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Episode 19 - Nightmare Frames and An English Haunting
2k Plays5 months ago
First, you should know: It's not Matt's fault. Second, you should know: PushingUpRoses is a chaotic force. Third, you should listen to us talk about video games. We talk a lot about games we WANT to play, but haven't, then we DEEP DIVE into both of the major releases from Postmodern Adventures.
Email us! [email protected]
Games Mentioned:
- Duck Detective: The Secret Salami
- Strange Horticulture
- Strange Antiquities
- Billy Masters was Right
- Urban Witch Story
- Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
- Animal Well
- The Witness
- Nightmare Frames
- An English Haunting
- Gabriel Knight Sins of the Fathers
- A Thousand Clowns (this is a movie, but Matt describes it for a solid 2 minutes, so it goes on the list)
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Metaphysical Coincidence Humor
00:00:00
Speaker
Anytime I'm just living my life and somebody's upset with me, it's just almost always not my fault. Sure. It just happens to be that way. I don't know if it's just like a coincidence field, like a metaphysical coincidence field that surrounds me or whatever, but it just so happens that almost every time anyone's mad at me, it's not my fault. So you're blaming it on ghosts. Well, i I don't know what it is. It could just be... You said the word metaphysical, specifically. Yeah, that doesn't necessarily mean dead spirits are running around knocking stuff over. It could just mean that I have like a... I have a spiritual field that emanates from me.
00:00:48
Speaker
that causes everybody to think everything's my fault. And it's just, it never is actually. You know, I thought there was something weird about you when we met. There was like this weird aura around you. Is that the metaphysical barrier? Yeah. You just started thinking like it's his fault, but you know, all but the truth is it wasn't. Like, I ordered a slice of pizza that was way too big, and that's not my fault. Felt like your fault. Yeah, but I'm telling you, I mean, it seems, even now, as you're saying it, it's starting to feel like you think it was my fault, but I'm telling you it wasn't- It was your fault. You didn't stop me, and you should've stopped me. Okay, I'm telling you it wasn't my fault. Now you know about the metaphysical field that surrounds me.
00:01:31
Speaker
that makes everybody think it's my fault. but And you still think it's my fault. So I think that's on you. I do. And do you need an exorcism or something? How do we fix it? Are you telling me? Hold on. Now you're blaming me for not getting an exorcism. So you're telling me that the metaphysical field that makes everyone think things are my fault is also my fault. You know, it also makes you a little defensive. He's putting that out there.
Adventure Games Excitement: Duck Detective & Strange Horticulture
00:02:16
Speaker
Everyone pushing up roses here with me is the most exhilarating the metaphysical the supernatural Everything is his fault Matt. I think you got the wrong message from the cold open It's the thing is it's not my fault. Hey howd you go Uh, welcome back to save your game. We have got a great episode for you today. You know, it's going to be great when I am gushy about something when I'm just start and I'm just like, Oh, so excited. I already probably put out way too many tweets about my excitement, but that's okay. That's what we're here for. We're here to be excited about adventure games. Yeah. You know, and it feels like I haven't, I haven't talked to you in so long.
00:03:00
Speaker
I know it's been days. It has been three days since we recorded the last episode. It's been 84 years. Besides what we've been playing for this show today, have you played anything? No, but I did download, I did do a couple things. I, okay. I streamed duck detective for my fans and we had a great time and I downloaded. I'm sorry. I already had it. I installed a strange horticulture and that's the game that I might take a look at next. Ooh, that game. I really enjoy that game and they just announced a sequel. So.
00:03:39
Speaker
Oh wow, cool. It's one of those games that is is deceptive, um I feel like, because I looked at this, obviously I watched the trailer, I looked at the screen caps on Steam and I'm like, okay, all right. Where could this possibly go? But when you read the reviews, everyone's like, this is a fantastic game. It is my favorite game. I'm like, okay, I'm sold. you don't You don't have to, I'm sold.
Postmodern Adventures Games Review
00:04:03
Speaker
Favorite game feels a little strong for strange horticulture, but hey, to each their own. Yeah. I liked it a lot. Great. And I'm really looking forward to strange antiquities is their next game. I like that. I like the sound of that. I like haunted items.
00:04:22
Speaker
So I also ah did more downloading than playing. I um actually, we are reviewing two games from Postmodern Adventures today. And this guy, ah Jose Maria Melendez, who wrote and, you know, he was the developer basically on both games ah that we're talking about today. He also did a couple more before this that were also sort of more they were a little more throwback like these are yeah these have pixel art and their point and click games but i don't know that i'd necessarily call them throwbacks they have a real modern feel to them yeah which is ironic since they're both period pieces but yeah yeah they are
00:05:02
Speaker
but he did two other games, one of which is called Billy Masters Was Right, and the other one is called Urban Wish Story, and I'm really excited to play both of them, so maybe I'll have- Yeah, those fall in line almost with a, it's like Maniac Mansion, they're older looking if you compare them to Nightmare Frames and an English Haunting, which are the ones we're gonna be talking about
Availability of Older Games on Itch.io vs Steam
00:05:25
Speaker
today. And you're right, even though they are pixel art, the English haunting and nightmare frames, they do have a modern feel to it. They feel way more modern than the devs previous two games, which I don't think you can even
Puzzle Game Challenges: Lorelai and the Laser Eyes
00:05:38
Speaker
play on Steam. I think you can download them on Itch. Itch.io though. Yeah, they're both on- How do you pronounce that? You know, I don't even know. I just say Itch.io, which is more work, but hey, it's worth it. You know what, I'm just gonna say Itch.io. Sounds right. I'm still playing Lorelai in the laser eyes. I am.
00:05:57
Speaker
completely and utterly stuck. Oh no! I'm just walking around looking at all the puzzles again and I have no idea what to do next so um hey if anyone wants to send me some no I i think again like um kind of like animal well that I've been talking about.
Game Design Philosophy: The Witness & Puzzle Solving
00:06:20
Speaker
This is another one of those games where it's like the struggling against the puzzles is sort of the point. So I feel like I'm going to be frustrated with myself if I look up a walkthrough because the puzzles are more the point then the um like than the progression,
00:06:40
Speaker
than the story. It's like the witness, right? There's no point in playing the witness Yeah. Besides solving the puzzles in The Witness. Right. That's one of those. Right. Once you, if you, if somebody solves the puzzle for you, what? You get to walk five steps forward? and it gets me off Like there's no gameplay for you there. There's no story. Yeah. It's like cheating at Sudoku or something. ah like well Yeah. Yeah. You just, maybe you just like to see every box filled in with a number like that. Then you could just write any numbers in those boxes.
00:07:23
Speaker
ah Well, um maybe I'll talk about it on the show at some point. I think the witness is a masterpiece. But I also understand why some people wouldn't enjoy it. Because that again, that's all it is, is puzzles that are hard. And the fact that you maybe can't solve them is the point. Like you're supposed to be climbing uphill. It's ah you know it's like um ah like getting over it with Bennett Foddy, but for the for the mind. Yeah.
00:07:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's not my type of game, but i I do recognize it as like a very well done game that has a lot of fans. And that's great. All
Podcast Dynamics & Humor
00:08:07
Speaker
right. We should jump into our next segment because we have a lot to talk about. Let's do it. I'm not even going to play the music. Let's do it. All right. Whoa. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. ah yeah I don't know what to do. um We talk about the game, Matt. Okay. Are you not prepared? This is your fault. Play the music.
00:08:34
Speaker
ah
00:08:47
Speaker
Oh my God. Okay. Thanks for playing the music. Welcome back everybody. This is Save Your Game, I'm Matt O'Keeffe, this is pushing up roses, how does your break? It's good, it sounds like you had a panic attack. Yeah, was I mean, i it's like you almost made me roll into a segment with no ah transitional music. No music. i' I can feel the sweat just pouring from my skin when you say that. This is the wedding, so hard. That's just the kind of person I am. ah Keep going.
00:09:18
Speaker
keep you on your toes, make you just you don't know which way it's coming from. did Did you feel that in person? Did you feel like I was just like about to ambush people at any second? Yeah, I kept bobbing and weaving because I kept thinking you were going to throw punches at me. And you know, people should know I'm unpunchable. I can dodge anything. Yeah. um But still, you have to. when you're a against a chaotic force like pushing up roses, really you really to look out. That's why you were like shuffling about like so erratically. I was wondering.
00:09:58
Speaker
I kept popping up behind, like I kept like disappearing and then popping up behind the strangers in the street in the middle of a conversation. I was like, hey, good point. And then I disappear behind their back. Probably cause I was seething that you let me buy a pizza slice that was too big. It's not my
Introducing Nightmare Frames
00:10:14
Speaker
fault. Okay. Do you want to talk about, uh, okay. There was a game. What? it was There was a game. They need one. Sweet. They made a game. It was released in 2022 by Postmodern Adventures. It's a game called Nightmare Frames. um And night Nightmare Frames is a yeah ah it's a story that takes place in 1985, I believe. Yes, my favorite. I love a time piece. I love like a timed game like that. I'm so excited.
00:10:51
Speaker
Go on. You play a horror screenwriter. I believe in the last episode, I just called him a horror writer, which probably made everybody think that it was like a novelist. But ah he's out he's a he's a he's a screenwriter, mainly of horrors, like slasher films. Yes, mainly mainly slasher. He wants to break into like Oscar pieces, but he ah is stuck in the slasher genre. His name is Alan Goldberg. um He has a cute little beard. You know, here's the thing. I like his pixel art portrait, like him as a pixel art character, a lot better than the detailed portrait they have of him. Oh, I love the detailed portraits. Really? I really do love them. Yeah, I really do. well i'll And I'll explain. I'll explain why. I'm not saying I don't like the detailed portraits. I'm saying for Alan Goldberg, I think he looks like a real douchebag in his detailed portrait. He is a douchebag.
