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Episode 43 - Best Games of 2024
0 Playsin 7 hours
It’s our 2024 Wrap-Up episode! We talk about our BEST GAMES OF 2024, including some runners-up and some older games that we played this year and fell in love with.
Also, about this intro, all we can say is we’re sorry. The views and opinions of Elmo do not represent those of your hosts, Matt Aukamp and PushingUpRoses. We do not endorse Elmo and we’re sorry for platforming him in this way. You can read all three of our full Notes App apologies on Hanson Swansen’s Xanga page. Hanson Swansen wrote one, too, but we’re not sure why. He mostly just uses it to talk about S.E.O. and AI-driven engagement metrics.
Games Mentioned:
- Nightmare Frames
- PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo
- Dave the Diver
- Strange Horticulture
- Disco Elysium
- The Last Door
- Hobb’s Barrow
- Dreams in the Witch House
- The Abandoned Planet
- Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
- Tactical Breach Wizards
- Is This Game Trying to Kill Me?
- INDIKA
- The Operator
- Lil Guardsman
- Death of the Reprobate
- Duck Detective: The Secret Salami
- Phantom Fellows
- Loco Motive
- Prim
- Crow Country
- English Haunting
- Thank Goodness You’re Here!
- Fields of Mistria
- Crimson Diamond
- Botany Manor
- Loco Motive
- The Rise of the Golden Idol
- 1000xResist
- ANIMAL WELL
Recommended
Transcript
Elmo's Unexpected Commentary
00:00:00
Speaker
and do you want to hear my ah it's It's eerily accurate. okay if i If I can pull this off the way that I did the other night, ah this is an eerily accurate Elmo impression.
00:00:14
Speaker
I feel that you preempted that with a lot. and And that gives me pause when people like preempt their thing with like, hey, listen, but I because you don't know. This is the thing about an impression. You don't know what's going to fucking come out of your mouth. Right. yeah You think you're in your head either either either in the past or in your head. Right. You're like, oh, yeah, I got it. I got it.
00:00:39
Speaker
And then it starts to come out and you're like, Oh no. And by then it's already out of your mouth and you've like, you can't, you can't pull that thing back. Well, I can't not hear it. So ah please, please. yeah Okay. Here, I'll mute my mic while I warm up just for a second. And you while I, while I do that, you tell me, you tell me the sort of topic you want to hear Elmo talk about.
00:01:02
Speaker
All right, what do I want? I would love, I would love to hear Elmo's opinions on jackson paul Jackson Pollock and splatter art. I'd love to know his opinion. I bet it's a really, really, really good opinion because we all know that oh Elmo is very loving and very open to ah different and new ideas. So I'm looking forward to this.
00:01:30
Speaker
oh,
00:01:46
Speaker
We're starting the music now because I am so offended, Elmo. It's Elmo who's saying this shit. I didn't say this shit. I like Jackson Pollock. No, i know I see how it is. I like Jackson Pollock. Elmo's, I hate him. I hate him. I wish that he falls into his own paintings and in the pain. Elmo! Jesus Christ, man. Elmo!
00:02:14
Speaker
You know, I never liked Elmo. Elmo hates Funky Islands too.
00:02:20
Speaker
Elmo thinks Guybur- Elmo thinks Guybur's three points a bitch. I have- Whoa! Whoa! Elmo! You do not- you know your audience, man. Listen, we're gonna be right back. We're going to- We're so sorry. Matt, could you get the burlap sack in the back if you would, please?
00:03:00
Speaker
Everyone. Oh, oh, I was going for it too. I was going more for it. Okay. Well, I think you should let me go for it because I will not be stepped upon by any man.
00:03:12
Speaker
go for it yeah go for it Hey everyone, welcome back to save your game, the highly feminist gaming narrative podcast starring me and only me. she up right I was ah here's why I here's why I was trying to come in on it because I wanted to start by apologizing to everybody for Elmo.
00:03:33
Speaker
There is no apology that could make up for that. He said he accused Guybrush of being a ah little bitch and that Jackson Pollock should die in his own paint and he's already dead. It's too soon, Elmo. Elmo, come on, man. That's the respect for the dead. We won't invite Elmo back on. Okay. We can invite Grover, though. He's solid.
00:03:57
Speaker
i don't I don't know Grover, but maybe if you know Grover, then you could invite Grover on. Or like Pepe the Prawn. pupe the I know you don't like Pepe the Prawn. I like it i like that his ta like like that his tagline or his catchphrase is just okay. I don't know why that cracks. It's so simple. I think that's funny. I think i think the fact that it calls the Muppets the Muffins is pretty funny. The Muffins.
00:04:24
Speaker
like there's it's i'm i I think there's redeeming qualities for Pepe the Prawn, but i'm i'm yeah just Pepe the Prawn to me signals the decline and of ah of the Muppets. Well, here's what I'll say. No, I think Rizzo the Rat signals the decline of the Muppets. The Muppets stayed good for a while after Rizzo the Rat, but I think it's where Rizzo the Rat sort of signals where they they stop giving their characters the same
00:04:55
Speaker
They stopped putting the same level of of care and nuance into their characters. I love, love, love, love, love, love Rizzo the rat. I like Rizzo the rat. I think I am most ah like Rizzo the rat in Muppet Christmas Carol. I like Rizzo the rat. I don't love Rizzo the rat. You're wrong.
00:05:16
Speaker
His cake was wrong. i yeah I dislike Pepe the Prawn, but I don't hate Pepe the Prawn. Who's your favorite Muppet then? We need to get this out in the air and open. I mean,
Muppet Debate: Kermit vs Elmo
00:05:31
Speaker
this is, and again, if I'm talking about nuance, right? like That's the thing that I like about a Muppet character is that they there's like understated levels to their character. I think Kermit's the best Muppet.
00:05:44
Speaker
I would have a hard time disagreeing with you. i I love Kermit. I love Kermit the Frog. He's got for being a protagonist, for being like a Maine. He's great. Because he's kind of a dicksome. Like he's yeah, he's he's the he's the face of the organization and he's like the Maine. But he's also kind of a dicksome times. Yeah. And he's very he gets very He goes through moods. Sometimes he's so impatient with people. And sometimes he's so caring and patient. It depends who he's talking to and what else is going on. it's just like such a he's He's such like a just a real guy.
00:06:23
Speaker
He's the real guy. And he's also like a big dreamer. And oh yeah my favorite songs from the Muppets are sung by Kermit. ah Rainbow Connection. But also, it's not easy being green. And that song will make me cry 100%. I love that song. It's not easy. yeah Yes, yes. I think we all know that I'm Marjorie, the all-knowing trash monster. the radical Yeah, I mean, I don't I don't think I am a Kermit, right? Like, I think I'm probably more of a gonzo. You're a Fauzi. A Fauzi, huh? You're a Fauzi, yeah. I think I'm weirder than Fauzi.
00:07:04
Speaker
you yeah Yeah, you're somewhere in between Fauzi and Gonzo. Okay, yeah, I think if Fauzi, yeah, there's a if there's like a um ah spectrum, and on one end of the spectrum is on Fauzi and the other end of the spectrum is Gonzo, I am i am somewhere in the that the middle area. I'm like if Rizzo and Uncle Deadly had a child. Just a fucking abomination.
00:07:34
Speaker
Oh, by the way, I know we went into talking about the Muppets. Happy New Year. Thank you. Happy New Year to you. Happy 2025. It's good to be back. Yeah. are but How are
Creative Ambitions for the New Year
00:07:46
Speaker
you how you feeling about this new year? Terrible. But here's the thing. I'm making up for it by throwing myself into art. This is the year of the artist. Oh, of the artist. OK, hold on. Yeah, of the artist.
00:08:04
Speaker
just generally, all artists are going to thrive this year. I hope so. Okay, there we go. I took my first wheel throwing class as pottery ceramics class.
00:08:17
Speaker
It is exceedingly difficult. It is way more difficult than you can ever imagine, but I am determined to make a pot. That's my only goal. Okay. And I'll send it to you. I think you'll get, I think you'll get what me or the, all the listeners.
00:08:36
Speaker
No, you specifically. Oh, okay. I thought you were saying every single one of the listeners would come pot. They might. I might throw a lot of wonky pots and have nothing to do with them. You're like, okay, I have 1500 pots. Who wants one? I need to get rid of these things. Everybody send me an email with your address. I will charge you only $2.
00:08:59
Speaker
because that's what there were. i ah I think you could have been more strategic about this though, right? Since this year- You're right, I should charge like $100 for what I was thinking. This is the year of ah of your second art awakening, or probably like 14th art awakening, right? You probably had plenty. um You should have declared this the year that art dies.
00:09:28
Speaker
Right? So then instead of, because if it's the year of the artist, that's a lot of competition. Yeah, that's true. But if that's true if you are the only artist in the year that art dies, think about like the capital gains, baby.
00:09:52
Speaker
Art is dead. Buy my art. Thank you. Art is Art is dead. Hey, did you notice how all artists suck now? Anyway, I make good art. Come back. Long live the artists. All right, look at me.
00:10:06
Speaker
ah I mean, I think more importantly, it's going to be the year of adventure games. Yeah, there's some good ones coming out this year, and I- There sure are. I think we, ah okay. So let's let's tell everybody about what this episode is. Okay, let's tell them, you tell them. Oh, me, okay. All right, so we're gonna be talking about, um we're this is sort of like a year in review. we We talked about doing a game of the year sort of thing, but I think we're gonna do something a little less formal than that. I think we're going to talk about
00:10:41
Speaker
all the good games that we played this year that weren't released in 2024, we're gonna talk about some of our top games. And I think we'll kind of, I have at least a top five. do Would you say you have at least a top five? I do, I have a top five. We can definitely do a top five. Okay, so then yeah, we'll talk about our top, we'll talk about a bunch of games that came out this year that we loved, and then we'll talk about maybe what our top five is.
Top Adventure Games of 2024
00:11:06
Speaker
And that's all, you know, that'll be enough to wrap up.
00:11:10
Speaker
this is art This is our way of wrapping up 2024 and getting ready for, again, what's gonna be a actually a pretty fucking good year for adventure games in 2025? Yeah, and we'll we'll get into that, but since, you know, a lot of people are doing wrap ups for especially for gaming. And I figure we should have one for adventure games. And like like you said, and just some of the games that we've played. What I want to talk about like what's made our 2024 year great with new games and old games. Yeah, yeah, that sounds great. Yay. So why don't we? Why don't we? Oh, okay. So I got in, we got an email. We did?
00:11:51
Speaker
no you what all ah god We got an email from somebody who gave me a present. A present? This present is a, it is a table ah that show, that contains, I roll,
00:12:15
Speaker
Two, well I guess 50 sided dies. That's not, I don't know, does that exist? I'm sure it does, I'm sure somebody's made one. I don't know if it does, but I'm just gonna use like a random number generator. And it gives me a first word and a second word.
