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Episode 69 - Lust from Beyond
0 Playsin 4 hours
Take your pants off and run and hide, folks, because EPISODE SIXTY-NINE IS FALLING IN THE MIDDLE OF SPOOKY MONTH! It’s time to hump a dracula, french a skelerton, jack off with a swamp creature, and yell BOO at your partner when you climax.
In this episode, we’re going to get really fucking gross because we’re talking about the erotic horror adventure game Lust From Beyond. And, spoilers folks: We’re not fans!
So go grab your condom that you drew little ghost eyes on and lean back and enjoy Matt and Roses console themselves from playing this goddamn game.
Games Mentioned:
- Quest for Glory
- Pippistrello and the Cursed Yoyo
- Centum
- Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Lust from Beyond
- Silent Hill
Email us! mattandroses@gmail.com
Join our discord: https://discord.gg/jXWwJ3yc
Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/saveyourgamepodcast
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Transcript
Childhood Memories and Toys
00:00:00
Speaker
Do you want to hear about my childhood friend? Yeah, I would love to. Yeah, you do? Okay. I'd love to hear about your childhood friend. It's a little stuffed animal named Homer, but I couldn't say Homer when I was young, so I'd call him Homerd, like Homerd, which is not a name, i don't think.
00:00:18
Speaker
I'm sorry if your name, I'm sorry if somebody out there, if your name is Homerd. i've i've never heard I've never heard the name Homerd, but here on so and Save Your Game, we love all names and all people. We love all names, especially a little stuffed dog.
00:00:33
Speaker
A stuffed dog. Yeah. What kind of dog? He's like this little rag doll and he looks like a basset hound. And I've had him- Forever. It was a gift given to my dad by my brother for like Father's Day or something. It was like from the Hallmark store.
00:00:49
Speaker
And poor little me just fell in love with this stuffed dog. And so I i brought this stuffed dog everywhere. Dude, I have professional photos with me holding the stuffed dog ah named Homer or Homer'd.
00:01:06
Speaker
And a cute little story, if I may. So I used to drive down to Oklahoma with my aunt. We would drive down because she had a lake house out there and her like her best friends lived down there. So she would go every year, every summer, spend a lot of time out there. And we would drive down.
00:01:23
Speaker
And I, of course, brought Homer with me. and it started like just torrential downpour and and thundering. And I said, i looked at my aunt and I said,
00:01:36
Speaker
Homer is really scared. ah ah i I didn't have the one. I'll tell you the one stuffed animal I remember. And it's a it's a kind of a strange one. But before that, I had a blankie that I loved blankie.
00:01:54
Speaker
Yeah, and I also couldn't, I guess I couldn't say blankie, so it was banke. And I would just bring it everywhere and until it completely until it got completely ratty. And I remember this one time, I guess it was was knitted by my great-grandmother, who was getting real old by that point.
00:02:15
Speaker
I remember being in an Acme parking lot, and it was a ah very windy day, and I took out banke, And the wind took it and my parents couldn't catch it in time and we lost the blanket.
00:02:31
Speaker
um You lost a full on blanket? Yeah, it seems strange. But I mean, I'm sure it was like by then it was tatters, right? Sure. Yeah, it's like, yeah, just like a floaty piece of paper by then.
00:02:44
Speaker
So my great grandmother, post 90 year old great grandmother, Crocheted me a new one. Oh my god, that's so sweet. It was like red, white, and blue. it was very... it was I loved it. I carried it everywhere. The one stuffed animal I remember most is in the 1996, the yeah it ah the Summer Olympics, I don't know if you remember this, there was a very controversial mascot called Izzy. Okay. Okay.
00:03:20
Speaker
He was just this weird blue thing with Sonic the Hedgehog kind of like big red sneakers. Okay. And and big big eyes and like electric, ah like lightning bolts for eyebrows ah floating above his head. And he's got big Mickey Mouse like white gloves on. He's called Izzy.
00:03:42
Speaker
And they had I loved him. I didn't know he was controversial at the time. Okay. Oh, that thing. I looked at... Yeah, I do remember that.
00:03:53
Speaker
I loved Izzy, and I had a stuffed animal, Izzy. And i think that was the stuffed animal that... That's the stuffed animal I remember most from my childhood.
00:04:03
Speaker
Really? Not like a teddy bear or... or No, I had Izzy. Beanie Baby. No, I wasn't. Well, Beanie Babies were a little later, and I wasn't a huge Beanie Baby fan. but I had so many Beanie Babies. That would have been your and i'm older pre preteen area era.
00:04:22
Speaker
It was like 1995, 96. Okay. So I don't know. That's when it started. i don't know. i I love my little Beanie Babies. i still have a couple.
00:04:33
Speaker
I also did have a giant Gumby. Oh, here's a cute story. um I had a giant Gumby stuffed animal. I don't, I have no idea where we got it. I feel like maybe my dad wanted at some carnival or something, but it was bigger than me.
00:04:51
Speaker
And I would fight him. I would go into the basement where I would play all the time. we had like a finished basement yeah and I would just wrestle with my big Gumby. And my parents tell a story of one time I came upstairs and And I was telling them all about my fight with Gumby. And I was like, and I kicked Gumby 10 times and Gumby kicked me zero times. And I punched Gumby eight times and Gumby punched me zero times. And I tackled Gumby 13 times and Gumby tackled me zero times. And I knocked Gumby down 12 times and Gumby only knocked me down once.
00:05:29
Speaker
So basically you have not changed at all. It is a good punchline. I wish I, if I, yeah if, if I had done that to be funny as a kid, like that is an incredible punchline. for that be good So this was a really wholesome discussion we had.
00:05:49
Speaker
This is a very pleasant conversation.
Episode 69: Spooky and Sexy Themes
00:05:51
Speaker
thank you for that. Which is good because this rest of this episode is going about fucking. Let's talk about dicks.
00:06:28
Speaker
Hey, everybody. oh my God. Hey. It's... Whoa. but but but What? Why?
00:06:40
Speaker
Sorry, it's haunted. i didn't do that. I didn't do that, Matt. I don't know what's going on. Look, it's ah episode 69.
00:06:52
Speaker
and it's spooky month. Okay, you promised me spookiness, not creepiness. Well, that's the only creepiness is the only way to. hi I'm Matt Allcamp. I'm the host of Save Your Game. This is my co-host pushing up roses.
00:07:07
Speaker
Hi. um Well, OK, try to do both. Well, there's plenty of role models for you for which to do this. So I bet you could do it easier.
00:07:19
Speaker
I could make it sexy. that' Try to do sexy plus spooky and try to do it in a way that doesn't come across creepy. And then I was thinking, well, you do have like Barbarella.
00:07:30
Speaker
and Like you do have, there are female role models. Yeah. Are you saying that you think I was inspired by Barbarella? No, I'm saying there.
00:07:41
Speaker
are saying here? I'm saying you could do a spooky, sexy voice. There have been spooky, sexy voices. but I could. I could forwin i could do a ghostly, a spooky ghost that might want to fuck you. But what's a spooky, place what's a spooky, sexy voice for a man besides just being creepy?
00:08:01
Speaker
Like Dracula. Hello. No, no. but but Hello. Welcome to episode 69. sixty nine It almost did it for me until you went like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don't know how to. Yeah, I can't.
00:08:17
Speaker
Well, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Doesn't he come from the the Transylvania area? He's a vampire. Welcome to Okay, what's your okay you you welcome people then.
00:08:39
Speaker
I think it's just going to be too sexy. They can take it, it's it's but it's also got to be spooky. Okay, I could try to do a translvan transylvania, like, ahem, ahem.
00:08:53
Speaker
You have to start with, but because that's the only way to get it. That makes me laugh, though. ah but Hello. Welcome to episode 69.
00:09:08
Speaker
i And then, then to see, I would bite you. i can't do that. i can't bite anyone through the screen. And that's what would make it spooky. Everybody imagine, but pinch yourself on the neck and imagine it is pushing up roses, is biting you. I bite hard.
00:09:24
Speaker
Real hard. I'm sorry. This epi this whole is going to be like this. I'm so sorry. There's nothing we can do about it. It's not our fault that episode 69 fell during spooky month. Yeah.
00:09:39
Speaker
What were we even going to do for 69 anyway? We were going to do something. Probably a Leisure Suit Larry I don't think we talked about it. We hadn't talked about it at all. yeah And then ah we didn't notice it until after we had started planning Spooky Month. I'm sorry, who didn't notice it?
00:09:57
Speaker
who Who noticed it first, Matt? I thought I did. You you did. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I'm not taking any responsibility. but That's what I'm saying. I'm not taking responsibility for this.
00:10:08
Speaker
For noticing. So you don't want the people. You want the people to think that you just don't notice when 69 flies past you. I don't notice. Here's the thing I want to talk about. Okay.
00:10:21
Speaker
I was thinking about 69 this week. Of course. And I was realizing that it's wrong. Okay. Why is it wrong?
00:10:32
Speaker
It's not morally wrong. Although it's not that great of a sexual position. It's a little uncomfortable. Yeah, it's not.
00:10:44
Speaker
thing Here's the thing. This is my hot take, right? You have to think about it. There's logistics involved. Yes, it doesn't happen naturally. it does not. No, it doesn't. No, I've been in a situation where it happened naturally, but very rare.
00:11:01
Speaker
Well, it's just like if you... Were you like, oops, I crawled up you the wrong angle, but since we're here anyway. No, no, it's like, no, it's just like if you happen to be, if you maybe you're doing a thing and you get sort of uncomfortable, so you shift positions and you're like, oh, hey, you know, it's within reach now of my face. How do you shift position that dramatically to where you're like next each other? you're like to each other, if you're like next to each other, if you're like next to each other.
00:11:33
Speaker
I don't buy it, but do go on. If you're like next to each other, every everyone at home is picturing it and they're laughing at you. No. Who just doesn't know how to 69? Let's get that hashtag trending folks. I'm just saying it's a little uncomfortable. You have to play. yeah No, i I. Unless you're Matt, apparently. No, I agree. i That's what I started out as saying is that yeah it's it's not.
00:12:01
Speaker
And plus you're. Where your noses have to will end up is not yeah like is not the most it's not the place that you want a nose to be. Okay, listen.
00:12:17
Speaker
Not the point. what That's not what I meant that's not what he meant by 69 is wrong. What I meant is that, okay. Okay. For ah gay couples.
00:12:29
Speaker
Yeah. Especially cisgender gay couples, let's say. Okay. 69 makes sense. Okay. Because you have ah ah hole on one end. Oh, dear God. And the thing that inserts into the hole on the other, right? Mm-hmm.
