Transcript
Speaker: Hey, I was just thinking about MasterChef Junior. No, you weren't. I was thinking about MasterChef Junior. Because I'm the one who is currently obsessed with MasterChef Junior. Look, I don't know why...
Speaker: That I am a masochist in all aspects of life. You don't know why. Okay. You don't know why you're masochist. I don't know why. This is just who I am, apparently. So, like, I like cooking, like competitive cooking shows. It's my comfort watch. So everything Gordon Ramsay, baking, championships, fuck yeah. I love, like, do you remember a Cupcake Wars?
Speaker: um I didn't i I didn't I don't watch those these things whatever so I used to i watch great i ri I watch great British bake-off sometimes oh heck yeah but I haven't in a while Cupcake Wars was great ah because you can make anything into a cupcake that that's when I learned that you can put like lavender oil in a cupcake but i digress I've been watching my Rubik's Cube into a cupcake Is it made out of food?
Speaker: No. Then no. And put it down. You didn't specify that. You didn't specify. You put pennies in a cupcake. No, i've I've been watching MasterChef Junior. Okay.
Speaker: And these fucking children. Yeah. Sorry, was that too loud? You yelled at me. ah you Oh, you're crying. You could be on MasterChef Junior. These iss tiny little strange children are better at at cooking than I am anything in my life.
Speaker: They're better than you are at anything in your life. At anything. better They're better at cooking than I am at painting, than I am at editing, than I am at anything. and Name a thing. They're probably better at it at cooking. Murder.
Speaker: Okay. Matt, please not here. Okay. um And what's really funny, I actually really do like this show. I think it's very, very cute. Okay. And I like how um Gordon Ramsay softens around the kids and they seem to have a really good time like cooking and stuff. But something that is hilarious to me is, you know, when you're watching like competition shows, usually every competitor gets like a little feature.
Speaker: in in in an episode. They'll like show pictures of them doing stuff. So if it was like you, right? If we were featuring you ah edit on our panel, I would put photos of like, oh, here's Matt doing improv at age 24, right?
Speaker: okay And they show the progress. For these kids, they're like 8 through 12. So they've had they've done nothing in their life They've done nothing. So they shares them playing with what they're of them when they're 4. Here's them playing with a different toy. Absolutely. Like, here's a memory from two years ago when they were six.
Speaker: Can you but imagine? Like, there's somebody that that's their job is to put that stuff together. And it's just like, it's like, fuck, I don't know. oh i got, i what? I don't fucking know. Here's a photo of them playing with some blocks. I don't know. i don't know. i don't know. why do you make me do this?
Speaker: Some intern's job to like, make the compilation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like one kid has already he's like 10 and he's already competed in like several barbecue competitions. What have we done? We've nothing.
Speaker: We've done nothing. Don't know. I haven't done a barbecue competition. You're a vegetarian. i could do vegetarian. I could barbecue. also There's no limit to the things that a um ah man can barbecue. Name three things.
Speaker: Corn. Corn.
Speaker: Okay, that was only one. Corn potato. You're going to, I'm sorry, you're going barbecue the potato? Yeah, why couldn't you barbecue a potato? Okay, potato.
Speaker: Give me one reason why may and can't barbecue a potato. Give me one more. One more thing to put on the grill. um Let's see. Veggie dog. Fine. Fine.
Speaker: fine ok Okay, this was a... Okay, so wait.
Speaker: How does a kid learn how to barbecue? They're not allowed to use the stove. They're not allowed to use the barbecue. They're not allowed to touch the fire. Oh, dude. It's illegal. They give children knives on this show. I'm over here sweating, thinking that they're going to slice their little fingers off. It is so stressful.
Speaker: Okay. I mean, I'm sure somebody's taught them how not to slice their little fingers off by now, right? People have taught me that, and yet I still like... And yet you Yeah, I still injure myself daily. Huh.
Speaker: Well, so what do you want to do? Do you want to start... like how Where do you want to start here? Do you want to start by learning a trade?
Speaker: Like this so that you can end up on one of these shows? Or do you want to just start from scratch? You can adopt a little baby. You can start training them. Give it a knife.
Speaker: Instantly. yeah Yeah. Get a baby, hand it a knife and say, make me a food. All right. I'm doing it. I'm getting a child, a small, weird child and giving it knives. Why does the child have to be weird? Small, weird child. Yeah.
Speaker: ah
Speaker: Hi, everybody. I am a guy named Matt. Matt Aukamp, in fact. And am one of the hosts of your podcast that you're listening to right now. It's called Save Your Game. And I never do it alone.
Speaker: Ever. In fact, I always do it with my friend. Pushing Up Roses! Hey, Pushing Up Roses!
Speaker: Hi! Hi! What up? What up? What's going on with you? over here watching MasterChef Junior, baby. Right now? Yeah, it's like always on. Like, I just have my double monitors up and one is the the recording and the other is MasterChef Junior.
Speaker: Gordon Ramsay is over there punching children. It's great. Roses, how are you? I'm fine. You're fine? You're fine? Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine.
Speaker: It's fine. Everything's fine. Oh, God. How are you, Matt? Okay. um i'm okay I'm okay. I'm worried about my friend Roses all of a sudden. no i'm doing I'm doing well. um i'm just i'm just I'm just chilling. how is How's...
Speaker: It's too hot for September. It is. It's really bad. ah it was 95 degrees the other day. Just is absolutely miserable. I went out and I was like sweating right away. Like as soon as one foot went out the door, i was drenched in sweat.
Speaker: And and here's the problem. Here's the biggest problem. And this is why it's worse for me than everybody else. I'm already I'm already in a spooky mood. i'm innna see Yeah, I'm in a spooky mood. I'm already in a spooky i'm already in a spooky mood and I want to do spook i want to do spooky stuff. Me and it's and it's word it's where the skeletal groundhog came out of its grave. Nice. And it looks like it saw its friggin' shadow.
Speaker: There's 12 more weeks of summer. Yeah, we have second summer going on right now. I mean, summer's not technically over. think it's over on, like, what, the 17th? I'm making that up. I don't fucking know. But usually, at least it's better. It is over at some point.
Speaker: At least we know it's over at some point. That's the thing we can promise you here. Yeah. Or we know it's like ending. It's like we're transitioning into fall. No, there's no transition. And I will say, i know that i'm in i'm i'm I'm in the spooky mood too early.
Speaker: And I knew it right away. no I knew it right away when I picked up my little... ah um Folk horror anthology short stories book. Nice. i I knew it. I knew it. And I, and I, and I picked it up anyway. And I read about them and I went, before I went to bed. and went I went, it is not too early ah because I said so. And because pumpkin spice is out and that determines, oh my God, I really want to, I really want a pumpkin spice right now. Okay. So I, ah interesting. So I,
Speaker: i don't I'm not ready for pumpkin spice yet. But you're ready for spooky anthology books? I know. i know. I'm a freaking hypocrite. But I'm not ready for pumpkin spice yet. i So I get my almond k creamer for my little coffee.
Speaker: And I usually go and I'll buy about two bottles at a time. Because I'm going to get through those things in just under a week probably. And i See, the store has all the pumpkin spice ones out now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And I'm looking at them and I'm like, ooh, it would be nice to have a different flavor right now. But um it's just too frigging early for these pumpkin spices. don't think it is. So I keep getting the caramel and the sweet the sweet cream and caramel ones.
Speaker: think caramel is kind of ah a spooky flavor. It's kind of a fall flavor. Caramel's an every time flavor. Well, okay. Think about when you when do you use caramel? You use caramel.
Speaker: In apple cider in the fall. In apple cider. you use caramel on apples in the fall. Yeah, in the fall. so there's yeah So those are when you use it in the fall. Where else do you use caramel? You use caramel in candies. um i don't eat candy. In chocolate at Christmas time.
Speaker: I don't eat caramel candies. They hurt my teeth. Wait, so you don't eat. Okay. So if somebody gives you a Whitman sampler, you smack it out of their f freaking hand. Yeah, I'm not going to eat a Whitman sampler.
Speaker: What? Unless it's a sampler of buttercreams only. You're not going to eat a Whitman sampler. Somebody gives you a Whitman sampler. You're not going to be like, i I don't mind if I do. That's that is what I don't mind if I do was invented for. so i like no of course i would not do that i don't mind if i do was meant for the whitman sampler you never are then does that mean you're you never get to say i don't i don't mind don't mind if i do no i say that all the time well then you a whitman sampler like if somebody offers me like a cookie i'll be like oh don't mind if i do
Speaker: All right, fine. You're allowed to say if somebody offers you a cookie, but you cannot pick that cookie up daintily with two fingers. That's for a Whitman sampler. ah Okay, will you offer me a Whitman sampler at AdventureX? No, you're going smack it out of my hand! You should do it. It'll be fun.
Speaker: So much. I love caramel so much. It's it's probably like, it's it's my favorite candy ingredient. And maybe my favorite ice cream ingredient.
Speaker: Here's the thing. I like the next step up, which is toffee. I love toffee. I can't eat that either because it hurts my teeth. but Yeah, toffee will really fuck your teeth up Yeah, that'll fuck you up. ah But I love toffee. I used to love chocolate-covered toffee.
Speaker: So in just a couple months, we're going to head to Adventure X and we'll get to have a sticky toffee pudding if we want to. Whoa, God. All right. It's still over two months away.
Speaker: Oh my God. I just cannot wait for a sticky toffee pudding. I'm so excited. um Roses. Yes.
Speaker: Now, now we know all the stuff you've not been enjoying. You're not enjoying it. MasterChef Junior. You are not enjoying caramels. And, and as much as you'd like to be, you are not enjoying toffees.
Speaker: I am not, but i I would very much like to be. Yes. So here's my question. Yes. What have you been enjoy enjoying lately? So ah since the death of my man, Tim Curry...
Speaker: I've been enjoying all things Tim Curry. I rewatched Clue. I rerotched ah rewatched Rocky Horror. I watched the Dead Meat Kill Count video on Rocky Horror. I have been playing Frankenstein through the eyes of the monster.
Speaker: don't think I'm really enjoying that, if I'm honest. All that is, is like kind of watered down mist puzzles. And then every now and then Tim Curry will like pop his head in from off screen and scare you.
Speaker: That's the whole game. i don't know if I'm enjoying that, but that's okay. It is what it is. I've been rerecording some footage from Toonstruck, who he also played in. I did a ton of research on the Duckman adventure game. Do you remember Duckman?