00:12:34
Speaker
for a Swanky Max Amino. That's great, it's amazing. Yes, yeah. So, ah before we start talking about today, that are the games that we played in 2024, not necessarily released in 2024, why don't you throw on, Junkie Cookarino, and we'll be right back.
00:13:17
Speaker
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Save Your Game. I'm pushing up roses. I don't know if I actually officially introduced my co-host because I just I said the show stars me. It doesn't just star me. This is my co-host, Matt Aucamp. Hey, Matt. Hey, how's it going? i do I do want to I want to say thanks to Zia, aka the curious Canadian for that. ah Which what what what she calls dicey rollerino.
00:13:44
Speaker
I love it. I will be using this every episode. Oh, my God. Thank you. So that's so funny and thoughtful. And I like that kind of stuff. I like it when people like things from our shows or things that we've said. You know what I'm trying to say here. While I'm in the email, I also want to say we have a we have actually have a really good opportunity here, Rose's. um This Hanson Swanson says he's goingnna he can unlock our YouTube success. He can get us 250 YouTube views for 88 cents or 500 YouTube comments for $25. Matt. Matt? Yeah? Look at me. Look me in the eyeballs. OK, I'm doing it. That's a scam. OK, I sent him $14,000. Oh, god.
00:14:32
Speaker
and
00:14:35
Speaker
You didn't give him any passwords, right? He said he needed them. No. He said he's a just a trial. What? He said what? And if for $14,000 we like his work, then we can pay him another $30,000 to keep doing it. Matt, our budget. We don't have one of those. We don't have any money.
00:15:05
Speaker
Okay, well, we may or maybe be back with a future episode. It depends on if we're bankrupt. Hanson Swanson might be back hosting our podcast from now Hi everybody, it is the Save Your Name podcast with Hanson Swanson. I'm here to talk to you all about YouTube success. That's the fucking worst, the absolute worst. And no, we're not buying vegan. Get out of here. I know, can you believe it? That's wonderful. Do you want to start talking about some of the games that you've played in 2024? I would love to. That you can absolutely loved.
00:15:46
Speaker
I'm very excited about it. And and the entire reason that these games even came up and that were on my radar is because of this podcast. So, oh yeah you know, because of either we're talking or because we've gotten emails and recommendations and and all that. So I would like to talk about the game that affected me the most that I played in 2024. Well, I want to mention it ah because we have talked about it.
00:16:12
Speaker
And that's the last day. This is going great. We're rusty. We got to shake it off. And we started with Elmo, so like we really didn't do ourselves any favors here.
00:16:24
Speaker
ah It's the last door. Yeah, that has quickly become one of my favorite games of all time. And one of the scariest games I've ever played. And for whatever reason, it it got to me in 2024. I played it in 2024. I had known about it prior to that. But this is the year I finally, I finally got around to playing it for the podcast and for myself as well.
00:16:49
Speaker
And I think it's so special. I love that game. That game made me want to play more games in 2024. So it was a great proponent for adventure games for me. Yeah, that game was released back in ah twenty six the first, I think was in 2013 and the second was in 2016 maybe. Yeah.
00:17:09
Speaker
Um, and they released by the game's kitchen, the game kitchen. Uh, we talked about it on episode 11. Yeah. It's just like a spooky real chunky pixel art game. And that game, it was really, it was really good. It was a really fun, really good, fun, spooky little adventure.
00:17:27
Speaker
Would you like me to name like a couple more and then you can go or do you want to? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Um, another game that I absolutely fell in love with was, uh, the excavation of Hobbs Barrow. We did a, we did a fantastic deep dive. If I may say so myself. say sorself I think it used a first-person pronoun. and Something's wrong with this guy. Something's wrong with Elmo. I think I hit him too hard when I put him in this sack. Is that the scammer? Are we being scammed? Where did that 40,000 go? Elmo's name's Hanson Swanson.
00:18:06
Speaker
What the fuck? Hanson Swanson. Hanson Swanson is going to become a tertiary character of our podcast. We're building out our universe. this is if We took a break, so this is technically season two. so we are yeah Season two is when you build out the universe. Oh, that's true. This is universe building right here. We have Elmo and Hanson Swanson.
00:18:32
Speaker
But yeah, um Hobbs Barrow. Yeah, that was a game I was hesitant to play because the screen caps look strange, but as we Said in the podcast in motion. It is a fantastic game and The other game I want to shout out is it's not something I think we did a ah true deep dive I think we talked about it with Francisco with Grundislav Okay, and that's disco Elysium I found that game in 2024. And these are these are all games I want to say that really pushed me back into the adventure game genre, even even Disco Elysium, which is more of an RPG adventure situation. Didn't think I would like it. But it really gave me a sense of what adventure games could be and what I like about them. And yeah, it was just that was it was a good year for me experiencing adventure games.
00:19:27
Speaker
Yeah, ah speaking of what adventure games could be, and by the way, we talked about excavation of Hobbs Barrow in back way back in episode four, you guys wanna check it out, and we talked about Disco Elysium with Francisco Gonzalez back in episode 15.
00:19:42
Speaker
um Speaking of what ah adventure games could be, Dreams in the Witch House, which we talked about in episode four. Holy cow, that did some things I didn't expect. Yeah, that sold it to me as, we gotta play this adventure game, and that is not what happened. That game is involved. And we each played it like four times. We did, we did.
00:20:06
Speaker
because the ah way it branches is so interesting. And just, it's one of those games that's just kind of fun to replay and see how different choices affect different things. And it was a yeah also another cool, fun, spooky story. ah Very, yeah. And speaking of, you know, on that same sort of topic, paranormal site,
00:20:32
Speaker
That's yeah, that's another one that I was kind of shocked by because it's more in that, you know, um interactive fiction, not interactive fiction. ah did ah That what am I trying to say here? My visual novel, visual novel. Thank you. um Didn't think I would like it that much. And then I binged it for eight hours.
00:20:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, right. ah That was an episode 35 part of Spooky Month. We played Paranormal Sight, The Seven Mysteries of Hanjo, and it is it's a legitimately scary visual novel, at least for the first, say, half of it. um Yeah, yeah. I remember, I'll never forget playing it on my, I had just gotten the...
00:21:10
Speaker
ah the new Steam Deck with the OLED screen. And so, black is black on an OLED screen. It was- Very frightening. And I played it in the dark at night, by myself, on my OLED, in bed, and holy shit. I will never forget how scared that made me. Do you remember the text I sent you? I don't. It said something like, I am so mad at you. I am terrified.
00:21:42
Speaker
i I remember starting up Paranormal Sight and I had to turn it off at first. like I was so scared. I wasn't even on an OLED. I was in my ah studio with lights on everywhere. My cat's next to me. It's fine, but you know it's in first person. I think that lends itself to horror games very well.
00:22:05
Speaker
And it does this thing where it makes you turn around to see something. And that is always scary in a game, always. And you know, so you turn around and you and you get yourself all psyched up for it.
00:22:23
Speaker
Yeah. And there's nothing there. Yeah. Yeah. And then you just already know. Oh, when I turn back around is when it's going to be there. Yeah. Yeah. I actually turned it off before I had to turn it before I turned around. I had to psych myself up. Yeah. To turn the camera around. I think. ah Yeah. only Truly scary. The only time I've ever been that scared ah with a piece of media is when I watched um Haunting of Hill House on Netflix.
00:22:52
Speaker
Oh yeah, that was scary, absolutely. Very scary, yeah. um But do you think we kind of played too many scary games this year? Well, that's what I was about to say because our the next game that I want to talk about is Nightmare Frames. We got into a little bit of a groove, didn't we? We did. I noticed that when Halloween came around, we were like, oh, fuck. We played them all, all right.
00:23:20
Speaker
We played all these scary games and, you know, I don't know, maybe there's just more scary adventure games than normal right now. Um, it's definitely a ah hot genre, yeah ah but that does happen. So I found that when we wanted to do like Halloween, we were like, uh, yeah.
00:23:39
Speaker
Hugo's House of Horrors?
00:23:44
Speaker
Nightmare Frames we played ah earlier this year in episode 19 and it's by Postmodern Adventures. They also released a game called an English Haunting this year that we may or may not be talking about later. um And it is, yeah, it's just a it's a game about a dude.
00:24:02
Speaker
a horror film writer in the 1980s who gets kind of wrapped into his own horror story. Oh, man. It's really you know how I feel about Nightmare Frames. Yeah. You're the one who recommended that to me. So that that was very like ah observant of you. You're just like, I think you would like this game. Yeah.
00:24:23
Speaker
And then I loved it. I streamed it. I played it like ah three two or three times. It's just got something in the atmosphere, you know? It's just something, it captures the 80s in a, maybe not the most realistic way, right? But in that nostalgic way, in that Miami Vice way. In the way you remember it, not the way it is. Yes, yeah. The way you feel it. Over here for the vibes only,
00:24:49
Speaker
I mean, it has skeezy porn directors, it has schlocky horror exploitation films, it has cocaine and homeless people. Like, it is everything that is- Yeah, a cult, it has a cult in it. A cult, everything that is in 80s media is like, everything that was over- over-exaggerated in the 80s is in that game.
00:25:16
Speaker
It really works. It works. And that the music is all synthwave. It's very pleasant. I think I feel that it's very pleasant to listen to. i I and I love the story. I was really impressed by Nightmare Frames. And I'm glad that I see I had never heard of it.
00:25:33
Speaker
At least I had heard of, you know, Disco and ah ah what The Last Door and Hobbs. I'd heard of those games. This was completely new for me. So that was nice. It's always nice to find something. Well, it's post-modern adventures on our radar forever. Yeah, absolutely. um I will play anything they release forever. Yeah, the same. um Yeah, same. Good job. Good job. Do you want to say your do you want to tell everybody your last You're the last one and yeah I will then and I'll say my last one. I don't think anyone will be surprised by this at all. um It is strange horticulture. I am very late to this game. ah Everyone told me about it. I kind of get into that kind of defiant mindset where if somebody's really if I'm getting too many suggestions or recommendations, then I won't do it because I'm kind of a brat. I don't want to do that. I want to conform to that. Yeah. So don't tell me who to be, mom.
00:26:32
Speaker
I ended up doing a review on it because I liked it so much and what I took away from it is that When I found it on Steam, it looked unremarkable to me. It looked very simple, very unremarkable, but in playing- It looks like a mobile game, right? It looks just like a- Yeah. It does, you're right. But in playing it, I found it so interesting and in depth and it's spooky and you get to water plants. It feels literary, doesn't it? There's something about it that feels like there is so much
00:27:07
Speaker
here. And I don't and I think that might be a little bit more feeling than actuality. But I do think there is a lot of layered story and interesting things to discover there. Yeah, I really loved it. And there's no release date yet. But because of this game, I will be looking forward to Strange Antiquities. Oh, yeah.