00:12:48
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So if you're a lesbian couple, for example. Yeah. You have a tongue on one end. Uh-huh. And the burjiba on the other end.
00:13:00
Speaker
okay If you're a gay couple, you have the mouth on one end and the boangus on the other end. okay Okay. So it looks like the number 69 in both those instances. looks like 69, right?
00:13:15
Speaker
But if you're a straight cis couple, it's more like it's it's more like c eight Okay, so you're trying to make the visual of literally the number 69 look realistic?
00:13:34
Speaker
Roses, that's literally the point. That's why it's called 69. It's just two people. You don't see their bits. No, that is their bits. That's not their bits. That's their bits. That's not their bits.
00:13:45
Speaker
That's their bits. That's Nope, it's their it's the it's the heads. That's head and body? but a But why is the body smaller than the head? Don't judge.
00:13:59
Speaker
No, I think it's the bits. I've always thought that it was the bits and then I haven't thought too much about it. beyond I haven't thought about it ever until just now.
00:14:11
Speaker
It's the, it's, Because I'm not pedantic. I think so i think we should call it C-8ing. Okay. C-8ing. It sounds not sexy.
00:14:21
Speaker
If you're cisgendered straight couple, you don't 69. You C-8. Okay. And if you agree with me, ah just go ahead and and tell me so so Matt can feel like a turd.
00:14:33
Speaker
They're not the bits. They're just bodies. I think it's supposed to be the bits. It's not the bits. It's the bodies. i stay I will die on this hill.
00:14:45
Speaker
murdering you over this.
00:14:49
Speaker
I will die on this. Anyway, what a great intro. This is like you said, this is going to be the whole fucking episode. What are we supposed to do? What are you supposed to do when your podcast hits episode 69? But this anything else.
00:15:08
Speaker
Okay, you go. Literally anything. ah you go ahead. You go ahead then. Go ahead and what? You go ahead. You go ahead. Tell us what we tell us. Tell us tell us how how we're supposed to handle.
00:15:20
Speaker
Oh, well, I was just gonna. I mean, my suggestion was just gonna be a retrospective podcast on the putt putt adventure games. I didn't even think anything naughty. I don't know what's wrong with you.
00:15:36
Speaker
i love me some pod putt putt. It would have been ah pretty good bit.
00:15:43
Speaker
If in the middle of spooky month on episode 69, instead of doing either of those types of content, we just did a retrospective on the putt putt game.
00:15:55
Speaker
Just the putt putts. Not any of the other humongous entertainment. Just the putt putts. I almost,
Nostalgia and Beanie Babies
00:16:02
Speaker
I like have this half impulse to say like,
00:16:09
Speaker
Let's stop recording and instead restart and do a retrospective on the pipeline. We're not. No, you you've made me play game. The problem is we played the worst game of all yeah time. Yeah, I'm committed to it we have to, like, if if we don't make art out of that, yeah then that was a waste of a lot of a lot of my brain.
00:16:32
Speaker
Yeah, can't ever get that back. No, it's gone for good. It's gone forever. And it's now it's in my brain. Oh, my God. It's going to take so long to replace these memories. but If ever.
00:16:47
Speaker
We'll be 90 years old doing this podcast, and I'll be like, I can't believe we i can't believe we played this game. Now, you... Okay.
00:16:59
Speaker
Did you play any other games this past week? No. Fuck no. I had such a hard time with this game. I really did. Yeah. Yeah. I really had a hard time with this game. um Yeah.
00:17:10
Speaker
And so I did focus. I did want to play another game, actually. Oh, you know what, though? i did I told a little fib. I have been playing. i kind of thought you did because I think i thought I saw something on Steam.
00:17:22
Speaker
A little something on Steam. What did you see me playing Quest for Glory? Yeah. yeah Yeah. That's true. That's true. Even afterwards, I was like, I'm going to play some more.
00:17:33
Speaker
Yeah. I really wanted to be playing Quest for Glory all week. And instead, I kept like forcing myself to play this fucking game. and I even tried. There's other games I tried to play this week. I tried to play Pipistrello and the Cursed Yo-Yo.
00:17:48
Speaker
Oh, I love a cursed yo-yo moment. And I got, ah you know, I only played about 15 minutes of that. um that seems Seems fine. I'll probably talk about it later. I tried to play Sentum.
00:18:02
Speaker
Very fucking confusing game. Very odd. Yeah. And yeah, then i played some I played, obviously I played some Silksong this week, but like, yeah, I yeah i just really, i just kept having to hammer away at this fucking game.
00:18:18
Speaker
Same. same It got tough. and And we'll talk more about our experiences when we kind of get out of this little little ah second intro part. right I do feel like we should – made me put like a little warning.
Introduction to 'Lust from Beyond' and Content Warning
00:18:31
Speaker
are ah All of our episodes are explicit, ah but they're explicit in the way that, yes, we do swear, you know, maybe, maybe I'll make a little raunchy joke.
00:18:40
Speaker
I think if you're a longtime viewer of my channel, you know that I do that already. um And also I'm fairly, you know, ah with no shame, a fairly sexual liberated person. i have an OF.
00:18:52
Speaker
Like I'm fine with talking candidly about this. um But if you're only on my channel or only on my Instagram and maybe you don't see those things and maybe that's not for you, maybe hearing the chaste, ah you know, white as snow, innocent and pure pushing up roses. Maybe you don't want to hear me talking about bits and bobs and that's fine.
00:19:15
Speaker
Yeah, this is not the episode for you. But if you do like that, this is the episode for you. Oh, boy. Yeah. Well, Okay, why don't we just say the content? So we've been talking a little bit in a very jokey way about sex up till now. We're going to have to be talking. We're going to have to talk kind of explicitly about sex later in this episode when we talk about this game.
00:19:41
Speaker
And I'm just going to list off the content warnings. Do it. Yeah, list them. So sex, sexual assault, violence, gore, violence.
00:19:54
Speaker
Bathroom stuff.
00:19:57
Speaker
No, I don't like bathroom stuff. Yeah. When I say sex, I mean we're going to be talking a lot about sex and sexual things. Yeah. um and And a cross-section of sex and violence in a pretty pretty heavy way. Yeah.
00:20:13
Speaker
I do want to also talk about it. guess drug use a little bit too. ah may I would say that doesn't matter as much as these other things. but And sexual assault up to and including rape.
00:20:27
Speaker
i I should say that explicitly. Yeah, correct. Correct. I do want to talk about this in an artistic way because I think just as an artist – did you know I'm an artist? As an artist, even in my own work, you'll probably notice, I actually do a lot of body horror work, which kind of combines – you know, eroticism sometimes with violence and and things of that nature. So I think there is merit to talking about eroticism as an art in an art.
00:20:55
Speaker
um I think there's merit in talking about that candidly and and intelligently. um I'll also say we're going to be doing some pretty heavy spoilers, but before... i think we should just say, in case you don't want to listen to that segment, and you are still... so I don't know why these both these things would be true at the same time, in case you're curious, in case you don't want to listen to that us talk about it, but you are interested in this game...
00:21:24
Speaker
We should just give spoiler-free, non-explicit reviews yeah before we move to the next segment. The game is called Lust from Beyond. It is the sequel to a game called Lust for Darkness.
00:21:38
Speaker
um It's number two in what's supposed to be a trilogy. The last game is supposed to be called Lust for God. I thought it should was supposed to have been out by now, but it's not. I okay i don't follow this series very closely. yeah um Why don't you say your review and then I'll say mine. And then maybe we can throw on 69 Arena. Oh, nice.
00:22:01
Speaker
See what you did there. um Sure. Here's my very brief, spoiler-free and less explicit review. This is a first-person hybrid game with adventure elements and...
Game Critique: 'Lust from Beyond'
00:22:16
Speaker
um action elements so you know think first person shooter thing there's some stealth there as well i did not like this game i wanted to like it because it it has a quality about it it was made in unity so it is 3d and there is in certain parts of this game a vibe a cozy vibe if you will however that cozy vibe is squashed with these Huge grand settings of like squelchy, Giger-esque, Cthulhu-esque worlds, let's say.
00:22:51
Speaker
They're big and expansive. and a lot There's a lot of purple going on. And I found the game extremely clunky. I found it difficult to navigate. I had to turn off the the head bobbing.
00:23:02
Speaker
Because first-person games, they kind of make me so a little nauseous. And even then, even after turning it off, because because it is such a stimulating game and not in ah in the way that you want it to be stimulating, so much on your brain and on your senses. you know The music is a little obnoxious. The voice acting is a little obnoxious.
00:23:22
Speaker
The settings are very stimulating. It's... is just a lot. It's, it's almost info overload. And on top of that, extremely convoluted plot, ah which, which we'll talk about.
00:23:35
Speaker
on It is not a sexy game. It is an erotic game. And I think eroticism can be anything from anything that kind of rouses you and provokes sexual excitement, right? Whether or not it is sexy or not.
00:23:49
Speaker
I don't think this game is sexy and I wish it was, It's also way too long. ah I didn't. I do know what the ending is, but I didn't finish it because I was getting so sick playing it.
00:24:02
Speaker
I got like eight hours in, but ultimately this is a 10 to 12 hour game if you've not played it before. And yeah, also some survival, ah ah survival horror elements.
00:24:13
Speaker
However, those survival horror elements, they're kind of actiony. There's like maybe one part where you're stealthing. I like stealthing in video games. I think it's fun.
00:24:24
Speaker
ah But the other parts, the actiony parts are just moving fast. And I don't think I don't personally, i don't subscribe that to survival horror. Do you?
00:24:35
Speaker
um Action and survival horror, ah sometimes a little bit. I mean, Resident Evil and Silent Hill both were action. yeah But, you know, the my bigger problem with the stealth versus the action is the stealth doesn't just doesn't work. Everyone knows exactly where you are at all times. I got through a section without getting captured, and I was stoked.
00:25:00
Speaker
I was so excited. Which, so we'll talk about it later. Sure, sure. Yeah, I think this game sort of fails to succeed in any of the things it's trying to do. I couldn't, like, if you like sexy games, it's not a very arousing game. and Right. To put it mildly, I'm trying to put it mildly, but um specifically because of the the parameters of this.
00:25:27
Speaker
ah So, yeah, this game is really grading in a lot of different ways. The gameplay is grading. um i didn't have any problem with the music, like you said, and actually a lot of the voice acting is good, but I didn't like script.