Speaker: I remember Duckman. Tim Curry was in the Duckman adventure game? He was in the series as King Chicken, as Duckman's nemesis. And even though Jason Alexander, who played Duckman, he refused to do the adventure game because the voice made his doing the voice made his throat hurt. But Tim Curry came back. He found time for it. And his voice is insane in that game. I bet his throat was torn up. So I'm just saying Tim Curry's the man. ah But I learned actually learned lot. Tim voice is always insane. But yeah.
Speaker: I learned a lot about the company that, well, not not like a lot, but i learned that ah The company that did Duckman did Beavis and Butthead in Virtual Stupidity, which was a pretty good game. i I have a review on It's one of the first reviews I did when I started doing gaming on YouTube. It's actually pretty good. I think it's called Illusion Illusions or something like that. And then they did Duckman, which also if you it's not available for download anywhere because those licensed games are kind of hard to. They can be really hard. Yeah. Yeah, they're tough. I mean, you you probably downloaded it, but it's also a Windows game, so it's just hard. It's hard to get running. So I watched a playthrough. And that game actually looks very good and very charming. It's very, like, Lucas. The Duckman game looks good?
Speaker: it does It really does. It really does look really good. Okay. ah But then the gaming company, I don't think ever did anything after that. It's like the non-success of Duckman, I think, kind of killed it, which is really interesting. But yeah, it does look good. They had to know that a Duckman video game wasn't going to get anywhere, right? Like, Duckman didn't get anywhere. Yeah, I mean, it's a cult classic now, but at the time, it it wasn't particularly successful.
Speaker: It looks like it did run for four seasons. It did, which I was a little surprised by. That's very wild. Yeah. But it's still...
Speaker: i They couldn't have thought – well, anyway. Yeah, I don't know why they chose Duckman. Maybe because the style, the art style kind of lent itself to that LucasArts-y look. at it like While I was watching it, it very much reminded me of Sam and Max.
Speaker: I thought it looked really cool. Interesting. But yeah, Tim Curry came back to to do his role as King Chicken in that game. So I've been enjoying that. I've actually been enjoying my work lately. i'm putting out I'm writing a new script on Tim Curry's contributions to specifically adventure gaming. Because, don't know, Tim Curry took any role. i don't really really get it. Yeah, it's hard to tell. Was Tim Curry really interested in
Speaker: Adventure games as a... Or just video games as a ah as a medium. And was he like, wow, we could do... wow, we could do a lot with these... These games. These games. what Or was he like...
Speaker: Or was it just, again, like you said, he would take any fucking thing that came in his way? I think based on like watching ah the behind-the-scenes making of Gabriel Knight, I think he liked doing adventure games because they were it was a lot of voice acting. It was ah it was very character-driven. Not to say he didn't enjoy doing his role in in Red Alert, Command & Conquer Red Alert.
Speaker: ah You know that you know it's really really interesting everybody cites you know the ah his role in red alert is one of the greatest just greatest things ever and people forget that JJ Simmons and George Takai were also in that game but nobody ever shares their clips they're only sharing clips of Tim Curry saying he's going to space but I think it's super interesting.
Speaker: i i I didn't know about this red alert thing. Apparently it's a meme. I don't know. I don't know anything about it. But I do. I i mean, I know he's been in a ton of. Again, I know he's been in ton of video games. You've named most of the ones that I know him from. He was in Brutal Legend, too. He was also in the Muppet Treasure Island game. I know that. of course. He was in all of the anything that was Wild Thornberrys, of course, that had, you know, franchise games. He was in those, too, ah which makes sense. But, yeah.
Speaker: But I think less people know about things like Toonstruck, Frankenstein, you know things of that nature. Strangely, there is a Rocky Horror Picture Show game. I did review it. Richard O'Brien is in it. Tim Curry is not.
Speaker: Huh. Yeah, I know. He's like so willing to do these these games. but Like these super weird games that barely have anything to do with him. And then won't do.
Speaker: and That's interesting. I don't think Frankenfurter as a character was even in that game. That game was was bad. it was wild. i don't I don't even know what I was playing, to be honest with you. What's your favorite Tim Curry role of all of all time in everything?
Speaker: Yeah, it's definitely a Wadsworth from Clue. It's my favorite movie. I love him in Clue. Just absolutely love that movie. It's so quotable. And I guess a close second and third would be like Frankenfurter. love that. dot And probably Muppet Treasure Island.
Speaker: That's fair. You don't like um him as the concierge in Home Alone 2 who goes out of his way to try and look at Kevin McCallister's naked penis? i I do like that role. he goes, ha! And he rips open the ah shower curtain of what he thinks is going to be a little boy. perfect.
Speaker: I don't like that movie as much. So no, not really. i think it's it's definitely Wadsworth, Frankenfurter, and ah captain what's his name? Pirate? the Blackbeard. Blackbeard. Actually, he doesn't actually get to rip open. Where does he go? ha What was the part that he does that? He does that a lot.
Speaker: in that But in that movie, in that movie in the Home Alone 2. i think I think that is it. well Oh, it's when he opens the door. ah But he doesn't open the shower curtain, right? Because then he ah Kevin has the... That's the... He does the keep the change of filthy animal thing again. Yeah. what What are your favorite? But he's still trying to burst into the bathroom on a nude boy. nude little boy. What are my favorite? I...
Speaker: i You know, i have a... so I don't...
Speaker: i mostly knew Tim Curry when I was a kid from here from obviously Home Alone and then Adam's Family.
Speaker: The Adam's Family. third one, yeah. Yeah, yeah. The one that was direct to video. Yeah. um what else did i What else did I see him in as a kid? I didn't watch. I watched so much Muppets as a kid. I didn't watch Muppet Treasure Island as a kid. Me either. i saw it much later as an adult.
Speaker: So honestly, the majority of my Tim Curry um sort of ah ah experience was him as a voice.
Speaker: So Nigel Thornberry and the guy the bad guy in Fern Gully. oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Toxic Love. Yeah. So and... Toonstruck. And so when I hear a... to Oh, ah fuck. He was also in... um He was also in Mighty Max.
Speaker: Oh, was he as who? He was Skullmaster. Okay, I didn't know that. He was the big bad guy in Mighty Max, which I watched so much so much Mighty... I don't know. I watched so much Mighty Max. And so, like... But the the when I think of a ah Tim Curry...
Speaker: like line. i think of who struck.
Speaker: i I think of him laughing and Muppet treasure Island and being like, show him you've been practicing. They're all singing. But I also loved him in um probably his role that I've seen him the most in, probably besides, again, Mighty Max when I was a kid, Anti-Whispers in Over the Garden Wall, which was a small role. But yeah fucking he nailed it. that's this That's one of the best episodes of that whole series. And that is the scariest character in that series. Yeah.
Speaker: I remember also like Annie was one of my favorite movies. Oh yeah, that's right. He was in Annie. I watched Annie as a kid a couple of times. but Yeah. Yes. Like not a major role, but a very memorable. Memorable. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. I like him when Tim Curry sings. And I, and to be honest, I, I really relate to you knowing him for, for voice because actually the game we're talking about today is one of my favorite movies.
Speaker: a quote favorite Tim Curry roles. It just feels like home. You know, and I hear Tim yeah Curry and in a in a role from something i liked as a kid. It feels like home. feels comforting.
Speaker: It's bizarre. We'll talk about it when we get to it. But yeah, it's bizarre casting choice. Some bizarre choices made by him as an actor there. cow. I have some thoughts on the choice and we' and we'll get to it when we do. ah But have you... That's why I've been enjoying a lot of things because I've been...
Speaker: ah trying to be kind of productive. An archive of of Curry. Yeah, and just just being curious. And obviously I'm also watching, clearly I'm watching MasterChef in my spare time. But yeah, I've been doing a lot of Tim Curry stuff, you know, in a...
Speaker: When a beloved actor, my favorite actor of all time, when they pass away, I get a little rabbit hole-y and start going when going crazy. When Harrison Ford dies, im go I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm just going to dig myself a hole and bury myself in it for like three weeks.
Speaker: That's what I did when Angela Lansbury died. And people were like coming to me asking if I was okay. And I wasn't. i was so sad. i was destroyed.
Speaker: My whole channel is like about Murder, She Wrote, so it's tough. ah But anyway, enough about death. ah What have you been enjoying? ah um Let's see. the the well The word enjoying is always interesting, right? It is, isn't it? But you know what? No, I have been enjoying this. i found i i I stumbled across a game that was released um but just a couple, i guess like a month ago. Okay.
Speaker: And it's in this... It's in sort of the cross-section of the Disco Elysium. Well, or it pour portrays itself as being in the cross-section between Disco Elysium and um Citizen Sleeper.
Speaker: Okay. And it's a game where... you You are like Citizen Sleeper moving around a map and every time you talk to somebody it's like a static image and you have your Disco Elysium style dialogues happening on the right hand side and you make choices and the voices that your abilities are voices in your head and they talk to you and um you apply dice to different That's very Disco Elysium. But like Citizen Sleeper, you apply dice to different um scenarios. You have a limited number of dice. and
Speaker: I'll get into what is different about this game. But man, it wants to be those things so bad. It's called Celestial Return.
Speaker: It calls itself a so like ah like a story and dice driven RPG but I don't know if RPG is like a correct term for this game because it is ah you don't create a character i have a question i have a question i think this is a good question can a game still fall into the RPG category if you don't create a character it's given to you yeah I think so too I'm just curious your thoughts on that
Speaker: You don't pick stats or and oh you don't pick stats either. You don't pick stats. um And, you know, it you don't, there is experience in levels, but I can't fucking figure out what they do. um It really is. And your choices that you make, another thing that separates it from an RPG, the choices that you make don't seem to matter very much. Oh, that would upset me. It feels very just like a visual novel that has the visual style of, you know, a cross between Citizen Sleeper and Disco Elysium. And it ah it it also is trying to do this, like, really...
Speaker: this
Speaker: gritty but also like neon hyper cool cyber punky um like cool alt aesthetic and i just don't i think this game gets in its way its own way by trying to be cool and trying to be smart when it's just it's it's i'll start from the beginning so that so that's my very top level thoughts on it but you play you play a get this you play like this punk rock um musician turned member of a paranormal investigation police force turned
Speaker: ah like cyberpunk uh a private detective okay so again it is just trying to hit every like anything that they think is cool they're just cramming it into this fucking game um and you so you're on this paranormal investigation force uh
Speaker: where you are hunting down abstracts that appear in the world and, you know, like cause trouble for society. And then it cuts to, then you go through one particular case where you decide to save a small flower sized abstract in your pocket as your police force is wiping out all of the rest of them. And,
Speaker: Then you cut to five years later where you are retired from the police force, but you are a private investigator. And this flower, the sentient flower abstract has kind of become your sidekick. And again, it's in the cyberpunk future where people...
