Listen, there's no way that Alan hasn't written a little erotica, a little romance under a pseudonym, right?
Speaker: Absolutely not.
Speaker: He's got to pay the bills, right?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I doubt he's good at it.
Speaker: I doubt he's good at it, but he has done it.
Speaker: He has 100% done it.
Speaker: He has done it, just for a quick buck.
Speaker: But the man is no Chuck Tingle.
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: One is enough anyway.
Speaker: So that's fine.
Speaker: And also who is, you know?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What are we supposed to hold ourselves?
Speaker: Hold ourselves to that standard?
Speaker: Are you kidding?
Speaker: That's not fair.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: That's asking for burnout right there.
Speaker: Oh, you can't do that.
Speaker: Barry wakes up hungover and then Nightingale and Sheriff Breaker come in.
Speaker: The sheriff is asking Nightingale what exactly he's doing by arresting them.
Speaker: And then Nightingale starts talking about the manuscript and how Wake is responsible for all the problems.
Speaker: And while Breaker and Nightingale are going back and forth, Wake slips into another vision of Birdleg Cabin.
Speaker: And then the sheriff stops and stops arguing with Nightingale and starts trying to shake and snap Alan out of it.
Speaker: Nightingale freaks out and says, the only way Alan is getting out of there is over his dead body.
Speaker: And then he stops because he remembers that he just read this scene.
Speaker: So weird.
Speaker: just read the scene of the manuscript and he pulls out the page and then he he gets abducted by a cloud of darkness out into the night leaving the manuscript page behind and in the manuscript page it says nightingale says that he's only leaving over his dead body and then exactly what happens happens yeah
Speaker: I just, I love the idea that he stops himself on it, where he's just like, he's like, wait a minute, where have I read that before?
Speaker: Oh, no!
Speaker: And just, it's carried away.
Speaker: Oh, no!
Speaker: Spaceballs the movie.
Speaker: We're really getting a lot of mileage out of that one tonight.
Speaker: Oh, we always do.
Speaker: There's a segment at the end with Sarah breaker thinking about how they may potentially win this fight that it's weird because it's a segment that takes place in like two chapters from now, just from her point of view.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Anyway, chapter 23, Sheriff Breaker is stunned.
Speaker: They tell her that they need lights and that there's a storm brewing outside.
Speaker: It's pushing cars around.
Speaker: And Alan explains the whole Taken thing to Sarah about needing flashlights and guns to fight them off.
Speaker: Sarah tells Barry to call a list of people and tell them all the code word night springs as a warning signal.
Speaker: And then Alan tells Sarah that they need to get to Cynthia Weaver.
Speaker: Sarah recounts that the only time her dad ever got angry at her was when she made up a rhyme making fun of Cynthia.
Speaker: I'm going to pause for a moment here because...
Speaker: If you're thinking that the Night Springs thing is going to come around and pay off in any way, you're wrong.
Speaker: I'm afraid not.
Speaker: I'm afraid not, kids.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No, I'm afraid not.
Speaker: We've said several times so far that this is a better novelization than what we've been dealing with lately.
Speaker: We didn't say it was good.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Better is the operative word.
Speaker: Better, yes.
Speaker: Better is comparative, not a statement of quality.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So just so you guys know.
Speaker: Just so you all know, they run through the town and it is a mess.
Speaker: Sarah has to kill a man named Tom Egan, and she's bummed out about that.
Speaker: Alan explains how the names of the Dark Presence and the Taken were probably created by him in the story that he wrote for the Dark Presence.
Speaker: He also mentions that Rose isn't the Taken,
Speaker: But she was touched by darkness, which is what Alan, the Andersons, and Cynthia are.
Speaker: They've all been touched by the darkness as opposed to taken.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So they're haunted in a way, but they're not... They're haunted, and they have...
Speaker: They can't, they're susceptible to falling under the spell of the dark presence.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: They're not, they're not just shadow monsters.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So they run through the general store and Alan sees another TV flashing back to how he had to change the story to save Alice.
Speaker: Barry grabs some stuff in the store and then they have a fight with a bunch of big taken.
Speaker: And during this fight, Barry twirls around and he has Christmas lights all over him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he's a big old Christmas ornament just cutting his way through the taken.
Speaker: Did this happen in the game?