00:25:44
Speaker
but the script is pretty bad and the main character is really kind of obnoxious so even though a lot of the other voices are fine or even good his voice but again his voice acting is fine it's just he's an unlikable character from the very beginning and so I you know he was unpleasant to spend an entire game with um and the sound effects just the constant Walking on cornflakes. The constant squelching yeah and crunching and weird dripping noises were horrible.
00:26:24
Speaker
This game is horror, 100%, but it is not scary until maybe the last, until some segments in within the last hour.
00:26:36
Speaker
ah couple segments in the last hour are probably the only times that this game was scary. In the beginning, when you go to Bleakmore, I found some of that kind of scary because reminded me. Oh, okay. Yeah, it me a- When the setting sort of starts appearing.
00:26:50
Speaker
When the setting yeah sort of starts unraveling and you start seeing what it is- going to be Yeah, like the the initial parts of the survival horror, I thought it had some tense yes some tense moments to it. And and and you're right, there's nothing blatantly scary. It's more very tense.
00:27:07
Speaker
There's a lot of tension in this game, for sure. um But yeah, again, and just as it fails to be particularly sexy, it also fails to be particularly scary.
00:27:18
Speaker
um Though it is an erotic game and it is a horror game. Yeah, mostly I think this game... This game is going to give you a headache more than it gives you any other sort of feeling. Yeah. and I think that's where I'm going to leave it.
00:27:35
Speaker
for now yes i i guess i just recommend against playing it i just don't think it's a very good i don't think it's a very good i think even if i think the tedium of the game will make it unenjoyable even if the sensory stuff doesn't bother you and i think the sort of blandness of the rest of it it just makes it not sort of worth the 10 hours you're gonna spend yeah And in general, i you know i like erotic media.
00:28:05
Speaker
i will say I think this had potential to be something kind of kind of good. I think what what really got me was the mechanics. i I felt like I was walking around the majority of the time not doing anything.
00:28:18
Speaker
And again, since I tend to get kind of ill with those first person, that's not good. It's not good for me. So and and even though it's not sexy, i do I do appreciate an attempt at bringing like an erotic horror thing to light.
00:28:35
Speaker
right the The one thing I'll say about this game is that it's very clear to me that the devs, whether their plot was a convoluted mess or not, it was to me. It's clearly put a lot of thought into the world and what they were and making statements and they're they're trying to say something and really make almost like a piece of art.
00:28:55
Speaker
You know what I mean? Something that was more artful. they I can tell. i can tell that's there. It just didn't work for me. You know, while the game is definitely trying to be shocking, it's it It's trying to be shocking for what it considers to be a reason. i don't know that I necessarily agree, but it's trying to be shocking for what it agree what it what it feels like is the purpose of the story and the theme of the game.
00:29:24
Speaker
And it doesn't take it doesn't it's it's not it doesn't take a lot of cheap shots in the sense of this game isn't laughing about this stuff.
00:29:36
Speaker
Right. um Well, it's taking it dead serious. Yeah. Yeah, it's a serious game. Yes, I think there's a there's a lot of times games of this ilk, both horror and sexual games, tend to because they are quote-unquote mature, they take that opportunity to make you know really crass, crude jokes and jokes.
00:30:01
Speaker
you know just inject what they you know label as satire but it's generally just indulgence yeah i think even though this game is deeply profane i'm not sure it's indulgent i don't think it's a yeah i agree i don't think it's indulgent i and i don't think it's even sheep I think that because there's like this very serious nature...
00:30:28
Speaker
yeah and kind of Again, it's a convoluted plot and I don't like it, but it is a serious plot. um They're not... you know it's It's not even They're not even really exploiting anything. Like I've played far many more gratuitous games than this game.
00:30:45
Speaker
I really feel like they were just trying to bring more artistic themes and visions to light. It's just hard to do that in a 3D game. it's It's hard to take that seriously, you know?
00:30:59
Speaker
i i think, yeah, I don't know. i I have a feeling it could be done. i don't think that. I don't think that this was particularly successful at it. Yeah. So, all right.
00:31:11
Speaker
Those are sort of, we we did this sort of backwards and we, like I said, we were doing that on purpose. That is our sort of wrap-up thoughts about this game. If you just want to know our opinions on this game, why don't, again, we throw on and ah Spooky Sexarino and we'll do a little bit more of a dive.
00:31:34
Speaker
I don't know how deep, but we'll do a little bit more of a dive i like into Lust from Beyond. Roses. Roses.
00:32:04
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to Save Your Game. I'm one of your hosts, Pushing Up Roses, with me as always, the super roused... Whoa. I was trying to make it sexy. I failed, just like the game.
00:32:19
Speaker
And spooky. I'm fucking a werewolf, everybody! What? yeah oh but It's just a lot of hair. Yes, this is my co-host, Matt Aukamp. Matt, how was your break?
00:32:33
Speaker
it was It was perfect. It was everything I needed it to be. I got to stop talking about Lust from Beyond for a few minutes. I am legitimately just excited for this episode to be done because, look, I don't think we're going to have a bad conversation about this game. I think there is there are things to be discussed.
00:32:54
Speaker
Yeah. But... This game was, it's like, in a lot of different ways. I don't think of myself as prudish, but in a lot of different ways, i found this game nauseating.
00:33:05
Speaker
And i but Because of the stuff we've said so but like but so far, like it was but just an assault on the senses at all times. um yeah You spend a lot of this game, we'll get to it. we spend a lot of You spend a lot of this game in this other ah ah unearthly realm of ecstasy called Lustga that's all Reds and pinks and purples and blues. And is also supposed to be like purely biological. Like you're in the body of some God.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's like living. it's It's a living setting. It's organic looking. And there's like in like a lot of there's like intestines on the floor and sometimes just like piles of brown on the floor. know. I'm like, what that?
00:33:56
Speaker
was like, what is this stuff? I feel like it was shit, right? Like, like they don't, I don't know. and um And then jutting out of the wall. so like, a lot of the rooms are ribbed as if, like, it's the inside of your mouth or the inside of a vagina. Like, yeah we're going to get really explicit here. Yes, everything is very phallic or yonic.
00:34:17
Speaker
Yes, there's, yeah yeah, just, like, outcroppings on the walls look exactly like a vagina or, or like like you said, phallic. I don't, there's not that much that it's like, that is a legitimate human penis or a legitimate human vagina. Right. But it is like, that is a horror construct That is shaped.
00:34:39
Speaker
yeah Yeah. 98% like a penis or of a vagina. It's still explicit. You know, the way it's designed. You couldn't mistake it. Whether it's realistic or not, it doesn't matter. It's still, you know, everything is still very wet and slimy. And again, kind of and organic and squelchy. squelches. As you walk, it's like, blot.
00:35:00
Speaker
It's horrible. felt so overly stimulated the whole time. yeah And the walls are all dripping and slimy. and it there's monsters that run around. And they're like they're like weird demons with tits and boners and stuff. yeah and Weird.
00:35:21
Speaker
Or they're sloppy sacks of like... There's this one enemy It's not even an enemy. There's this one creature that wanders around.
00:35:31
Speaker
Yeah. And it is a... It's like a like a liver. It's like a human liver. Yeah, it looks like an organ. It has like one eyeball. It's got one eyeball and it's got one weird hand that juts out of it.
00:35:46
Speaker
And it uses that hand to not just like pull itself, but to slap on the ground. Yeah. It slaps its hand on the ground and then drags itself and squels squelching the entire time. Oh, they're called the, ah I remember what they're called. They're called the enthralled.
00:36:02
Speaker
Later, you you meet some other types of enthralled later. One looks like a testicle with two legs. Yeah. um It's... And like I remember trying to get some some kind of um lore or backstory on some of these creatures.
00:36:19
Speaker
And I did notice that even though the game is trying to give you a lot of backstory, a lot of lore, there's so many times where the game's like, yeah, we're not going to talk about that. We're not going to explain that, where the enthralled really come from. What are the enthralled? Yeah.
00:36:32
Speaker
i have I don't know what they are. exactly. Like, I don't know.
Narrative and Character Development
00:36:35
Speaker
What are they? And so but there was this specific point where, um you know, we meet another character and she's showing us more of this guy. She's showing him us more of this weird, wealthy world.
00:36:47
Speaker
And our character asks her a question like about about the world or about some of the creature. And she's like, I don't want to talk about that right now. I'm like, well, wait a minute. No, I want to know what this is. there is a lot of codex stuff throughout the game like you can find a bunch of you find a bunch of papers and journals and like book entries and then that ah those unlock a like a code like yeah like a codex that you can get by pressing I forget I forget what button select or something and then you can read up on some of this stuff yeah but
00:37:28
Speaker
Okay, so why don't we go in order? You do start in Lustga, this place. And you start as that character you were mentioning, the character you eventually... you don't start at Lustga.
00:37:38
Speaker
You start and you start at the in the <unk>t of ecstasy i thought I think you're right. You very quickly end up in Lustga and you're this lady. You're a part of well All you know at that point is you're that you're a part of some sex cult that has access to this weird squelchy dimension.
00:37:59
Speaker
Yes. yeah There's not that much you learn here. You just learn basically all the stuff we just told you. There's a squelchy world and it's gross. yeah And then suddenly...
00:38:11
Speaker
You're a dude ah who runs a dusty old antique shop. You're an antiquarian. h and I got excited, man. i was like, oh my god, strange antiquities. Let's go. I'm to fill these orders. I was so disappointed when it wasn't like that.
00:38:27
Speaker
The first thing you do is you fill an order for an old lady and you have to go yeah walk around and find the stuff she ordered. And it's just... There's no real mechanics to it. It's just walking around.
00:38:40
Speaker
It's just walking around and fetching the things that are glowing. Oh, it's walking, guys. If there was ever a time for me to throw out the term walking simulator in a more insulting manner, it would be this.
00:38:52
Speaker
I felt like I walked for for more time than actually interacted with stuff. I really believe that. I was mostly walking and running. Oh, my God.
00:39:03
Speaker
I want to be clear. I want to be clear, especially because some weirdly Steam reviews call this or like reference walking simulators. Right. You're using that as a pejorative just to just to make fun of the fact that you walk so much in this game. Yeah, I'm using it as a yeah, as a criticism. This game is not a walking simulator. It is not.
00:39:23
Speaker
It is a it is a puzzle, stealth, action, survival, the horror, sex game. Yeah. No, I'm certainly just being snarky because of how much you're just backtracking. You have to back fucking walk, yeah.
00:39:38
Speaker
Oh, God. It's just... It's overbearing. And you do get to run. really like it. Yeah, you get to run. And, like, also, these locations are really hard to navigate. Not just Luska. Luska is incredibly hard to navigate.