00:27:29
Speaker
Yeah, and i am i'm yeah, Strange Horticulture made me really follow that dev, and I'm so excited for anything they put out in the future. Imagine if they knock strange antiquities out of the park, we are just going to be like salivating outside the know door of Bad Vikings. Like, when's your next one, when's your next one? It's gonna get annoying.
00:27:50
Speaker
um ah My last one actually will be a surprise, because I've never talked about it on the show before, but it is taken up. It took up almost the entire break. yeah um and I played Dave the Diver.
00:28:05
Speaker
nice nice and holy shit is that game so like it was so my shit right like i just got so sucked in it's got a uh it's got a real ah um okay you know how dredge and dave the diver came out at the same time roughly did it really okay yeah yeah i can i somewhat remember that And people kind of almost took sides, it felt like. It's like, oh, do you do you did you play Dredge or did you play Dave the Diver? And ah ah here's how I feel. I feel like Dredge is the strange horticulture of the two games. I do too, yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And Dave the Diver is the Stardew Valley of the two games.
00:28:54
Speaker
where state Dave the Diver, you have so much to manage and maintain, you could keep playing it forever. Now I will say that the straight up fishing loop does get, I'll just very quickly explain. you ah You dive into the water and you fish with a harpoon. and um So you shoot fish and if you do enough damage to them, you can capture them. And then ah you go back up to the surface and you serve them in a sushi restaurant where you have to run back and forth and serve customers. like
00:29:24
Speaker
I don't know, Diner Dash or something. yeah But there's so much other stuff, like you get a farm, you play, you basically play Bellatro in the game, you ah meet an underwater society, you upgrade your weapons, you get a, ah you get like a, ah You get two things. You get like ah a vegetable farm and a fish growing farm or fish breeding farm. You get ah there's like all these mini games. There's just so much to do. And it's beautiful, cute little pixel art, and it's fun. It's great.
00:29:59
Speaker
ah I know I've heard such good things about it. I have played Drudge and I really like Drudge. I think they're wildly different. Yeah, you're right. Drudge is like the strange horticulture. Dave the Diver is like Stardew or even it even sounds as stressful as Graveyard Keeper, where there's so much stuff to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe you. I played Graveyard Keeper a little bit years ago and it's fucking overwhelming.
00:30:26
Speaker
It didn't for me either at first, and then I binged it as you do. ah So those are, our I think, our games of non-2024 that yeah really surprised us this year and really delighted us this year. What do you say we chuck back on just ah just a quick little dip into ah Spanky drug arena good Saturday night ah we go ah Jump into spanky drug arena we come right back and we talk about our best games of 2024. All right, let's do it
00:31:22
Speaker
And welcome back to Save Your Game, I'm Matt. This is Roses. Hi. Hey. Roses, this was a fucking good year yeah for, and you know what I'm gonna say? Specifically indie games.
00:31:38
Speaker
Yeah. Because there were some interesting like AAA games, like ah people, especially late in the year, people were talking a lot about ah Indiana Jones. And I don't know what what else did people talk about this year? People talked about that Prince of Persia, Metroidvania, or like Metaphor Refibagio. I am behind.
00:32:02
Speaker
There was a Final Fantasy remake this year. What is there not a Final Fantasy? I know. So I think there were some at least interesting AAA games, but where shit was really popping off was in the indie game space.
Indie Game Innovations in 2024
00:32:19
Speaker
Oh yeah, absolutely. And I know I played a lot more of these than you did. So we both came up with ah list of some of the games we wanna talk about. We each have about 10,
00:32:34
Speaker
um and then we have ah and we have our top five, but I also have a couple runner-ups that I wanna chat about, and if we have time, I might also have some honorable mentions, but I wanna tell you about some games that I played this year that fuckin' rolled. So,
00:32:54
Speaker
ah The first one, and some of these I've talked about on the show before, and so I won't get too deep into them, but the first one, I'm gonna say it the abandoned planet. Yeah, yeah, you've mentioned that several times on the show. Yeah, it it's a it's an interesting idea. It took, it takes kind of like the mist, the idea of mist, like walking around an alien environment and trying to figure out what their what the machinery is and how to use it and like,
00:33:25
Speaker
things like you have to sort of decipher both technology and culture at the same yeah time um with very little in the way of clues. That said, there is a talking head that's on screen the whole time that does give you some clues. So it's a little easier than say missed, but it's by Dexter team games. Um, it was released in August of this year and it's yeah, called the abandoned planet. And it's just really cool. The pixel art is really pretty and really beautiful. Yeah. It has this, this first person, um, logic based logic and exploration puzzle. Uh,
00:34:05
Speaker
sort of a mechanic to it that is really, really rad. Next, I wanna talk about Lorelai and the Laser Eyes just real quick. yeah cause she Because she played it enough. I talked about that a lot. It didn't quite make like my top 10 because it does have some flaws and there are some parts of it that I found kind of boring, but it was released in May by Simogo and it has so many interesting ideas. Didn't pull them all off.
00:34:33
Speaker
as well as, you know, it may be one or two. um It's mostly black and white and a little bit of red. And it's you just it's clearly inspired a little bit by like Resident Evil, the way you're kind of walking around with tank controls and yeah, ah walking around like some spooky mansion and everything's a little pixely.
00:34:54
Speaker
But it's all just so many puzzles. It's so, so, so many puzzles. It's so many puzzles. Yeah, I've seen your notes. Yeah, they look insane because it's so many puzzles. You look like a crazy person. So I've talked about that in previous episodes. So next I want to talk about tactical breach wizards. Have you heard of this game? I have not heard of that one, no.
00:35:22
Speaker
So you remember earlier this year I got really into, um ah earlier last year I got really into Marvel Midnight Suns? Yeah, I yeah i remember. yeah I talked about it plenty. Well, so this was released in August ah by Suspicious Developments and it is a it is one of these turn-based tactical, um you know, combat games where you control a team of magic users who all have their own shit like, um oh man, okay, there's a woman who is, who's she's like a necromancer, but so she so serves as your healer, so you get hurt and she wants to heal you. yeah She shoots you dead and then brings you back to life. And then there's shit like there's a guy who shoots spells out of a like a sniper rifle that he carries. Is this a comedy-ish?
00:36:17
Speaker
It is and not a comedy, but it is very funny. ah It is very cleverly written. There's an interesting story. The characters are hilarious. There's a ah there's a character called, I think, Steve the traffic wizard, who you just keep encountering. He's like an enemy. And you keep encountering. And every time you encounter him, the characters are so annoyed with this guy. And this is a bit of a spoiler, but in the last mission you see him,
00:36:46
Speaker
the achievement you get is for beating the level without even bothering to kill Steve the traffic wizard to deliver the ultimate insult. nice um And it's just, it's very banter-y, very character, it seems weird to think of a character driven um like tactical game. Tactical game, but this one really does it. And it does it in this interesting way too, where you can um return to, you can play it at your own pace. So if you just wanna keep doing the missions, you can always return to a mission and the dialogue will replay. Okay. Or you can skip it if you don't want the dialogue to replay. Oh, thank God. Yeah, I know. um But you can return to a mission and play through the dialogue if you skipped it before. And um the in between,
00:37:38
Speaker
dialogue like the like yeah um the stuff like the characters talk about in between missions is just in the menu and you can click on it anytime you want. We may have to talk about this game in more in depth. It's really good, but it is pretty much a tactical game. Okay, got it. You are moving a certain number of squares, using a certain number of moves, trying to take out all the other enemies and prevent damage to yourself and your own team. But it's really thoughtful, really smart. Yeah. Is it intriguing you?
00:38:15
Speaker
It is, yeah, yeah it is. I don't i don't hate tactical games, so i yeah i might I might have to take a look at that. Hell yeah, i would I would talk about it again for sure. There's a lot to talk about in the story, and especially in the characters. The characters are so, so lovable.
00:38:34
Speaker
Another game is a game I played just again over this winter break is it's this is this game trying to kill me. It was released in November by stately snail and it is, you're in a 3D environment, first person, and you get you get trapped in a room and sat at a computer where you play basically this little pixel game adventure. And it's much like a dungeon crawler only instead of combat it's all puzzles.
00:39:02
Speaker
And you come to certain puzzles and you're like, I cannot figure out what on earth, how on earth I would solve this puzzle. So you stand up from the computer and you look around the actual room you're in and you might have to solve a puzzle in your room to affect something in the game. Or you might have to solve a puzzle in the game to affect something in your room or something as simple as,
00:39:31
Speaker
in the In the game, you need to hit statues in a certain order, and pictures of the statues with numbers are hidden in the actual 3D room that you're in. So it's like meta in a non-annoying way.
00:39:45
Speaker
yeah i think I think so, it reminds me a little bit of inscription in that way, um but it's it's not nearly as good as the description, I'll say that, that's why it's only in my honorable mentions, but it was really interesting and really fun. um The thing that I think held it back is, no number one, it's short, it's like two hours, and number two, it is, there are some segments that are timed or with death that are so fucking annoying.
00:40:16
Speaker
yeah You're just rushing around a 3D environment trying to solve a, find a clue to solve a puzzle within like 30 seconds. And you're just like, and then you die and you start over and you have to run around the room again, right? It's so frustrating. It's, um, uh,
00:40:35
Speaker
But is this game trying to kill me? Indica, which I've talked about on the show. Which we thought was a horror game, but it's not. I know. It turned out to be a really deep exploration of the merits of how video games and Catholicism both ascribe to you a set of points and tell you that they're significant so that you get a quote unquote, the good ending. And how much does that really matter? I'm glad that this is one of your runner ups because it really does seem very unique. It is, it was. um
00:41:18
Speaker
it by Odd Meter, it was released in May, and it's, most of the game you're playing in third person, and again, you're a little you're a little nun named Indica, um and you're solving atmospheric sort of ah platforming puzzles, you know, like, oh, find the ladder, put it against the house, jump into the house, find a collectible, jump down, unlock the gate, that kind of thing. um But every now and then, you have to converse with the devil in your head,
00:41:46
Speaker
to manipulate environments. And the devil just mocks your faith and your choices incessantly in a yeah really deep, um biting way. um But you have to commune with him to solve your puzzles, to move forward.