Speaker: You've played it more recently.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: But the more important thing, and it's not in the book, Barry has the Christmas lights around him.
Speaker: The thing that actually is helpful, though, is he gets a headlamp.
Speaker: So he has like a high power headlamp that he puts on his head and he's everywhere he looks.
Speaker: He's like hitting the shadow people.
Speaker: I do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it was like it was a weird thing to leave out.
Speaker: But.
Speaker: They get to the helicopter.
Speaker: It was a choice.
Speaker: It was a choice.
Speaker: The Christmas lights saved the day.
Speaker: They get to the helicopter.
Speaker: Sarah has to get it operational, but they get around.
Speaker: Can they get out in the nick of time and fly off?
Speaker: And the chapter ends with a manuscript segment about Mott, who was the kidnapper, looking for Alan and his wife in Stucky's cabins.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Chapter 24.
Speaker: As they fly, they talk about the take-in and about how Alan was wrong, about Bright Falls being Nowheresville.
Speaker: They talk about New York and how Sarah's dad used to be a cop there.
Speaker: And they also talk about how if this was a movie, Philip Seymour Hoffman would be playing Barry.
Speaker: Rest in peace, Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Speaker: And Barry should be so lucky.
Speaker: He takes a fence, and I want to punch him in the head.
Speaker: Like, how dare you?
Speaker: I punch him in the... Like, if Philip Seymour Hoffman... If Philip Seymour Hoffman was able to play anybody, they would be honored.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Anybody.
Speaker: Anybody.
Speaker: If Philip Seymour Hoffman farted in my kitchen, I would be honored.
Speaker: Like, I'm just... I'm just spitballing.
Speaker: If Philip Seymour Hoffman punched me in the dick, I'd be honored.
Speaker: If Philip Seymour Hoffman...
Speaker: adopted my dog and changed its name and backstory in front of me while finger blasting my mom, I'd be honored.
Speaker: So, so fuck off Barry with your bullshit.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: I appreciate that one.
Speaker: I appreciate that whole line of... I was just willing to let you see how long you were going to go on that one.
Speaker: I thought, you know, I was like, with this one, let's just stick with the rule of three.
Speaker: I think we're good.
Speaker: I think we're good.
Speaker: So Alan is a bit patronizing to Sarah.
Speaker: Sarah bites his head off over it until Barry breaks the tension, talking about his parka.
Speaker: Then the crows attack the chopper, causing Sarah to have to set it down.
Speaker: They gently crash and get out.
Speaker: It is a gentle crash.
Speaker: It is a gentle crash.
Speaker: This is also not how it happens in the book itself.
Speaker: Or in the game at all.
Speaker: In the game, Alan gets out first and then he has to like hoof it and Barry and Sarah go.
Speaker: So there's like a long gameplay segment of Alan just like running through the forest, fighting off Taken.
Speaker: And then he finds he finds Cynthia by himself and then he stops to go rescue.
Speaker: It's like a whole much longer extended sequence.
Speaker: I appreciate.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Literally cutting all of it out.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: They did a good job of condensing it a little bit.
Speaker: So, yeah, totally agree.
Speaker: The chapter ends with a manuscript segment about the town doctor examining Barry and trying to figure out what's wrong with Rose.
Speaker: And also like a hint that he's seen this before.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Chapter 25, they get to the power plant and meet with Cynthia Weaver, who is not very sure about why they're there.
Speaker: She has them prove that they're friends, do the secret handshake.
Speaker: Yeah, of course.
Speaker: Cynthia mentions that she remembers the mean stuff Sarah said when she was a kid.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: She brings that up.
Speaker: Toot sweet.
Speaker: She's just like, yeah.
Speaker: You were an asshole when you were a kid.
Speaker: Do you know that?
Speaker: Okay, all right.
Speaker: You're a shitty little kid.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: That's literally what she's like, yeah, I know.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: So Alan explains the dark presence.
Speaker: And then Cynthia is like, yep, you're the guy I've been waiting for you for a long time.
Speaker: Cynthia says she has something for Alan in the well lit room and she's going to guide them through a pipe that she keeps lit so they can get to it at night.
Speaker: Then she also talks about how Thomas Zane was wrong to try to write Barbara back into reality.