00:39:51
Speaker
But also the other places that you find in the game. Like, there's a mansion. Yeah. ah I'll be honest, I played this game once a long time ago, um sort of as a bit, as a joke with a partner. yeah and so this was my second, and I didn't, we only got a little bit of the way in But as such, this was my second time playing some of these scenes.
00:40:16
Speaker
So pretty early on this this playthrough, I got... really familiar with the shape of this mansion yeah but it's hard to get used to the shape of this mansion it is not intuitive i played eight hours of it and still was like i don't know where i am there's like two wings and then an entire downstairs um and then there's some like secret areas um that some you don't access to later in the game and then there's an actual secret area
00:40:47
Speaker
um that you can solve a puzzle and find ah all the Kickstarter backers. Regardless, it it just means that for as much running around and there is in this game already, which we'll talk about in a second as we keep going through the story, there's even more just because you get lost.
00:41:04
Speaker
Yeah. you find out you're this guy named victor holloway you are a snarky kind of rude just i just do dudely dude yeah there's nothing else very interesting about you you're just kind of a dude and and you're setting up for a date with your girlfriend So after you fill your order for Mrs. Hudson, who I have already been creating a ah backstory for her in my brain because I did so much walking around. It's all I could think about.
00:41:33
Speaker
ah You got to get ready for your date. There's some objectives you got to do. And one of those objectives is putting rose petals just on the floor. Yeah. Just the way he does it.
00:41:44
Speaker
He just like chucks it like grabs a fucking fistful. threw it on the ground and she rocks rose puddles. And I'm just like, wow, with reckless abandon, i am growing these rose puddles down.
00:41:59
Speaker
ah Like you said, it's not like when you reacted when I told you that you're like, it's not a subtle game. Like nothing about it is subtle. It's all like intense and kind of campy.
00:42:11
Speaker
ah But yeah, I got my rose petals on the ground. Nice. You know, we, the protagonist buys his girlfriend a new guitar. I guess she's a musician. Her name is Lily. And, you know, she comes home, she finds all the rose petals and the wine and the guitar. And guess what we do?
00:42:28
Speaker
well So she sends you downstairs to, she's like, hey, can you go get this? Oh, okay. Yeah, you're right. go get my pick out of my backpack? And I remember the first time I played this, I said to the person I was playing with, I was like, what if we just come upstairs and she's completely nude?
00:42:41
Speaker
And she was. Yeah. And you fuck her. Yeah, and then you fuck her. um and that's That's the kind of game it is. and Yeah. it It turns into a i i think it's safe to call it a rape. It it turns in into... He starts becoming aggressive. She tells him to slow down. He says, oh, you mean like this? Like, like oh, you mean go faster? Go faster?
00:43:07
Speaker
And then she has to stop. She has to like stop him. And then you hallucinate. your You're back in Luska for a little bit. You... don't need to go through all the details. No, we don't need to go through all the details. You have sex with...
00:43:21
Speaker
ah This Lily but it turns out to be Amanda the person you were playing in the prologue and then you're back and then you hit Lily. so Yeah, because you're coming out of a nightmare. You're frightened. So you you hit Lily thinking that she is someone else.
00:43:37
Speaker
um So you are like, you are possessed in this state. yeah Yes. So you get the sense like, okay, he doesn't, this isn't who he is. Right. He's an asshole, but he's not, this is definitely a different...
00:43:53
Speaker
He's definitely in a different state of mind, i think. But it's worth pointing all this out because now you have to play as a character who you have just... You've just seen him be snarky at an old woman and make fun of an old woman. Yeah. And then you've seen him rape his girlfriend.
00:44:11
Speaker
Then you've seen him, ah again, in a dream and sort of against his will, cheat on his girlfriend. And then you see him hit his girlfriend. Yeah.
00:44:21
Speaker
And now you just have to be him. And you're like, fucking I don't want to. I don't want to. Yeah, it's he's he's not a great character. This is the inciting action of the game because she sends you to a and this all gets subverted later. well I'm not going to be shy about spoilers here.
00:44:39
Speaker
and Everything that you think is happening here is something different than what is happening, including the rape, including Lily sort of, quote unquote, innocently sending you to this therapist. This doctor, yeah.
00:44:51
Speaker
She sends you off to see this like experimental psychologist, and you get there, and the town is deserted. Yeah. Yeah. And when it's looking bleak, which is why it's called Bleakmore, I assume. not Again, not very subtle.
00:45:07
Speaker
kind of thought Kind of heavy-handed. And yeah, the whole time, you know, you're still, the whole time you're driving to Bleakmore to meet up with this to doctor, you're on the phone with Lily, just just bitching and moaning. don't want to. If this doctor doesn't help me, I'm like, dude, what is wrong with you? Yeah.
00:45:27
Speaker
So annoying. And yeah, you like you said, you get to this town of Bleakmore. It is deserted. It is scary looking. I feel like it's pretty tense. Like there's some tense. There's always something tense and scary about an abandoned, ah like an abandoned town in an adventure game, especially when things are dark and a little obscured.
00:45:46
Speaker
i think there's always something a little scary about that. I agree. I think this is well done horror. there's There's little bits here where like people at one point you can see like ah what looks like a doll's face in a window. That scared me so When you go over to it, they slam the window really quick.
00:46:05
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Scared me. when you walk over to some, there's some windows and some doors you can walk over and you hear like soft crying. There's, ah you know, clearly everybody is hiding from something. Yeah. um But at the same time, this is scary. It it is well done in this particular yeah ah section of the game. This is probably that from this part to about mid part, I think was pretty okay.
00:46:31
Speaker
Yeah. This is probably when you texted me, why do I like this game? Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was after, you know, the antique store and like, you know, discovering this town and it goes on.
00:46:42
Speaker
ah It gets OK. It's OK for a little while. It gets kind of action. And I think I then text texted you like this is way too action for my liking. The problem with this section is just like like you were saying, you're running around so much. Like the problem with this section is basically everything is so spread out.
00:47:01
Speaker
Yeah. And the town is hard to navigate. And again, so much is closed off to you. Yeah. That you're just kind of like, you you run for a really long time and you find a spot and you're like, oh, I think I discovered something. And then it's locked behind a puzzle. And you're okay, I guess I gotta go run around a lot more. And then you find something else and it's locked behind another puzzle. Like,
00:47:27
Speaker
so There are secrets. There's some secret rooms. There's some secret lore written down in pages that you can find. There are secret collectibles that you can get. They're very hard to find.
00:47:39
Speaker
They are hard to find. Some of them are easy, but ah it's hard to find all of them. I would say the puzzles aren't even that difficult, which is good. That's always nice. I'm always a little apprehensive about these more, these kind of 3D first person games. It's just like, what kind of bullshit, but they're relatively okay. I would say I didn't struggle too hard with these puzzles. Some of them were even kind of fun.
00:48:06
Speaker
i I dare say. um so But again, it's just overrode by a lot of other not fun things. So to fast forward kind of through this whole area, the therapist, you basically start to realize that, but I think I realized that there was something violent and sexual about this fair, this festival.
00:48:29
Speaker
Yeah. And that's why people were hiding um pretty early on. Yeah. And like, you know, everything's creepy. Like you go, therapist's office is closed. And so you have to try and find a, you have to try to call him. Yeah. This puzzle was kind of stupid.
00:48:47
Speaker
ah use a ancient coin. I know. Like there's a pay phone and there's like only a pay phone and your phone is dead for some reason. and you don't have a phone. It's very unrealistic, guys, but this is how they're going to do close to the closed circle trope for this is your phone is dead. You don't have the charger on you.
00:49:05
Speaker
You got a pay phone. You don't have any coins. But what you do have is an ancient coin from your antique store. And somehow it's the right size. And you were able to call the doctor with this ancient coin.
00:49:18
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, and then so then you end up staying in some hotel. The hotel has pictures of him all over it and a really creepy like bellhop. Yeah, bellhop is crazy. We should say that we do get in touch with the doctor and we miss our appointment that night. And he's very, he's apologetic and he's like, no, I really need you. but But you should still come see me tomorrow. You should stay the night.
00:49:41
Speaker
No hotel will put you up. He wants to see us that night and we say, and we're no, I'm tired. And he's and we're like on the verge of heading home. Yeah.
00:49:52
Speaker
And he's like, no, actually, an appointment just opened up tomorrow. Yeah. so At like 7 a.m., which is like insane, by the way. um So again, not subtle. You know, these are these are tropes you've seen a hundred thousand times before.
00:50:05
Speaker
Yeah. You go to bed and you kind of dream you're in Luzka. and i And think that's when you have sex with the other character. Oh, you're right. You're right. because You know why I remember? Because he wakes up with a little something on his hand. That's what I'm saying. You have to look at actual jizz.
00:50:21
Speaker
Yeah. Sucks. um It's like, hey, here's ah a 3D artist spent a week drawing this jizz. Enjoy. you know, I get enough of that in my real in life. I don't have to see it in video games, too.
00:50:39
Speaker
ah sorry
00:50:42
Speaker
ah So then you get woken up by these weird festival goers. In quotes, right? Because I feel like at this point you are being... Oh, you mean the first time you wake up or the second time? Second time. You're being hunted. You're being hunted down. You're being hunted down by these people in bondage gear. And that's when you sort of realize, okay, yeah, this whole festival is about this...
00:51:12
Speaker
weird deep indulgence in sex and violence and sexual violence. Yeah. um And it's a sort of thing if you put candles outside of your window ah anybody is allowed to invade your home and do whatever they want to you which why would anybody volunteer for that most of them die.
00:51:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. it's it's It's almost Hellraiser-esque in that way. It's like how much how much can you actually really handle, but then you end up dying. It's like that that blurred line, right, between pleasure and pain. And it's kind of got that vibe.
00:51:47
Speaker
And the gameplay at this point, Matt, I don't know if you've ever played Call of Cthulhu, Dark Corners of the Earth, but it's an hp love it's based on H.P. Lovecraft's short story.
00:51:58
Speaker
You don't say. Yeah. So Lovecraftian. And in that part of the game and in the story too, you know, with Lovecraft, there's always a weird town with weird fucking people yes in it.
00:52:11
Speaker
And in that game, you are also hunt down. And it's very similar in that you need to run really fast. You need to close doors, lock doors. You have ah you have an insanity meter and a health meter.
00:52:23
Speaker
Um, but yeah I will say that the mechanics are very sporadically used and we'll talk about that a little bit more when we get to another mechanic they try to implement.
00:52:33
Speaker
But like, I only took sedatives for my insanity meter a few times. Um. ah I ended up doing it a lot more towards the end. But yeah. And if you're really bad at the game, I guess you could do it more. But it's yeah. um Yeah.