Speaker: You know, people get these like ah bio and consciousness augmentations and certain people live in VR and like all the things you would normally expect in a world like this. And then there's a series of suicides that you believe may not be suicides.
Speaker: Okay. um And somebody, one of your former like police buddies puts you onto the case. And it sends you down this rabbit hole um that I won't give away too much about, but where it ends up becoming actually fairly personal for you.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You travel around this map. The map is like, it's like, um again, like Citizen Sleeper or something where there is a map that, um there's like an overworld map and that's all there is. You know, you don't,
Speaker: You're not actually, you know, it's not like Esoteric Eb or Disco Elysium or any, you know, you're not walking around interacting with objects and characters. Okay. So, yeah, it's not like an overhead thing.
Speaker: it It is overhead, but it is a the map is like a game board. okay. And you are kind of like a game piece. Okay. Okay. um But you can move around freely. And in this world, they they did a clever thing where you're... The currency of this world is dice.
Speaker: So you find dice places. You so you can spend dice to get power-ups or things like that to make your ability checks a little easier. But you have to also use the dice when you have an ability check.
Speaker: Just like... Citizen Sleeper or Disco Elysium or something. you have to put You have to put your limited amount of dice to it. So you have to kind of balance, do I want to spend the, you know, do I want to go buy something with three dice or do I want to use those same three dice on a later ability check? which do What happens if you spend a lot of your dice? you And you run out? You sacrifice losing the check?
Speaker: Yeah, you'll just lose every check from that that point on. And then how would you how would you fix that? Does the game let you fix that situation without like having to go back? there ah No, there are a couple times that you...
Speaker: I think this game does have save slots, so there's that. But there's a couple times where you ah like you'll find dice or people will give you dice. Like somebody sends you on a mission and they're like, okay hey, here's six dice. yeah um But yeah, no, you could completely run out of dice and end up in a big chunk of this game just failing check after check after check. And I don't know. make me upset. And I don't know if you die. Like, I haven't died in this game yet. um I've actually passed almost every check that I've come across. um So it's not, you know, just with a little bit of thought, it's not that difficult. And some of these, and most of the dice have, like, special abilities, right? Like, there are some dice that will always give you a 12. Yeah. um There are some dice that will, because the...
Speaker: The dice are actually... They're actually 2D4s that rotate on top of each other. So it is, you know... And they have zeros on them. So, you know, your result could be anywhere from one to... ah Zero to eight. That's rough. Yeah. Zero.
Speaker: um So some... Instead of... Zero to eight, they're one to six, but they always, yeah. but And then some, like, it's a regular roll, but it's plus two if it's towards an intelligence check. something Stuff like that, right? um i again, i kind of like the i kind of like the overarching idea here.
Speaker: But the economy is so hard for them to work out, right? like Do they then give you a shit ton of dice so you can make these decisions? Yeah. um Or do they give you very few so the decisions are difficult but then run the risk of you running out long before the like chapter is over or whatever?
Speaker: Yeah. Do you feel sometimes that in in kind of RPG and RPG adjacent games that like economy and financial stuff is a little broken? Because I was just like, as you were saying that I was rethinking about all the times I was able to like cheat the systems in in games like this or just like be shit out of luck. You know what I mean? Like it can kind of go either way.
Speaker: um Yeah, no, I think definitely. I think almost every time i start an RPG, am part half of my brain is waiting for the time where I figure out how to cheat the economy.
Speaker: Yeah. Right. When I'm playing a Bethesda RPG, I just I'm just like. waiting for the point where I'm a multi-billionaire exactly yes I'm just dragging carts of like 70 swords yeah to the to the to the merchant and exactly um I mean, there's a point in, like, a Quest for Glory 5, because I play as a thief, where I rob the bank twice, I, like, loot everybody, and I'm just fucking rich. Like, I don't i can get hit a million times. I'll just buy some antidote because I'm rich now. Well, and Quest for Glory is one where I think they do, the the economy is really limited. Because your choices in, quest at least the first four Quest for Glories...
Speaker: your choices of what to do are so limited like the game is not as open as later rpgs would be so you they are able to create a tighter economy this is a very limited this is a game that has very limited choices but the
Speaker: the economy is so there's not it's not
Speaker: I don't know. It's not fragmented enough that
Speaker: they could tighten it up, right? Like they they would, as the designers, have to say, okay, there's 20...
Speaker: So the game also, I should say this, is divided into three chapters. And your choices don't, this is one of the ways that your choices don't matter. when You can start any chapter at any time. So like your choices don't carry over from one chapter to the next.
Speaker: You're starting at the same exact place in quote book two as you would be otherwise. um So that's that's a little frustrating. But they could say, in book one, okay, you have we have put a hundred checks, ability checks. We've counted them. There are a hundred ability checks in all of book one. um and we want people to put between one and three dice towards each ability check. So we will give, you know, we will start the player off with
Speaker: I don't know. i don't know i'm I'm making these numbers up, but we'll start the player off with 20 dice and we will give them, if they do well enough, they will have the opportunity to find 80 more dice throughout the game and then they'll have to make some hard decisions, right? Like yeah that's how you might do the economy, but you're still doing a thing where
Speaker: you might, if you don't know, you don't know what sort of decisions you'll be making in three hours.
Speaker: So how do you know what you're going to spend these dice on? Yeah. Unless they are doled out at a very specific at specific intervals. Like, okay, every time i level up, I get 10 more dice or something like that. And in that way you would know, okay, I can be a little reckless now because I'm about to level up. And if I can just if i can make some reckless choices and get some extra experience...
Speaker: Then I'll level up and then I'll get 10 more dice. So I'm safe. So I can be a little reckless or fuck. I'm pretty like I'm running low on dice and I know I'm about to have an encounter. So I better save them up. Right. Like, yeah, they just, it's not that they weren't that thoughtful about it. So, um,
Speaker: ah Other things that but bother me about this game, and I swear i I am enjoying it, but other things that bother me about this game are just, um yeah, the pretension, right? Like when it's loading, it'll say, it doesn't just say like game is loading or loading or whatever. It says the work is loading. And again, instead of calling them chapters, they call them books. Okay. There's a, there's a, when it tells you about the mechanics at the beginning, it's like,
Speaker: this is a game where you won't be able to make every choice you want to. And some choices will be locked, but, but don't worry. I have your best interests at home. I like, they're speaking to you as the writer and they're like, I'm going to take you on a wild thrill ride. So don't worry about it And um it's like, ah I've been waiting to tell this story for a really long time. So I know you'll enjoy it. And it's like, i don't need to like, that's, I'm happy for you.
Speaker: If I read this on your blue sky, i would be so happy for you. It might even make me buy your game because you're so excited about it. yeah But I don't need to read this in the loading screen of the fucking game. This makes me want to hate your game. Like, this makes me want to pick it apart.
Speaker: Because, like, you're here. You're trying to tell me, like, this is my masterwork. And you you have no choice but to love it. And um that makes my critical brain switch on so much harder. That's because you're kind of, like...
Speaker: a little bit aggressive you this game is aggressive when you open this game the the like opening screen is like a is like a a neon clown looking guy screaming curse words at you that's rude I actually like the artwork though. I'm looking this game up and I think the artwork looks really nice. If you don't know what this game is and you load it up, you hear somebody like screaming that he's going to kill you motherfucker. And like, you're like, what the fuck?
Speaker: I just clicked. I just clicked open game. Like what? like my god and My seven kids were in the room. oh my God. um No. So like,
Speaker: there's It's a little pretentious, again. It's trying a little hard to be cool. It's trying a little hard to be Disco Elysium. like there Here's a line ah that i that I had to write down when I came across it.
Speaker: The city exhales as midnight approaches. It's very noir. it's also like... yeah What do you mean? it this What do you mean the city exhales?
Speaker: Is this something that you read in ah Disco Elysium and you were like, oh, I want to use that too? Or do you have a point? Is there a point in saying the city exhales? How does it exhale? What are you trying to communicate to me now? Like, the game is full of stuff like that where it's just kind of like thoughtless little style bits okay that you're like,
Speaker: This is you're trying too hard to be poetic that you're making you're you're you're putting stuff in that shouldn't be here. That doesn't make sense. And yeah, you're making your own writing worse.
Speaker: And the worst thing about it all. Is that it's a cool story and I like this fucking game. Sounds like you don't like it. So I really like, I think applying dice to checks is really fun. Like, like I've said before, i would play a million citizen sleeper likes. i know i know and i would put I would play so many more of these disco likes too. Like I enjoy these both, both of these styles of games. And I think they are very similar. Um,
Speaker: So that I love. I love the dice currency idea. Some of this artwork is like a little, again, trying desperately hard to be cool. But I i like the skill of the artist, right? like Yeah. The here.
Speaker: the talent here the artistic talent here is really good. Even if some of the artistic vision, I think is kind of like, what are you doing? ah insane clown posse, uh, uh, tour posters. Um, and, uh,
Speaker: I think, and, and again, the story is interesting and there's a lot in this world I think is cool, but overall,
Speaker: I think it's a really good game, but they keep trying to get in their own way. Yeah. Yeah, that can happen. It's like over a little overkill. Yes. It does look really cool, though. I will say, just looking at the screenshots, it does look, yeah, like a Disco Elysium esoteric ab. It looks like something I would enjoy.
Speaker: yeah give it a shot. i think I think there's a good chance you will enjoy this. I also... I think you would plow through book one.
Speaker: I wonder if you would continue through book two. I think I will. I think I'm going to see the end of this game. um
Speaker: But it's just it's just... It's selling a bill of goods that it's not entirely delivering on. And some of the things... that it And it has these some of these strengths that I don't think it is confident enough in, so it is overcompensating.
Speaker: Yeah, fair. um I just want... if Yeah. I just want them to trim about 30% of these things off the game.
Speaker: Just like just like tone 30%. Write less... uh try and be 30 less cool try and be 30 less uh literary i guess for sure and you're gonna have a game that i'm going to be that i would have i would have been screaming the praises of from from the rooftops you know yeah um So again, so that's me being very negative. like I had to be very critical of this game because there's so much that frustrates me about it. But overall, I'm really enjoying it. i i i Like I said, I think I will play all of it. and
Speaker: um Yeah, so that's... Yeah, you'll have to report back on if either it gets like worse or... If they land the plane. Yeah, if if they get to the finish line, yeah.
Speaker: um i will say, oh, I haven't said the name in a while. It's called Celestial Return. So it's also it's also not very expensive. It's like 11 bucks on Steam right now. um so Nice, I would pay that.