Speaker: And Wake is like, yes, exactly.
Speaker: It needs to be small changes for it to work.
Speaker: which she goes along with, she goes along, she goes, you know, you might be right.
Speaker: That could work.
Speaker: But in my head, I was like, you're full of shit.
Speaker: There's no way that's going to work.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It just feels very like hubristic as far as, yeah, I was like, uh-huh, sure, that'll work.
Speaker: He couldn't do it, but maybe I can.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I could probably do it though, because I'm me.
Speaker: I'm the main character.
Speaker: So, I mean, to be fair, he literally is the main character in this situation, but he doesn't know that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He doesn't know that yet.
Speaker: They get to the room and Weaver is happy to be relieved of duty of watching this one box because some of the light bulbs are about to go out and she doesn't want to have to change them anymore.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Inside the box is a page.
Speaker: And this is the probably the most mind fucky part of Alan Wake.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: is inside the box is a page from one of Zane's books about Alan and his mom and the clicker, the little light switch thing.
Speaker: And the clicker is inside the box as well.
Speaker: And Alan has some existential thoughts.
Speaker: So basically, if you want to lay it out, it's Thomas Zane in order to, once he realized that everything had gone wrong, he writes himself out of existence.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the island falls into the lake and nobody remembers him, even though he was a famous author in his day and all that stuff.
Speaker: But one of the things that he also does is...
Speaker: Is it your understanding that he created Alan?
Speaker: Like, if he is writing things and they are coming true, right?
Speaker: Sort of like the way Alan has to deal with it.
Speaker: Thomas Zane is writing things and they're coming true.
Speaker: That means he creates Alan.
Speaker: Yeah, there's this weird... Yeah, that was my understanding of it as well.
Speaker: It made me think a little bit of that Will Ferrell movie, Stranger Than Fiction, where he finds out that he's a character in a novelist's book and she's planning on killing him at the end of the book and he has to talk her out of it and all that stuff.
Speaker: As I recall, a really solid movie.
Speaker: But yeah, it has that same kind of overlap of like...
Speaker: Am I real?
Speaker: Am I just a character and a book, uh, which they've done before, which I was just same author has done before with Max Payne.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So it's, it's an interesting, yeah, but that's, that was my, that was what I picked up on too.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, and then we get a manuscript segment at the end, uh, about the typewriter Zane used and how Hartman was Zane's writing assistant.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So food for thought, I guess.
Speaker: I guess.
Speaker: I mean, not really.
Speaker: It's like a cracker.
Speaker: Yeah, there's a detail you can enjoy.
Speaker: Put another slice of cheese on that cracker.
Speaker: Yeah, and maybe go ahead and take some of that crudité and dip it into a ranch.
Speaker: You're going to love it.
Speaker: You're going to love it.
Speaker: You're going to love the way I crudité.
Speaker: You're going to love the way I crudité.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know where I was going with it, but I don't know if it matters.
Speaker: I don't know if it matters.
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: It was a beautiful moment we shared.
Speaker: I was very pleased.
Speaker: We shared that moment.
Speaker: We sure did.
Speaker: So we get to chapter 26 and Wake is walking towards Cauldron Lake after being dropped off by Barry and Sarah because he said he needed to do it alone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And there is a false sun in the sky providing daylight for a bit that was created probably by the clicker.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Wig then takes a truck and the sun is already starting to fade and darkness is returning.
Speaker: He gets close to the island and has a thought about how Zane bringing Barbara back didn't work because it wasn't believable and that writers aren't God.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: I thought this was interesting because it's kind of like a commentary of like, you can't just write the ending that you want.
Speaker: It has to make sense in the context of the story.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I was like, that's true.
Speaker: You can't just drop an ending in there without like Thomas Zane wrote an ending.
Speaker: It wrote a story in and we're like, Barbara's alive again.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's like, that doesn't make sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: it's, it's good writing advice.
Speaker: It makes sense for the plot of this particular story.
Speaker: I, yeah, I thought that was pretty cool.
Speaker: to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think Stephen King would agree.
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: He's an agreeable fellow.
Speaker: He's an agreeable fellow.
Speaker: A whirlwind forms in the lake and it's defending the lake from Alan from him entering it and Alan then shoots the whirlwind with a flare and blows it up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Whirlwind's blown up.