00:11:49
Speaker
But the Alan Goldberg pixel creature that we walk around the screen ah looks like a just like a cute little a giant guy. i cant you hi I mean, it works for me because Alan is a douchebag. He is he is yeah he's unlikable for a little while, um which is fine. I you know, I like ah I like a a growth arc. A glow-up, I guess? A moral glow-up. A moral glow-up, yeah. We've all had them, except for me. I'm still going through mine. One day. Yeah, one day I'll get there.
00:12:30
Speaker
but yeah um I, I loved this game. I yeah loved this game and I, and you kind of called it Matt. You're like, I think we should, when we were talking about doing this, we wanted to cover both games by this dev, uh, or at least their, their latest, their latest games. And you're like, I think you're, I think you're really going to like nightmare frames. I'm like, all right, we'll see. I looked at the screen caps and I'm like, what is this? Harvester? Really? That's what I thought. It's very gory. Yeah. Yeah. Some of the screen caps that come up are are a little gory. and And then they've got those portraits as well. And I was like, OK, well,
00:13:10
Speaker
what's the quality on this going to be like? I was pleasantly surprised by how much i I've truly loved this game. um Probably more than it than an English haunting, which is very surprising for me. Both of these games are aesthetically and concept wise, they were they are for me. I i write I love ghosts and hauntings and I love horror. And I love the 80s, and because this is set in the 80s, it's just got an aesthetic, a vibe that I'm so drawn to. i i Oh my God, i I really liked it. I mean, let's say this post the post-modern adventures, right?
Nightmare Frames: Pixel Art & Storytelling
00:13:52
Speaker
um This guy, Jose Maria Melendez.
00:13:55
Speaker
is a pixel art genius, right? his i I'm struggling to think of, I can think of a lot of people that do good pixel art that's around the same level. I'm struggling to think of anyone who does it better than this. It's so good. I really like this game, you guys. like i thought i I love the pixel art. You really have to play it in motion because if you just look up the screen caps and you see kind of the gorier parts, I don't think it... It's like Hobbs Barrow. You look at some of those screen caps when they're not in motion and you're like, I don't know if I like that. But if you play this game in motion with the background music, with the
00:14:41
Speaker
portraits in the dialogue. right it's it is a little I feel like it's a little masterpiece, honestly, I really do. Yeah, the and the story is like ah is pretty robust. you know Okay, so why don't we go through it a little bit? You start as Alan Goldberg, you are looking to make your next movie, you have a tentative deal um with this sort of big name, Hollywood producer Peter Evans, who's going to let you break out of the slasher genre. Yeah, he kind of wants to go in like, I don't know how but how many viewers are alive in the 80s, I hope a lot because we're we're of that generation. But ah
00:15:23
Speaker
He kind of wants to get out of the, you know, the slasher genre. And when I say slasher, I mean the ones that were very popular at the time. So Nightmare on Elm Street, know the Jason movies, maybe Halloween. I think that's ah Halloween is a little more subdued, but you get what I mean. He's working on a movie called like lunatic. Yeah, he's in the middle of writing Lunatic 2, and he realizes that he's written the exact same ending as Lunatic 1, so he needs to go back to the drawing board. ah Correct. and it's if you The intro of the game, it puts you in his in his story that he's playing, Lunatic 2.
00:16:02
Speaker
And right away, i at least I knew right away I was in somebody's head. I'm just like, oh, this isn't the game. I'm playing a, I'm playing like a Friday the 13th type of thing. There's a camp, there are kids. It's a really, I don't want to spoil much. It's a really great transition into the game and it really, it sets the tone for being kind of gripping right away. I felt that an English haunting just as a quick tone comparison was slower. I felt that nightmare frames kept me engaged basically the whole time. But yeah, he's working on lunatic to he would rather be writing dramas ah in line with like terms of endearment. I forget what his his lets go it's called. called
00:16:51
Speaker
Melodies of heaven. Yeah. I'm like on point. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. He wants to do that. I don't know why. And he's just very salty about it, to be honest. And you kind of get the, it's kind of interesting to watch someone be salty about their job. to the point of almost being ungrateful. It's weird. It's weird. It's a weird tone that they give this guy. but I always think this is a little bit funny. ah How many books and movies and TV shows and plays and now video games are about this thing like the tortured writer.
00:17:31
Speaker
who doesn't wanna be writing the things that they're writing anymore.
Nightmare Frames Plot Twist & Investigation
00:17:34
Speaker
Because it's so it's so like, this is clearly something that's important to a writer and not to anybody. Like anybody else would be like, I just get a different job then. i not But but like like, one of my favorite movies of all time time is A Thousand Clowns with Jason Robards based on a play. And it's that it's a man who's writing for, um he's writing for children's shows, TV shows, and he wants to write for more serious things. He's like sick of what the the box that the children's show producers keep putting him in. um But he also has a ah not legally adopted child that he's a guardian of, that he's like his sister's kid, and then he runs the risk of losing this kid if he doesn't have a job ah that is steady, and then it's this,
00:18:30
Speaker
It's this push and pull about, you know, um do I set a role model for this kid and possibly lose him or do I lose this kid's respect? And then, but anyway, my point, ah I just had to talk about Thousand Clouds for a second. My point being, I think it's really funny, this idea of writers thinking of writers as heroes and writers thinking of writers struggles as like life or death and like the biggest things a person can encounter. It's very dark half by Stephen King, which is also about a writer. Stephen King is a writer that writes about the tortured writer. I don't know if you guys noticed that. Subtle, but it's there. So he has this. Yeah, he has this um deal with Peter Evans, the producer, um and he thinks it's going to be his ticket out. And then he finds out Peter Evans is dead.
00:19:22
Speaker
Yeah, that's like the first thing that but you find out in the game. Yeah. um And you kind of it becomes kind of like a as a ah sort of an investigation game. you You're not really sure where it's going to go because he wants to know what happened to Peter Evans just because he's frustrated yeah about what just happened to his career. um But that doesn't feel like a very, very strong motive for somebody to go on a whole game long adventure. I don't know, what did you think at that part? What did you think this game was gonna be?
00:20:03
Speaker
So the means of which ah Peter Evans died, that was enough for me to at least be like, well, something obviously is going on. They kind of foreshadow ah basically, and obviously there's gonna be a couple spoilers. I don't think this is a a terrible spoiler because this is the this is how you start the game. Yeah, first 10 minutes of the game, yeah. Yeah, so don't worry don't even worry about that. But Peter Evans, they find that he took his own life. And Alan is very bewildered by this because he was a ah huge person in film. you know he back He was going to back his project. He had a quote, everything, a imagine the life money. ah So why would did he take his life? So at that point, I mean, keep in mind, I played English haunting first. So I i had a feeling it could go in a different direction. But at that point in the game, I'm like, OK, maybe
00:20:57
Speaker
maybe this will stay grounded and I have to investigate something that happened with with the suicide and- Like there's some conspiracy. Yeah, like there's a conspiracy. Yeah, like it it leads you to believe there's a conspiracy. And that's how the game starts. um so but But now this guy, because he's been such a dick about his own career, he's closed off a lot of, venues in Hollywood he's like made a lot of enemies so as he starts investigating this thing he finds like every time he's about to get a piece of information he's he's almost like cut off
00:21:37
Speaker
from that piece of information by somebody that he pissed off that doesn't let it work with him. Yeah, he's made a lot of enemies. Nobody likes him, including his ex-slash-maybe-girlfriend. Yeah, it's never totally clear. She definitely breaks up with him. they seem like they're still together the few other times they interact so I don't know. It's one of those like very 80s movie relationships where it's like that is the love interest whether they're broken up or not like that's the girl and everything is extremely 80s including the background music. See I don't think they used actual songs but if they didn't
00:22:15
Speaker
They are very, like, there's there's a diner that you frequent. and That's where your ex slash love interest works. It's the most 80s thing you'll ever see. There's 80s music playing. There's 80s television on the screen. There's an 80s trivia arcade game. Yes, which I coiled over. You can answer 80s trivia questions. I got most of the movies right. I was pretty proud of myself. um And there there is a song that plays in there that I swear is Depeche Mode. I just swear by it. It sounds so good. It's definitely Depeche Mode style. And yeah they do a really interesting and funny thing where like the TV is just on in the diner like it is in places. And there's, you know, announcers talking yeah and saying real words and then songs in between. Like it's really.
00:23:09
Speaker
It does a good job of, and this guy is, Postmodern Adventures is great at this. um Does it in an English haunting, does it in this game where, the places that you go to sound like those places. They're playing yeah period appropriate music. um They have like sounds going on. Again, in this scenario, you have a TV that is actually talking. It really puts you in the place you're supposed to be and the time you're supposed to be. So you go through a couple of things. you know it's It's standard point and click stuff. You keep running into roadblocks and you have to think of clever ways around them. You get your girlfriend an acting job. I would say basically you're doing basically you are unlocking the game in that first part of l LA. So youre you are in LA. You are a screenwriter. Obviously, you're not going to be anywhere else but LA because much too maybe our surprise and your surprise and the viewer's surprise or the player's surprise.
Horror Legends & Supernatural Themes in Nightmare Frames
00:24:11
Speaker
It's not about the story is not about Peter Evans. Not really. yeah um As we're doing stuff.
00:24:19
Speaker
We come to find that there is a filmmaker that all other horror filmmakers aspire to be like, and his name is Edward Keller. And he apparently did the the scariest, ah and by the way, we looked him up. He's not real. not real These games namedrap real people. This person's not real for good reason. Yeah, a lot of the big named characters are not real people, but ah they all the world references real people constantly. And the not real people are so ah like perfectly grounded in the world.