Speaker: Yeah, so it's it's it's definitely, I think it's worth checking out. Nice. I will very quickly say the other game that I've been playing very little of um is Aerial Knight's Mr. Freezy. Okay. Okay.
Speaker: It is a game where you play. It is a puzzle game. a very simple puzzle game where you play a serial killer.
Speaker: Who is chopping off a bunch of heads. Cool. You are a so you are a here. You'll like this. You're an axe wielding female so serial killer who is killing never ending stream of men.
Speaker: Nice. I like it. And so what what it is is they will line up in two rows and you will select a head and you can move it from one row to the next. um ah You can move it from the front row to the back row or vice versa. But every head you move will move the two heads next to them. Okay. So if you move the middle head, it will also move the head to the left and head to the right.
Speaker: um And then you get certain special heads, like stone heads don't move. Heads with a bag over them have twice as much... ah ah It gives you twice as much, twice have twice the value. um Heads with a top hat and a monocle cost twice as many moves. So you move them.
Speaker: You move one of those, they that you know it costs two moves. And when you have lined up a certain amount of heads, three or more, you can swing your axe and chop them all off at once.
Speaker: Your goal... is to collect a certain number of heads in a certain number of moves so you want to you want chop as many heads off as you can in as few moves as possible okay
Speaker: that's wild uh yeah it looks interesting i didn't realize there was they the ariel knight is like a person or or a yeah ariel and yeah Ariel, like a... As in the air. You're the air, Ariel. A-E-R-I-A-L.
Speaker: Ariel. Underscore night, as in K-I-N-G-H-T. It is so funny that this person shows two words with very ah famous homonyms. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's just as soon as you're like, Ariel, it's a name. It took me a while to find it. I'm like, what? What? Right, because if you say Ariel and that's a name, you're going to think it's Ariel like the name Ariel. And if you say night, you have no idea if they they're talking about ah like as in Gabriel night. Right.
Speaker: Or as in nighttime. So yeah anyway. Sounds like Gabriel night. That's wild. It's called Mr. Freezy. It's such a simple little concept. It's a very stylistic game.
Speaker: um It's all black and white. It's, i don't know, it's kind of fun. It's just fun. It's kind of a score chasing game. So, you know, it is a puzzle game, which is why i I'm allowed to bring it up here, but it doesn't seem to ne have much of a story. So you can bring up anything you want. yeah I won't talkedm about MasterChef for no reason. I can't. anything You know, because when I tried to talk about, uh,
Speaker: ah I can't think of a joke quick enough. What's a terrible game that we would never want me to talk about? When I tried to talk about Bubsy, you told me I wasn't allowed to talk about it on this podcast.
Speaker: I would never disallow you to talk about Bubsy.
Speaker: So, i did I did play another game. No! We're 50 minutes into this podcast! No, here, I played another game. You tell me what ah you tell me what it was.
Speaker: Was it Gabriel Knight's Sins of the Fathers? Yeah, let's play a really old song and come back and we can talk about it.
Speaker: Hey everyone, welcome back to Save Your Game. i am the better co-host of the two co-hosts. What the fuck? Pushing Up Roses. With me is fuck the lesser, the more softmined that's a soft-minded.
Speaker: is this coming from? did i did i do something to hurt you?
Speaker: look it was meant to be more playful and then it got really mean at the end no i i retract i retract all of that my my best boy special boy great jumper good sense of style mad all camp hard what was that i'm in a dumpster now i went into the dumpster Sorry, what was that?
Speaker: I said you're the best person that's ever lived. um Hi, I'm Matt. um What are we talking about? We are talking about one of my favorite games of all time, The Goat.
Speaker: Sierra online is the goat. Oh. Hmm. Well, to some people. um We are talking about Gabriel Knight, Sins of the Fathers, because we are honoring Tim Curry in this episode.
Speaker: It was my idea and I forced it upon Matt and he was not allowed to say no. Yeah, she had a hit man come to my house. And sit me in front of the computer. With the big box PC game his hand. You are playing this now. No, I was happy to play Gabriel Knight. And, you know, we were both feeling a little sad about Tim Curry. And so it was kind of nice to
Speaker: spend some time with one of his fucking weirder roles. It is weird, isn't you do this? Why did they choose him for this game? I think I have it a guess.
Speaker: ah So this is one of the games that I covered when I was doing gaming reviews back in the day, like 500 years ago. ah So I did do some behind the scenes work. And for those have have who have not played Gabriel Knight, the character of Gabriel Knight is a Kind of sleazy fuck boy. yes ah From New Orleans. He's Southern. He's got a Southern drawl. Very sensual. And for some reason. Does he have a Southern drawl for real? Well, he's supposed to. Yeah.
Speaker: So that's kind of the character that that he's a ladies man. He's always being very flirtatious with the women's. um And for some reason, Jane Jensen was like, you know who would be great for this role? Tim Curry, because he's so sensual. That's that's the word. Because he's so sensual. Here's what I think happened.
Speaker: Terrible cast for a Southern guy. Don't, don't, no. No, don't choose like a villain character from the UK to do a Louisiana accent. It does not work. I mean, he did his best, right? And he was very sensual. I'm Gabriel Knight from New Orleans. From that.
Speaker: I think Jane Jensen was shooting her shot and was like, I got to get Tim Curry in here. you think she was like, and then will have Tim Curry on my video game and Tim Curry, he's going to come to my house and I'm going to show him my stocking and he's going to be like, whew.
Speaker: but
Speaker: I don't know, but it does seem like a ah she did want Tim Curry in this role because she wanted that that flirtatious, sensual character. on And that's how we got Tim Curry in this role. Do you can find him sensual?
Speaker: sensual in this game? I find him sexy. Oh, in the game? ah but i don't know, man. i You know, I'm too close to it. I've played it too many times. I've analyzed it. I've made fun of it. I love it. i don't i don't know if I find him sensual in the game.
Speaker: i think he comes across as legitimately creepy. Yeah, he it's a little creepy. I think notoriously he can be creepy with the women folk. Yes.
Speaker: um So but I'm sure you know more background about this game. okay I know Jane Jensen, she was a writer. a writer and She was just a writer. She was a game designer, right, first?
Speaker: Yeah. she would would Was she always writing from the when she started it? I think so, yeah. i I think she was always a writer. And she I know she did Police Quest 3. Yes, and that's why that's the better of the games. And she did King's Quest 6. Yes, she helped on King's Quest 6. I think that was a collaborative collaborative effort.
Speaker: Okay. um Between, i think, her and Roberta Williams, I think. Roberta Williams. But it's so clear that Jane Jensen wrote the... wrote ah big chunks of King's Quest VI because it is so much better written than the other King's Quests. Yes, it is. It's very well written. You can tell. you can always tell when they have like a writer on the game design.
Speaker: And I believe Gabriel Knight was a yeah an idea for like a novel that she had. And it is written, too. Before she, but ah yeah, she she did a novelization later, um which I own. um Oh, nice. but Yeah, I do, too.
Speaker: I believe, yeah, it wasn't, she had her original idea for Gabriel Knight, like it was, he was in a notebook that she wanted to, this was something she wanted to make into a novel and then decided to bring it to Sierra to make a game. Yeah, that sounds right. um i'm I'm actually not sure what came Okay.
Speaker: okay um But I do know that at this point in time, this 1993 at Sierra, I know that Sierra had the reputation to have Jane do the writing. And then they had gotten like very famous ah people who have worked on other films to to kind of drive this. like cat the The casting director, I think, was a very famous person. I forget his name in in the moment, but that's how they were able to get like Tim Curry, Mark Hamill, Michael Dorn, and Leah Remini. This was Stu Rosen.
Speaker: Stu Rosen did, Stu Rosen ah seems like he worked on ah just a bunch of ah ah like Saturday morning cartoon type things. um But he did, he he did ah he was the voice director on Fraggle Rock.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, he... And Eek the Cat. yeah here's Here's the crazy thing, though. He was the voice director on Pride of the X-Men, the ah the short... the ah when When was that?
Speaker: The X-Men short that was released in 1989, where they made Wolverine Australian. like famously the worst casting choice of all time.
Speaker: This guy was in charge of. So, you know, they didn't, they didn't, they didn't, they didn't dig too deep for this guy. Okay. I mean, he, the in the, ah in the making of it was kind of, they made it sound like a big day and maybe 1993. It was. Cause I, I think he did win like an Emmy or something like that.
Speaker: ah But regardless, they were able to get these huge names for the Sierra adventure game, which is yeah amazing. that i mean, a lot of the voice acting is really good. Let's just, we should just like, ask just like ah running down the list here. It's Tim Curry plays Gabriel Knight and the butler.
Speaker: ah Yeah, he does play the butler. You're you're like talking to yourself yeah at one point. It's Gabriel Knight talking to a butler. Mark Hamill is Mosley, the detective, that his detective friend. Yep. Michael Dorn plays Dr. John. Yep.
Speaker: Leah Ramini. Is Grace Nakamura? Yeah. Leah Remini. Yeah. I think it's Remini. Yeah. um ah there's a There's a bunch of other people here who I'm not as familiar with. So there's like Ephraim Zimbalist Jr. Well, he plays the German character. There's Rocky Carroll. There's also, though, there's Jim Cummings. Oh, yeah. Jim Cummings. Yeah. He's a very well-known voice actor. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so interesting interesting cast. Yeah. ah Mary Kay Bergman played Gerda, and Mary Kay Bergman was a ah pretty popular voice actress as well. She passed in in like in the late 90s, I think. That was also such a small role in this game. It is a small role. Yeah, it really is.
Speaker: But yeah, so yeah, they've got just a lot of great people working on this game. Good writers. ah Should I go over kind of the plot of what we're what we're doing in this game?
Speaker: Yeah, please. Sure. So we are playing Gabriel Knight. We are a ladies' man type character. We own a bookstore called St. George's Books in New Orleans. Our secretary is Grace, played love by Leah Remini. Who is very, very feisty, very king of queens, very ah always on Gabriel's butt. There's some sexual tension between them.
Speaker: ah but But is there? Or is the sexual tension all one way here? Like, Grace gets jealous of certain women in Gabriel's life. But she shows no affection towards him She doesn't show affection, but like as a feisty Ares woman, sometimes I get in the habit of like being being kind of aggressive with men as my like flirtatious language.
Speaker: So I don't know. I think there is there might be more sexual tension in the second game. and I think yes even famously there is. but yeah Definitely. Yeah. But she is his secretary. Every morning you wake up, you read the paper, you get some coffee. And on this particular day, there is a case, a murder case called the Voodoo Murders.
Speaker: And well I don't quite remember why. i think it's because we are a writer ourselves. We want to be a writer. You had already been working with a cop yeah to...