Speaker: Destroys it.
Speaker: And then he jumps into the lake and
Speaker: And he sinks down into the water, into the islands with Birdleg Cabin on it.
Speaker: And while he's sinking, he meets with Thomas Zane, who talks about how the presence wasn't Barbara.
Speaker: And he tried to kill it by cutting its heart out.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: I was like, that's interesting.
Speaker: Things must've gotten pretty dark there at the end for old Tommy.
Speaker: Oh, Tommy.
Speaker: I feel like, I feel like that's a story we, um, we probably, probably would want to read at some point just to get the full look at that one.
Speaker: Or maybe we wouldn't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, then he introduces Alan to his doppelganger, Mr. Scratch, who will take his place while he's gone.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Maybe we'll, we'll learn more about that in Alan Wake too.
Speaker: I don't, I don't know.
Speaker: Or any of the other related Alan Wake media that we haven't really absorbed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Here's Mr. Scratch.
Speaker: Don't worry about him.
Speaker: Mr. Scratch, by the way, Mr. Scratch, by the way, is a nickname for the devil.
Speaker: It sure is.
Speaker: It sure is.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Wake approaches the cabin and Jagger is hurling insults at him as he approaches her inside the cabin and everything is like starting to fall apart as she screams at him.
Speaker: And then he grabs her and he thrusts the clicker into the hole in her chest and he clicks it.
Speaker: And a bright light forms inside and it just destroys her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He goes up to the study and he sits down at the typewriter and he begins to type, knowing what he needs to write the ending for departure.
Speaker: And that's the end of the chapter, end of the main chapters.
Speaker: We get an epilogue at the end where Alice bursts up from the water and is greeted by Sheriff Breaker.
Speaker: And Sarah takes Alice for coffee and fills her in basically on everything that happened.
Speaker: Fills her in and therefore us.
Speaker: And us, yeah.
Speaker: And they both agree that Alan is most likely not coming back.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that is the end of the Alan Wake novelization.
Speaker: Phil, your thoughts.
Speaker: It was fine.
Speaker: It was fine.
Speaker: I think, I think there were some really interesting choices made in the adaptation of it.
Speaker: There were some interesting changes made the ending for one thing.
Speaker: Um, uh,
Speaker: the author certainly had a good instinct for a lot of moments that didn't need to be so dogmatic to the source material.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Unfortunately,
Speaker: That isn't the case across the board.
Speaker: As you've pointed out, there are lots of moments where it's like he shined a light on him.
Speaker: Then he shot him.
Speaker: He shined a light on him.
Speaker: They shot him.
Speaker: And I feel like there were some opportunities that we could have had to really get to know more about Alan himself.
Speaker: We could have had more flashbacks.
Speaker: God forbid, maybe stuff that isn't in the game.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: To expand upon that.
Speaker: Having.
Speaker: And then, of course, we run into the issue of certain things that aren't just aren't going to adapt as well.
Speaker: Like the Anderson farms scene and the and the thresher to a lesser extent, which could have been more intense and interesting.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It feels like rather than you just you just have to invent some stuff.
Speaker: Because obviously in the game, as you know, you play the game and it's a lot of repetition, which you don't mind when you're playing the game because that's just how it works.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But in the book, you would have had to say, okay, he hid behind this thing and he poured some, he knocked over a jerry can of gasoline and stuff that isn't in the book.
Speaker: And when that opportunity arises more often than not, unfortunately, Burroughs doesn't take it.
Speaker: And so it leads to some very samey moments.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Having said all that, it's well written.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was quick enough.
Speaker: It didn't drag horribly.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It just feels like there were some missed opportunities.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So what about you, Kev?
Speaker: What do you think?
Speaker: Yeah, I definitely agree.
Speaker: There's some missed opportunities.
Speaker: And one of the things that has been sticking with me ever since I saw it somewhere, I think it was on a subreddit or something like that.
Speaker: Might have been on the Alan Wake subreddit.
Speaker: There was a huge missed opportunity to basically, instead of writing a novelization of the events of the game, instead finish the departure manuscript and publish that as a book and have it by Alan Wake.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And I think because if the departure manuscript is the events of the story, but it's told from a completely different perspective.
Speaker: And I feel like leaning into that could have been really, really cool.