00:25:00
Speaker
that you wonder constantly. Oh, is this a real person? Because it is you know that is that low fantasy, urban fantasy. It takes place in a real place, you know possibly with real people, but weird stuff is happening. So yeah we learned about Edward Keller. It seems like a very small group of people know about him. ah But he has vanished. he He made the scariest movie of all time. He was going to make another movie, but he vanished. Nobody like a long time ago to Yeah, like a long time ago. And during our little fetch quest, a director that we get that we
00:25:38
Speaker
help to ah cast people in. Sorry, not a director. What what would you call that guy? That sleaze guy? What would you call that guy? he I think he's a producer because he's looking for a director and an actress. ah He's just like throwing people together in studios and being like, we're making a movie here. You were making a movie. Got a face for radio. ah he he We help him out. We find him a director. We find him an actress. And he's like, you know what, kid, I like your moxie. He doesn't say that, but that's what I say. I like your moxie. You should go talk to this amazing woman who can make your dreams come true. Go talk. And at first, our character's like, I don't really want to.
00:26:19
Speaker
And he's like, no, go doctor. So we end up in this rich woman's house, this woman with a lot of influence named Helen Westmore. yeah And you don't quite know what to make of her at first. She's kind of portrayed as this very lovely, nice woman who can just make your dreams come true. She is the, ah she's like the legendary figure of like the kingmaker. that that hollywood that everyone believes exists in Hollywood, and who knows, maybe it does, but she is this incredibly rich person who just plucks somebody out of their lives and turns them into the most powerful people in Hollywood. She's yeah ah a
00:27:06
Speaker
Yeah. And she, she noticed us being able to, I guess, do these fetch quests. Man, if you're an adventure game and you do fetch quests and somebody sees you, they're like, Oh yeah, that person, they're a seeker and they're special. So she's like, yeah, you're special. I think you can help me out. I am looking for that second. that second film that Edward Keller made. Yeah, she's a horror aficionado. I think that's why she took interest in us in the first place. She already knew we were working on Lunatic 2. She's very interested in us. it is It is not proven that this film exists, but it is up to us to find it. And so now we're on this this quest, this journey.
00:27:54
Speaker
to figure out as much as we can about Edward Keller, who is a very strange character. um It is speculated that part of reason why he's so notorious in horror horror is that he speculated to have not new special effects. They're basically saying he made a snuff film for ah for his his notorious film called like Bloody Mind Games, I think it's called. Right. It's it's another that's like another Hollywood legend, right? Yes. These ideas of ah These horror films were actually, people actually died and no one's ever seen the actors again. 201, those have all been disproven. Unless they are like an actual snuff film, which I'm sure does exist, but we're not gonna look into that. Nobody's ever been able to discover one that's been made for commercial distribution. yeah There have been like serial killers who recorded
00:28:51
Speaker
there murders There have been people that like murdered people on Facebook live or whatever, but there's never been up to this date a recorded like over a confirmed case of like, I'm making a snuff film. Right, like went to the theaters, was widely distributed. Or, or even was distributed on the black market is like, you got to watch this. Yeah, you know, like, all of those have been disproven, even the ones that are very realistic are often just like,
00:29:23
Speaker
Yeah, the game has all these tropes, you know, all these 80s horror tropes ah like that, like the the rumor. Was it Cannibal Holocaust? Was the one where I heard there was like a court case where they had to bring or there was going like somebody was going to bring charges against the filmmaker and the actors had to like show up and be like, I'm alive. Oh, my God. And I might be apocryphal. I don't know. Maybe it it also, you know, you can look at the old John Waters films, too, because they did they did real stuff in those films that are not allowed today. Yeah. Again, not allowed today. and It should have never been allowed, but it's there. But not quite not quite ah along the lines of killing people on film in a widely distributed thing. But that this game really does take those like 80s horror tropes.
00:30:17
Speaker
and use them to its advantage. Therefore, I loved it. I loved everything we're talking about. And I loved it. No, at that point in the game, I still thought that we were grounded. You know what I mean? i'm like Okay, we'll find this filmmaker, whatever. We're going around LA, we're getting information on this filmmaker, I still think we're pretty grounded. We're doing 80s things, you know, we're, We're punching pedophiles in the face. That's always fun. Uh, yeah, there's a, there's an Elvira, Eliza. e
00:30:52
Speaker
Her name is Eliza in this game. And I love her. Cause of course I love her. It was, it was just, it man, it brings the nostalgia in a very real way. There's also you also get like pulled into the back of a car by some yeah other bigwig bigwig Hollywood hotshot who's like I actually want the film and you better do it for me. We're like a lot of Hollywood pastiches and oh you go you get cocaine. That's true for medical purposes. I just want to point out for medical purposes.
00:31:27
Speaker
What you start to find out, and again, more Hollywood pastiche, especially 1980s Hollywood pastiche, this Edward Keller has been at least tangentially involved in a bunch of ah satanic cults. And some of those satanic cult members are now in. non-Satanic cults, like they they're still in the cult business, yeah but they've divested themselves from Satanism. um And then some are still in like LSD yeah demon worshiping cults.
00:32:00
Speaker
It's very, some of that reminds me almost of like 1960s music scene ah with um like Charles Manson and his affiliations with like the Beach Boys and the houses they had and what they did and and those these cold houses kind of reminded me of that. There's also another part that is very reminiscent of Heaven's Gate. Yes. but not quite as not quite as severe. Not quite. Everybody's alive. Yeah. Yeah. And that's that what that's what we need the cocaine for. I'm just letting you guys know. It's for medical purposes. um So then we're getting all this insane information about Edward Keller and kind of his character that he was in a cult that he was
00:32:49
Speaker
worshiping Satan, doing strange things. And then you start to wonder if there's any merit to him doing strange things for his films. And we finally get a lead that takes us out of LA. And I think this is such a brilliant transition because again, the first part of l LA we are really doing a Gabriel Knight esque investigation. We're trying to get a lead to bring us somewhere else that's going to ramp up. So this lead brings us to a town where he was last seen called Serena.
00:33:21
Speaker
And it is a horror slasher movie town, through and through. There's not a lot of residents, you know, the residents that are there are weird and- The bus driver refuses to drive into the town.
Serena's Haunted Town & Eerie Mystery
00:33:35
Speaker
He lets you out outside the town in the rain and he's like, I'm not going no further. You yeah you go on ahead. half but Yeah, he's like, it's only half a mile, just walk. So we ended up walking there. And again, it's it's very the 80s comes through this, we're in this desolate town, we get arrested immediately. Because, we are new. And if you go to a small town, and you are new, people are going to be sus of you just how it is.
00:34:02
Speaker
Especially small town like this, yeah where everybody's getting killed or maimed or ah insane all the time. Yeah, this is where I think the game starts its its supernatural journey. The first part, the LA part, not really. It's pretty grounded. Like I said, it's very Gabriel Knight. And then if you were calling Gabriel Knight, you do a lot of grounded stuff and then you don't. Then you're, you know, you're you've traveled elsewhere and you're doing something else now. And that's kind of what it reminded me of. So we're in this town of Serena, we get arrested by, go ahead. this This is like the half point of the game, right? Like this is this is where, like you're saying, there's a strong transition. And now since we've hit this half point, there's been some things you've wanted to, let's let's do a check-in real quick.
00:34:52
Speaker
because there's been some things you've wanted to talk about more generally, like the portraits. So what do you so what are your what are your thoughts by this point of the game? I am loving it by this point because I feel like the portraits fit, again, just this 80s media so well. All the characters look very accurate to me. yeah it feels It feels like I am in an interactive. 80s movie almost. And that's why I liked the portraits so much. They did away with them for their second game. The devs did away with it for their second game in English haunting. I think it makes sense because the portraits are almost cheesy. They're very harvester cheesy esque or even
00:35:35
Speaker
Even later, ah even like Gabriel Knight has portraits, too. Actually, they're pretty close to the Gabriel Knight portraits. They're a little more detailed, whereas you on the screen are just a pixelated weird little guy. And then you have this kind of more realistic, ah almost ah photographic, but not really type of portrait. I love it. I love that their expressions change. It gives the game a lot of um just a lot of ah personality, a lot of character, you know, Right, i there's something I like about pixel art and how like it makes everybody look, I don't know, like kind of cute. Yeah. yeah You can like you can like forget about features. Absolutely. Like humanistic features. And you can just be like, oh, look at that. Even like the bad guys. You're kind of like, oh, look at that cute little guy. OK, cute little guy.
00:36:31
Speaker
And when the portrait is there, it does diminish that somewhat. But yeah, I think they are very accurate. There's like, there's a, there's a woman who what and she tells you she was very inspired by the new Cindy Lauper video. Yeah, and so she looks almost exactly like Cindy Lauper. It's great. I really like those portraits. It gives it kind of almost again, almost a B movie vibe. um I'm in the game. You're in the game. Yeah, um the that there's that blonde, shaggy-haired actor that's at the beginning of the game. Crosby? Something Crosby? Yeah, no, I don't want to be Crosby, actually. He's a dick. Yeah, he sucks. And he's a part of a cult. Yeah, he's part of a cult.