Speaker: ah to Get access to this police department um for your next novel. Right. and you had already, it seems, been researching voodoo at this point also. Yes. yeah um Your novel was apparently going to be set in New Orleans and have something to do with voodoo and have something to do with ah with murder. And then it just so happens that some voodoo murders start happening.
Speaker: and you know And then the the the whole game is basically we become the Jessica Fletcher. We're the writer who is you know kind of solving the case. Yeah. ah you know Despite there being a detective already on the case, we kind of get in a little bit over our heads. And a big question you know throughout the game, I would call this like a murder mystery thriller game.
Speaker: I think that is the genre that it's hitting. It's even based on um a movie. what What was the movie called? Like Threat? face angel heart angel angel face face angel face that's what they all call me uh yeah it's based on angel heart which is kind of a noir thriller type thing and that's the genre i think that this game falls into and so throughout you're kind of questioning is are the voodoo murderers Quote, real as in is somebody using dark magic to perform these murders and sacrifices or is it kind of like a fraud or like a copycat murder or something like that?
Speaker: I'm going to say the the question the question there I think goes even a little deeper. It's it's not just is is it real as in is there magic? Does magic exist? it is Is it real as in are the people who are doing this actual voodoo practitioners? Yes, correct. Like do the people who are doing this believe in voodoo or are the people who are doing this – um Using voodoo to throw the the the cops off the case. Yes, correct. yeah Off the the right trail. On the wrong trail, rather.
Speaker: Yeah. And so in in very, you know, Jane Jensen style, because there are, like, real elements to this game, there is a lot of research. She did so much fucking research. Yeah. And I i like it when Jane Jensen does it. she She does it in a way that I think it incorporates into the puzzles. Like you need to go from book to book to figure out certain things.
Speaker: i guess I guess you could call it um some of it like historical fiction, certainly in Gabriel Knight too. Like certainly there's like historical fiction at play, but I like it when Jane Jensen does this. I like it when you're kind of forced to learn. I learned, seriously, i know it's so corny. I learned so much from Gabriel Knight about New Orleans that, like, on my 18th birthday, I went to New Orleans because I loved it that much. Like, it taught me what a beignet was. And then I went and ate all the beignets. went to the French Quarter. I saw the cathedral. Like, I went to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. So, like, the game must really have something special in its, like, portrayal.
Speaker: um and of its like history writing that made me want to do that it just has something something intriguing about it so yeah i i the same thing was true for me that was a little later in my life um yeah but i i didn't know what a beignet was i learned what beignet was through this game um And they don't even say what a beignet is. So I like, even after this game, didn't know what a beignet was. I just, I looked it up and it's like some kind of donut. I like donuts. Why don't I know what this is? But it's, it's more than that. It's sort of like a fried pocket of dough. It's so much more than that. Coated in, um, coated in sugar. Powdered powder sugar.
Speaker: Yes. yeah So. It's coated in sugar. Well. d You can have. Well, yeah. So.
Speaker: um wait a second when you say coated in sugar that'd be hard to eat it is coated in powdered sugar and it is like soft it's like soft like i i'm saying like i don't want to chop into like grainy sugar huh you've never had like a cinnamon sugar donut i don't like them okay Well, so that's learning so much about me today. It's crazy. So beignets. Yeah. I mean, they are notoriously very, very messy to eat. Oh my God. They're so good. um
Speaker: But anyway, so same. So I went to New Orleans a couple years ago um and i think early on in this podcast, I think I recorded an episode there, didn't I?
Speaker: Yeah, I think you did. Yeah. um So if you listen to one of the early episodes of this podcast, you can hear me talking about being in New Orleans and, you know, that The places that they talk about in this game, for the most part, not all of them, but for the most part are real. um And even, like, intersections and stuff are real. it's It's funny because they have, like, this poor... Not poor, but this, like... This, like, innocent... Like...
Speaker: ah ah erudite woman living at da the the intersection of Dauphin and orally dolphin in Orleans Street. And it's like, that's like right in the smack dab in the middle of the French Quarter. like yeah the I don't think this particular woman would live in this particular intersection.
Speaker: I don't know if she would or not. I know who you're talking about. Yeah, i don't I don't know she would or not. um But, yeah, it but it definitely it does have a lot of Norland's flavor. um And it has, like, the ah the fancy French ironwork in all the ah outside all of the houses. And um you you can walk around... um
Speaker: Fuck, what's the name of this? The the the the park. Like, the square? Yeah. Yeah. um
Speaker: Jackson Square. Jackson Square Park. Yeah, you can walk around Jackson Square Park. I love doing that. I love. So in Jackson Square in this game, there's like a bunch of buskers, which is accurate. ah There's artists and buskers and tarot card readers. Outside of Jackson Square, though. Yeah, normally outside. Yeah, not within Jackson Square, which is which I, but you know, they're limited setting design and stuff like that. But sure.
Speaker: My favorite character of all time is the tap dancing kid who oh my is in one of the parts of the square. And he's just tap dancing on like ah like a cardboard piece. And every time you go on that screen, all you hear is...
Speaker: pick his dicking to dick and the dick but dick the back of the back and the back of that He just doesn't stop. he just He's the tap dancing kid. And might need help. I don't know. You end up needing to give this kid a hot dog. Like he's desperate for food.
Speaker: And it's like, kid, you've been tap dancing for hours.
Speaker: Just conserve your energy a little bit. Maybe you need less hot dogs. Honestly, for days. Yeah, for days. Yeah. When I was playing it this time, i got I had something come up and I had something to do and I left this.
Speaker: I had to leave in this playthrough. I had to leave the game on and walk away. And he was just there tap dancing for like 30 minutes straight. ah That sound effect is so annoying. I love it. there I love it.
Speaker: There's such a funny thing. There's like a, there's a joke in, um in the park too, that is very funny, which is every,
Speaker: ah every, um, corner So the the park is divided into four screens for like quarters, interestingly enough. Very good. ah Well, you know, I think it's specifically that ah um New Orleans is famously divided into quarters. But ah it's divided. So this park is divided into four quarters. And you In each one, there's a different busker doing a different style of music. One is doing like a blues. One is doing like a jazz. One is doing like a Zydeco.
Speaker: And they are all playing when the saints saints go marching in. And you don't recognize that right away. But as you're playing, you're like, wait a second. this is Hold on. um This is the same song. youre realiz that You just walk around and they're all playing when the Saints go marching in. Very funny.
Speaker: it's It's so charming. Honestly, it's so charming. But let's let's get back to some of the plot here. Okay, yeah, sure. ah So not only are we kind of researching these murders with ah yeah alongside Detective Mosley, he's kind of our pal. we have He's Mark Hamill.
Speaker: Yeah, he's Mark Hamill. We have somehow convinced him that we're going to write about him. And so he's like, yeah, write about me. And so he gives us like information. He's great Mark Hamill. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That was a great Mark Hamill impression. you just Sorry. Yeah, it's me, Mark Hamill. No, Darth Vader. You can't be my father.
Speaker: I'm bad at voices. Sorry. um So we're you're working with him and that's how you get the case files and stuff like that. And as you're working on this case, you're finding out more about who you are, um like Gabriel Knight, and you are figuring out that.
Speaker: You are connected to these murders via your kind of family, ah your family bloodline. ah I mean, this is spoilers, but I don't think it matters, right? Because it's it's Gabriel Knight. So we figure out that you are Schattenjaeger, which is a ah dragon hunter.
Speaker: um And your grandfather was one. And i what your uncle is one too, right? is he a Schattenjaeger? um Your uncle was not... Sorry, Shadowhunter. Shadowhunter, not Dragonhunter. Yes, your uncle was not a shot in Yager. What what it was, your... this The shot in Yager thing stopped in your family um a couple generations ago when one of them fell in love with a witch and she stole their magical talisman.
Speaker: And then they stopped being shod and yoggers in shame. h And now it's kind of like that is basically happening again with Gabriel because he is falling in love with kind of a star-crossed lover type them of a woman who is, in fact, ah connected to the murders and connected to all of the activity around the murders.
Speaker: Yes. You don't know that quite at first. You meet this woman um at the first crime scene, actually. Her name is Maliah Getty. yeah And she is ah part of a like a a rich family in New Orleans and ah a storied family in New Orleans. And you creep on her pretty hard. She likes it.
Speaker: You don't, again, what's see you don't know that at first. No, you don't. She saying no to you. And you're like, I don't care what you say. I'm going to come touch your boobies anyway. Oh, God.
Speaker: That's what he says. He said those, that's the That's the exact line. um But no, he, he like, He visits he goes and he like visits her house by pretending to be a cop. And I don't know what he's trying to accomplish there just to be close to her and hit on her, I guess. But accidentally finds out she's that she's connected to this stuff. Yeah, um ah they do, by the way, like it is you don't know it at first, but it is reciprocated. Like for yeah some reason, they being they are drawn to each other.
Speaker: They bing bong one another real hard. Yeah. um and you and But you don't know how connected she is until you get pretty embedded. And it's so interesting. You're just like a random writer. Yeah. And yet you're like, i am going to...
Speaker: Get in, ah put on a disguise and infiltrate a coven of a supernatural voodoo worshippers who have been murdering people across the city.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's, we can call it a cult. I would say this is obviously not an accurate, you know, description of... a voodoo the same way that in midsummer that's not an accurate description of maybe wiccan or pagan practices this is more of like a murderous cult that we're dealing with here yes it's a it's a cult um And yeah, I don't know. So you end up in like a drug fueled orgy ah around a ah a campfire, one of their rituals. In like the swamp. Yeah, exactly. And one of their masks comes off and it's Maliageddi. But she is channeling a Loa. So do you how much do you know about voodoo and and and that kind of stuff? A little bit. i did one of my ah one of my like compositions in college on on Voodoo. um
Speaker: i don't I don't know how much I remember, but I think like the Loa... And you learn about this in the game, by the way. The game gives you plenty of resources to um to research voodoo. there's a You can go to Tulane and talk to professor a character named Professor Hartridge, and he's giving all of these... like ah Gabriel falls asleep during them, but he's giving them all of these ah lectures on voodoo and what the Loa are. and yeah who's the Who's the snake god? What was his name?
Speaker: Oh, the snake god is, I have it in my friggin' notes, Papa Labo. Is that it? Yeah. I think that's correct. And they talk about, like, sekeki's and, like, rata and, like, secret languages and things things of that nature.