00:42:05
Speaker
um and So you are a nun with a demon in her head ah being kidnapped and escorted around by a escaped convict who believes he has God in his head. wow Very interesting. that That's a very intriguing premise. Yeah, um the gameplay, not always fun, but always interesting. yeah um And my last runner up,
00:42:35
Speaker
is by Bureau 81, it was released in July, it's called The Operator. I don't think I've talked about this game on the show yet, but it is, um you it's it's one of those games where you're basically sitting at a computer, kind of like her story or something like that, and experiencing the story as if, you know, like an immersive sim, I guess is what they call that.
00:43:00
Speaker
and it's also an investigation game. So you're using basically FBI kind of tools, like face recognition software and and and and names database and um video scrubbing software to help ah FBI agents, I don't think it's called the FBI, but whatever the fuck it's called, who call you and talk to you and tell you like, that oh, I need to figure out who this guy is or I need to ah figure out where who this address is. yeah And um yeah, it's really interesting. A bigger sort of more metatextual story starts to evolve. Maybe not metatextual, just like something, a conspiratorial story starts to evolve. right
00:43:47
Speaker
um not everybody you're talking to and working with is who you think they are. You know what? You have mentioned this game before, because that sounds very familiar to me. is like ok yeah There's like a twist. there's yeah there's The twist is apparent pretty early on, though. like You know a twist is coming. But yeah, it's an interesting game. You're mostly you using this like computer interface the whole time. So you can sort of pretend that you're there and you're like a little hacker or something. ah yeah um So those those are my runner ups. I know that's a lot, but fuck was this a good year for games? Yeah, it was good. And Matt played like all of them. I know. So I've i've just talked for a ah long time. Do you have any any questions, anything you want to bring up before we get into our top games?
00:44:39
Speaker
No, I'm ready to just get into
Game Spotlights and Reviews
00:44:41
Speaker
it. I'm ready. I'm just ready to get into it. Because on our list, I'm the first person talking again. So I just wanted to give you a moment to address our listeners. Oh, okay. Hey, I'm here too. How's it going? I'm an artist. I'm from Chicago.
00:44:59
Speaker
ah I like video games. All right, take it Matt. Hell yeah, all right. So top games, now we're into like, these are our top games. These are our tops, here we go. And I think this is, the first few are not really ordered, but this is basically my top 10 of the year. Yeah, I would say our top five is ah is a bit ordered, or is ordered, and anything after is, you know, random. It's it's in the top 10 somewhere.
00:45:28
Speaker
So the first game I wanna bring up, ah we I mentioned this a while back. yeah um And i it didn't hook me as much as it would later. um Like I thought it was interesting, but i didn't I didn't really fall in love with it as much as I did a little while, like when I when i picked it back up a couple of weeks ago, it's Lil Guardsman.
00:45:54
Speaker
Yeah, I remember you talking about that. And honestly, it looks it looks great, honestly. Yeah, it's by Hilltop Studios. It was released way back in January.
00:46:08
Speaker
um god And you are a 12 year old who gets put in charge of a castle gate ah in like this medieval town. ah And you have to very much like um papers please. You are following a set of criteria.
00:46:26
Speaker
to either admit or not admit people who come up to the gate and you're using tools to interrogate them um or your own wits. It looks very much like a cartoony click adventure. Yeah, um it's it does. It looks very tooty, yeah. It's very funny. It's very charming. It's very sweet and cute.
00:46:49
Speaker
um but what really sold me on it eventually is that the story goes places you would not expect. Oh, wonderful. um Or maybe, I don't know if you wouldn't expect, it's it's stuff that's pretty rote for a fantasy. Sure. like it's all This is all playing on fantasy tropes, but you know you don't, your job at the gate changes in a way I didn't expect it to. Yeah, yeah.
00:47:18
Speaker
Like I expected to just be doing that the whole game, but you end up doing some other stuff at the gate too that's interesting. um And it's cool, it gives you a star rating at after each person, um and you can rewind time a certain number of times to just try it again. You can always rewind an entire level. So what I would do, and it's actually kind of hard to get it all perfect, because you have three actions you can take for every person, and sometimes what is wrong about the people is not clued at all. You just have to take a random shot.
00:47:54
Speaker
um I'm like, all right, I'll use a metal detector on this guy. Oh, holy shit, he has a bomb on him or so whatever. um And ah that was a little frustrating until I developed a rhythm, which was, okay, I'll just play a level using my wits and my intuition.
00:48:16
Speaker
And then I'll open up a guide and go back through the level and consult the guy. saying Okay. Because you do, like it it is that sort of thing, because it gives you a star ranking, you always want to get a perfect. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I would. I am very much a perfectionist when it comes to stuff like that. And it's always telling you that telltale thing. It's like, this will have an effect on the, on the story.
00:48:38
Speaker
Yeah. And so you're like, well, now I have to make the right choices always. Yeah, yeah. Although I think it still would have been interesting if I had failed, but. Oh, for sure. I'm sure it would have been. I'm a little too, what do they call that, type A for that?
00:48:56
Speaker
um So that's little guardsman. Yeah. I'm glad that made your your top 10. That's nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. i'm I was pretty happy about it. Alright, what do you got? We have some overlap, I think, with our top 10. I don't know if this one is in your overlap, but I put Death of the Reprobate, which is a Joe Richardson game. ah It was really only the second or even maybe the first one I had played in its like entirety. And I just thought it was so fun. It's so absurd. It goes off the rails and kind of
00:49:32
Speaker
the biggest way a Joe Richardson game has gone off the rails in the end. It is all composed of ah old classic art. um you know think about Think of paintings like ah Venus de Milo, so think about like Renaissance paintings,
00:49:49
Speaker
and before and after too, but they're all old. There's no modern art is in this game. I had such a fun time. If there is, it's a joke. It's like, it's there to be funny that there's a, okay. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, it's just such a fun, absurd thing. it's It's just a piece of art in itself, you know, and very funny, very, very funny. Not every joke lands with me because it does it does veer into lowbrow. Yeah. um But it's not all lowbrow. Some of it is just silly, goofy, funny, and that is my favorite sense of like type of humor style. ah So yeah, it made my top 10 for sure. It's a great job. And I recommend it. Yeah, I loved it. It didn't make my top 10. But it it if you hadn't had it on your top 10, it would have been in my runner ups. Got it. You know what I love about that game?
00:50:46
Speaker
What? You can slap people. That you can slap anybody you want? And if you right click at any point, you do a backflip. You do a little hop. Little backflip. Didn't I tell you that? You didn't. I don't think you knew until I told you. And there's no reason for it. You still do a little flippy flip. It's hilarious.
00:51:04
Speaker
yes Oh, God. Okay. My next game is Duck Detective, The Secret Salami. Oh, that game, man. That game was great. I have a feeling we were go this is going to be an overlap. I have a feeling this is going to come up again on this list. so I'll just talk about it briefly, because we did talk about it on a previous episode too. Yeah, we have a whole dedicated episode to Duck Detective, so I think when we come across those games, we're not gonna, you know, we're not gonna explain too much. Yeah, check out episode 18 for our ah deeper opinions on Duck Detective, but um it is, it's just, it's it's like it's taking this, ah
00:51:50
Speaker
case of the golden idol formula and yeah just making it goofy as fuck. It's my happy broccoli games that was released in May. you put There also is a dedicated, if you right click I think at any point, you just quack. You can honk, yeah, a little honk, a little quack. And you're just like these little cute little sticker animals.
00:52:11
Speaker
toddling around, toddling around these like ah these little isometric scenes and trying to solve a mystery of who smuggled the salami. It's very, very cute and funny. It's very cute, yeah. So that's my, I think, number nine. Nice. What's yours? What's your next?
00:52:30
Speaker
My next, let me consult our notes here. Okay. I just want to make sure that that it's, this is all going to plan.
00:52:41
Speaker
Uh, so, uh, front of the show, uh, Paul Korman, he developed a little game called Phantom fellows. And I had to put that on my top 10. I really, really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it aesthetically. I enjoyed the humor very, very, very much. Um, it.
00:53:00
Speaker
Definitely, I could just tell it was a labor of love and not not just a labor of love that you appreciate it for being such, but also a genuinely good game, a very good yeah quality, quality game. And we did talk about that with Paul on I don't know if you have our list up, Matt, but we have a dedicated episode to talking to Paul and to talking about Phantom Fellows. And you guys should go check that out.
00:53:23
Speaker
Yeah, that was episode 32, where we talked with Paul about the Peril, King's Quest IV of the Perils of Rosella, but we do talk about Phantom Fellows ah a bit before that. Yeah, there's also a full review on my channel. So if you want to hear me babble for 15 minutes about an adventure game, it is there.
00:53:41
Speaker
This game, you will look at it and it will remind you a lot of um Dark Side Detective, and that's not an unfair comparison, but it is a very, very different game. Yeah, or like The Last Door, but again, very different game.
00:53:58
Speaker
um Okay, my next one is gonna be Locomotive. Nice, nice, nice. Which we talked a little bit about on the Wrath of the Gods episode.
00:54:10
Speaker
It was, it's, ah here's the only game that hit my top 10 that I haven't beaten yet. um yeah say I got good ways into it and I was just like, this game is just really hitting on all fronts. It's got good puzzles, it's got good animation, it's got good voice acting, it is funny.
00:54:31
Speaker
um it it It reminds me, it, This gets said so often, but I don't think it has ever been as true as it in this scenario. It's like a lost LucasArts game. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't want to keep saying that every time we find like a retro adventure game. So I try to wait to like, see if that if that is how I feel. But i I genuinely agree. It does feel like that. It's very accurate to that style and time.
00:55:03
Speaker
I'll say, I think I say a lot. This game has a lot of LucasArts inspiration, or this game is LucasArts style, but it is rare for me to say this is like a lost LucasArts game. Yeah, same. And I think this one, I think fits that bill. It's by Robust Games, and it's from ah November. Oh, excellent. All right, what's your next one?
00:55:29
Speaker
It was my turn. ah ah So I, it didn't quite, it didn't crack my top five, but it didn't crack my top 10 and that's prim. ah Prim to be.
00:55:40
Speaker
ah It was a long time coming. It was in development for a very long time. And it certainly speaks to me as that ah a girl who loves goth things, that loves Tim Burton art, that loves Terry Pratchett. ah i Aside from maybe some of the voice acting, perhaps being a little grating, I thought it was such a solid game. It really felt like a grand adventure to me.
00:56:06
Speaker
ah And I really enjoyed it and I appreciate it as just an amazing illustrated work of art. It looks hand-drawn, it's lovely. I really enjoyed Prim and I hope that it gets ah more credit along the line. Yeah, this didn't make my top 10, but I definitely enjoyed it um it. It's by Common Colors, it was released in October, fittingly released in October. yeah And we talk about it, yeah in in a previous episode too, um but it's sort of, um ah we talk about in episode 36. Yeah, it's the daughter of death. She doesn't want to be in hell. And then she goes on a little adventure.