00:37:18
Speaker
um And it gets even it's even better to me in Serena because you get all these kind of trophy characters, you know, um the character that arrests you. He's a cop named Rick and he's he's very, very 80s cop looking almost kind of bumbly, but pretty good at his job. And we kind of buddy up with him and work with him. You know, he's got like a fur lined brown police jacket. yeah Yeah. Yeah, I really enjoyed that. um And by the way, we're, we're arrested falsely, I should put that in there just because there's been weird things, there's been a disappearance in the town of a young girl. And so he had to be your new you showed up out of nowhere, right? So he puts you in a jail cell right away. But you know, he checks you out and then you're free to go and you're free to
00:38:08
Speaker
you know, dig around this insane town. so He deputizes you. There's this, I guess, nuisance of a citizen of the town who has been complaining about witches and he's like, I just need you to go check on this guy. I just need to yeah go see what he's up to. It's not going to be anything. um Yeah, hereby deputize you. Yeah. um then yeah, then you go and you find out this guy who is afraid of witches. His dog has been legitimately like mangled and bashed with a rock. yeah Sorry people, maybe we should have spoiler warned. I know how much people hate animal violence, even pixelated animal violence. It is upsetting, I'm not gonna lie. it's a go it's a little There is some gore in this game meant to you know replicate some of the slasher gore that you might see in one of those movies.
00:39:01
Speaker
Yeah, it could get a little intense, especially like, yeah, investigating the dog corpse was a little- That's pretty intense, yeah, I agree. Intense. Should we just like run down all the things that, so, because for the next, say hour and a half of the game, it is very fetch questy. It is is very like, you gotta go to the, you gotta to get the bread from the dog ball to give to the goose to get the ah to get the yeah but he the fishing line to get the teddy bear to give to the woman to get the pills to give to the man. Like it's very- What do you think about that? Like what do you think about the puzzles?
00:39:38
Speaker
I'd say like the first half of the puzzles in Serena, I felt were very organic. It just felt like things were happening and I had to solve my way out of them. It about this it was about like the second half of Serena where ah again, it felt very fetch questy. It felt like, okay, I know all the stuff I need to do. I just gotta go travel to a bunch of different locations and I know when I get there, there's gonna be some other block and nothing was challenging and nothing was, um Nothing was, there was, there was very little out of the box thinking. A lot of it was just bouncing around, doing the thing, the exact things people asked of you. Yeah, I did, I did get a little like, uh, stuck very briefly, but other than that, I actually, I really liked these puzzles, but you know me, I like fetch quests. This is exactly the kind of game that I like. I like interrogating characters and seeing where it brings me.
00:40:31
Speaker
I actually thought the puzzle design was very strong ah because it wasn't convoluted. You know what I mean? The game had a great flow to it. Everything always felt like it was flowing. It wasn't slow paced. I always felt you know a sense of thrill on each screen, um even though very few jump scares, mostly just a sense of dread when you're in this town. Yeah. I think there's just this one section. um And again, it's like the second half of you being in Serena before sort of like the end run of the game and where I didn't feel much challenge. I just felt...
00:41:14
Speaker
like I was bouncing, like ping ponging around. Sure, I could definitely see that. um I think I didn't feel it as much as you because I was so into it i that I just, I enjoyed, I would say the majority of this game. I'm not gonna say I didn't enjoy some of it, but it does go off, it does go off the rails ah in the end section. So there is that. Right and so this town of Serena as you're going through also you're uncovering like the Dozens of horrible things that have happened in this town. So like maybe you can help me think of some of these ah There was a big the bit thing was it seemed like when and keep in mind this is the last place that Edward Keller was seen he was We find out from the locals that he wanted to film a movie there with like a little 16 millimeter camera or something that he would just drag around and just film stuff. And we come to learn that his it once he arrived, things started going wrong. And then one of the biggest things was an entire school burnt down. And it was all fate. There were only fatalities. Nobody survived. So a lot of kids ah perished in this fire. I think they said 80 maybe. Yeah.
00:42:31
Speaker
uh so now there's like barely any children in this town and the children that were there one went missing 10 years ago and in the present there's one missing now and one went missing recently yeah there's a woman who clawed her own eyes out there's a there's a woman who hung herself off a bridge there is uh what what The woman with um dementia that started acting up kind of after the that they fled Serena because she was so traumatized by everything that happened. And everybody else is just a little strange. ah everything Everyone else is just a little weird. The guy that we have to go interrogate as as this kind of fake deputy, he's very strange. I would say everyone's also just very guarded.
00:43:20
Speaker
and paranoid because of this cursed, a cursed town that they live in. There's the man who's living in the sewers eating rats. Yeah. Yeah. there he Because he doesn't want to be on the surface. So he's basically losing his mind in the sewer. Yeah, it's yeah, it's I mean, it's just a town chock full of every disturbing idea you can think of. There's the man who ah in the house. um What did he do? He I think it was one of those kind of classic horror stories of feel like he murdered his family and and and then himself, right? Yeah, I believe that's the case. That's the house that Edward Keller once is supposedly film like filmed his
00:44:05
Speaker
you know, lost. Yeah, he was working. He was working out of there. Yeah, working out of there. yeah So now it's becoming, you know, kind of evident that we might find a film that at first it was a rumor. But now the locals are kind of helping us to find this guy, ah only to find out that we should we say. Yeah, sure. He's dead. He died, okay? He died. He died just like of cancer. Cancer, yeah. He died of cancer. Nothing big or supernatural about his death just... Just he died. However, he is buried in Serena, which you would think is a bad idea because it seems like since he's been in this town, nothing but bad things have been happening. But he's very particular about where he wants to be buried.
00:45:00
Speaker
That's true yeah that is true. Yeah. It does come to light that he. much like kind of much like a a Charles Manson type is controlling people into doing really horrible things so that he can film it film them. um So with assistance, you know, and you can kind of speculate this in the game that that's what's happening because the game foreshadows Edward Keller being a terrible, almost evil human being, you know, throughout and that's why nobody wants anything to do with him.
00:45:33
Speaker
back in LA. So we come to find out that through various people he was using, he is responsible for these bad things. Why? So he can film them, which is so messed up, I can't even fathom. what ah What a messed up concept, right? We see a film of him that he he filmed himself talking about his process. And he's also just like trying to conjure up some sort of paranormal what like
00:46:05
Speaker
Like the bad things that are happening in the town, he's trying to build a, what would you call this? Like a spell? Is he casting a spell? Yeah, they call it I think like an incantation. So that but that what he's trying to do, So he wants to take horror to the next level. He's got a big ego on him. And he wants to take horror to the next level. He wants something so frightening that it will send your brain to hell itself. So he's trying to make this incantation almost as curse. Let's call it a curse, you know, right that he's putting on this film, ah which is why he's filming real things, presumably, that when you when you watch it,
00:46:54
Speaker
something horrible is going to happen to you. Which, man, it gets so intense ah at the end. It becomes it becomes a very grim, very dark story at the end. It almost it almost changes genres from like you're kind of working around slasher type things and myths and urban legends about slashers to like this very dark. I don't want to say so well maybe a little psychological as well, but very almost William Peter Blatty, who wrote The Exorcist, just very dark, very dark. And it's very supernatural. Like as you're in the town of Serena is when supernatural things kind of start happening. yeah um You start seeing ghosts and unexplained phenomena. And then, yeah, the end kind of like Kathy Rain, the game Kathy Rain. The very end, you are just sort of transported into a different world. You know, you're just kind of
00:47:52
Speaker
outside of every grounded thing that you've experienced in the game and now in a whole new reality. Yeah, it's again, it's very structurally to me, like Gabriel Knight, you know, you're doing investigations, you're kind of starting to see stuff.
Cultural References & Horror Tropes in Games
00:48:08
Speaker
And then you're somewhere else completely. And there is magic happening, not magic supernatural, we'll call it because magic implies that it's fun. But this is not fun. Also, sort of the Indiana Jones format, right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Is it is it supernatural? Is it is it not? And then at the end, it's like, oh, yeah, definitely. It's ah manic so intense at the end. I was yeah I was actually kind of shocked that it managed to ramp up because I was feeling it in Serena. I was feeling like I said, you start seeing supernatural things. It starts to become very tense and very spooky. ah But it really ramps at the end. And yeah, like I said, it gets very grim. I don't really want to spoil the end.
00:48:52
Speaker
sure um because I think it's some of it is so shocking and interesting that I kind of want to keep that ah for the for the player. quietly yeah But I will say it does go dark. Right, so how did you feel about the ending then? I really liked it. I really like how dark it went. This game was very unashamed of ah giving us a very harrowing experience. um I will say this too, the very ending, it's a good ending. it's not This is not an ending where you're gonna wanna throw shit at your computer screen. It is not a Hobbs Barrow, okay? The end is worth getting to, but yeah, keep in mind it goes into
00:49:35
Speaker
stories of people's evil doing and fears um and how fear I think can warp your brain or or send you somewhere else. It's very effective. It's honestly very, very, very effective. It's just effective starting from the theater scene, I'll call. And if you know, you know. ah From that point on, I was, I think, pretty terrified of moving around my new environment, you know.
00:50:05
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I was kind of scared in Serena, ah but that managed to be more subdued than our end than the end game, we'll call it. Yeah. I mean, how much are how informed are you of this era of film of this era of horror and pretty informed. OK, yeah, I like horror as a genre. I've seen most of the classic slashers. um I love the 80s a lot. So pretty, pretty informed. I think that's why I liked it so much. I just felt yeah I felt the game did a good job.
00:50:45
Speaker
putting me in this setting and making me feel like this is a character that could have existed. This is a genre that did exist. And, you know, these are the things that the youth were excited about. and Right. And then getting into the the paranormal stuff, which again, that kind of, that reminded me more of, um, some of the, the Colts from like the sixties talking about it. It makes it seem like it's not cohesive. It makes it seem like we're bouncing all over, but it, I think it really does have a good flow of how it takes you through this story. Yeah.