Speaker: That would have been that.
Speaker: And it would have been something additive to the lore of Alan Wake instead of, um,
Speaker: A novelization, which is fine, but it doesn't give you any doesn't give you anything.
Speaker: Like if you read if you played the game and then you read the book, if you play if you do it close together, the book is going to seem pretty boring in comparison.
Speaker: Yeah, which you did.
Speaker: Which I did, and I regret doing so because the last half of the book was a little drag.
Speaker: It dragged a little bit for me because I knew what was going to happen.
Speaker: And then I was always a little disappointed in how little it deviated from the game.
Speaker: So I think that's kind of my take on it.
Speaker: In terms of...
Speaker: In terms of it as a book, it's fine.
Speaker: It has some loose threads at the end that are one of those things that are going to be like, oh, I guess that gets answered.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I never played the expansions.
Speaker: I know there's obviously there's the one in Control that's about Alan Wake.
Speaker: And I know there's a sequel coming out.
Speaker: next year, maybe, I want to say.
Speaker: Yeah, some 13 years or something after the original.
Speaker: And those might pick up those threads that were kind of left dangling at the end of this here.
Speaker: So, ends... But here, to be honest, I'll make a little pitch.
Speaker: I know, I believe, Lore Dump
Speaker: has covered the Remedyverse, the Remedy games.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So if you want to go listen to them now, if you want to learn more, go over to Lore Dump.
Speaker: Monty is a friend and a friend of the pod.
Speaker: And I think you might find some answers there if you're really, really needing them.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: Yeah, that could be a really nice follow up to all of this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That being all said, I don't have Google Docs is saying that it doesn't recognize the word doppelganger.
Speaker: We're like, yeah, come on, guys.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: It's doppelganger.
Speaker: You know.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Anyway, now that it's all been said, I think that's pretty much my entirety of my thoughts on the book.
Speaker: Phil.
Speaker: I have one thing to ask you.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: You caught me unawares.
Speaker: It's a good thing I actually did write some notes down on what I've been playing lately.
Speaker: I finished a couple of games in the past few days.
Speaker: I finished Killer Frequency.
Speaker: which you recommended.
Speaker: Yes, I sure did.
Speaker: And I got to say, I think I ruined it for me.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Without meaning to, because there were certain aspects of it that made me think of some games, and then there were certain aspects of it that made me think of other games.
Speaker: And then when I got into it, it made me, it just, I kept, my brain wouldn't stop comparing it to other games, and I just couldn't let it alone.
Speaker: And I couldn't just let it speak for itself, which is no weakness of the game.
Speaker: The game,
Speaker: From my point of view, you can look at it and go, this is a very interesting game.
Speaker: It's clever.
Speaker: It's fun.
Speaker: It's funny.
Speaker: It's got some good horror elements to it, some good puzzles.
Speaker: I think that's really great.
Speaker: And I did enjoy it.
Speaker: The problem is, is when I looked at...
Speaker: It originally, it made me think of this one game that I played last year called Not for Broadcast, which is an FMV game.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And it's this little British indie studio, and you are the producer on this...
Speaker: little television, this TV studio, and you're in kind of this dystopian future, and you've got to literally edit and change cameras and stuff like that as the news segment is going on.
Speaker: You have to make decisions on what kind of shit are you going to share, are you going to allow this commercial to go up, et cetera.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And it's way, you'd really enjoy this.
Speaker: It's fast-paced, it's kind of stressful, but it's very funny and well done.
Speaker: And I'm an old man, so I'm a sucker for the occasional piece of FMV.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: And so I had that in my head, and that is not what you're doing in this game.
Speaker: You're a radio DJ.
Speaker: And in fact, it kind of annoyed me a couple of times because I would try very hard to be like, OK, let's make, and the music's going on now.
Speaker: And
Speaker: And got that.
Speaker: And it was totally unnecessary.
Speaker: And then I started to realize, oh, it's just kind of window dressing.
Speaker: It's kind of a fun side thing.
Speaker: There's a reason that there is an infinite supply of paper balls next to you that you can toss into the hoop over the trash can.
Speaker: There's an achievement for getting a certain number in the trash can.
Speaker: How high is it?
Speaker: Because I got to 125 and stopped.
Speaker: Ah!