00:56:51
Speaker
Yeah, and he it's great. Or in limbo, I guess. And it's got really good point and click puzzles. um I think it introduces a lot of interesting stuff that it doesn't quite, you know, fulfill, but it has a lot like there's a lot. um There's a lot to love in that game. Yeah, there's a lot that's cute and lot that's funny. Agreed.
00:57:14
Speaker
and the art style is great. Okay, so my next game, and I think this is what my number seven ah is, Crow Country. I talked about this a little bit, I think a couple of episodes ago, but I didn't get too much into it. It's by SFB Games, it was released in May. And SFB Games, by the way,
00:57:39
Speaker
S&P Games did Tangle Tower. And they did Tangle Tower. You mention that every time. remark games Because it's so It's so strange that they also released this. This is a like throwback to Resident Evil um and kind of also graphically similar to say Final Fantasy VII. Yeah. um It's got this like, yeah, it's like this low poly low res poly polygonal um ah Like PS one art. Yeah. And you are. you're Yeah, you're basically facing like ah a zombie outbreak in an abandoned theme park. Yeah. um And solving a lot of.
00:58:27
Speaker
those Resident Evil style puzzles um where you have to, you know, you go do something puzzley and you get the key and then you take it to a place. and But it's so much, the puzzles are a lot better than say in Resident Evil where you're just like, oh yeah putting dog statues in and in ah the right order. um And the story is very intriguing too. You don't know why you're there. You don't know what your goal is. um i It has,
00:58:56
Speaker
tank controls and combat, but a little more, and like I guess also a little better than like Resident Evil. yeah um So I think you know it's not gonna appeal to every adventure gamer, but if you don't mind pointing and shooting, give Crow Country a ah try. it yeah fucking it was It was really, really impressive. um Also it's a period piece from 1990. Nice, so we love that.
00:59:25
Speaker
um are we peace that Speaking of a period piece, ah my last ah before we get to top five, my last game is an English haunting, which ah is by Postmodern Adventures. They did Nightmare Frames. ah We have a dedicated episode to both English haunting and Nightmare Frames that I would highly recommend.
00:59:48
Speaker
that you give a listen to. I was so excited for English Haunting. It is beautiful. I was just enamored with how that game looked and how it functioned. And ah it it didn't make top five simply because it didn't wow me as much as other adventure games did.
01:00:09
Speaker
But my God, the quality is there. Yeah, I highly recommend both of those games. Please play them. And and what's really impressive to me is they're both so different. Like they're yeah they're so different. Like what is, you know, ah Victorian London and the other one is 80s podunk towns and like Hollywood and they're so different. ah It's very impressive. Please go play them.
01:00:37
Speaker
It takes you all over the place, kind of like kind of like um nightmare frames does where you start in a very contained environment and then you just go everywhere. yeah um And also you play as Arthur Conan Doyle for a minute.
01:00:55
Speaker
but Okay, that was a little weird. yeah and Is that why it didn't hit your top five? Maybe. It got a little strange. Okay. Yeah, it didn't breach my top 10. But like that, I think that only speaks to and I'd say this about a bunch of the games ah that are on your top 10 and not mine is like that only speaks to how fucking good of a year this was. Yeah, for sure. It's like and we have different we have different tastes in adventure games.
01:01:22
Speaker
For a game as good as an English haunting to not make my top 10, it just means that this year was unbelievable. So my number six, before we get to top five, and again, 10 through six are loosely ordered, but um it's thank goodness you're here. Yeah, yeah that looked very British. This game is so unbelievable.
01:01:47
Speaker
It's fucking silly. is's like it's by it's a I think the second release, they they also released a free game a couple years back. um They did? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's the second release by Cole Supper. ok And it's like a living cartoon. It was released back in August. And you are just a little guy with a little lemony head.
01:02:10
Speaker
Well, weird little guy. Weird little guy, you don't speak ever and you just arrive in a town. The only verb you have is slap and no, you have to slap and jump.
01:02:22
Speaker
Oh my God, just like death of the reprobate. But you don't, you can't, you don't have inventory. You can't talk to people. Okay. If you go up to a person and you want to talk to them, you slap them and then hope they, and then sometimes they'll talk to you and yeah tell you, ah they'll say, oh, thank goodness you're here. And then they'll give you a little mission. And it's so stupid and so funny. The other fucking thing that's also hilarious about it is you are a little guy in any scene.
01:02:52
Speaker
So if you are on a ah city street, ah you're about waist height to everybody or knee height. You're like just like a short guy. You're like literally a weird little guy. But if you are in a scene that is on a kitchen table, you are the size of, looking right, you're the size of a sugar bowl.
01:03:20
Speaker
yeah like every single seed you change size and it's always fucking so funny like oh okay now I'm microscopic
01:03:34
Speaker
um it's just it's it's It's just full of sight gags and slapsticky gags and um and like you keep wandering around, you walk back and forth across the same places a lot and things will change as you walk past. like The game knows you're gonna walk past this same area That's funny. Seven different times. So every time you walk past, the story of the people you walk past evolves.
01:04:09
Speaker
and That's great. Just like the joke continues. Yeah. Just for one random and ah example is there's a guy who ah there's there's this fence that you pass that has a hole in it and there's a man who sticks his eye in the hole and he talks to you and he's like hey hey would you like a sausage And then he just starts to shove, he soves shoves the sausage through the hole in the fence. And he keeps shoving it until it falls. And he's like, oh, I dropped my sausage. Don't worry, I have another one here. And he and he just keeps shoving more and more sausages through the fence. And sometimes when you pass, he doesn't talk to you. And sometimes he's there, you see his little eye, and he starts shoving sausages through it. And there's this pile of sausages starts to grow beneath the hole.
01:05:00
Speaker
It's like absurdist humor. That's funny. It's very absurd. It's very funny. It's called Thank Goodness You're Here. Nice. All right. that worry and This is here's the main event. We're here. This is our top five. This is top five of the and out of all the adventure games that came out. These are the special ones. Well, the ones we played.
01:05:22
Speaker
No, they're special. Okay, you're right. These are special ones, Matt. Yes, you're right. They're very special. I think they're all special. All right. Shall we start with me? Yeah, I want to. App's so bad. So mine may be a little controversial.
01:05:41
Speaker
because it's not finished and it's only half of an adventure game, but it's fields of mystery. I really liked that game and it's not, it is not done yet. It is kind of a Stardew Valley esque game, but it's got enough changes to have, you know, its own identity. Uh, I got very into the characters. If you know what, if you know, I liked it, it's the only Stardew.
01:06:04
Speaker
kind of inspired game that I really got into after Stardew. It's the only one that captured my attention in that same way. And for that, it it is my number five. Awesome, yeah, I agree with that. I think um it it did capture my attention in the way that no other Stardew had. It's still a little unfinished and it gets, because of that, in my opinion, it gets a little boring sure when you go, by the time I got to like winter,
01:06:34
Speaker
I was kind of like, all right, I think I've seen pretty much most of what this game had to offer. And then they've had one update since then, and I still felt that way. So- Yeah, I'm gonna wait until it's done. But know that when we say it's not fully finished, finished I still put 40 hours into this game, and that's why it's on my top five. I got a lot out of it. Yeah, I think I have i've just under 30 hours. Nice. Yeah, it's, there's,
01:07:05
Speaker
There's a lot of interesting shit there, and I think after it's all updated and done, I think it's gonna be a really special, special. I do too. And everyone's fucking hot as hell. That's true.
01:07:18
Speaker
Yeah. It's true, yeah. Why do you think I'm playing it? it so it's such a It's not even that horny of a game, but it's also a really horny game. and yeah like There's a lot of men with their shirts off and bulging muscles and ladies with the deepest cleavage you've ever seen. um Okay, my number five ah is,
01:07:42
Speaker
this isn't gonna be a surprise, ah it is, ah believe in you. Sorry, I got confused because we're using such similar colors. I was like, I was like fields of mystery. Oh wait, no. ah No, my number five is Crimson Diamond. Um, this is by Julia Minamata and it is a, you know, it is her you know, at least so far, it's her opus. yes ah It is truly just like a masterpiece of um game making and it is a EGA text parser mystery. It was released back in August. ah we We've talked about it, I think many times on this podcast. and We talked about it a lot on episodes and 27. And yeah because we were playing it right after it came that came out, I think we were both trying to savor it a little bit.
01:08:39
Speaker
But it's just really good. It's really pretty. It's a really fun mystery. And you all know our feelings on it by now. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I've done two videos on Crimson Diamond. I have a feeling we'll be talking about it again. Yes, correct.
01:08:59
Speaker
So that's my number five. oh What's your number four? My number four is Duck Detective. It did crack my top five. Yeah. just because it was so delightful. I hadn't been that delighted since maybe Untitled Goose Game. It's that kind of delighted, you know what I mean? Just like, this is shockingly adorable for what it is.
01:09:23
Speaker
Uh, you would think when, you know, upon looking at it, you would think that it's a juvenile or maybe for younger people. I would, I would not say that. I would say it's for the adult that wants to tap into maybe their silly younger side, if that, if that makes sense. yeah But yeah, you had mentioned it already. and We've talked about it in depth on this channel.
01:09:48
Speaker
It's just so weird and delightful, and the quality of voice acting is above and beyond. Oh, so good. So good. I do want to say, I think a kid would get something out of this game. Oh, I do too. I don't think it is for kids in any way, but yeah, the voice like the voice acting is so great. Yeah, it is a you above and beyond. Brian David Gilbert does a voice in this game, yeah which I didn't pick up on. but ah His character is really, really funny. His character is ah <unk>orable adorable. Adorable. What episode, so we can recommend if people are interested, did we do Duck Detective? Oh, yeah. We did a deep dive. It was episode 18. Okay, cool. Oh my God. That was the episode we talked about, Duck Detective and Harvester. Oh, wow. Man, are you guys in for a treat? That's fucking funny. and That's so funny that we did that. That's funny.
01:10:45
Speaker
ah um But yes, Duck Detective, that's that's number four. I really, I really love it. And I can't wait to see what else the devs put out. The style is so fun. My number four is Botany Manor. You can't make that noise. It's good. It's fine. what what it is What it is, is it's like, I mean,
01:11:14
Speaker
If you look at the art, it's like 3D, it's kind of like that that glowing jewel-toned Hallmark-esque 3D. The art reminds me a little bit of like ah ah you know that game that I love so much.
01:11:36
Speaker
missed No, I don't love Myst so much. You pretty much love Myst. The Witness. It reminds me of The Witness. We got there. That's the pipeline, honestly. It's by Balloon Studios. It was released in April. We talked about the demo. um on our like one or like a second episode or something like that. Yeah, really early on. Really early on. And then um I talk about it later on. I don't know which episode, but you could go back and check it out. But what it is is ah it is like atmospheric puzzles.