00:51:22
Speaker
it It does not feel disjointed at all. These big transitions that we're talking about feel earned. Yeah, it doesn't feel like two different stories. It feels like one continuous story. um Is there anything knowing about that era? Is there anything and that you think people would just completely miss if they didn't or do you think it's just all baked into the game? I think that you will do fine, but not at the 80s arcade quiz game. Like if you're really uninformed, you're not gonna do well at that game. But because the game, I think because the game relies on the bigger
00:52:00
Speaker
things that were popular at the time, like the Freddy Krueger movies and some of the in Elvira and stuff like that. These are pop culture names. The game is very smart, and that it's not trying to pander to people who only want deep cuts. You know what I mean? Like deep cut films and obscure things. It's it it it leads us to that in the story, right? We're looking for an obscure thing. But I think if you are of our generation and and and younger too, um if you just like horror in general, the game is pretty accessible. And even if you don't like it,
00:52:34
Speaker
It, you know, the vibe, the aesthetic, the game's not, the puzzles don't rely on that. The puzzles are grounded. Right. Are there, yeah are there references you felt like that deepened your experience? Like you were like, Oh, I know who this producer is supposed to be modeled after. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Like even just, you know, even just the comparison to Heaven's Gate and some of the more realistic stuff, granted these are very terrible things that the game is referencing, but it does. It does make it feel real, I guess the the game makes it feel like these are real happenstances and
00:53:13
Speaker
Yeah, the game name drops ah specific producers and maybe it's a little pandery. I still think it's accessible in that way. you know But yeah, it just it's very smart the way it does it. And yeah, I think the references were just enough. there There's just enough real people reference and then every and then the main the main story, right? The Edward Keller story is fictionalized. So I think it all, you know, joined together very well. Yeah, I don't actually think it's pandering. I think it is, I think it's just clear that um this dev has a passion for this era and did a lot of research and yeah folded that research into the game, right? Like instead of directly referring, like they're clearly um characters that are supposed to meant represent multiple figures from that era. yeah And again, like,
00:54:10
Speaker
the idea of all these different legends of this, one of these classic eras of Hollywood, right? Like this, maybe this is the seediest era of Hollywood, right? um and then And then warping sort of, again, like the idea of the kingmaker, the idea of the ah ah lost film and the snuff film and like all these, again, all these legends of this era of Hollywood, um sort of wrapping them all up into one cohesive story. um Oh, there's one other thing we didn't talk about, which is fun. ah And I wonder if you turned it off or not. um There is a thing where anytime you travel when you're in Hollywood, the taxi drivers talk to you. They talk to you. And they like remember you and pick up conversations where they left off and stuff. Yeah. And it says. So about this, I'm like, ugh.
00:55:06
Speaker
It says early on, it's like, um you can turn this off. and Yeah, you can turn this off. I never did. I never turned it off. Me neither. It did annoy me, and I didn't turn it off. And I did not turn it off. Yeah. It's a very, yeah, they put that mechanic in there. They put the ah Dagger of Amunro taxi cab mechanic in there. So when you're in LA, the way you travel is via taxi. And you get in there and they try to talk to you. but it's not like Zach McCracken or something where you have to ah manage your money. You just have unlimited. Well, you have money that is limited by whatever you need in the scenario, right? Like if it's like, you know. It's like more realistic that way. It's like, yeah, of course I have a wallet and of course I have some money. Like why wouldn't I have, you know what I mean? Unless something horrible has happened. But in, as a screenwriter in l LA, right? Yeah, you're not going to have to search for money. So thank you game for,
00:56:02
Speaker
being realistic with that.
Transition to English Haunting Discussion
00:56:04
Speaker
Which is opposed to an English haunting. which ah Do you have anything left to say about Nightmare Frains or are we ready to move on to our next game? I am ready to move on to English Haunting, but I just wanna reiterate, guys, i I really loved this game. I really did. I would play it again. It's really good. I don't know that I hold it this so much higher over an English Haunting like you do, but I i am i was very impressed with this game. and um I played it maybe a year ago and I replayed it for this episode and it was just,
00:56:44
Speaker
You know, it's like ah it's like playing Sam and Max or something, right? like yeah It just pulled me through everything. I was like, oh, I kind of, I don't remember every step of the way as much as I do in Sam and Ice, but it was like every moment was just like, I wasn't like, ugh, I gotta go through this part to get to the good part. Every moment I was like, I like this. I am having fun. Again, just the vibe alone, it put me somewhere else. i really I was really feeling it. And yeah, I do hold it higher than in English Haunting, but that's I think that only so that only really says how high I hold it because I hold English Haunting pretty high too. So ah yeah, we're gonna have to discuss why and where I felt the discrepancies were with that. So should i do you have anything more to say about Nightmare Frames?
00:57:38
Speaker
No, I think that's it. Anything else that I have to say is more in comparison with English haunting. So ah yeah, please go play it, you guys, especially if you're one of, you know, one of my fans that watches for the horror stuff as well. I think you really will appreciate the vibes. All right. Let's play a Hollywood Pacino and then Hollywood. Oh, my favorite movie.
00:58:17
Speaker
Hey, we're back. We're back. How's your break? ah jus ah Now I can't talk for the rest of the podcast. yeah It's just me guys. Hi. um Like you're still there though. My break was good. Uh, we actually both took our breaks this time, yeah which is rare. Oftentimes we just sit here talking and then say we were on a break. Yeah, it's all lies. It's lies. We're taking you behind the ah the K-fabe here or whatever.
00:58:52
Speaker
Yeah, how was yours? It's good. I got a cherry limeade and thus I am ready to talk about an English haunting. Oh, you know what happened during my break? So i I went to the bathroom and heard my guinea pigs just like whistling up a storm upstairs. i have two ah I have two guinea pigs, Fern and Fiona.
English Haunting: Setting & Spiritism Movement
00:59:13
Speaker
Those are adventure time names. um And they're really upset that I started recording today before I fed them their dinner of pepper to mess. How dare you? ah Yeah, they're starving to death. They might not make it through.
00:59:32
Speaker
Yeah, basket followed me in here because she can't not be Oh, she heard me say her name. No, go back to sleep. ah She can't not be where I am. So she is in her little pink bed sleeping next to me as I record ah One of the funniest things about guinea pigs is that they're constantly eating or sleeping, but by sleeping, like they don't close their eyes. They're just laying down or eating. so even like I haven't brought up their peppers and lettuce, and they're so furious. They have a whole bowl of pellets. They have a whole like ah little
01:00:08
Speaker
container of hay. There's never a time they don't have food. And they're still- Your meats are met. They're still so mad. Routine, you know? Have you seen those short little videos on Instagram or TikTok where this woman is a piano player and her guinea pig loves to sleep on the piano and just listen? Oh, I don't have to show. It's so cute. It is so cute. I'll have to show you after. Please share that with me. But anyway, yes, guinea pigs, ah also English haunting. And English haunting is a game about two guinea pigs. That believe in ghosts. So this is a, ah this is another postmodern adventures game also by ah Jose Maria Melendez. As much as Nightmare Frames is like this immaculately researched, like very clearly
01:01:05
Speaker
passion-based setting of 1985 Hollywood. This is turn-of-the-century England um in the spiritism ah movement. and which is distinct from the spiritualism movement of like modern day right with correct yes yes with like ah rocks that speak to people or whatever. ah This is the spiritism movement of there's ghosts and they can talk through our bodies and stuff.
01:01:36
Speaker
So mediums are veryary are very prolific in this time. Mediums, ectoplasm, um the the Fox sisters who would knock on the table, or no, they had, well, they had extra joints in their toes, right? Oh, ah what? Yeah, they had extra joints in their toe, I believe. And this is the Fox Sisters, and they would pretend that ghosts were talking through knocks, and no one could ever figure out how they did it. They're like, they're not doing it with their hands. And it was just they had this joint in their toe that made their toes stand on the ground. Oh my god. Wonderful. That's what this game's about. Yeah, and this game involves a lot of the real figures from that era.
01:02:25
Speaker
ah including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which is Alistair Crowley's um cult. ah You know, Alistair Crowley famously ah famous evil magician man. You play a professor, I don't remember his discipline, but he's... Yeah. I mean, he's, he's in charge of the metaphysics department. Yeah. That's, that's not as disciplined in the college, but he is English. Yeah. Something normal. Something very normal. He's also part of the meds of metaphysics department with, um, his partner, professor Nelson Ward, who again,
01:03:18
Speaker
teaches something normal, but as part of the metaphysics department, um which i is funded to look into like spiritual metaphysical matters. um what we find out is that nelson ward has gone missing has absconded with thousands of dollars that were donated to the college and now the college wants to shut down the metaphysics department and so you as patrick more have 72 hours to prove that ghosts exist or the metaphysics department gets shut down. So now you have two mysteries. Number one, you have to see what the fuck happened in Nelson Ward. Number two, you have to prove that ghosts exist in an impossibly short amount of time. From there you sort of just like take off on your mystery.
01:04:07
Speaker
And I found right away, in comparison to night airre frameme Nightmare Frames, that this game is way more subdued. Don't get me wrong, it still has that structure where it's going to go off at some point. It's called an English haunting. We're going to find ghosts. It's applied. It's applied everywhere, right? Otherwise, why are we playing this game? Why are we going through this story? Can you imagine there's no ghosts in this game? right? No, of course, that's implied. But it is a little more subdued in nature. And that could be just because of the time, you know, that it's set in. Regardless of that, I liked the puzzle structure of this one. And I liked all the, all the characters that we end up talking to, they did do away with portraits. And I wonder if that's because the portraits and nightmare frames, they looked 80s esque.
01:04:57
Speaker
I don't think that the game would I don't think that English haunting would benefit from that extra aesthetic. You know what I mean? I think it's fine on its own. Well, also, I yeah i wonder if those take longer. I wonder if those were drawn by a different artist than than Jose Melendez. You know, I don't know. um And that they that he couldn't get back for this game, but i really I really like the art. like It is very similar to Nightmare Frames, and the way that Nightmare Frames really brings out the feel of 1980s Hollywood, this really brings out the feel of ah turn of the century London.