Speaker: ah But the Loa, the Loa is like, that's like the, I can't remember. it So Loa is like a spirit. Loa is like ah like a spirit, but also kind of like a, you know, these things kind of overlap in different cultures, have different names for spirits and gods and demons. And a lot of times they overlap. And voodoo is one of those situations where they overlap before trying to find a analogy
Speaker: um to sort of Western... they they'd be They'd be like totems. Or not – this isn't a Western western spirit yeah ah yeah practice. But it's kind of like totem spirits almost. I was trying to like decide if they were – like I was almost going to use the word God. But I'm like I don't think it's No, it's not God. scope God is God. yeah Because they believe in the Catholic God. That's true. And they believe in Jesus and the Mother Mary. But what happened with voodoo is –
Speaker: We don't know much about the original religions that turned into voodoo because they were destroyed and um destroyed by the slave trade. Right. Yeah. um And so Western, a bunch of Western African cultures, civilizations um that traveled through the Caribbean and largely Haiti. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: ended up ah preserving some old beliefs, adding some new beliefs, and then merging with Catholicism. Correct. Yeah. um Because of their connection to the Spanish and Portuguese traders. Yeah. um And so – they have these like patron it's again another another analogy is probably patron saints so they basically i was gonna say it's like this i grew up catholic it is very similar to the saints in catholicism except for
Speaker: They are added to like a pantheon of spirits that, like you don't worship the saints in Catholicism. um you can You don't worship them, but you can like pray to them.
Speaker: in
Speaker: In voodoo cultures, you sort of kind of you worship and you make sacrifices. or you make um And usually sacrifices are things like you have like an altar and you put money or alcohol or cigarettes or um you know little trinkets or something on the altar. And that's that's sort of how you sacrifice. But in this game, they sacrifice human beings. Right.
Speaker: By the way, the the serpent ah Loa is Dumballa. Oh, Dumballa! Okay. Papa Labo is the, like, their death loa.
Speaker: Yes. who they, um the cult de mort, the cult of death, worshipped. Yeah. Um,
Speaker: yeah so I think the game does a actually a really decent job like teaching us about like Haitian voodoo, the differences between that and hoodoo, and how it came to Louisiana. There's a really interesting character in this game named Madame Cazenou, the woman who lives on Dauphine and Orleans. And Orleans, yeah. And she is just ah ah just a a treasure trove of information for some reason. Yeah. I don't know why she knows so much. Well, I think the the the thing there is she is supposed to be a a Catholic who has superstitious beliefs. this is And this is, you know, when you say you can pray to the saints, this is a ah there's a lot of guilty secrets in Catholicism. And one of those guilty secrets is how many superstitious people are in there How many superstitious Catholics there are, even though ah largely the superstitions they believe in are
Speaker: in opposition to Catholic belief. Yeah. Yeah. It's very interesting. It's a good example of that because Madam Casenew, despite, you know, even just to talk to her, we have to disguise ourselves as a Catholic priest just to talk to her. But despite that, but despite her Catholicism, she believes in um like curses and and hexes and stuff like that. we, we run into her like buying like a spell at a curio shop. And she always has to have plausible deniability, right? Like when she's buying the spell, she's like, I think somebody put a curse on me. And then the guy's like, well, here's what you do. You but you you know you go you take some graveyard dirt and you do yeah and it ah gives her like a gree-gree to... um
Speaker: turn it back on the person who gave her the curse and then she's like actually I should worship ah God and God will protect me from the and all he has to do is the lightest push and he's like yeah but it doesn't help to have some extra insurance does it and she's like okay, fine, I'll take it. And it's like, like clearly, like that's their routine. is She has to come in, she has to tell him what she wants, then reject it because she's too religious for it, and yeah and then he will do the slightest pushing and she will act like she's doing him a favor. It is so well-written, that character, I think. It is well-written. I think this is some of my favorite... There's so much complexity in what's basically a humorous...
Speaker: Side character. yeah yeah Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's so many. Honestly, there's so many side characters that are very good. And I think this is a very dialogue heavy game because it's interrogative. It's interrogate to inter interrogative.
Speaker: Whatever. You have to interrogate a lot of people because you are basically playing detective. um But every character just seems so interesting. And they're they're really some of my favorite dialogue trees because they get... So complex and so detailed. Madame Cazenew is one. um You definitely go back to your grandma's house, Grandma Knight, and she tells you a lot about your family and about New Orleans. And there's just so many people to...
Speaker: to talk to. And this is one of those games where um characters will get new things to talk about as you learn new things. So this is one of my favorite things about gaming is recurring places.
Speaker: I love it. Like, I think I've stated one of my favorite things in RPGs is like a recurring inn to stay at because it's like familiar. um I love being able to go to Grandma Knight, get my dialogue tree out of the way, go to other places, learn more stuff and be like, I got report back to Grandma Knight and see what she says. I love that. I think this game is very well structured.
Speaker: I think so, too. And it doesn't always reward you for that stuff. No. But it is fun to feel that sort of structure, right? Like yeah like a lot of times you'll go back to one of these people and they will just – they'll give you nothing new. um But it feels like by having those things, number one, it feels like you have like this structure. You feel like you are – it makes you feel – it makes the world feel more true and real. um But number two –
Speaker: It brings you back into contact with scenes and characters where the next thing will happen. Because this is a Sierra game. So there's shit that happens in this game. Things that it's requiring of you that are incomprehensible. You would have no idea that's what you're supposed to do next. yeah um I want to get to one of those in a minute. The worst one in this game. Absolutely.
Speaker: probably There's two that I think probably drive everybody crazy. um But...
Speaker: ah
Speaker: because you have these you always want to go back to Grace and tell her everything you always want to go back to Dr. John and ask him about everything you always want to go back to grandma your grandmother and tell her everything yeah and because of that You end up stumbling upon what you're supposed to do, even if you don't realize that's what the game was trying to get you to do. True. Yeah.
Speaker: So the worst example of this happens about midway through the game. Where you you slowly, there's a couple things that you learn. There's a couple languages you learn in this game. Number one is a series of symbols that the voodoo cult uses to communicate with one another. and They draw them in brick on the side of a tomb in the cemetery.
Speaker: And you see this very early on, but it takes a long time, about halfway through the game before you are able to translate those. yeah um The other is the language of the Rada drums. So yeah you see drummers everywhere. And this is one of the creepiest things of the game, I think. You see drummers everywhere. um And at first you don't think much of it. You're just like, oh, these are kind of bad drummers. They're kind of drumming ah out of. yeah um But you can easily be like, oh, it's another busker in New Orleans for sure. Just a bad, just bad at it. um And then as you unravel more and more of the mystery, right, kind of right before you learn
Speaker: what that these drummers are speaking a language to each other, they start appearing in more and more places. Yeah. And you'll show up at, like, the the police station, and suddenly there's now a drummer out outside of the police station where there wasn't before. Yeah. Yeah, the world changes around you sometimes.
Speaker: um And one of the reasons it's changing is because as the cult catches on to you getting closer and closer to them, especially as you get closer to Malia Getty,
Speaker: They start following you. and so places that you go to, the drummers start appearing outside of. Yeah. um And it is legitimately kind of spooky. And...
Speaker: There's another thing on that on that front where a person starts appearing. You own a bookshop. We didn't say that, I don't think. Yeah, I Okay, sorry. You own and live in a bookshop, and ah eventually like a guy just appears outside of the window of your bookshop and just stares in consistently. Yeah, it's scary.
Speaker: It is. and And this game, because it is like um a mystery thriller, it does have very tense, frightening moments. I remember being like a teenager and and playing this game. And there was a point where I had to go to to the voodoo shop to talk to Dr. John, who becomes a person of interest. And the shop is like dark suddenly. There's nobody in there. Yeah. And it's quiet and it's tense. Yeah.
Speaker: And suddenly, I'm not going to say quite exactly what happens, but you were attacked. Yes. And you nearly die. And it scared me. It's scary. Yeah. Yeah. very So to get closer to this puzzle is... um So at this point, you have to have deciphered these two languages. Yes. Then you have to understand um one of the code... You have to understand...
Speaker: Not just how to use them, but what the codes that they are using in the language. they use like abbreviations h in there. Even once the thing is decoded and translated, there will be abbreviations in it so you have to understand what those abbreviations are. Then you have to understand a goal that you don't know that Gabriel has at this point.
Speaker: Yeah. um Then you have to understand his plan, which you wouldn't know yet. Because you haven't – guess you could do it in an order where you have the tracker by that point, right? Yeah, you can because I think I did get there. um But then the the the the harder parts of these puzzles are what you're describing is getting – like translating these like languages perfectly. They have to be perfect. right So then –
Speaker: You have to have been paying attention to literally a 10-minute lecture yeah that a professor at a college gives you. Which I did, by the way. I did pay attention to it. And you have to have the ah subtitles on so that you know how to spell Sekimadule. That's true. That is true. You do need to know how to spell everything. So then you have to be like, okay, if I put the – this is a ah puzzle spoiler. If I put the tracker in the Sekimodule – I think I'm pronouncing that wrong. But if I put the – and they you also don't –
Speaker: So you can you know that in the voodoo shop, there is a small coffin. You don't know what that it's what it's called. But if you listen to the lecture, the guy says there is a thing that looks like a small coffin that's called a seki majule.
Speaker: Yes. If you go there, put the tracker in the small coffin, and then you think, okay, if I can get And if you already know, Dr. John is part of the voodoo cult. If you're like, oh, I could get Dr. John to bring the Seke Majule to the conclave with the tracker in it. Then I could use my tracking machine to track it through the swamp and find the orgy, the conclave.
Speaker: Then you could say, DJ, Conclave tonight, bring Seki Majula. Yes. Or bring Seki Key or whatever. whatever But what the fuck? It's hard. It is difficult. I will say yeah i I did pay attention to those lectures, so I did know what to do. But you have to write the message so specifically.
Speaker: Like I think today if you had to do that, there might be some leeway, right? Like if you miss a word or or put it in a different phrasing, I think today we'd be a little more forgiving. This needs to be absolutely perfect. And if it's not, Gabriel will just keep erasing the message until you get it absolutely perfect.
Speaker: Yes. um Man, it it's it's unbelievable. like It's hard. that That you're just supposed to figure that out is, it's insane. It's insane. Because again, you have to think ahead Of, you don't even know that that's your next goal. It's not like he tells somebody, I'm going to go infiltrate the conclave. Yeah.
Speaker: You don't even know that that's your goal. I feel like I knew that was the goal, but I could be just... I guess... I don't know. I guess maybe at that point you already have the location of the swamp.
Speaker: So maybe you do in your head know, oh, I guess I might be trying to find... Yeah. I feel like something pushed like nudged me in that direction, but that does not make it easier to accomplish. it is These are extremely hard puzzles. Yeah. And otherwise, i think a game that has pretty good puzzles, that has pretty thoughtful puzzles.