00:52:48
Speaker
Just like, why? Why? I don't. Why? Yeah. I don't. i'm I guess I'm saying I don't think it added anything. No, I don't think any. I don't think these chase sequences were. They weren't fun either.
00:53:03
Speaker
No, I can see. and I can see what the chase sequences added. Yeah. But they weren't enjoyable. No. No. Yeah. and i I would have preferred never to have done them.
00:53:14
Speaker
Yeah. And ah so yeah, you're being chased by these sex perverts. and ah they are trying to kill you. They're not trying to have sex with you.
00:53:25
Speaker
They're beating you down with like clubs. Yes. I mean, it's one of those, I think this is somebody was talking about this in the Discord. By the way, check out our Discord. There's a link in the show notes.
00:53:36
Speaker
Somebody's talking about this in the Discord today, this idea of ludonarrative dissonance. um And this is one of those these ludonarrative dissonance things that always confuses me is like when you're in a game and there's there's some sequence, say a chase sequence like this.
00:53:54
Speaker
And you don't know what the villain's motives are at first. Yeah. And you find out later, oh, they're trying to capture me alive yeah for some reason. Like maybe you're scripted to at the end of the sequence fail.
00:54:09
Speaker
so Like one of those kind of games. Yeah. um This is pretty normal thing to happen in a video game. But if you get caught before the end of the sequence, they kill you. Yeah. And it's like, wait a minute.
00:54:23
Speaker
that's not yeah hold on I know now and now that I know what the end of this is why would they have killed me to begin with this happens in video games all the time it's like They do try to justify. oh it Okay, can I... Please.
00:54:40
Speaker
Basically what happens is we at least get out of the realm of being chased by um these cultists that are trying to club you to
Scarlet Lodge and Cult Dynamics
00:54:50
Speaker
death. um There's a little bit of a stealth part where...
00:54:54
Speaker
You know, you're trying to like there's guards. They're not guards. They're just the cult people. But there's this lady on sticks stilts, I should say. There's like a weird little carnival theme in this in this setting. And I don't know why. is supposed to be a festival. This is a festival that happens in this town in Bleakmore every year.
00:55:14
Speaker
oh and the the lady on stilts. I also should say the first time you see her, you don't kind of know it's a lady on stilts. yeah It just looks like a big... scary topless lady monster. It's scary. Yeah.
00:55:25
Speaker
She just stares at you. You see her from the balcony and it's, yeah, she's scary. It's effective. I'll give, I'll give it some of that. Some of that stuff is very effective. For sure. like Like we said, this is the only scary part of the game until, again, some parts in the last hour.
00:55:41
Speaker
Other than that, it's the game's not scary. It's just weird. yeah um there is There's a part that's very funny to me here, which is you have now learned...
00:55:52
Speaker
That this entire, that there's there's some sort of evil conspiracy happening in this town. You don't know that it's the entire town yet. Yeah. I guess Victor's not smart enough to put that together, even though the player definitely has by now.
00:56:04
Speaker
Yeah. And then he says, he sees a ah flyer on the wall that's like, that says, you know, something's happening in this theater. Yeah. um And he's like, I guess that's where everybody in the town is at the theater. I got to get to the theater.
00:56:19
Speaker
Instead of jumping in your car and your car works. You have to sneak past your car. You have to sneak past your car. know. I remember seeing it. I'm like, I could leave.
00:56:31
Speaker
Yeah. But nope, that's not the objective. The objective is to get to the theater. Yeah. Yeah. Completely nonsensical. Yeah. and So at that point, this is the, that's the, you're stealthing. Well, I mean, ah hopefully you're stealthing to get there. I actually made it to the theater without getting caught by any of the cultists. I stealthed and and crouched down the whole time and made it. And I was pretty happy with myself.
00:56:56
Speaker
um And then when you reach the theater, you hear this this this voice coming at you. You don't know where it's from just yet, but a spotlight is thrown on you.
00:57:07
Speaker
And some woman is like, you know, welcome. ah We've been waiting for you. She knows your name. ah And it's this very creepy theater. It's... A small stage with very limited but ugly, ugly settings on it. If you look up, you see like a cross with some weird bodily stuff on it.
00:57:29
Speaker
And right away, this woman's like... I want you to do stuff for me. Like this, that's it's becoming a fetch quest now, right? So, unfortunate but you have to do it within a time constraint. And if you don't, the cultists will come back.
00:57:42
Speaker
They'll start beating on you again. And these tasks are are are meant to be shocking and horrifying, right? Like you are, first you're just like lighting candles and whatever, but then you're taking severed, not even just limbs, pieces of a body. Yeah, severed body parts, yeah.
00:58:01
Speaker
off of a crucifix that are they're tied to the crucifix with barbed wire and you're taking them down and putting them in a bin that's labeled fuck toys yes like that's that is the moment where it's like you just have to stop and remind yourself okay this game is trying to be shocking there's yeah point in my getting offended or my clutching my pearls about it in any way this game is because it's trying to It's trying to. I also think, though, it's unfortunate because just like that's more of an edgy thing or I think the majority of the game is trying to be artistically erotic.
00:58:40
Speaker
But I can't take it seriously when I'm putting some hands in a bin that says fuck toys. I wish that if you're going to commit to horror erotic, just commit to the bit. Like, don't make it weird. You know what I mean? Right. That's almost jokey, right? just to sit that Didn't you feel like a little like kind of laughing at the absurdity Yeah, but i think I think one of the things about the this, because, okay, so we eventually find out there's two cults. There's the Scarlet Lodge, which is the people who are chasing you right now, and then there's the people in the mansion, that ah the person you play in the prologue, Amanda, that she was part of is, what's the name of there
00:59:21
Speaker
The Cult of Ecstasy. The Cult of Ecstasy. Yeah. These are two warring factions, which we'll eventually find out. And I think one of the things that is characteristic of each cult is that the Cult of Ecstasy is a little more classy and intellectual, while the Scarlet Lodge...
00:59:40
Speaker
It seems like for whatever it is that the leader of this cult has, his name is Dr. Austerlitz. We think it's supposed to be some sort of Nazi sort of allegory. That's what get from it. Not allegory, reference, allusion. Yeah, reference. That's what I get from it, yeah.
00:59:59
Speaker
For whatever intellectual purposes he has, and actually I guess his purposes are a little more emotional. He's trying to, he was sent to Lustga, uh, either against his will or without full knowledge of it.
01:00:12
Speaker
And it drove him kind of insane. And ah lot, he was sent there with a bunch of other people and they went even more insane. And so now he wants to like shut down this guy. he wants to like destroy it or lock it off forever.
01:00:27
Speaker
And the other people want to use lust guy. yeah yeah Their motives aren't entirely clear, but they want to access this guy. They believe it's a holy place.
01:00:38
Speaker
And they I think they believe that it is a place of like ultimate ecstasy and kind of pleasure where you can just live out your life and know who you are.
01:00:50
Speaker
And there there's something that we should probably say, ah and we figure this out after we're kind of captured by dr Austerlitz, is that we – are something called a seeing one. Oh, yeah.
01:01:02
Speaker
We have access to Luska, which is, again, the squelchy, weird, hard-to-navigate, hard-to-navigate living organ organ-y place.
01:01:12
Speaker
um we have we have We are a special person. We have visions. We are able to see things and get to Luska and interact with it, and ah more so than some other people. We're not the only seeing one. So...
01:01:27
Speaker
Yeah, Osterlitz wants to use our seeing abilities to shut down Luzka. And he doesn't really care what happens to us, by the way. Yeah, we'll find out that he's done this to other people. yeah And he has he has ties to this cult of ecstasy. He was once, yeah think, in the cult of ecstasy. Yeah.
01:01:43
Speaker
And that's how we got to Luzka. So anyway, um i all this to say... Back to the fuck toys discussion. It seems as if the cult of ecstasy wants to bring people in and share this knowledge and belief system with them.
01:02:01
Speaker
Yes. While Austerlitz and the Scarlet Lodge want to entice just a bunch of chuds with sex and violence.
01:02:13
Speaker
Yeah. to and And then use them for their own purposes. So I do get the sense in all of the Scarlet, that and we revisit the Scarlet Lodge later, all the Scarlet Lodge segments are where there's the most puerile and gross stuff in the whole game.
01:02:32
Speaker
yeah It's where ah I was forced to get a blowjob while watching man shit on a woman's chest. Ugh. While another lady was being suspended in the air, ah ah like ah being serviced by a fuck machine. Yeah.
01:02:48
Speaker
And another woman was riding man ah with her back all torn up and blood streaming down it. Yeah. And it's very body horror. Very, right very body horror. Very Hellraiser. Very blurring the lines between violence and and sexual pleasure. And it's very clear that it was kind of inspired by...
01:03:07
Speaker
at least by hellraiser i think it was inspired by hellraiser yeah because when we talk about what what is what lustga is and all that stuff i think that that'll be really clear i think some of the again some of the more disgusting and some of the more puerile stuff is all associated with the scarlet lodge yes because these aren't true believers these aren't people who are ah who are in this for higher or intellectual purposes.
01:03:36
Speaker
These are people who like sex and violence. So there's the sort of people who would cut off a bunch of people's arms and legs and torsos and throw them in a bin labeled fuck toys. Right. um so So I do think as ridiculous as this is to say, i do think the fuck toys bin plot twist.
01:03:58
Speaker
lot driven like i think that is yeah that is i don't I think that is complementary to the themes of the game rather than antithetical but I understand we don't know that I understand what you're saying because we don't know that when we first encounter this right so as a player you're just kind of like okay all right exactly I just took a bunch of severed body parts off a cross and I'm throwing them in a bin labeled fuck toys very cool Yeah, Scarlet Lodge is kind of almost this like,
01:04:33
Speaker
anarchist like heathen party like nobody cares it seems to be ungoverned um and it doesn't matter if you die it's like it's it's like pleasure but at what cost essentially yeah um and yeah very it seems weird it seems like they own like the government of that area like they like bleakmore is fully under the control of the scarlet lodge so they can get away with anything so yeah that seems to be true And yeah, you are, quote, saved by members of the ah the cult of ecstasy.
01:05:08
Speaker
And it the game does try to... You're right. They're more intellectual about it. They're more artistic about it They're not... you know You're probably not going to die if you have so if you have sex with somebody in the cult of ecstasy. Yeah. At least not right away.
01:05:23
Speaker
um yeah I mean... it's a twist the cult of ecstasy is evil too. There's evil too. Yeah. oh I mean, with all these stories of similar stories of like who wants the most power, there's often not a good guy.