01:05:42
Speaker
right, which just inherently I think is gonna feel a little more drab. yeah I mean, you think about it, the 80s versus early 1900s London. Not great. You know, it is what it is. And this is You mentioned that it's subdued. It still has the same impeccable writing that Nightmare Frames does. I don't know if we talked about that much in Nightmare Frames, but the dialogue is amazing, ah incredibly well-written. I also have to say, yeah um my editor at Adventure Game Hotspot, I noticed this in the credits, was the...
01:06:24
Speaker
hi English like translation, like proofreader. Oh, cool. English translation. So like, you know, ah that, yeah I don't know. yeah Good work, Jack. Jack Allen of Adventure Game Hotspot. Shout out. yeah Uh, but the, the writing's impeccable and it's very much styled after English Gothic horror literature, which was a lot more subdued, right? Which had a lot slower of a buildup, which really took its time to set its characters and its setting.
01:07:01
Speaker
ah really took its time to ground things in reality so that when the supernatural stuff started happening, um it really had a strong impact.
Comparison with Gabriel Knight Series
01:07:11
Speaker
yeah If you think about writers like Algernon Blackwood or um writers like the writers that are all like name-checked in this game, like M.R. James or ah even, you know- Edgar Allan Poe, yeah. yeah um it's even It's funny, they make a reference at one point. You're in a horror bookshop, and it's just packed full of ah references to gothic horror literature. yeah And it's there for no other purpose. That is gandering, and I like it. Yes, yeah the guy even... i can so you He subjects you to a quiz and you're like, well, what do I get if I win the quiz? And he's like an achievement. You're like, what's an achievement? And he's like, I don't know, it's an achievement.
01:08:03
Speaker
not um and so you You get to take it as many times as you want, but it's like a quiz about Gothic horror. um ah and At one point, you can answer one of the questions. You can answer HP Lovecraft, who wasn't around yet. And the guy's like, what? No, what? Who is that? That's brilliant. I didn't catch that. It's very funny. um But Lovecraft is another example of this, right? Setting a really like solid baseline of reality for a long time and so that when the supernatural twist happens, you're like, oh my God. And it really hits you in the stomach.
01:08:44
Speaker
Yeah, in that way, I found while playing this. That this is the structure in this storyline and even the characters and the things that happen. It's not a one to one, obviously, but it's so similar to Gabriel Knight. It's not stealing it, you guys. It's but it's very influenced by and it It's, I really like it ah because Gabriel Knight, I thought was a well written, a well written game. So if you're going to be influenced by something, that's a good thing to be influenced by. Yeah. Yeah. Take from the best, but I want to make it clear.
01:09:27
Speaker
how very close it is. The music being the first thing I clocked immediately. The structure being the way you travel is you get a map and you unlock things as your map, different places, and these places are all compartmentalized. They're shops, they're stores. They're on a map of the city. They're just like circles that are icons on a map of the city, just like Gabriel Knight. Yeah, just like Gabriel Knight. The way characters, play their roles in the game is very a similar, the fact that we're dealing with something supernatural.
01:10:06
Speaker
ah Actually, and and actually, we deal with mediums in this game, some of which are frauds. And we kind of, you know, we figure that out ah versus Gabrielle Knight, where we're talking about Marie Laveau, who was a known What did they call, what did they call Maria Shoot? What did they call her? Well, fraud is a part of Voodoo. It is a part of the Voodoo tradition. Oh, she was a Voodoo priestess. There we go. She was a priestess. Yes. um Even if, even those who believe in Marie Laveau's powers also believe ah her to have you know defrauded
01:10:46
Speaker
especially people outside the faith yeah um but there's just all these there's just all of these correlations including the way that characters die in the game because this is a this is a mystery for the most part um and there is going to be death scenes very it's very much like abriel knight And there's somebody who sacrifices themselves, an older person that sacrifices themselves, just like in Gabriel Knight, just like your Uncle Wolfgang. ah Crazy, crazy comparisons ah for me. um But that's a good thing. um I would say that Gabriel Knight goes off the rails a little bit more. And it's maybe held my attention more because that game is set in New Orleans. Maybe there's more stimuli.
01:11:33
Speaker
Again, this is set in early 1907, London. So all the screens are very drab. It's very ah setting appropriate. Right.
Historical Figures & Spiritism in English Haunting
01:11:43
Speaker
I did really like this game, but i don't I don't know how you feel, but I felt like I was waiting kind of a while for things to ramp up. I was waiting for a flow and the things that did ramp up. I felt like we're a little disjointed, which is the opposite of nightmare frames. We talked about that and we said that was very organic. Uh, in an English haunting, I felt like the stakes weren't as high. Uh, I don't know. It felt a little to me. It felt a little more disjointed. i I understand. I do think I agree with you. I think that, um, unlike all of its clear influences, right? Like unlike, um, these Gothic horror stories, which have
01:12:28
Speaker
just like are usually a very, very tight twist, right? Like the twist is so... It sort of almost like throws a blanket over but over the rest of the story and you're like... um ah you're sort of like, oh my God, this this like changes the context of everything that I've seen so far. That didn't really happen in this game. and yeah And it felt a little more like a maybe 1990s Hollywood movie when it hit its sort of denouement, right? Than a gothic horror story, right? yeah
01:13:17
Speaker
it it felt like it almost yeah It felt like it was building to like an exciting third act, like in an action or a thriller, rather than a serious mind-bending twist or even or even inevitable feeling twist, like a gothic horror. yeah That said, i I really did enjoy this game. I enjoyed every moment of this game. um i really I think the writing was so strong. Writing is very strong, yeah. Even if there are boring parts, I was so happy to read them. um And one of the ways that it grounds the story, and
01:14:00
Speaker
just to sort of jump back towards the the the first half, right? um One of the ways that it grounds the story is you, Patrick Moore, are you believe in ghosts, you believe in the supernatural, but you're also a very skeptical guy. You um basically... ah
01:14:24
Speaker
There's a the B-A-S-S, the British Association of, we I can't remember. Spiritual. I i'm going guess it's spirituality or science or something something like that. Yeah. um This society, you have recently written a paper, much like Alan Goldberg recently wrote, had an interview where he trashed all of, um like uh yeah he trashed uh he trashed trashed yeah yeah the alvira pastiche um yeah eliza you recently trashed bass in um a paper yeah and in an essay and you
01:15:10
Speaker
Also, you understand that the a lot of these mediums that you're seeing, you go in sort of like, I know these are frauds. Even a character that you work very closely with, like one of the first yeah conversations with you have with her, you're like. I know you're a fraud. And she's like, yeah, I'm a fraud. ah Which is also really interesting because she's like, yeah, I'm a fraud because I was a metaphysical researcher like you, but no one took me seriously in the scientific fields. So instead I decided to just defraud people. So this game, especially so in this first half, you're basically bouncing around London and you are following leads as to what could have happened.
01:15:49
Speaker
to Nelson Ward at the same time sort of keeping your eye open for places where real paranormal activity might be occurring. um that's very That's a distant second to finding your buddy Nelson Ward, Professor Ward. And a lot of the characters that you run into are like real figures from the history of spiritism and the history of London. um you meet, for example, ah I don't know if the gangster, like Patty, oh i don't yeah yeah I don't know if those are real, but while you are interacting with them, they reference other real London gang leaders, like the Bowery Boys and like Larry Foley, the boxing the boxing gangster, the Catholic boxer. um They also, also you run into,
01:16:47
Speaker
Florence Cook, yeah who was a real medium. And they put her real her kind of real story in there as well. It's clear that this guy did his research. They put her act in the game. um And and ah Harry Houdini also appears. Why, you may ask? ah Because at that time later in life, Harry Houdini was so upset that there were so many frauds that he spent the end of his life
01:17:20
Speaker
Uh, yelling at them, essentially trying to prove them as frauds. Yeah. Yeah. He was like, yeah, he was a a famous skeptic and there's even a joke about how she's going to punch him in the stomach, which was a little tasteless because that's how he did. I don't know. Did he actually die from a punch to the stomach or was it something else? I just feel, I just feel like you can't like die Yeah, yeah, he died from a swelling of the abdomen related to appendicitis.
01:17:55
Speaker
and possibly related to the punch of his stomach. He received about a week and a half earlier. So like, what do you talk about so wasn't he right. Yeah, this is kind of where what I thought it was. We talked about his him being punched. He didn't just die. Like being punched, right? He had like something wrong with him. but he got one shot that Yeah, and there you go. That's what happened. I knew he didn't die on stage, but I assumed it was like that night. um yeah Yeah. But then again, if your act is, hey, everybody come up and punch me in the stomach and then you die of appendicitis, I'm going to say the two are probably linked.
01:18:34
Speaker
Yeah, they're possibly related, but like he did, there was like something wrong. And then he didn't help himself by asking to be punched in the stomach. Yeah. Maybe don't do that.
01:18:47
Speaker
Florence Cook is in the game and you help by trickery rein reunite her with ah Sir William Crooks, who was famous for having vouch for Florence yeah Cook. um And nobody quite knew why, because he was a very serious scientist.
Character Reactions & Police Involvement Critique
01:19:03
Speaker
He's the guy who discovered the eliot element thallium. Yep. Yep. um And you he was also like us like a guy. um Yeah, was he was. Yeah. um And you are in this game, you reunite the two, which is kind of sweet if you know the history of those characters in in history. But some of this gets a little absurd, unfortunately. Yeah, I agree. It is very cool.