Speaker: And if I find out it's 126, I'm gonna snap.
Speaker: But then it would get to, I'd go, oh, okay, just relax.
Speaker: It's a story game more than anything else.
Speaker: But then a call would come on and I'd go do it.
Speaker: And Peggy, the producer would go, get kind of annoyed with you and be like, hey, could you turn the music off first?
Speaker: And I'm like, oh, who cares?
Speaker: Who actually cares?
Speaker: It also made me think of Firewatch a lot.
Speaker: It has a similar vibe, a similar aesthetic.
Speaker: It varies.
Speaker: It does have a similar vibe to Firewatch.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think it's a little bit more open-ended than Firewatch.
Speaker: Firewatch is a little bit more on the rails.
Speaker: There's only two or three endings to Firewatch.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, no, I get what you're saying.
Speaker: It is very, it's like your dialogue choices are literally the thing that matter the most in the entire game.
Speaker: Right, and I wasn't fully prepared for how much of a visual novel it could be.
Speaker: And so I did, there were a couple of times I was just sitting there going,
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I learned my lesson about like one time you basically guys, you, you get to try to talk different people through ways of avoiding this murderer and there are different ways of going about it and it's different puzzles and that's really fun and super creative and really well done.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then I, but I, I'd accidentally let, let one of them die or something and I, I, you know, quick load like I do and, you know, and, and, but then I'd have to go through like 10 full minutes of the same dialogue again.
Speaker: Oh, right.
Speaker: Bitch.
Speaker: I feel bad because I looked at it and go, this is a great game.
Speaker: And my brain won't let it be good on its own merits.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's my problem.
Speaker: That's my problem.
Speaker: I recognize that.
Speaker: And if any of you dig on clever horror puzzle games and that sort of thing, with a sense of humor, very 80s.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You know, all that.
Speaker: I think people should really give that one a look.
Speaker: And then today, I actually finished the single-player campaign for Blood Bowl 3.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Which I was more than pleasantly surprised to find it had.
Speaker: It was a lot of fun.
Speaker: You know, I never actually thought about Blood Bowl having, like, I've never actually played one of the campaigns for Blood Bowl.
Speaker: I've only just, like, I think I've just only played it with you.
Speaker: It's fun.
Speaker: It's, you know, I have to say I enjoyed it.
Speaker: And I'm probably going to keep playing it because I'm a blood, I'm a blood bowl fanatic, but I find it hard to recommend to people who are kind of interested now.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Because it really is swamped with microtransactions and there is something to it.
Speaker: the season, cause it's a season game, it's football.
Speaker: So there's seasons.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so it makes sense to like do it that way and have different things you could win.
Speaker: And that's, that's, what's tragic.
Speaker: It's like winning stuff and, and getting new cool aesthetic pieces for all your players and stuff is right up my alley.
Speaker: But after they've asked me for $40 already, you know, I,
Speaker: It's it's kind of a hard sell and I'm not going to give them any more money.
Speaker: It's a pain.
Speaker: I guess I guess you could say if you haven't, if people are have never played Blood Bowl before, like don't start with this one.
Speaker: Go back.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: Go to Blood Bowl 2 or something.
Speaker: Yeah, you could get Blood Bowl 2, which has all the bells and whistles and everything you want already unlocked on a Steam sale for probably five bucks and get into it that way.
Speaker: I would recommend that because the first two were great.
Speaker: But that's, yeah, that's what I've been playing.
Speaker: That's me.
Speaker: What about you, Kevin?
Speaker: What have you been playing?
Speaker: Okay, so I guess I talked about Homebody last week, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think I did.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So I am still playing Dave the Diver.
Speaker: It's one of those games that just seemed like there's just a lot of stuff to do in it.
Speaker: It's like- Sure.
Speaker: I want to say the more I play it, the more I'm like, oh, it's, I don't, it's not like Stardew Valley, but in terms of like, there's a lot of things to do in the game and it's kind of chill.
Speaker: It's, it's kind of like that.
Speaker: But instead of farming, you're a diver who is catching fish for a sushi restaurant.
Speaker: So I'm still playing that.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Let's see, I installed and started playing Bramble the Mountain King.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Which seems cute so far.
Speaker: Cute and like, okay, I can see how this could get terrifying or unnerving rather quickly.