Speaker: i And I think that's that's the thing about all three of these Gabriel Knight games is... They are a mix of really incredible puzzles and really terrible puzzles. Yeah. I don't know what happened there. I don't know how you can be on such a tear of like really great puzzles and dialogue and then somehow put such a major dud. like it's like here It's like there's a good, it's like maybe Jane Jensen or somebody is a very good puzzle designer. Yeah.
Speaker: And or somebody Jane Jensen works with. Right. And writes a bunch of good puzzles. And then somebody that's a shitty puzzle designer, like maybe ah a Roberta Williams or something comes in and it's like, actually, we need a little a few more harder puzzles and then adds a bunch of shit that you're like, what the fuck? That makes sense, though, because Roberta Williams, her entire inspiration for being a designer was ah Colossal Cave Adventure. Yes. And those games were designed in a way to keep you occupied.
Speaker: for months or you know maybe even longer than that so yeah that makes sense we got to put in ah and a puzzle that's really going to test people right she was a particularly bad puzzle designer right like I don't know how Sierra really got the reputation it has I mean I guess just for being imaginative and being like yeah and whimsical some of the first some of the first to do it also yeah um
Speaker: But yeah, I don't know. yeah No, I love them. i Like I said, it feels like it feels very homey to me. I really like the Sierra games a lot. So.
Speaker: You know. ah
Speaker: Where did we have more in the story? Yeah, I mean, it kind of goes a little unhinged, to be honest. Although, like, it's good at ramping like most mystery thrillers do. It kind of culminates in um and and you you start to figure out kind of this bigger picture situation where you learn more about your background. You learn that you basically have a castle in Germany and an Uncle Wolfgang who is, like, trying to help you figure out who you are as a Schottenjäger. Yeah.
Speaker: And then later, do you go to, where do we end up with the circle with us? What country do we end up in? i think you're I think you're in Benin. Okay. The People's Republic of Benin.
Speaker: We end up there. and again, very scary parts of the game. ah There's this part where you're in a catacomb, essentially, and there's all these like mummified bodies everywhere.
Speaker: and you better believe they're going to come alive. They're going to come alive and and try to kill you. yeah Absolutely. and I'm just fucking terrified. Even today, I know it's going to happen, and I'm like, oh, shit, I got to be prepared, or I'm going to get, like, zombied. And then when you get home, friggin' Grace got kidnapped. And then Grace gets kidnapped, yeah. Scary. And it all kind of... um it all kind of ends at the voodoo Han 4, which is a secret, like a little secret place where the business takes place. And at that point you figure out kind of who the main character is, what their motivations are. Man, that part's scary too. Like you're going around this, this kind of scurricular Han 4 and he's like die. Yeah. I think,
Speaker: This game, okay, so one thing that this game is notable for is um it's one of the early Sierra games where you can't, with one notable exception, you can't get into unwinnable situations.
Speaker: Oh, I know which one you're talking about then. But you can still die. Yes. Oh, yeah, you can. um In a bunch of different ways. Yes. um The unwinnable situation is infuriating.
Speaker: It's infuriating. Yeah, but I understand it. Like, I don't think it's illogical necessarily. But yes, it is infuriating. um It's basically you have to have two costumes.
Speaker: Correct. You have to have two costumes when you go into the... If you don't have two costumes already, then... You it's again, it's an unwinnable situation. So it's not like somebody remarks on this. Right. Oh, I wish I had two costumes. You just figure it out. Yeah. You just you're just like figure it out.
Speaker: Yeah. You're just like, wait, nobody will do anything. Why won't anybody do anything? Oh, fuck. I guess if I gave a costume to this person, then they would do something. There's another situation. You can forget to put something in the cathedral that helps Mosley get in. Yeah.
Speaker: Oh! you don't do that, you're you're fucked. It just doesn't progress? ah You just get killed because nobody nobody comes to help you. Right, right.
Speaker: So, okay, i guess there's two. Yeah, and they're both in the very end. the end gets difficult. But, yeah, you penetrate the Han you solve everything, you bring down the cult, and the cult's ultimate goal is basically just...
Speaker: ooh, we want to conquer the world, I think. It's like every cult. They just want power. Yeah, it's not like for as complex and intricate and interesting the rest of this game is, the villain's motivation at the end ends up being a kind of a dud. Yeah, um I agree.
Speaker: Kind of just like, oh, yes, we want to use our powers to rule everything. yeah right well all right Sad ending. This game has a very, we won't spoil the very, very end, but it's not a happy ending.
Speaker: um yeah this game is very good and we should talk about the tim curry of it again because it's just oh tim he and man he he cannot get this accent right It's pretty egregious. Yeah, it's pretty egregious. Kind of like, I don't know, it's it's definitely a faux Southern accent. It's kind of like Blanche does in Golden Girls. Like, it's slightly believable.
Speaker: Maybe somebody can sound like this. But Tim Curry falls out of this accent when he's, like, doing dramatic. Like, there's parts where he's yelling no, and he just sounds like Wadsworth from Clue. Or he just sounds, yeah frankly, creepy as hell. but Not in a good way, guys. Not in a good way.
Speaker: There's other sections where he's just doing a so ah regular American accent, right? Where he's just flattening his voice and he's just like, am... i am gabriel knight right right now yeah i am riding my fmv motorcycle there's some fmv there's some fmv to see him start up his motorcycle um uh oh here's my favorite line that he delivers in the whole thing let's see if i can get the impression right okay um
Speaker: um
Speaker: And yes, my dear, Maliageddi is the most dangerous looking diversion I've ever seen. Ouch!
Speaker: Ouch! That's what he says! He says, ouch! Maliageddi is the most dangerous looking diversion I've ever seen. Ouch!
Speaker: yeah
Speaker: I love it. Yeah, I don't know. he definitely ah he definitely comes across – it feels like he was written by a guy um sometimes, but I think what Jane was trying to do was write the kind of bad the bad boy that some women like, except that I think it misses the mark a little bit because he goes too sexual. kind of gives you a peek into – what Jane Jensen is into in terms of men. And you're like, oh, Jane, ah you could do better. Holy shit. I know, it's bad. It's bad. It's like oh and she what i would prefer. i like my golden retriever boys who are a little, just like a little bit afraid of me. Just a little bit intimidated. But like sweet, nerdy, normie. No, that's not this. this is This is bad boy who is like...
Speaker: a little creepy like push pushing it you know you're pushing it Gabriel ah yeah yeah it I yeah I don't think it's
Speaker: I don't think it's a good that's good I think the depiction of Gabriel I think I think i think he it's hard to like Gabriel Knight. And yet I do. And, and i I, and I think it's mostly nostalgia. You guys, I don't know if you were, if you played this with fresh eyes, if you would love the Gabriel Knight character, but because I've played it for so long and I know that it's Tim Curry, I think I just, I like kind of forgive it.
Speaker: He also, it's, it's one of those ones where, you know, it's pixel art largely. And I think it's a lot of rotoscoped, Yeah, the animations. And I think maybe a lot of the pixel art is photo reference. So some shit. It's very Sierra, where there's a lot of pixel hunting. There's some shit you look at and and you're like, that is supposed to be scissors?
Speaker: Yeah. Like, but what the fuck? Like... it' it that's I mean, that's the worst type of pixel hunt, right? Where you're like, I didn't even know what that thing was yeah that i that it wanted in me to click on. um And man, there's a scene where you're supposed to like interact with an ashtray and you're like, I thought that was part of the lamp.
Speaker: It is the exact same color as the lamp that's hovering above it and it just looks it looks like... an oval with four dots in the middle. and it And I think that's kind of classic to all of these older, even Lucasarts too, has some kind of ridiculous pixel hunting and everything blends together and like looks the same. There's no, you know, does it better by doing cartoons. So like they have solid like outlines. Sure.
Speaker: And you can kind of tell, but anyway, yeah, Yeah, Sierra is kind of like a Monet painting and LucasArts is more of like a Liechtenstein. Like one's like a lot more clear than the other.
Speaker: But there is more... um
Speaker: There's more detail in the... When you... Like the conversation heads. When you're in conversations, you know, but there's like more painterly style like heads talking. Yes.
Speaker: Yeah, I love those. And in that... Gabriel Knight looks like fucking Conan O'Brien. don't agree, but I see where you're going. Well, looks exactly like young Conan O'Brien. Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly like young Conan O'Brien. love i love the love the interrogation screens and the heads, the talking heads. And Mosley looks like ah an actual chipmunk.
Speaker: He does. who did They did him dirt a little dirty, I gotta say. Yeah. Not as dirty as they did. ah What's that guy, the druggies name? Crash. Oh, poor Crash. Whose hair looks like noodles and his face looks like he yeah looks like he had been drowned for five days already when you talk to him. I mean, I think obviously that's a little by design because he's supposed to be kind of this drugged out.
Speaker: But if you met, all even if you met a drugged out person that looked like that, you'd be like, are you, ah you're already dead. i think you're already dead. That's not what a human being looks like.
Speaker: You know what his hair looks like? it It looks like um Cheetos that were colored black. I think it's supposed to be dreadlocks. and I think it is.
Speaker: I think maybe he's supposed to be mixed race and he's that's supposed to be dreadlocks, but he looks just like a drowned white man.
Speaker: looks sick. Yeah. Black Cheetos on his head. black Um, man, this game is, yeah, it, it has no shortage of weird shit in it.
Speaker: Yeah. Um, but and I really do think it is very successful. It is very. And and of even the plot that we just described to you, you might have noticed, is driven by a hundred different um coincidences.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Right? Like that all of these things that Tetalo, the witch who stole the... talisman happens to be part of the Getty family and be yeah the ah spirit who possesses Malia during the conclaves is an absolutely wild coincidence. Like that you happen to be the writer researching this one cop's cases and having to stumble upon the voodoo murders which are directly connected to your family's three five three to five hundred year old bloodline i always thought that like like for me i always thought there was a supernatural element to that though in which it it was like all drawn together kind of like supernaturally and it was like kind of meant to happen but that this is me
Speaker: But you can always say that about any story. I think that because there's like a repeating storyline. So when I see like a repeating storyline, I'm like, oh, maybe there's something supernatural. But yeah, I could be sharing that in. It's the Trinity, the Triforce. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: it's the It's the Ganon and Zelda and um whatever the woman's name. Whatever the woman's name in that game is. Ganon, Zelda, and then the the princess lady.
Speaker: um What princess lady? You mean Zelda? No, the princess. Zelda. No, Zelda is the name of the game, and it's the name of the boy in the game. All right. And then there's a princess. So...
Speaker: I was waiting for that to... Anyway. i ah that that That story repeats over and over again. um So...