01:19:38
Speaker
to be solving this mystery of Nelson Ward, but towards the end of this first act, which is all about, yeah, where did Nelson Ward go? You have, and this is a person who was involved in this movement at the time. um He was also a member of the Order, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which is, again, Alistair Crowley's um organization. Yeah, yeah. This is the writer of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle. I wasn't, look, I wasn't mad when Arthur Conan Doyle showed up. They already had Houdini show up. It's not like it doesn't make sense for the time. That's fine. But it felt like a joke, right? When he walks in and he's like, hi, I am famous author Arthur Conan Doyle. You're like, yeah. Really? Yeah, no, it felt a little strange.
01:20:33
Speaker
I, it's, it's too bad because I think the dev does a good job bringing historical things into the game. Again, much like Jane Jensen does with her Gabriel Knight series. She brings historical real real stories and history to those games and research and myth. And this dev does a good job too. I just don't like it when it's brought literally into the game. And yeah, you meet Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and then later you play as him. Yeah. So this is just like Nightmare Frames has a kind of a two act structure. Yes. um This game has the same. So, well, I guess three act, but the third act in in both games is very short. Yeah. And very similar. It kind of like the structure is very clear to me. It's like act one, act two goes off the rails.
01:21:27
Speaker
act Act one is an investigation. Act yeah two is things get a little crazy. a little weird And yeah act three, things go completely unhinged. And yeah, so this this transition from act one to act two, so you you don't discover what happened in Nelson Ward yet, but you... you're you're getting closer and closer and you also figure out a project he was working on that would bring the spiritual realm to our world. They would bring the two closer together so you could, you know, record spirits. Yeah, yes supernatural circumstances. Yeah.
01:22:06
Speaker
Yeah. um And it's interesting, too. It it sort of evolve involves ectoplasm, which is a phenomenon from the time and involves corpse photography, which is ah was a cultural trend at the time. Very, very interesting historical stuff. But then, yeah, you you're kind of in his lab but and Arthur Conan Doyle walks in, he's like, hey, I saw the light was on and I thought I'd stop in. I'm Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer of Sherlock Holmes.
01:22:39
Speaker
but um And then the second act, you are, ah so Arthur Conan Doyle decides to go off and find Nelson Ward, because he thinks- Yeah, they're friends, apparently. Friends and yeah colleagues and stuff, yeah. And he thinks, i he's like, I can find him. Yeah. Which, spoiler alert, he does. But ah then you, as Patrick Moore, you kind of go off looking for to the next ingredient to this special machine that Ward was working yeah on. Yeah, yeah. What did you think of the
01:23:15
Speaker
the Scottish town of Aeriswell, which is not real, by the way. Yeah. What a strange section of the game, I just want to say. So earlier I mentioned it felt like the stakes were a little low. ah There are points in this game that Aeriswell being one of them where something scary is gonna happen, something weird is going on, right? um And that's where you find the cult. You find the cult on this island and it's definitely ah a point of the game where it's very serious and people die. But it feels to me like it goes so fast and the way it was handled at the end of that chapter, I'm like, oh, okay. It felt like the character wasn't particularly moved by anything that happened.
01:24:03
Speaker
Yeah, like his friends die and he's kind of just like, like he's like, oh, that Yeah. And and you you go to report it and because of the time, because of the time this was set in, there's like no proof. And the Scottish police are just like, you just better leave. Just get out of here. It's like, God, the stakes are low. You know, i I so thought the Scottish police were in on it. Oh, um could be. until then they cut to kind of like a scene right after you leave. And both of them are just like, oh, that guy's crazy, huh? And I was like, ah, man. Oh yeah, they probably barely believed him, yeah. You missed a trick here. Like, I think it might've been better if they were like, if like they walked into another room and put their, and you saw like a glimpse of their like cult robe.
01:24:58
Speaker
That would have that would have, I think, tied it together a little bit more and made it ah seem a little more urgent because when you're playing this part, it things are pretty urgent. Okay, yeah it goes off. But then that urgency is is kind of taken away and I don't I want to make this very clear. I really liked this game. I am just, i I wish it had had more details like that. Like maybe does the police were in on it and that would have rose, you know, risen those stakes just a little bit higher so that nothing felt um like dismissed. Like I said, Patrick wasn't particularly moved by anything that happened. He wasn't, I would be traumatized.
01:25:40
Speaker
if I came across a cult that's trying to kill me. And I don't know where my friend is, my friend's missing. You know what I mean? So. i will I will say though, one of the things that we are led to um understand about Patrick from the very beginning of the game is that he is a very dispassionate man. He is a man who
Protagonist's Rational Mindset & Gothic Horror Appeal
01:26:00
Speaker
is driven but um views the world very rationally and very scientifically. So it makes, and when we meet finally meet Nelson Ward, it's clear that he is, ah they make it very clear he's on the spectrum, right? Like he talks about not understanding human cues, like, yeah social cues, he makes it clear he there are certain human emotions that he cannot,
01:26:27
Speaker
relate to so that he needs people to tell him about them. yeah um And he's your best friend, right? yeah So you you are playing somebody who is a little divorced from ah his emotional side. Sure, yeah, for sure. But yeah, so while you're off finding this artifact and this cult and whatever, um and this so you cut back to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who is looking for Nelson Ward. And you play Sherlock Holmes, Arthur!
01:27:03
Speaker
Arthur Conan Doyle. Yeah. And you're using like methods of deduction and like yeah figuring out stuff. Like, at look, I didn't hate it. I didn't hate it. no I just felt, and obviously games like this, especially indie games that are well-written like this, these are passion projects. So I get it. This devs passions and interests, they are on full display. And there's something I really respect about that. But any editor would have been like, hey, cut. Why don't this shouldn't be? ah Yeah, I think that's why maybe it felt a little more disjointed. I wasn't yeah expecting it. um and and i And what's really interesting is i loved that was my favorite setting of the game. same ah i let I love a good old haunted asylum moment, truly. um Yeah, the asylum scene was really
01:28:01
Speaker
it Okay, that was just a really fun adventure game. yeah yeah you have to You have to break into his an asylum to free Nelson. Nelson Ward has been set up by sort of a conspiracy. You also find out that the money that he stole was his, um not the, right you start to it starts to unravel. there's a There is a conspiracy happening here um against the metaphysics department and against Nelson Ward. And you're unraveling that as you're finding him. um yeah And yeah, there's like a lot of cool little puzzles about like you having to trick everybody in the asylum so that you can get to Nelson Ward and free him. it's Yeah.
01:28:43
Speaker
pretty rad.
01:28:47
Speaker
No, I did like that was my favorite setting. ah But it again, it didn't feel like a separate. Yeah. what What am I playing Sanitarium at this point, which is also a very disjointed game. So maybe that's a good comparison. But but the puzzles in it reminded me of Gabriel Knight or one of the like ah the David Gilbert. what ah God,
Puzzle Design Appreciation & Critiques
01:29:08
Speaker
what's his gun about? Yeah, or like the Blackwell games. Oh, Blackwell games, yeah, yeah. it It reminded me of, why can't I think of that company's name? it so Oh, the Wajidai. The Wajidai, yeah. It reminded me of like Wajidai games puzzles. Yeah. Some of the better ones. I i really, really liked that sequence.
01:29:30
Speaker
I did too, and and for the most part, I found, once again, I really found the puzzle design really good. ah It flowed, it has has this linear, named both games, I think, have this linear nature where you never feel like you don't quite know what to do. You know what you're doing, you know what your next goal is, you know? Or, yeah, or yes, you always know what your goal is, and as far as puzzle solutions, even if you don't if they don't readily occur to you, you're at least like, I know where to look. yeah I know where to start looking for sort of the for any hints as to how to solve this puzzle. like yeah I remember, you know I would uncover a detail and then be like, oh, I know where to find that thing. yeah yes And then it's just like a matter of how do I get it?
01:30:17
Speaker
in in that way, I think these games are designed very, very well. And it's still an adventure game. So you're always going to have a puzzle that you don't like, there's always going to be a clunker because it's a hard to it's hard to think about what the player might be thinking about. Obviously, you can have quality control and and all that kind of stuff. But in the end, It's difficult. ah But that being said, I think these puzzles are are pretty good. And I think it's designed really well. I was actually very impressed by the design as a whole. Yeah. ah Now, with the caveat that we loved this game and we love the puzzles in this game, what was the biggest clunker for you? Hmm. In an in um of both games or in an English haunting? In an English haunting.
01:31:04
Speaker
Oh, man, ah I know there was one. I don't I honestly I don't remember what the biggest clunker was, but I i do know that I I do know which which setting. Oh, you know what? I was struggling with the ah the boxing guy. I was a little bit not not when you meet him, but I was struggling to get him. Yeah. Yeah. I cannot find I could not find. So there's a yeah. OK, there's a point. um I'll mention my two clunkers and then I wanna discuss what you just mentioned. um yeah My two clunkers are, number one, you get a match, we talked about this last episode, you get a match book, it falls in water, you have to find a radiator to dry the match on. Like, come on. I got that pretty quickly. No, I got, I mean. I solved it quickly, but my my problem with it was, wouldn't you just, it would just dry if you're either, it would dissolve in the in the water. Yeah.
01:32:03
Speaker
Or it would dry after like a minute. Like, come on. Yeah. I feel like that was put in there for strategically comedic purposes about how adventure games for whatever reason, we're always like dropping our matchbook and they get wet and don't dry. Yeah. Like specifically, Hugo's House of Horrors does that. You can drop your matches in a river. So yeah, I think I really do think that that was for comedic effect. I hope that's why. um yeah Then the other puzzle that I didn't love was that when you first start playing Arthur Conan Doyle, you're looking for um the Dean of the college and you just have to ask every student that walks past. Oh, you do? And so you ask like one or two students and they say like, I don't know where he is. I don't know where he is. And they're like, oh, there must be another solution. So you try to leave the screen and it's like,
01:32:59
Speaker
um And it's like, oh, I should still find the Dean of Students. You're like, well, there's nothing else to click on here. There's two doors that I'm not allowed to go in. And so you click on some of the people walking past again, and they're like, you already talked to me. I don't know where the Dean is. And you're like, well, then what the fuck? And then there's one random guy you click on that's like, oh, I know where the Dean is. And then you click on him. I clicked on him first, Matt.