01:12:10
Speaker
and logic puzzles that are and deductive puzzles that are built around growing plants. So you'll find a seed ah and you'll, I think it's been a little bit, but I think you know, you might know what the name of the seed is from the moment you pick it up, but then you go around reading journals and looking at charts.
01:12:32
Speaker
um and putting together what the ideal grow conditions for this plant is. And they're magical, right? Like it's like, oh, this plant will grow when it's like this plant grows in thunderstorms during the flashes of lightning. So then you want to expose it to you want to you know put it in soil and water it and then expose it to a flash bulb. Yeah. That you have to ah that you have to create by mixing the right types of flash powder yeah um that you find on a note somewhere. you know like You have to put all these clues together. And then once you hit it with the flash um with the flash bulb or the flash powder, it just suddenly grows. And there's a lot of stuff like that in the game um that
01:13:20
Speaker
you just yeah you're just walking around sort of deductively piecing together these really interesting puzzles to make these beautiful little flowers grow. um ah And it's great. It was really... It sounds relaxing. I did try it for a hot minute and gave up. it's I was surprised by just how...
01:13:43
Speaker
how how good and fun and unique some of these puzzles were. The only thing, I said this as a criticism at the ah the time and I feel the same way now is um because you're only usually dealing with one or two seeds at a time, you know every clue you pick up relates to this thing. So you don't, it's not that deductive. Okay, I mean, some people may may like that and feel less stressed out by that mechanic.
01:14:12
Speaker
You're probably right, yeah, and that's probably why they do it, but I think I might have been yeah happier if I was like, if I really had to think, okay, what seed does this clue yeah relate to? um yeah Which that really wasn't a big part of the puzzles. You you knew which seed it related to, you just had to figure out why it was... um useful. Yeah. um So that's botany manner. That was my number four. What's your number three? Three. Yeah. So I'm going to say this.
01:14:46
Speaker
And I'm going to try not to get too detailed because we have a reason for that, that we may that we might Question mark? Yeah, I think that's it. Let's do it. ah So my number three is locomotive. And I don't want to say too much about it because we are going to be doing a deep dive on this game. But here's a few reasons why. Here's a free few reasons why I really liked it.
01:15:12
Speaker
A, for me, it ticks so many boxes, man. like This is a roses game. This is a mystery style. kind of ah The art gets a little bit art deco, but it's also, you're like Matt said earlier, your lost LucasArts game.
01:15:30
Speaker
it And it really does feel that way. It it feels like I'm playing a game from 1994 or 95 in the best way possible. you know it's still I want to make this clear. It has its own identity. It is not stealing anything or overly homage to LucasArts, but it hits that itch. You know what I mean?
01:15:53
Speaker
um And it's just, man, there's just something ah atmospheric about it that that makes me so happy. yeah So um I have not finished it yet. I did start streaming it ah and playing it a little bit on my own. And I just really, I just really love it. First of all,
01:16:14
Speaker
I like trains and I think trains are great for adventure games. It's not like it, which is interesting. It's a great setting for an adventure game. Yeah, it is. So not every part takes place on a train necessarily. Uh, like if you saw the part I streamed it, it's not on the train yet, but, uh, I think trains are great for adventure games, especially murder mystery, very Agatha Christie. Um, and yeah, that's.
01:16:39
Speaker
I wasn't sure if that would even be my number one. It's not, uh, because I don't think I could put a number one for a game that I haven't finished yet. yeah But just the fact that it, it, it impressed me that much and the quality was so high and it, it hit every mark. I just, I had to put it pretty high up.
01:17:01
Speaker
So I think we should hear me out. I think we should do something interesting for our next thing, because yeah by happenstance, your number three is my number two. Yeah. Yeah. ah i I bet. Hey, everybody at home, I want you guys to just take a second and think what could be so high. This is the last one we have.
01:17:25
Speaker
ah But no, we have one more in common. Your number one is one I've already said. yeah What is something that both of us would put on this list and both put this high? High. Like, it's my number two. Keep in mind, it's Matt's number three. So it's very high. So let's go four, three, two, one. Rise of the Golden Idol.
01:17:45
Speaker
Yeah, I was gonna so I was gonna I was trying to think of a joke there. I was gonna say like, yeah I should have given you another i you needed another second. But no, you're you're correct. Yours is number three. Mine is number two rise of the golden idol. Love it. I had not. What now?
01:18:06
Speaker
said Holy shit, it's good. Yeah. Okay. I thought something went wrong over there. Sometimes I don't know if a holy shit is good My microphone's been off this 14 thousand dollars to Hanson Swenson Sounds like the name of a character in rise of the golden idol
01:18:31
Speaker
So interestingly, I played this game before Case of the Golden Idol, which is the dev's first game, but I did end up completing both because we have a dedicated episode. I think it's one of our more recent episodes that we did, right? Yes. We have so many episodes, I don't even... We've got a lot. Yeah, we did Case End Rise on episode 39, so go check that out.
01:18:59
Speaker
Yeah, that was only maybe like a month, two months ago. Yeah, really ah blown away by Rise of the Golden Idol. I love the art. I know that maybe not everyone liked it. I really liked the- They're wrong. I liked it. Yeah, they're wrong. They're wrong. Okay. I don't think the art in Rise is as good as the art in case. I'll say it. Okay.
01:19:24
Speaker
I liked the old, ah more the slightly more simplistic, pixely style. I think the art in Rise is like, I think it was capitulating a little bit to the people who complained about the rudimentary, what they thought, what they felt was rudimentary.
01:19:41
Speaker
I think even more so, Case looked a little unsettling to people. It's kind of like in the way that Habs Barrow looked a little unsettling to people. I think maybe they just wanted to smooth it out a little bit. ah But it still has that character design clearly. They have their, the this, I'm sorry, what is the company that did these? So it's Color Gray Games. Color Gray Games. Is the developer, the publisher's play stack. By the way, it's released in November, yeah.
01:20:09
Speaker
Yeah, they have their own style. And so no matter whether it's smoothed out or whether it's pixelated, it it still retains that ah that interesting stylized caricature and, and their backgrounds. So I like the art. um It's one of the hardest deduction games I've ever played. Would you agree? Uh, yeah, I, again, I thought case was a little harder than rise.
01:20:35
Speaker
um But yes, definitely they are both incredibly difficult. Very difficult. Very, very difficult. But 100% doable. If you are intimidated to play them because you're like, oh, I'm not smart enough to get them, um it's it's not like Myst where you're just going to be staring at it forever and maybe never solving it. yeah um it is it is You will get it eventually. Yeah.
01:21:01
Speaker
but I will say though everything is there and right in front of you and it's all so contained yeah um that you know if if you haven't figured it out you know exactly where to look just keep looking yeah I'm gonna put a little asterisk on that because even you're right it is there and you want that in a mystery game you want that in a mystery anything yeah um So you want you don't want things to happen off screen. For example, British hero does this all the time, Jessica finds a fucking button off screen. And, you know, ah some of it is for who done it, you want to be able to figure it out yourself, you don't want things to happen off screen. Everything you need is in the case of the golden idol. But my asterisk would be that there's a lot, there's a lot of those things.
01:21:49
Speaker
So it's a lot of parsing through things. So you can't find it, but just know that it can be a little bit of an information overload. I say that and it's still my number two. So, you know, well I think, I think a good strategy for that, right? Is when you are playing one of these games, take take breaks, right? Like, yeah, go find all the information so that your word bank is full. Yeah. And you have like the basics of the situation and go get a snack or.
01:22:18
Speaker
ah turn it off and come play it tomorrow. And when you come back, you will, it won't be an information overload cause you already know the basics of the situation and you don't have to go digging and yeah you can just, and then focus on a sentence at a time, and right? And it'll, again, it's hard. It stretches your brain, but it's all there. So you will get it. If you look about it, look at it and think about it enough, it'll come. Yeah.
01:22:51
Speaker
Um, and but actually we're going to toss it right back to you, Matt, because that was my number two. So, uh, that was your number three, my number two rise of the golden idol. So we're now on your number two adventure. This is my number two. And, uh, I haven't really talked about it on this show and there's a reason and it's because okay I have owed.
01:23:15
Speaker
adventure game hotspot a review of this game ah for ah ah Six months um but Yeah about six months I've owed them a review of this game and just didn't because And I'll explain why a little bit. um This game, I had some, bri this is not a pun, I had some resistance to. I started playing it.
01:23:49
Speaker
It is very dense story-wise. It is um very, it's one of those games that'll throw, that throws you into such a complicated world. And you're just like, what the fuck does any of this mean? know I don't know. I don't even know, I can't even understand why they're calling me this name. Like I am so, I don't know where I am. I don't know whether it is 1990 or,
01:24:16
Speaker
the year 3000 or the year negative five. Like I don't know what is happening. It's a sci-fi adventure, this very high concept. um And so I had some resistance. So when I first started playing it, I got really overwhelmed really quick and I put it away for months.
01:24:36
Speaker
And then eventually, ah maybe four months later, I picked it back up again and it took me a while to beat. It's also kind of, it's not that long again. I think it took me 10 hours, but it's, again, it's still dense. yeah um So i I wasn't able to play for more than like an hour at a time. And then there's, finally, there's so much to think about. So while I'm writing this review, I wanted to do it justice.
01:25:06
Speaker
So the game I'm talking about is by Sunset Visitor. It was released in May of last year of 2024. It's called 1000X or 1000 Times Resist. Or another way to say it is just 1000 Resist. um you play a You play a character called Watcher um and you basically start the game with a murder. You murder somebody that you called the All-Mother, and you say a bunch of strange stuff to her, stuff that doesn't seem to make much sense, like um red to blue. These phrases that you repeat throughout the game over and over, and but they have a really they've really like esoteric um meanings. And you there's things that they say, like the word hecky, which isn't a real word. yeah like And you're just like, I don't know,
01:25:58
Speaker
hair to hair is another one of these phrases. you just You're like, i haven't I don't even know what these this dialogue is. And then you kind of flash back and you learn bit by bit who Watcher is, who All-Mother is, why all the characters look kind of the same, um why everybody's wearing a mask, why you're locked in this strange sci-fi futuristic place where they're are no they're only women and all the women again kind of look the same.