Speaker: And yeah, I started playing fear and hunger again.
Speaker: Yeah, why?
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I blame super eye patch wolf.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So because he so months ago he did that video on fear and hunger.
Speaker: And after the video, I was like, oh, I'm going to try this.
Speaker: And I played it for like 20 minutes, 10 minutes, maybe.
Speaker: I was like, nope.
Speaker: Done with this.
Speaker: But then he started streaming Fear and Hunger.
Speaker: And watching him stream it, I started to like, started to get a little bit more understanding about the game's mechanics and things like that.
Speaker: So I started playing it and
Speaker: I actually have been doing pretty well.
Speaker: So one of the things where it's like, oh, you have a 30 minute time limit to start the game to get this one character.
Speaker: Like the whole purpose of the game is getting in to find this guy, Lagarde, right?
Speaker: Who is in the dungeons of Fear and Hunger.
Speaker: But if you wait longer than 30 minutes, he'll be dead.
Speaker: Yeah, I've been able to regularly I'm familiar enough with like the first people call it like the first half of the game, even though it's under 30 minutes.
Speaker: I'm familiar enough with that in terms of like I think it's just in terms of like the amount of map you cover in that 30 minutes.
Speaker: I'm familiar enough now that I can consistently get down to Lagarde.
Speaker: before the 30 minute timer is up.
Speaker: Like I know when I like and I also like, okay, I know how to fight the guards.
Speaker: I know how to like to deal with the enemies that are that are out there.
Speaker: So I'm every time you play it, you learn a little bit more, a little bit more and then and you know, you're careful.
Speaker: You got to like
Speaker: you know, save, you save at certain points.
Speaker: And I had a really good run going.
Speaker: And then I ran into a guard and my guy whiffed on his attack to chop the guard's meat cleaver, the arm that's holding the meat cleaver off.
Speaker: And on the first attack, if you don't do that, the guard is going to chop off one of your limbs.
Speaker: And it's just like, all right, well, you can continue playing with only one arm, but you don't want to lose a limb that early in the run.
Speaker: So anyway.
Speaker: Fear and hunger.
Speaker: Because I am... That's me.
Speaker: That's who I am.
Speaker: I don't know anyone who plays more punishing games than you, Kevin.
Speaker: Maybe I just got to get out more.
Speaker: And to be fair, I thought about this the other day.
Speaker: I thought about maybe writing an essay about that, about like, what is a punishing game really?
Speaker: Because I'm probably one of the last people alive who still fires up banished on the regular to chill out.
Speaker: and Darkest Dungeon and now Aliens Dark Descent and shit like that.
Speaker: Those are very punishing games that I love.
Speaker: I'm just more passively involved in those, I guess.
Speaker: I don't actually have to, you know, pull the button, hit the button to swing the sword, you know?
Speaker: There's like, yeah, there's like a degree of separation in those.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Since they're, like, Darkest Dungeon is like, you're not,
Speaker: It's not about like split second decisions in Darkest Dungeon, right?
Speaker: It's kind of like you have time to think about what's happening.
Speaker: And also Darkest Dungeon's whole thing is like, yeah, shit's going to go wrong.
Speaker: You know, just get it.
Speaker: Go recruit a new dude and get back in there.
Speaker: Hopefully it'll be better this time, but probably not.
Speaker: Sort of like what that was at tiny folk is very similar to the darkest dungeon.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You recommended that game last year.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, but the other game that I've been playing, I've been playing it since yesterday is.
Speaker: is My Friendly Neighborhood.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So My Friendly Neighborhood got on my radar last year when I know Markiplier played it and I think the Scary Game Squad played it on Jesse Cox's channel.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Let me see.
Speaker: Scary Game Squad.
Speaker: My friendly.
Speaker: I could have looked this up beforehand, but I didn't.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Eh.
Speaker: Eh.
Speaker: Eh.
Speaker: No, they didn't.
Speaker: It was Mark Plyer and John Wolf.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Play it.
Speaker: Played it.
Speaker: So anyway, they basically you are the basic plot of the game is you
Speaker: There is a broadcast tower above an old studio that was like a Sesame Place, Sesame Street type of studio that has reactivated and it's starting to interfere with the television signal, like all the other television station signals.