01:05:38
Speaker
You know what I mean? Especially when something is inspired by the likes of Hellraiser and HP Lovecraft and ah the art of like HR Giger. It's not going to be everyone's a villain.
01:05:51
Speaker
Essentially. There's really no good guys here. um so So yeah, yeah. Both of them have ill intent. Just one goes about it and maybe a less at first a less violent way.
01:06:04
Speaker
So in this in this cult of ecstasy mansion. Which I don't know if you got this, but it it did heavily remind me of Eyes Wide Shut, which is a Kubrick film with Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise.
01:06:17
Speaker
um Everyone's like wearing a mask. You are not, I guess. Because I think at first you are just kind of in shock, as you would be, right? You've basically been kidnapped. you know You've been taken hostage by two people.
01:06:30
Speaker
Then you find out Lily's been kidnapped by the the Scarlet Lodge. And so all you want to do is get back to Lily. yeah so So that's your focus right now. You you don't care about Luska. You don't care about any of this stuff. yeah You don't just care yeah about getting home, getting away from all this, finding Lily, saving her, and getting getting the fuck out.
01:06:50
Speaker
Yeah. I think when I first got to this mansion, I was like, okay, this game might get good now. That's what I thought, too, because I was like, I love a mansion setting. I want to get to know some of these characters that are staying at the mansion. And- and For all this game's flaws, and i don't I think, and it has a lot, and I think that it has, it doesn't have great dialogue. No. um The characters are fairly well realized. I think I can tell you the personalities, the backstories, the motivations, the secrets, and how the secrets affect the motivations of basically every character the
01:07:33
Speaker
Every named character in this game. and yeah I think the the characters are really well realized. I think so, too. And i I liked being in that mansion with the other characters. It was kind of just this mansion of misfits, right?
01:07:51
Speaker
And i did I did enjoy that that aspect of it. I wanted to know more about the characters. It was almost like being in ah in a sideshow, like a freak show. Yeah. That's kind of what it was like, but it was cozier than that.
01:08:03
Speaker
And it was like a dusty old mansion with a bunch of weird knickknacks around and some puzzle boxes and some like diegetic puzzles. Mostly, again, mostly the diegetic puzzles were to find secrets that weren't plot relevant.
01:08:21
Speaker
Yeah. And like, that's, I don't know, I guess I thought that was going to part of the game. And then it just in between there would be some fuck scenes, but ah which, you know, I wasn't that excited for like, that's not
01:08:35
Speaker
fictional 3d people aren't what does it for me i tend to like human beings yeah that tends to be the thing that turns me on in my life but um i do understand like i i like erotic art i think there's merit to that and i even like even like erotic me media as a way to ah ah bolster your sexuality like i like playing erotic games with my partner with any kind of partner i think that's for a Don't play Leisure Suit Larry 7. They'll never call you again.
01:09:07
Speaker
um just putting that out there. i sure So I do. And I do think I don't love that stuff. It doesn't do anything for me. um Mostly, I yeah either find it funny or yucky.
01:09:19
Speaker
Yeah. But... And this is going to make me come across as a prude. and might as well just say this is maybe I'm a very in my life. I'm a very sexual person. I don't know if you guys want hear that or not. Sorry. It's episode 69. In my life, I'm a very sexual person. and But this is not a thing that does it for me.
01:09:39
Speaker
Yeah, i would I'm going to piggyback on that and say i am also a very sexual person. I'm open about it, so I don't care ah people wanted to hear it or not. They probably already know.
01:09:50
Speaker
um And this also did not do it for me. This is not well what I would seek out as an an effective, erotic art piece. you know i And I mean to say something a little broader because this particularly – OK, but but I mean, there's there's probably no sexual video game, no pornographic video game that's going to arouse me.
01:10:14
Speaker
Yeah, I think there there would be for me, especially if I played it with somebody else, as if it was well done. But this is not it. This is not it. And I maybe that could be because it is trying to be.
01:10:29
Speaker
a little more horror erotic than simply erotic. There is something, again, you're not meant to find Hellraiser completely sexy, right? Maybe the characters do in the story. They think what they're doing is sexy and ultimate pleasure.
01:10:46
Speaker
I'm not sure if the viewer is supposed to really connect with it like that ah because it's more on the body horror side. um So I don't even find this like, I don't even put this on the same level of other erotic games because right i I'm just working so hard trying to get through these action parts, these weird parts, these erotic parts. It's a lot. But me and you were trying to figure this out before we started recording and we read a bunch of reviews of this game that seemed to think otherwise.
01:11:18
Speaker
but i know. That seemed find this game... Sexy. And look, if you are a fan of Lust from Beyond, we want to hear from you and we're not going to judge you. And we'll get back to the recap in a minute, but we're not going to judge you.
01:11:31
Speaker
ah we are we would be legitimately curious. We might, you know, poke fun at you in a playful way, but yeah, we would be legitimately curious. Number one, if you're a fan of this game, what you like about it.
01:11:43
Speaker
But two, if this game horns you up. Why? Feel free to write in completely anonymously or you know we will keep you anonymous if you write in. The majority of interactive like ah erotic stuff I've played is not action heavy. So like for me...
01:12:04
Speaker
i i just I really do feel like I'm simply just playing another action game. you know with With other erotic games, there's usually more of an emphasis on like interactive fiction or dating themes. Those are very narrative and dialogue heavy. This is like, hang on, I got to go find the gem Luzka and I got to run through this corridor for 500 years. And that's very interesting.
01:12:26
Speaker
I'm getting slapped with big dicks sticking out of the ground. And it's not sexy because I just died. I'm just so frustrated. They're just like tentacles, but yeah you know everything in Los Gatos is supposed to be a sexual imagery. So it's like you're getting slapped with dicks.
01:12:41
Speaker
I was starting to honestly get very infuriated with with the gameplay. So it was hard for me to find anything about it like engaging on that level, on a sexy level.
01:12:53
Speaker
Because I'm just trying to run around and serve. This is still survival horror. This is still a survival horror game. And the sex scenes, the interactive sex scenes are very few and far between. They are QTEs. They are quick time events, meaning um when you are fucking, yeah ah you get little prompts up on the screen that you have to have to hit a button press at just the right time and yeah to
01:13:21
Speaker
I want to know what happens when you mess it up because like I'm i'm a gamer. I'm not going to mess this up. You just go back to fuck. It deescalates. Oh, I've missed. I've messed it up. um And it just deescalates.
01:13:33
Speaker
OK. Like he just goes back to having sex slowly or whatever. OK. Got So don't know. I didn't know there was like a way to lose. She's like, ow.
01:13:46
Speaker
Oh, and you know what? I will say that there you can, ah you know, as the main character, you are a dude, cisgender dude named Victor. This game's not great about representation. There's not a lot of different body types.
01:14:01
Speaker
There's not a lot of different. ah except for one specific scene in the game. Basically, everybody's white. Yeah. um But it is good about sexuality.
01:14:15
Speaker
Yeah. It shames no one. It judges no one. As Victor, you can have sex with men and women. Yeah. In the course of the game. There's even, there is a trans character. There's not even a mention of it. The only reason you know that they're trans is, that she's trans, is you see her naked at one point.
01:14:31
Speaker
right So, you know, on this level, it is, you know, like, I do think that is, you know, somewhat commendable. um Because I think that a porn game, especially if porn game where so much is done poorly.
01:14:45
Speaker
but but yeah i guess we do have to this shouldn't be an achievement. It shouldn't be an achievement just to not be homophobic or whatever. But, you know, we got to give them any kudos we can because...
01:14:57
Speaker
And I do give them kudos for that. I give them kudos for that. I give them kudos for making female sexually liberated characters. Sure. um That are not shamed. that that are sure Powerful female characters. Powerful. i do I do think that's important. Because let's let's even be honest, even more broadly, porn in general can be very problematic.
01:15:21
Speaker
Not just like video game, not just like porn erotic video games, but just porn in general. Anything like that ah can be- About representation. Yeah, about representation. could be exploitative.
01:15:33
Speaker
This was really not that. think it exploited other things, but it was pretty on point with it being sexually liberated.
Themes of Power and Eroticism
01:15:42
Speaker
While you're playing, you kind of do get the idea yeah, I'm sexually liberated. Yeah.
01:15:48
Speaker
I can play this game. Yeah. It's kind of nice in that, in that way. And again, nonjudgmental. And ah when it's not being gross, yeah you know, it's being more powerful, more sure about itself.
01:16:01
Speaker
So, okay. So you're, you're in this mansion, you decide it's time. You need to go back and save a Lily because you find out that the, that the Scarlet Lodge just kidnapped Lily. So you and another one of these characters, you sneak back.
01:16:14
Speaker
you yeah this is a stealth action sequence that sucks and yeah you're going through ah this the underground areas of this theater and basically you're doing a bunch of puzzles and stuff what you find out you you get captured by the Scarlet Lodge again and you find out that Lily was an agent of the Scarlet Lodge the whole time which there is a lot of foreshadowing to that Right. Yeah.
01:16:44
Speaker
They found out very early on in your life that you were a seeing one. they They've been they have like people looking for seeing ones all over the world, I guess, or the country at least.
01:16:58
Speaker
um And you're one that they found. And so they had Lily track you down and. prepare you for this. So again, puts that rape scene earlier into a slightly different context right because she's clearly in the time that you do that.
01:17:14
Speaker
She doesn't have anything to do with your possession that causes you to do that, but she is trying to unlock your violent sexual side. so just like she's doing it secretly and subtly. So it does put it in a slightly different context. I don't know if it like repairs the weirdness of the scene, but it might repair some of the, some of the characters like intention. It doesn't repair the, the upsettingness of it. It's still an upsetting, upsetting scene.
01:17:44
Speaker
Right. because you don't know that. pair You don't know that at the time. And also while you know that Lily is not,
01:17:52
Speaker
opposed to violent sex and she's not and she's again trying to turn you into a violent sex monster you you do not know we don't know we don't know how much she's part of what happens to you in that moment like it yeah could be part of her scheme or it could be completely shocking and unknown to her.
01:18:15
Speaker
yeah And even though she's like evil and trying to turn you into this person, that doesn't mean she deserves sexual violence. Right. Of course. Yeah. So it's, so it's really hard to tell.
01:18:27
Speaker
It is hard to tell. It just makes it, it just makes it messier. Okay. So, um, you do get back to the Scarlet Lodge. Try to find Lily. You get captured. We find out that she is an agent.
01:18:38
Speaker
She seems cold about it at first. She even gives you a key to... Victor's shocked. Victor loves Lily. um He is distraught.