01:26:32
Speaker
um there's just so many concepts. And as you put it together, and there's not a lot of gameplay, right? Like most of it is walking up and talking to people. And then there's some scenes where you sort of like, you just, you target a thing and then you launch yourself from thing to thing. Like that's the most that it is gameplay wise. But you're basically just running around this like neon futuristic thing, just talking to people. And it unveils this really deep textured
01:27:05
Speaker
story about cultural identity and the sins of our parents and the sins like and the responsibilities of being a child to parents and the ways trauma gets passed down. ah It talks a lot about um diaspora and immigrant communities and what your identity is when you are a child of immigrants trying to adapt to a new culture. And also it's about the pandemic. It's also about um fascism and how fascism rises and different, how all sorts of different political systems are built around, like the, if you've ever heard the phrase, the political is personal and the personal is political, this game dives into that concept so deep. All right.
01:27:56
Speaker
that is very overwhelming. Yeah, I was gonna say, Okay, hang on a second, because like, we're, this is your number two. yeah So you love this, you loved this game for this year. Yeah. However, if you you just kind of explained everything that's going on, and it sounds so over overwhelming. So what would you say is the driving factor to play the game? Like, what's rewarding about it?
01:28:23
Speaker
If you like to pick up a piece of literature and really feel something, right? You'll get something out of this game. um Here's a question. Yeah. Will this game make people feel unintelligent? And when I ask that, you know what im but I'm asking. There are certain games and certain media that I think goes overboard and it doesn't it it doesn't consider accessibility. what What is your opinion on that? Because it is covering a lot of deep topics.
01:28:53
Speaker
I'll say this, by the time you get to the end of this game, you will understand, and you will have gotten something from it, no matter your level of ah ability to analyze text. Yeah, or like experience with these topics, let's say, yeah. Correct, you will get something from it. Again, you will at least get that personal as political, political as personal idea, and you'll get the ah the idea of the the the concepts of family that it's talking about. e I played this game as I was taking
01:29:33
Speaker
a literature course so and an anthropology course. right like i I was embroiled in literary analysis and social sciences as I was playing this game. So my takeaways were maybe informed by that. yeah And even then, and I didn't grasp the depth of the diaspora dialogue until I read other people's analysis of it. yeah um So it is a sort of thing, you're not gonna pick it all up. Maybe you will now that you've heard me review it, right? And now you'll be looking for those things. But there are there are lots of themes and ideas you're not gonna pick up just playing the game because ah unless you're an expert at literary analysis, which I'm not. right yeah but ah But it is a sort of, game you will get something out of it.
01:30:30
Speaker
and it will be moving, and afterwards, it will be extra rewarding to go seek out people's analysis of this game and watch them, and you'll just be like, oh, holy shit, right? like This game is just full of holy shit. The last thing I'll say about the game, because I know I've been talking about it for a long time, is it's just it's just so textured. um The last thing I'll say about this game is that it goes to,
01:31:00
Speaker
places you would not fucking expect. This is a game that does not follow a formula and all of a sudden you are in the middle of a scene that you just can't believe is happening.
01:31:15
Speaker
you You just, you go, ah you're all, the you know, like as you're playing, like ah all of us do while we're watching all stories, we're sort of digging through a Rolodex in our head of every story we've seen before. And we're kind of like, okay, I want i think this person's gonna betray this person. Oh, this person looks like they're about to die. Or, oh, this, oh, ah ah they're all gonna go to war or whatever.
01:31:39
Speaker
those that will not serve you here you will be you will be in the next chapter and you will just be like holy shit i cannot believe this is happening um that was my reaction to final fantasy eight about 95 of the time i was playing but it sounds like this is a better thing and um Yeah, i I mean that in the best of ways. It's never a holy shit, I can't believe this is happening, this is the stupidest shit. yeah Holy shit, this is so cool. yeah That, finally, is where I'll leave it, and if you want an even even more from me about this, check out Adventure Game Hotspot fairly soon.
01:32:23
Speaker
Yeah, I don't I almost don't want to know more about it because you've done a good job Peaking my interest to because I love games. I love games like that. I love games that do make me feel something. I love long form a meaningful poignant narrative, so I Think I will check that out. Actually you should I think everybody should play this game I think this is a game that, again, as far as gameplay goes, like think about this more like reading a novel or watching a TV show. um When you go to sit down to it, this is it's going to absorb all your attention yeah and it's going to be overwhelming. And again, the running around is going to be a little boring. and but Got it. It's a good ah ah good warning there. but But yeah, if you go into it knowing that, that all you're going to be doing is talking to characters and finding dialogue yeah and running around, it might be a little more palatable. And ah again, this story is something I think everyone should experience. It's so good. So this is Thousand X Resist.
The Unique Appeal of 'The Crimson Diamond'
01:33:31
Speaker
That's my number two. That is just, that's crazy. How is it not number one? What are the filters on? I know here's the craziest thing is it's still only number two. That's how good this year was. That's crazy. You spoke about it like so highly, but we're at my number one. So excited. I know. So I don't, I think people know now because I haven't mentioned it yet. Uh,
01:33:58
Speaker
so There's somebody one of our one of our friends is sitting at home listening to this going like oh so like um or you didn't I not I hope they weren't thinking that um my number one is the crimson diamond by front of the show Julia Minamata I was, you know, I'm gonna go on a limb and say I was kind of worried when this game was in production, because it is an homage to a very specific game, but a very specific franchise. um You know, it takes a lot of inspiration from the Laura bow games by Sierra. um But if you watch my review, and I really stand by this, this game
01:34:42
Speaker
it's it it It makes choices that veer from the Laura Bow games, which I thought was very, very smart, because it gives you this expectation. I guess I can get it into a little bit of spoiler territory here. Absolutely. Yeah. um So in the Laura Bow games,
01:35:03
Speaker
they're some of the novelty right of those games is finding suspects dead. um Everyone's a suspect right until you find them dead. And the way you find them become increasingly more absurd, they're more serious in the Curdles bequest. Dagger of Amun-Ra is just absolutely off the balls, absurd, you know, death, death scenes and death screens. And And you would think that because that's such a big novel part of those games that Julia would would follow that but she actually doesn't. And it threw me I'm like, Oh, it's not doing that. It's not this is not one of those games. That's just gonna kill everyone. And you find all like you find the bodies later or something, you know. um And I thought that was really smart.
01:35:51
Speaker
uh because it gives it gives the game its own identity it and it gave me something to look forward to and i think it became a very different game by the end um so while while yes it is inspired by some of those older games particularly you know the colonel's bequest It's really, really strong. Just as its own game, you do not need to play the loribo games to to enjoy this game. ah You might enjoy it more if you love Agatha Christie and if you love a ah really fun whodunit.
01:36:25
Speaker
um i it Honestly, I give it so much so many props for going text parser. That is not the most popular mechanic ever in any game. It's just not, um it was once upon a time, it is not right now. Dude, and to make it to make it to so many like AAA publications, best game of the year list with a text parser is such a wild achievement. yeah Yeah, it makes sense. I like to use it. I mean, listen, guys, I've always liked using text parser. I love those kind of games. I really do. They got kind of crappy at some point. ah But it's really smart. It it kind of marries research with adventure game kind kind of in the way that Jane Jensen would write an adventure game. ah She always puts like history and facts and science with her games.
01:37:22
Speaker
yeah ah You get a little bit of education in the Crimson Diamond with studying minerals. and ah it's just a I just loved it so much. and I loved solving these puzzles because while they weren't, they were not the most difficult puzzles I've ever done. I wouldn't say they were easy either. I think the only reason that I had an easy time doing it is because I did grow up on absurd adventure games. So I'm over here thinking about the most wild ways to accomplish something. I tried the easy ways first, but I'm not shy about like throwing the cheese in the machine. I'll do that all day long. Yeah. yeah
01:38:02
Speaker
So um, oh it was just so it was just so good. It looks amazing. It's not You know, by some people's standards, EGA games of the past, they're beautiful, but they might look a little strange to people now. ah Kind of similarly to what I was saying about Case of the Golden Idol, it's so pixely that it can look a little strange to people. This is a cleaned up type of EGA for me. And it's, it's good. It's cozy. It's a labor of love that has the love and the quality at the same time.
01:38:37
Speaker
I love mysteries. I love text parser games. It is my number one. And i I want to mention this too. I was going back and forth between Rise of the Golden Idol and the Crimson Diamond. And as we spoke, I don't know if you noticed, I changed it.
01:38:53
Speaker
because I realized that I just, even though I i love Rise of the Golden Idol, that's why it's at number two, I realized that I definitely had some challenges with with the rise that were frustrating me. So as an experience, I had to put Crimson Diamond as a number one, because I started remembering as we spoke, and the delight I felt when I was playing it. So ah that's a shout out to Julia for,
01:39:22
Speaker
ah for creating my game of the year, yeah which is the Crimson Diamond. Now, i have ah I have a question. Do you think, I know you go back to the Laura Bow games regularly. I do, yeah. so yeah these are These are games that you play, if not every year, every couple years. Do you think Crimson Diamond will do that? Do you think you will go back to it Yeah, I do. I do. Yeah, I do think I definitely will. I don't know if I can say that I'll go back to it as much as I do the other Laura Bow games, but that is only because I have nostalgia attached to those games. I don't necessarily have nostalgia attached to Crimson Diamond yet. So, you know, so I do go back to the Laura Bow games.
01:40:13
Speaker
Because I think we can both agree that they're not the strongest games in the Sierra catalog ah So, you know, some of that is definitely revisiting my childhood revisiting theology yeah ah But yeah, I would say in another year I'll probably play Crimson Diamond again, I'll probably stream it and I really really like it. I really glad that That it is what it is. So my My other question is, would you say, do you think this,
01:40:47
Speaker
is it reductive to say that it improves on the formula of Laura Bow?
01:40:58
Speaker
I don't think that's, no, I don't think it's reductive. I think it's just true. okay um you know ah Because that's that's what we kind of strive for in the arts is we kind of see what things were and where we can make things more accessible, where we can make things easier, where we can make things more enjoyable.
01:41:18
Speaker
And that's just how it is in the arts, especially when you're doing an art that involves technology that keeps growing. So I don't think it's reductive to say that it improved upon those mechanics. I just think it's, it's true and that's a good thing. And it makes me want people to get into this kind of adventure game with the text parser because it is an improvement. And I hope, and it's a way for more people to enjoy it. It has a thesis.
01:41:48
Speaker
You know, like not all not all pieces of art, it's clear what the thesis is, but
Hosts' Favorite Games of the Year
01:41:53
Speaker
this one it is. It is clear what she was trying to say ah about, what she was trying to say in the medium. yeah um Which, yeah. Great game. Yeah. Thank you, Julia. And Julia's a pal of mine too, so she's really great.
01:42:11
Speaker
Thank you, Julia, for making a great game for us to play. For me. I mean, for us. Sorry. ah ah
01:42:22
Speaker
but um
01:42:26
Speaker
OK, OK, well, I am dying for you after after talking about a thousand times resist. I don't know what could possibly top that. But please, this is now Matt's number one game game of the year. I guess we can call it, right? Yes, this is my game of the year. Yeah.