Speaker: And like what's coming in and out are just like,
Speaker: um, the camera feeds from the, my friendly neighborhood studios, which is just, so there's like these puppet mascots just going, um, you play the engineer, uh, the repairman who is gone going into the studio to figure out how to fix it.
Speaker: And you have your, you have your work order right off the bat.
Speaker: It's like disable the broadcast tower at the top of,
Speaker: of the building.
Speaker: That's all you got.
Speaker: It's like, oh, OK, that's all you got to do.
Speaker: And things get complicated from there.
Speaker: So the studio is filled with these sentient living
Speaker: mascots and puppets who have lost their marbles.
Speaker: They are not in a good way.
Speaker: They are talking about how they want to bash people's brains in.
Speaker: When they see you, they chase after you like, give me a hug.
Speaker: But when they give you a hug, they squeeze the life out of you and throw you to the ground.
Speaker: So that's kind of like the plot stuff.
Speaker: The gameplay is basically, it's like a Resident Evil game.
Speaker: Full stop.
Speaker: It's, it's basically a resident evil.
Speaker: It's like, it's kind of like RE seven resident evil seven is, is probably the closest analog I could say to my friendly neighborhood because resident evil eight is a little bit more action oriented than resident evil seven.
Speaker: Um, resident evil seven is more of like a throwback to the first three games.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: But from a first person point of view.
Speaker: So if there's any comparison, I would say it's it's it's kind of like Resident Evil seven, except you are running around shooting Elmo in the face with a letter gun.
Speaker: I'm intrigued.
Speaker: Okay, yeah.
Speaker: You had me at Lettergun.
Speaker: First, you had my curiosity.
Speaker: Now you have my attention.
Speaker: Now you have my attention.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: All right, all right.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's it, though.
Speaker: That's what I've been playing.
Speaker: That is what I have been playing.
Speaker: So that'll do it.
Speaker: But before we go, Phil, can you tell us where people should go?
Speaker: What internet islands should people set their, their browser sales for?
Speaker: Oh, I think what they probably need to do is go to patreon.com slash pixel it pod, uh, patreon.com slash pixel it pod.
Speaker: And would you like to know why they should go there, Kevin?
Speaker: Why should they go there?
Speaker: Because not only can they support you and me in our endeavor to keep this show running for another 20 years, let alone another two, they can actually, if they join on the right tier, get access to all kinds of cool bonus material, the first episode of which has been released.
Speaker: We've been talking about it for a while and we finally did it.
Speaker: We have a bonus episode.
Speaker: We have begun reviewing and recapping the Legend of Zelda cartoon show from 1989.
Speaker: We've started with the first episode, The Ringer.
Speaker: We talk a little bit about the episode, what happens in it.
Speaker: We make fun of the author's name.
Speaker: It's pretty great.
Speaker: Mr. Bob Forward.
Speaker: Mr. Bob Forward and and we put together I put together a little video to go with it so you can kind of watch some of the the action in the episode that we're talking about as it happens.
Speaker: And we're actually working on we've got a few of those coming down the line and we're working on our game of the year for 1997.
Speaker: video series, which we'll be picking up not long after that finishes.
Speaker: So there's cool stuff happening.
Speaker: So please join us at patreon.com slash pixelitpod.
Speaker: Do it today.
Speaker: Today.
Speaker: Run, don't walk.
Speaker: Otherwise, if you really want to help us out, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at PixelitPod.
Speaker: Also, give us five stars or thumbs up or what have you on the podcast platform of your choice.
Speaker: if it doesn't have a rating system then don't do anything because there's nothing for you to do yeah you're fine but you're fine you're exempt but if you find yourself on on spotify and you want to give us five stars uh go for it you know yeah every every little bit it helps
Speaker: Otherwise, go to our website, PixletPod.com.
Speaker: There, you can sign up for our newsletter.
Speaker: You can find links to our Discord.
Speaker: Come on over to the Discord.
Speaker: Say hi.
Speaker: We're there.
Speaker: We're friendly.
Speaker: We chat.
Speaker: And otherwise, that'll do it.
Speaker: That'll do it for Tony's show.
Speaker: So have a good night, everybody.
Speaker: And stay, stay frosty with Mr. Scratch.
Speaker: Bye.