01:33:31
Speaker
today I even know I literally clicked on that guy first. So I'm like, so cool I just had to talk to a student. and Yeah. First thing I did, I talked to this random student. He's like, I don't know where he is, but then he's like, Oh, he's coming up right behind you. I'm like, cool. That didn't take long at all. Unbelievable. That's amazing. yeah and Okay. That's amazing. So and then the other, ah so okay, so then back to what you were talking about. um the ah the The boxer puzzle. I think because it took me a while to
01:34:09
Speaker
There was something like went off in my brain where I missed a part of a dialogue where you can get marbles from a little kid. And I was having trouble progressing from there because I just couldn't, I just didn't know what I needed. I i know I needed a certain type of flower to give to like this box, right? And I knew where to get it. Why did you do that? To get the flower, why did I get the flowers? How did you know that he needed a flower? Um, somebody told me that he needed like violets. Oh, I must've missed that because here's what bothered me. I did not have trouble, um, finding the marbles and getting the flowers. Yeah. I had trouble with, I was told that he was missing his lucky charm and I had no, like even ok vague hint that his lucky charm was a flower. So I was just trying every inventory item on, yeah.
01:35:08
Speaker
This just kind of proves that the dialogue, if you do miss some dialogue, it will affect how you what you know about the puzzles, because I found that out by going to the newspaper boy and asking him about sports. And he told me what the lucky charm was. He said they were violets. Oh, my God, ah versus me. Yeah, versus me missing some of the dialogue. That is a kid on the dock. That's a very good puzzle clue. I did not pay attention when he was talking about sports. I was like, oh, he's just mentioning one punch Jack or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And I did not pay attention to the rest of it. Wow. That is OK. It's definitely one of those games where you you do want to exhaust the dialogue options because new options might
Exciting Final Act & Adventure Game Comparisons
01:35:57
Speaker
pop up ah yeah again, just like Gabriel Knight interrogation and and talking to characters is pretty important.
01:36:04
Speaker
I also should have realized because this is in ah this is a long-standing adventure game thing, if a dialogue option is repeatable, it is a clue to a puzzle. Oh, good good ah good observation there. if you If you talk to somebody about something and then that dialogue option disappears, it was just background or whatever, right? um or it triggered something maybe. If you talk to somebody and the dialogue option remains and you can ask them about it again and they repeat the exact same thing again, yeah it's probably a clue to a puzzle because the dev wants you to have it, even if you missed it. yeah So back to where Arthur Conan Doyle, again, we find Nelson Ward, we uncover the conspiracy, and now we go to the third act.
01:36:54
Speaker
which is we turned this, we now have reunited Patrick Moore and Nelson Ward and we turn on this machine and we won't spoil the ending just like we didn't with um nightmare frames. But yeah, I mean, a big paranormal mess happens. yeah The finale is pretty great. that was the That was the ramp up that I was very much wanting. ah And it did. But I guess like, I guess my, my critique and it's really, again, these critiques sound like I don't like the game, which I do. But these critiques are a little more minor. It's just that I wish it I wish the ramp up was more. I wish it flowed better. Because to me, again, some of the stakes felt really low, Patrick, again, Patrick was kind of divorced from all these emotions. So the drama for me,
01:37:47
Speaker
didn't happen until that third act. So it was like, I'm doing this, I'm doing this fetch quests. Okay. And then whoa, off the rails. What? Yeah. And I'm gonna be wrong there. are There are spooky moments prior to that as well. And they're very effective. um There's a few that stand out to me for for being pleasantly shocking and felt like it was good for the story. But yeah, yeah, I don't want to spoil anything. But yeah, it goes off. I was really a big fan of that final act. I mean, I was a big fan of this whole game. I really like, I really like Gothic horror. I'm already a fan of HP Lovecraft, except for the racism and and Algernon Blackwood and ah HG Wells, except for the racism and ed Edgar Allan Poe. Like I'm already a big fan of Gothic horror. So yeah this was,
01:38:39
Speaker
a treat for me. This final act though was really exciting and actually kind of similar to the final act of Nightmare Frames. Yeah, ah very very exciting. Yeah, I really, I did i did enjoy this game. It's not quite a chase sequence like the end of Nightmare Frames, but it feels very similar. Like you are up against it and having to think, well, you don't really have to think quickly, but the game makes you feel like everything's very urgent. You feel under pressure just because of ah the terror of the moment.
01:39:17
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I feel like I wanna, I feel like it sounds like I didn't like the game and I do. I think what's happening. I think it's coming across that you liked it. Yeah, I think what's really happening here is that I really hold Nightmare Frames high up there. And obviously I don't, I rarely like things equally. So I do like that one more. How would you feel if the dev listened to this podcast and then was like, Oh, Hey, sorry. You didn't like English. I'd be like, wait, no, I do like it. I'm just saying my P no, I really do like it. I, yeah I highly recommend both of these games are super high quality. They're super well written and they're very.
01:40:04
Speaker
They're very point and click adventure. That's the structure yeah that you are in. you know You get fetch quests, you get um inventory items, you get save slots, which is fantastic stick for me, especially as as somebody who might review these games like we do like we do if we want to revisit a thing. And there's great dialogue trees. There's a sense of adventure the entire time. You're always finding new things. You're always opening up new locations, um meeting new characters. it's
01:40:36
Speaker
ah everything you could want from a point and click adventure. And the pixel art is amazing. The soundtracks are great. ah You mentioned the soundtrack earlier, and when you compared it to Gabriel Knight, I'm guessing you mean like the um the score that happens every now and then. um i Yeah, yeah ah but even like the setting, so like in in Bass, for example, that's super reminiscent of the police station in Gabriel Knight. It's very close
Music, Sound Design & Developer Speculation
01:41:04
Speaker
to me. What I was going to say is much like the 80s music that you hear all throughout Nightmare Frames, there is period ah accurate early 1900s records playing in many different places that you visit, like you go to a store
01:41:24
Speaker
and or in, you know, ah office or something, and they just have a record player playing like clearly a in old ah an old um early 1900s recording that has fallen out of ah copyright. yeah It really sets a tone. Yeah, those were those were really great. And by the way, I should mention that these games are not voiced. So having I want to say that because we mentioned in both games, there's music where somebody is singing. ah Don't even worry about it. It does not interfere with anything because these games are not voiced. And part of me wishes that an English haunting was
01:42:09
Speaker
I think because the portraits gave the characters so much more personality and nightmare frames, i wasn't there were facial expressions to match what they were saying. I got a little more character out of them. Part of me wishes that an English haunting was voiced though, just a little part of me. i I wanted to see where that could take it, you know, considering there's so many, there's different countries and different regions that were in. Yeah, I just, I i wonder about that. Well, who knows, this developer started with a Maniac Mansion kind of inspired game, moved on to a Sierra SCI inspired game, then had a Gabriel Knight inspired game, and then maybe, well, another sort of Gabriel Knight inspired game. Who knows, maybe they are moving upwards through the evolution of adventure game history, and maybe their next game will be voiced. i
01:43:04
Speaker
Honestly, I just cannot wait to see what this what postmodern adventures has next. I'm going to start digging backwards and play Billy Masters was right and play ah urban cop story. Yeah, because I've loved both these games so much like it. I am on the edge of my seat waiting for and it it'll be, you know, two, three years from now, probably. But I cannot wait to see what they come out with next. No, same, i absolutely the same. These games were a breath of fresh air for me. I felt very excited playing them and I can't wait to see what they come out with next. Well, that's an English haunting and nightmare frames. Seriously, check them both out. you're You'll be doing yourself a favor. We have gone pretty long, so do you wanna just say goodbye from this segment rather than throw up? I will concede.
01:44:03
Speaker
to not hearing a third Swanky Max Amino. I am an agreeance. Okay. I am agreed. Everybody, thank you so much for listening. um We are part of the Adventure Game Hotspot Network. Check them out at adventuregamehotspot.com. What else do we even say at the end of these things? ah and the ah ah Rate us. Rate us. Give us a rating. Give us some ratings. Give us a rating. Share with a friend. That's something you could always do. Tell one person, yo, you would like this show. Yeah, for sure. That would be wildly helpful. I'm going to go tell all my friends.
01:44:46
Speaker
Yeah, have you not yet? I don't know.
Podcast Conclusion & Listener Engagement
01:44:51
Speaker
Maybe. ah Next week, I think, and you you guys can't hold me to this. You cannot hold me to this. Oh my god. But I think we're talking about ah some of the games we got recommended way back in episode. What was our last Q and&A episode? 15 maybe? 14, 15? Yeah, somewhere around there. ah So if you guys go back, if you've listened to that episode um and any of the games that were recommended, us, yeah, it was 14, piqued your interest. Check them out in preparation for next episode where we'll be talking about some of the stuff you guys recommended us. Do you have anything else going on, Roses, that you wanna promote before we dip? Nope.
01:45:40
Speaker
I got nothing. I got nothing. Just this podcast, which you know what? I am totally fine with. I actually, if you guys are following adventuregamehotspot.com, some of my, I'll be having some reviews actually popping up. Oh yeah, good call. In the very near future. So if you want to read any of my written reviews, go there. He's a good writer. He's a good jumper and a good writer. I'm much better at jumping, but thank you. um All right, so we will see you guys next Wednesday. And ah I personally, I don't know about you, Roses, but I personally think podcasts is art. Well, I personally think that artists suffer. Well, let's agree to disagree. I really i really do think that.