Speaker: ah About, again, the Tim Curry of it all. in the In game two, The Beast Within, it's an FMV game and it is a completely different guy. And it's live acted.
Speaker: Yes. Yes. Because it's live acted, they had to get somebody that looked a little bit more like Gabriel Knight. And so they got... Dean Erickson. Everyone's favorite, most well-known actor, Dean Erickson. Dean Erickson. He was in one episode of Frasier. He's great. He's great in that game. But um then Tim Curry comes back for the incredibly controversial Gabriel Knight 3. Yes. um It is both...
Speaker: It is one of the worst games you'll ever play with a couple of the best puzzles you'll ever play. That's true. And and worst. and yeah And some of the worst puzzles. you Most of the worst puzzles you'll ever play and some of the best puzzles you'll ever play. And it's still pretty well written. Like, it's... yeah I think it is worth playing um with a walkthrough. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. Not because the puzzles are so hard, but because the puzzle sucks so bad that like don't it's it's a waste of your brainpower to spend time on them. um But Tim Curry comes back and it's like people told him his insanely over the top Gabriel Knight.
Speaker: Was just a little too mellow. Yeah, a little understated. And he comes back and he's like, well I'm Gabriel Knight. Oh, It's unthinkable how crazy.
Speaker: It's unthinkable. Like, you could, like, i don't, who who let him do this?
Speaker: His Gabriel Knight in the third game, he's, you you just You would have to hear it. it is yeah it's It is the craziest shit you've ever heard in your life. Yeah, it's wild. It's not good.
Speaker: And, yeah. Well, before we up... The worst thing, the worst crime that they've done to Gabriel Knight is the they released a 20th anniversary edition. Yes.
Speaker: And they changed the fuck. First of all, they changed the art and it sucks. Yeah. Second of all, they changed some of the puzzles and it's fine. Third of all, they changed the voices. Yeah.
Speaker: Not good. Utterly horrible. And not just because we liked Tim Curry and Mark Hamill. I mean, I i liked Beast Within and they're all different. It's.
Speaker: absolutely terrible voice acting. Oh, God. It's so bad. um So, yeah.
Speaker: So play all of them, is what we're saying. Don't play the remake. Just play the original. um So, but you were about to say something? Before we wrap up, I have a game for us to play. Well, for you to play.
Speaker: Is it called... How much do my pants weigh? How much do my pants weigh? All right. I got how much do I pants weigh? All right. This is actually going to be a pretty simple one because it's not that.
Speaker: It's not that though is the thing. It's not that crazy. All right. Number one. What do you think? Gabriel Knight's pants weigh. Are we actually, am i playing the heaviest? Yep.
Speaker: I got to watch my pants way. Oh, at his heaviest. Okay. Gosh, he carries a lot of stuff, honestly. carries a lot of stuff, but a lot of it is pretty Yeah.
Speaker: going say, I'm say
Speaker: forty two pounds 42 pounds yes oh that's a little low oh damn well you threw me off by being like oh so much of it is light okay can i have one more one more guess then yes i'm gonna go 57 pounds
Speaker: you're gonna have to double that what the fuck is he carrying so Remember that he starts carrying a a half of a brick early on in the game. All right.
Speaker: Remember that he's carrying a giant animal mascot head. Oh, yeah. i forgot about that. Oh, It's true. He's carrying a flashlight. He's carrying a tin of hair gel.
Speaker: Yeah. He's carrying a ah three books. The wooden coffin. A Yeah. Like a priest robe.
Speaker: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. um A dagger, a talisman, a bracelet, a tracking, like a, like a, almost like a GPS tracker. Yeah. a Tracking device. um So he's carrying at his heaviest, 120 pounds. That's insane. That's like the most we've had.
Speaker: Is it? I think so. i think it is. i don't I don't have all of the stuff. I don't have them all here. I mean, it yeah. Wow. That is but is heavy. you didn' say That's an insane amount. Which is interesting for a game that doesn't have them that doesn't have the character carrying like a fucking ladder or whatever. Or like legit human remains. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. All right. Well, that was a quick round of what do my pants weigh? Nice. Now we're going to do. All right. Now can end. Nope. We're going to a quick round Smasher Pass Gabriel Knight Edition. Okay.
Speaker: Okay, are you I've compiled a list of characters from Gabriel Knight. um Now, if it was Gabriel Knight, he would obviously smash all because Gabriel's a little slut. He's Gabriel Knight. But we're going to see what Matt thinks about these. Okay, should we just rapid fire it?
Speaker: Let's rapid fire it. Okay, smash or pass, Malia Getty. Smash. Smash or pass, the female officer in the police station.
Speaker: We don't get to know her very well, and we don't get any close-ups of her, but based on... She's fat she's fiery, though. She's fiery. Based just on her pixel art alone, think Smash. Wait, you're not going to answer these? Yeah, I'll answer. Malia, Smash. Yeah.
Speaker: Female officer in the station, Smash. Yeah. Okay. Smash her pass. Rot a drum dude.
Speaker: Which one? The one in Jackson Park. Jackson Square. The one in Jackson Square Park. Again, we do not get a close-up of this guy.
Speaker: um I think... So I think pass. I don't know much about him. He spends a lot of time just kind of fucking sitting in the park. Just farting around. Slamming on his drums. I'm going say smash because drummers.
Speaker: just because drummers oh yeah would smash any drummer yeah but ah any drummer oh yeah okay animal from the muppets smash okay okay uh smasher pass grace smash smash smash trick pass dancer in the park that gabriel has a little little dance with Pass.
Speaker: Pass. ah Magenta Moonbeam. All right. not This is not going to be a proud smash, but it's going to be a smash. Matt, you slut. It's not not necessarily a proud smash. i'm not goingnna I'm not going to be so happy that I smashed her. got to pass. I got to pass it. She's crazy. She is crazy.
Speaker: Smash or pass the bartender at the Napoleon house.
Speaker: He's like an old man. He's not an old man. He's a younger man with a handlebar mustache. The bartender, not the old men. i mean, i don't want to I don't want to just be like toxically heterosexual about this, but I think I'd just say pass to all the men, but i think he's another pass. Yeah.
Speaker: He's a smash for me. I like his best smash. Okay. Gerda from in the Germany section. Oh, God. Smash.
Speaker: I got a pass, man. Like, I don't know. if There's something a little annoying about her. I don't know what it is. But definitely smash from Gabriel Knight 2. Beast Within. I think her design is a lot better.
Speaker: Smash her past. Her design? She's a human being in that one. She's like an actress.
Speaker: Shut up, Matt. Anyway. Smash her past. What's about her in that second game? Stop. We're leaving this all in. Okay. okay ah Smash her past. The zombie things in the caves.
Speaker: Huh. I mean, they're, like, crumbling into dust. Are they under my control? Oh, yeah. All right. Yeah. Pass. ah Yeah. Pass. ah Smash or pass? Madame Kazanu.
Speaker: You know, i think much like... She's sort of, i think there's, I think she's hiding a lot from us, right? And much like she's hiding her um voodoo interests, you know she's hiding some sexual interests. She's a freak. You know it. might be a freak, but I'm still going to pass. I'm going to pass. I'm going to pass. She might crumble. Yeah, for the same reasons as them. Last but not least, Grandma Knight.
Speaker: smash yeah she's probably she's probably good at bad i'm gonna say especially in her man especially in her younger days she gives some she gives a few little hints that she was pretty wild in her younger days too yeah she did she did um yeah smash do you have any for me that was my list yeah all right i i have some from you for you smasher past dr john Smash. Smash. yeah um Smash or pass um ah ah Sergeant Frick, the old man police officer at the desk.
Speaker: ah so ah Pass. pass. A-C-A-B. Exactly. Smash or pass ah the big snake.
Speaker: Smash. I mean, I'm real easy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not... The snake isn't going to do as much for me, but I still smash. Yeah. um Smash or pass the professor, the boring professor. ah Fucking smash so hard. Yeah, smash. smash if he's going to tell me a story while we're cuddling in bed, it's a fucking smash. Smash, yeah. Hard. He's got a chubby-ass face, though. Yeah.
Speaker: smash or pass um the snake bracelet i don't know i've run out what about well mosley ah we haven't done mosley yet pass pass pass on mosley smash or pass all the booby women in the conclave pass there's so many women there with their boobies way out they're way out but but we didn't do gabriel knight o All right. We'll do that one on the count of three and they'll follow. Oh, wait. Smash or pass some the chess playing um a man with the Jewish New York accent, but but is clearly supposed to be an old black man. Yeah.
Speaker: Pass. um All right. We'll say it on the count of three and no follow up questions. And we're just going to roll immediately into the... into our goodbyes. Okay.
Speaker: All right. Three. So this is Gabriel Knight. Smash your pass, Gabriel Knight. Three, two, one. mash Thank you guys so much for listening. i appreciate you being here. could if you like the show, a couple things you can do. You can follow us on ah Instagram at Save Your Game Podcast. You can join our Discord, which is in the ah show notes. Yes. um You can always go check out Pushing Up Roses' YouTube channel. That's me. It's called Pushing Up Roses. It is.
Speaker: um Hey, we're getting a little closer to it, so why don't we mention it again here? We are going to be doing a live show at Adventure X in November. It's on Saturday, November 8th?
Speaker: a 7th i mean seven saturday november 7th um so come to adventure x come hang out with us you get to say hi to us and then we'll play smasher pass uh we'll place yeah come with it we're not going to play it on stage um but come with some smasher passes to ask us as you see us around the convention um i'll be weird looking one what else I think that's about everything. Oh, you can email us, mattandrosas at gmail.com, if you have something you want to say.
Speaker: I do have something to say. Oh, then email us at mattandrosas gmail.com. Yeah, wait, no, you email me at mattandrosas at gmail.com, and I will read what you had to say out loud. Okay, okay, just.
Speaker: Okay. oh And send, okay. I emailed that to you. yeah ah Okay, from, I will read out your personal email address in one second. um I wish we wish you would not.
Speaker: Oh. I'm going to do it anyway. It is... What?
Speaker: I couldn't think of a joke quick enough. i'm not'm I'm not thinking of jokes quick enough today. Anyway, ah this email says, oh, it says podcast is art. You got it. And I did that.
Speaker: I did that so you can respond to me. Let me email you back. Yeah, just go ahead.
Speaker: Okay. Sent. Got it. Okay. Got it from an email called, oh, interesting. Big Penis 51. Is that you? No. No. You sure? Because when I opened it. That was from the wrong email address. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. No, I mean, when I open it, it says the only thing that you ever say to me, and that is artists suffer.
Speaker: God, I got to change that email address.