01:18:50
Speaker
um But she gives you a key to your shackle, your shackle down at one point. So you can like get up and maybe try to escape. She tells you not to follow her, but you do follow her. course.
01:19:01
Speaker
Of course you do, because you're in love with her. And you kind of, you start talking to her, and she has this admission that, yeah, you're right. You know what? This was a mission at first. I was following orders from Dr. Osterlitz, but I did fall in love with you, and I do love you. And she stands up, and she starts to turn around, and the person who came to the lodge with you shoots her dead.
01:19:27
Speaker
yeah And this is where kind of I think it's a catalyst for a lot of change in the protagonist, because up until that point, he didn't want to stay at the cult of ecstasy. I don't think he cared about his visions or being a seeing one or getting, you know, finding the lust from beyond. And he didn't care about that.
01:19:47
Speaker
he's a horny and violent guy so it's i think this stuff appealed to him on some level but yeah i don't think that he like he just wanted to be back home in his normal life with lily and ah you know in an argument a lot of the other characters have been making is like you've left that life behind and like you are you know like how can you unknow this stuff that you now know and you have this power so like And you can't trust Lily. She would have betrayed you anyway.
01:20:14
Speaker
You know, like, and that yeah, not very many sympathetic characters after, you know, this this woman who loves gets shot. You mentioned Catalyst, and i think it's also important to mention there are a couple turning points here.
01:20:29
Speaker
You do catch Austerlitz, Dr. Austerlitz, and you hear his whole story that he's been doing this again because he, when he was involved with the scarlet or the Cult of Ecstasy before, he and some other people ended up in Luskod. They all went crazy.
01:20:47
Speaker
Excuse me. They all went crazy and it ruined their lives. yeah He went crazy, but he, I guess, got better or something. And yeah he's been doing all this to destroy or lock off Luska forever.
01:20:57
Speaker
And so you can kill him or you can let him live. What did you do? i let him live because i because you mentioned there was a good ending and a bad ending. So it's like, let's just try to be a good guy every time, every chance I get.
01:21:09
Speaker
Yeah. Then. The person who kills Lily, Jonathan, you can either kill him or let him go. Yeah. And of course I let him go for the same reason. Yeah. Yeah. And then like there's a yeah ah time jump.
01:21:22
Speaker
Yeah. It's a year later and you're just a member. Half a year later. You're just member of the cult and you've just been fucking and researching for half a year. Yeah. And you're into it now. Like you're like, all right, got to go to the rituals. Got do the thing. gotta talk to Amanda. Like you're you are now accepting that you are a seeing one. You are part of this cult.
01:21:43
Speaker
Yes. It's already clear at this point there's something else a little weird. One of the characters, Mabel, starts warning you about Lily. or not Lily. Amanda. Amanda. Who is the most powerful seeing one up until you.
01:21:56
Speaker
Yes. she does She can really interact with Lustga. um She has these visions. And she wants to get to another. She wants to get beyond Lustga and go to this other setting, in this other world known as Zuthar.
01:22:12
Speaker
it's The other thing you learn is that there's been a bunch of seeing ones um that have come and gone. a lot of them have died. Yeah. and recently, a couple of them that were doing just fine have disappeared.
01:22:26
Speaker
Yeah. Also, it's important to say Jonathan is Amanda's husband. And when Jonathan kills Lily, he's like, I can't let what happen to me happened to happen to you. Right. So at this point, hey, it's fucking obvious.
01:22:38
Speaker
Amanda's evil, too. Yeah, it's a very, yeah, evil and also kind of driven by power. You know, reading all these ancient texts and documents and, you know, wondering, again, how she can get like the, what kind of power and and ecstasy she can bring to the world. But at at what cost, once again, because it's not going to end good. it's right There's something where, don't we have to like,
01:23:04
Speaker
purge the world. Maybe not purge. so Purge is maybe not the right word. Yeah, what she wants to do is she wants to like bring one of these gods to this world to open up the like open up the gate between the two worlds and thus flood all of humanity with eternal ecstasy. It basically...
01:23:22
Speaker
It's basically like a fucking lobotomy to the world, right? Like everybody, she she she mentions things like everybody you've ever known will be like locked in eternal ecstasy. So it basically people aren't going to have free will or free thought or, you know, the range of human emotions anymore.
01:23:40
Speaker
Like why though? That's what I just, that's what I want to know. Why? How is it ecstasy if you don't have any free will? What is the point of this lore? Yeah. I think that's the point that they're getting at, right? Like, i think she is so, okay. So Amanda was used by the previous person who ran the cult of ecstasy, who everybody kind of agrees was an evil person. and And she was like, she had sex with one of the gods. And that's what she has got to like a baby. That's like a half like demon thing.
01:24:16
Speaker
But she like miscarried it or something. Yeah, this this part. I'm not saying this part doesn't make sense. I actually think it probably does. I'm just saying I didn't read this stuff as closely as I should have.
01:24:27
Speaker
But yeah, I think it's like she miscarried. We're led to believe she miscarried. She actually didn't. She had this baby. It lives in Luska now. And it's like a weird demon guy.
01:24:38
Speaker
And this is what drove her to this kind of like brink of insanity. it It just
Art and Aesthetic Criticism
01:24:44
Speaker
sounds like it's one of those stories where no matter what you do in this world, when you unlock these gates and go into these settings, you are going to lose it no matter how well-intentioned you were.
01:24:56
Speaker
Because it does it does make implications that Amanda and Jonathan were kind of good, sensible people at some point, right? And then they get, you know, and then they...
01:25:07
Speaker
get kind of involved in this and they just lose their minds. it's It's that old story of like things that are beyond our comprehension can drive us crazy, you know? Yes. And I think that's what this game is trying to drive at this idea that there's like a, the sensations of pain and the sensation of pleasure are not that far removed from one another, which is a little bit of that fiction babble.
01:25:32
Speaker
yeah That have talked about the poetic babble that I've talked about before. Like, obviously, all of us know the difference between pleasure and pain. But if somebody says to you in a poetic way, like, all the boundaries between and pleasure and pain are thin. And like, they could say it in a poetic enough way where you're kind of like, ah yeah, sure. Okay. I can do it for the moment. But then you think about it for a while and you're like, wait, no, I know.
01:25:57
Speaker
Not really. yeah But there's some other things like lust and anger. aren't that far apart as emotions. I think that's probably kind of true. Sure. I think the idea of horror and pornography are not that dissimilar sure endeavors. I think that's also kind of true.
01:26:15
Speaker
I think like a lot of the comparisons it's drawing, you know, a shock and intrigue, right? Like, right do I find that interesting or do I find that disgusting? Right.
01:26:25
Speaker
is Is not that different. i So I think a lot of the things it's trying to draw aren't wrong. Yeah, even like the even the the concept of what is attractive, what is beauty is kind of brought up, you know, when when you first go to Luska, Amanda shows you Luska, she kind of helps you to navigate it.
01:26:44
Speaker
And she's like, look at this beautiful setting. Isn't it beautiful? Don't you find it amazing? And he's like, No, I find it horrible and and terrifying and ugly. And just the whole concept of what people find beauty, I think, has always been really intriguing to me, especially as specifically a visual artist. it's I think it's so easy to appreciate something pretty versus something, end quote, in quotes, ugly.
01:27:12
Speaker
i like that kind of challenge. You know, I like that that kind of concept and that challenge. i think that's, yeah, I think you're absolutely right that that's all throughout this game is like the blurred line between the grotesque and the beautiful.
01:27:28
Speaker
Yeah. And like there's things like um the Hieronymus Bosch painting, the Garden of Earthly Delights. Yeah. is hanging in the mansion. Yeah. and other art that I don't know by name.
01:27:42
Speaker
I noticed like the girl with the pearl earring by veneer was in there as well, or an iteration of it, let's say. Girl with the pearl earring even is about beauty and eeriness yeah at the same time. And I think Even in the artworks it's referencing, I think there's things to be taken yeah from this game.
01:28:08
Speaker
My problem with it is just that it is not at any point enjoyable. Yeah. and I've seen all these points made more eloquently in other places, including the artwork artworks are being referenced in this game. Yeah.
01:28:28
Speaker
And like you keep saying, Hellraiser. Hellraiser is about, ah you know, these creatures that come from a dimension in which pleasure and pain are the same sensation.
01:28:40
Speaker
Right. And the the movie constantly weaves sex and horror and violence and ah eroticism together.
01:28:53
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, again, it's just it's all been done. Yeah, more effectively. More effectively. Yeah. And yeah just even the, you know, the the Lovecraft and Cthulhu stuff.
01:29:05
Speaker
I'm just so tired of it. I don't hate it. I've played my fair share of HP Lovecraft inspired games and ah and I've liked them. I'm
Technical Issues and Game Mechanics
01:29:14
Speaker
just tired when it's kind of this more this samey nature of i get ah I guess the ancient ones and characters with tentacles on them. And I'm like, I'm just a little tired. I'm just a little tired of it.
01:29:24
Speaker
I think like you were saying earlier, you said you like Lovecraftian stuff when it's more subtle. I think I go either way. These days, what appeals to me is either a direct interpretation Of a Lovecraft story or a very subtle weaving in of Lovecraftian ideas.
01:29:46
Speaker
I'm not sure that I love this. It's just like Lovecraftian fiction. Yeah. The way maybe I did 10 years ago. Yeah, that's fair.
01:29:57
Speaker
So I'm just going to read some random shit out of my notebook. Sure, go ahead. That I either liked or hated. Let's see. The load times were fucking terrible. They were. I was shocked.
01:30:09
Speaker
I was really shocked about the load times. And like, I guess we're kind of spoiled these days because, know, load times were pretty bad when I was growing up on yeah video games, but they're not anymore. And I was kind of shocked.
01:30:23
Speaker
I was shocked that the load times were as long as they were. And there's not save slots. Like you can't manually save. So sometimes you die. There was this horrible sequence. One of the last action sequences that is in a boss fight. There's like three boss fights in this game.
01:30:39
Speaker
Yeah. Is very long and very involved and also involves you. This happens three times in the game. and You get all your inventory taken away. And instead of picking it all back and up at once,
01:30:51
Speaker
They're all individual objects inside a chest. So you have to bend down and go pick up, pick up, pick up. Oh, I hated picking things up in this game. picked i hated I hated opening drawers. I hated opening cabinets.
01:31:03
Speaker
it it There's so many cabinets and drawers and most there stuffing so of them are empty. And every now and then one isn't. So you have to open all them. You what that does to an adventure gamer like me?
01:31:14
Speaker
to open a really cool looking armoire and there's nothing? Yeah. It destroys me inside.