01:42:45
Speaker
absolutely it is uh if anybody has followed me on the internet if if anyone follows my uh criticism my my my my whatever my career as a game critic. but Such a weird. It's not a career. I don't make any money. What am I talking about? It's a really involved hobby. ah yeah Yeah. If anyone follows me as a game critic, they know what this is going to be. I've talked about it several times this year.
01:43:17
Speaker
um It was a the debut game. I believe it took him, it was the the work of one guy, kind of like yours, your number one, was the work of Julia Minamano. This was a work ah by a guy named Billy Basso. yeah He worked on it for, I think, nine years. It's a great name. It is a good name. Seriously. It is a...
01:43:43
Speaker
Metroidvania, but in this, I heard it referred to as a Metroidvania in this way. It's a Metroidvania where there's not combat. You're not fighting things. You are just um navigating an environment um and uncovering secrets. um And some of those secrets are, have been right in front of you the whole time. It's Animal Well, is what it is. I feel like I knew that was gonna happen because we talked about this on a non-professional call for a really long time. You loved that game. this game was This game was so good and so unexpected. I think some people knew that a game called Animal Well was coming out. I had no idea. but i And I love a Metroidvania, but I also love a puzzle game.
01:44:32
Speaker
and You know, it's interesting that it came out around the same time as Lower Lion and the Laser Eyes because both of them are just built around this idea of a world just chock full of secrets. And you don't need to find all of them if you don't want.
01:44:47
Speaker
yeah You can get through animal well. there's so There's a bunch of levels, right? Like first there's the Metroidvania level where you are a little blob but and you're going around this ah dark fluorescent cavern ah full of animals and animal pictures and you're collecting toys, right? Like your inventory, um instead of getting a double jump, you get a bubble wand where you can jump on the bubble.
01:45:14
Speaker
instead of getting a air dash, you get a frisbee. I don't want to give anything away. I know, I know. I don't want to explain how you use all these items. But yeah, you get a frisbee, you get a yo-yo, you get ah little firecrackers. These are basically children's toys. And then you end up using them in such interesting ways to reach platforms or hit buttons or um cross chasms.
01:45:44
Speaker
um it And then, so you do that, you get through ah the game, and then you end up running away from like a big baddie at the end. um But somewhere, as you go, you're going to see a bunch of things. You're going to see youre every, like you're going to randomly collect an egg, and it's going to have been hidden in a weird way. You're going to be like, oh, that was interesting. I had to do like an extra special thing to get that egg.
01:46:15
Speaker
um And then you realize there's a room where your eggs are displayed and there's so many of these fucking eggs. There's so many blank spaces. So then you go start going around this this world looking for these eggs. And as you're looking for these eggs, you start to notice other things. Like why is this background have a certain pattern in it? Or why,
01:46:40
Speaker
um oh God, I'm trying to think of why does this grass Look, this is a very big spoiler for a puzzle, so. Oh, no, don't do it, don't do it. I wanna play this game. Oh, really? Yeah. This is one of the puzzles that most people aren't gonna get, and i could I didn't get until I read about it. Oh, maybe I do wanna know, go on. ah um why does this grass And if you don't wanna know, skip ahead five seconds. Why does this grass look like a barcode?
01:47:07
Speaker
um and And... you end up like having to use maybe even real world resources to, okay, all right, so I got through, I beat the game, I got all the stuff, i I found the eggs, and then there's another ending waiting for you.
01:47:33
Speaker
that most 99.9999% of people aren't gonna see because it involves things like ah you get a calculator or you get a special tool that if you skip to the five seconds, and you won't know what it is, but you can just download one of those on your phone and find out and and do the thing to the thing and ah get a clue.
01:48:01
Speaker
and then you find these, and I'll say what they are, because this isn't that big of a secret, then you find you're finding bunnies at the end. Right, I've seen some of those screenshots, I'm like, oh, cute. And one of them, I think you need 24 different people, something like that. um Because every game has has ah a randomized clue in it, so you need to find 24 different people, all with different clues. You can't solve it on your own.
01:48:28
Speaker
Wow, wild. ah Yeah, it's just a crazy game. And on top of that, like again, you're using like a Frisbee, and you you you think it works in one way. And then maybe by accident, or maybe you just think about it real hard, and you're like, oh, I wonder if I can do it this with it. Yeah. And you find out the Frisbee has another use, and maybe even a third use.
01:48:56
Speaker
Again, these are secrets that are just in front of you, the entire game. You've been carrying this, say, yo-yo around for hours.
01:49:07
Speaker
And now all of a sudden, you've been able to do this with the yo-yo on basically every screen and you didn't know it? It's just, ah it's mind blowing what this game accomplishes and ah that that it can do that so successfully.
01:49:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. How many hours do have you put into it? I'm just curious. I've put 19 hours into Animal Well. I beat the game at around, I think, 11 hours. Okay, thanks. I collected all the eggs at around 16 hours, and I've spent about three hours making zero progress on the end game.
01:49:47
Speaker
okay Yeah, the the reason I want to know is because you know, you do to it is an in depth game. It's obviously extremely detailed and clever. So I want to get a ah feel for how long it's going to take me to beat this, you know, I don't want to say like, Oh, I just don't have time for any games. I obviously I'm going to carve out time when I can for leisure. But it's also good to know, you know, how long you may need to put into, you know, a very involved game.
01:50:15
Speaker
I put it up there with like the witness in like a game that is going to stretch your brain out. And that you will get if you put enough effort. You will under you will figure it out if you put enough effort and into it, yeah.
01:50:30
Speaker
and time. it's Animal Well is just really, really great. And again, I love a Metroidvania anyway. um Another game that I would compare this to is probably like Outer Wilds. Yeah, I think you remember telling me that. And I'm like, well, I haven't played that either. So no frame of reference. It's just the whole everything is everything iss there in front of you. And you just what all you need is the knowledge yeah to do it, right? um You know, again, they're there are secrets hiding.
01:51:08
Speaker
in the very first screen of Animal Well. And even hearing this, if you're like, oh, that's a spoiler, now when I get to the first screen, I'm just gonna search everywhere in that first room, you're not gonna get it. It's gonna be, it's gonna be hour 10 or hour 12 before you're able to figure out what the secret in the first room is, right? Which is just, that's how crazy this game is. I loved it.
01:51:37
Speaker
really great animal well my game of the year oh that's amazing i think we have real that's so interesting we have very different games of the year and i think that's awesome and shows our um versatility when it comes to likes and adventure games and i hope it inspired people to try out some of these games if you haven't already me too yeah there's It was a great it was a great year for
Podcasting Reflections and Future Plans
01:52:03
Speaker
games. And this this doesn't even cover all of them. So. Oh, no, definitely certainly not. ah There were ah too many ah to be frank. I cannot keep up. It's bad. Yeah, I have honorable mentions. I'm just not going to get I don't we don't have time to. We don't have time for them. But you know what? Let's mention some. We are going to be speaking pretty soon about games we're looking forward to. And I think we could we could go over some honorable mentions in that episode. Oh, of other games that were great in 2024. Yeah, I think so. but Yeah. But, oh man, games I'm looking forward to in 2025 is almost as long of a list though. Oh, but dear God.
01:52:42
Speaker
it I mean, a lot of, yeah. I hear you. but a Well, uh, roses, thanks for talking about the best games of the year with me.
01:52:54
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for compiling this list and reflecting back on our episodes. This podcast has had a really good year and I'm really proud of all the episodes that we've put out. Yeah, i'm I'm proud of it too. I think I have a lot of fun doing this podcast. I hope you guys all have a lot of fun listening to it. i also it also you know It's a fun excuse to get to hang out with my pal, Roses, and talk about video games every week. To be quite honest with you, I think that was one of our main motivations. Look, we have no time for friends. How do we cleverly sneak it in there?
01:53:35
Speaker
I used to talk about this ah being in comedy for so long is like, ah if you don't make a project with people, you don't hang out with them. I know, it's so hard. It's so difficult to schedule with people. And you know we we are long distance friends. like We know each other in real life. We've met in real life. But we are long distance friends, and that's hard. It's hard for real life friends you know on top of having like online friends. So it's like we sneakily, cleverly made a project instead. Now we have to talk to each other. Now we have to talk every week. Fuck. No, it's great. Until we're 75. Do you remember how to get the water to go on Monkey Island, too? Oh, I don't know. Are you sure that's Monkey Island? That sounds like a different game. I need a monkey wrench, but all I have is a monkey. And Matt, the pun. Ugh.
01:54:33
Speaker
I get so mad in my older years. I don't get it. um ah I'm playing Stardew Valley again. yeah ah Won't that be a great thing? As adventure game fans, when we get to like our 80s, we will start to forget.
01:54:53
Speaker
Oh, thank God. Some of the puzzles and stories, and then you have to play all these games brand new. Yeah, that's where we're going to be bugging each other from our death beds. I know I'm in the hospital, but how do I play Rise of the Golden and Idol? How do I get past Guido and Flap with the manuscript? I imagine now I hate that game. Hang on.
01:55:21
Speaker
I still hate that game, I'm 90. So we are part of the Adventure Game a Hotspot Network. yeah You can check us out there and they have a a lot of other cool people doing cool stuff and cool reviews. Again, i think Jack, if you're listening, I'm so sorry. okay You will get your thousand times resist reviews soon.
01:55:48
Speaker
Don't fire him. You can't fire me, you don't pay me. Okay, my bad. but But i also, you can check us out on Instagram at save your game podcast. Yes, that's correct, yeah. And you can email us, mattandroses at gmail.com.
01:56:12
Speaker
um Do we have anything else to tell people? Uh, I do have one important thing to say, but before I say that very, very important thingy, um, also I did cover a few of these games that we mentioned, uh, on my channel. So if you want even more talking.
01:56:28
Speaker
which is incredible if you do. Please go to my channel, you know it, you know my name. Pushing up roses on YouTube. I think my last game, what was my last game review, Matt? Matt, what was it? ah For whatever reason, I thought you were gonna do a last name reveal. I think my last name is... It's a whole different podcast. I think i think it was Prim. i Wait, didn't you...
01:56:56
Speaker
I don't know, I think. Who even knows? I don't know my own work, I'm an artist. But there is a prim review, and you should go check it out. All right, well, I think that wraps it up. That's a wrap. And when a pod, when a podcast, when a piece of art is this long, like a podcast, right? Uh-huh. And I do think podcasts is art.
01:57:24
Speaker
I mean, that when it's that long, then obviously it's suffer. Podcasts is suffer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um boom