01:31:23
Speaker
So sometimes your checkpoint will be so far back and you have to wait through these very long load times and then have to do it all over again. It's horrible. Also, cut scenes. If you press any two buttons and I was playing this all on the controller, if you press any two buttons, it just automatically skips.
01:31:40
Speaker
Oh, I didn't know that. And you don't have to hold. There's not a yes or no. Yeah. And then there's always auto save right after a cut scene. So if there's a cut scene I wanted to see and I missed it, then I have to sit through a really long fucking loading screen and then it auto saves and that cut scene's gone and there's no chapter select. So I can't.
01:32:01
Speaker
So that's frustrating. There needs to either be chapter select or save slots. This game has that horrible problem in some platforming games where ah your character can't even climb like a little ledge. If there's a little ledge in front of you, you have to go five minutes yeah around through some series of puzzles to get up onto the ledge. yeah You couldn't have just stepped a little bigger.
01:32:28
Speaker
ah Maybe a little hop. Just a little one. Oh, here's a note that I wrote. I'm the wet bandit of video games. Here's what I mean by that. Do remember the wet bandits in ah Home Alone?
01:32:44
Speaker
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Where they would go in and and put people's faucets on. If there's a faucet in a video game, i turn it on and leave it running. Every time.
01:32:54
Speaker
Yeah. How dare you? The water bill. but ah Everybody's wearing masks in this game and the masks are super cool. The masks are very cool. I like them. Yeah, I like the masks. Yeah, for sure. I want to get all of this out so i never have to think about any of this again. I almost quit the game when the man when I had to watch the man shitting while I was getting a blowjob.
01:33:15
Speaker
i to hit I had to hit quick time prompts. while getting a blowjob, while watching a man shit on a woman and her rub it into her chest. I didn't see that scene, and I am glad.
01:33:27
Speaker
You're right, because yeah you watched some playthroughs for some parts of it. For some parts of it, yeah. They were censored. Yeah. i played it I played about eight hours of the game, which is yeah more than enough to talk about. And then I watched some of the action parts.
01:33:41
Speaker
And they are yeah spliced in with sexual parts, too. So I didn't know when a... when a Action scene was going to end. So I just watched, you know, a few of the scenes. And I also watched both endings.
01:33:53
Speaker
So I can I didn't mean to call you out here. I just wanted people to know that I didn't choose to watch the man shitting. This wasn't like when you said, oh I didn't watch that scene.
01:34:05
Speaker
It's not like there was a pop-up at one point where it's like, do you want to watch a man shit for a while or not? And Matt clicked yes, and Rose clicked no. that's not I just didn't want that to be mine.
01:34:18
Speaker
It just so happened that the playthrough, and this makes this makes sense, but the playthrough I watched, I didn't know this at first, was uncensored. Or sorry, was censored. It was censored. Yeah. And that makes sense. You know, you're putting can't really put that kind of stuff up on YouTube, especially what you've just described.
01:34:34
Speaker
So and and I didn't even know that. So when I was watching some of the play there, I was texting you. I'm like, I don't get it. There's like nothing in here. and now you're telling me about this scene. And I'm like, oh, but that play there was definitely they were playing the censored version.
01:34:49
Speaker
There's two things that this game does that I absolutely loved. OK. Number one, when you go to Lustga with Amanda, the first time you go there with her and she's like showing you the puzzles that you have to solve in order to open a door.
01:35:06
Speaker
Yeah. Victor says, do you have to do this every time you come here? yeah Yes. Which is something you know I talk about all the fucking time. Yes. Why would your living room require you to solve a slider puzzle to get into it? Every single time. What happens if you wake up in the middle of the night and to go through the living room to get to the kitchen to get a glass of water? Yeah. Just sit down and solve a slider puzzle?
01:35:34
Speaker
That drives me crazy. It drives crazy. The reason they say is like Luska shifts and changes every time. Because it's living. Yeah. Of course, you do end up going back to the same place in Luska a couple times. Yep.
01:35:46
Speaker
And it doesn't change at all. so No.
01:35:51
Speaker
Lastly, for a game that me and you hate, it does our favorite thing. You do have to find a loose crank at point. true. It's true, you guys. You find it in a pile of dead bodies. Yeah. And you use it to lower a naked dead woman from the ceiling and take a golden hand out of her mouth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep.
01:36:11
Speaker
But, yep, loose crank. Loose crank. And not even the sexual kind. Like an actual lover. There are severed penises in this game. So there are some loose cranks. I guess there are some loose ones.
01:36:26
Speaker
And a lot of dildos. So many. Oh my God. So many. Everybody has... This is a thing you could find. You get access to each of the characters' rooms at different times, at different points in the game. Yes.
01:36:39
Speaker
Yes. So everybody's room has... A dildo that is custom to them. Yeah. That says something about their personality. And every time you pick it up, he says, looks like I found Mabel's little friend. Yeah. Yeah. Looks like I found Sabinian's little friend.
01:37:00
Speaker
Looks like I found Amanda's little friend. Like every single time. You know what? That makes me... There's one other thing I want to say.
01:37:11
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead. Another thing this game is good at, which is environmental storytelling. Sure. There are some things in this game, objects that go unremarked upon, yeah that reveal things about the characters in the story.
01:37:24
Speaker
True. That's true. times that you find something in a drawer, like a mask in a drawer, and you don't know what it is until much later. And you're like, if you really stop and think about it you're like, oh, wait, that was...
01:37:37
Speaker
oh wait, I bet that's this person's mask and the fact that it's in this person's room means this. You could make certain inferences like that at different points yeah if you wanted to, if you cared enough.
01:37:49
Speaker
It's very detailed. And and like for me, again, it's it's it is overly stimulating. It's overly detailed. But I do appreciate those items that were placed you know designed and placed to to benefit the characters, ah the character design and the world building.
01:38:05
Speaker
Before, you know, we've said too many nice things about that this, just to go back to it. This game sucks to play. And it sucks to play the whole way through. It feels bad. It looks bad. It's not fun, you guys. like i wanted It sounds I wanted it to be fun. There were parts where I thought it was going to give me kind of that adventure game-y scratch that I was looking for.
01:38:26
Speaker
Or that cozy scratch, at least. But it it's not fun. It's clunky. Yeah. There's so much running, you guys. There's just the the world is too big or just too or just hard or just too complicated to navigate. And I i really started to get frustrated with the settings.
01:38:42
Speaker
And it's not sexy enough for a sex game. it It's not scary enough for a horror game. and Like I said, I went into it with no preconceived notions. I even texted you saying I might like this game if it's giving me a vibe.
01:38:55
Speaker
And then that was kind of quickly just shat on. And it put me literally and it put me. in a bad mood. i like i didn't realize I didn't realize for you know a couple of days, like man, i'm I'm not feeling good this week.
01:39:12
Speaker
And not like super depressed, just kind of like grumpy, just kind of like, and i i didn't realize why until think last night, I realized it. And then today I was just out of like, I couldn't, I realized I was like completely not in control of it.
01:39:30
Speaker
I just like, yeah didn't really want to talk to anybody and want to do anything. Like it was just kind of grumpy. Me too. Yeah. And it was like, i think it was just because I knew I had to play this game. I knew to talk about this game. yeah And i was, and I, I just like was doing something that I just felt and I've played bad, bad games. Don't normally do this to me.
01:39:52
Speaker
Yeah. Or even, you know, even similarly to just to make a comparison, you don't always feel this way after ah a bad movie or a sad movie or a complicated movie. You'll have feelings about it, but it's not often where I'm just so cranky and just like frustrated. Because it's like I'm frustrated. And at the same time, I just had to watch a man shit on a woman's chest.
01:40:16
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Like I'm I'm I'm bored. And at the same time, I just had to listen to squelching noises for an hour. Yeah. Right. Like it's this combination of ah I'm grossed out and bored. Yeah.
01:40:32
Speaker
And frustrated. And disappointed. Like, i'm I'm all sorts of things. Yeah. No, I agree. I agree. And I want to end it by saying I do understand that there's still, i will say, just to reiterate, there is a lot of thought put into this.
01:40:50
Speaker
I can tell it's not just slapped together or anything like that. it's It does seem like themes are on the table here. I just didn't like playing it. And it I think it does have potential. I think with some polish, with some better mechanics, it could be a better, a good horror erotic game.
01:41:12
Speaker
But yeah, if I have to run anywhere else, like slashing a knife around, i'm going to lose my mind. Yeah. Yeah. How many times you jack off while playing this game? Like a to fucking two dozen?
01:41:25
Speaker
Zero times. Hell yeah, man. What's the opposite of pleasuring yourself? Because whatever that is, that's what I was doing. Playing this game. i think I was torturing myself. You know what is pleasurable?
01:41:39
Speaker
I'm hitting uninstall right now. And it is no longer on my computer. Honestly, I might, I need to do that because it took up a lot of gigs. It's like four gigs, which I know like these days isn't that, isn't that large of a file, but When you're you have ah thousand video games on your computer. Yeah. And also I have all these videos on my computer. So I, these gigs matter to me. I'm
Episode Reflection and Listener Engagement
01:42:05
Speaker
sorry.
01:42:06
Speaker
and So next week we'll play another better scary game. and Yeah. A spooky game. I don't know if we'll ever play a sexy game again.
01:42:17
Speaker
I mean, well, I'm sure we'll play games that are incidentally sexy, but I don't know that we'll ever play another porn game. Hope you enjoyed episode 69. Everybody. 69. They're not bits. This should have been not bits and bobs. They're just numbers.
01:42:32
Speaker
This should have been a fucking celebration instead. Now we got to wait until episode 420 to have another funny number. Oh, no.
01:42:43
Speaker
There's got to be another funny number coming up. Is there not? c eight it's not a number all right everybody thank you so much for listening to save your game uh sorry this was this was a weird one i it i also i want to know if you guys are for us like if listening to this has been unpleasant like i yeah i think we talked about this before we went we started recording like Yeah.
01:43:14
Speaker
We can't just be on here and complaining because that'll be unpleasant to listen to. And then we'll have played this game for nothing. But we did do a lot of complaining. So like, I hope. No, I think we did a lot. I think we did a lot of criticizing. Yes. the I did. I always complain about something. Right. Yes.
01:43:31
Speaker
have a headache. I have a headache from this game. I'm going to complain about it. But I think mostly we had some pretty, pretty decent discussion about, you know, at least the game intention.
01:43:43
Speaker
I hope so. Let us know how you felt about this episode. um And one of the two ways you can give those to us. Well, there's a couple ways you can leave a comment on our YouTube. You could leave a comment on our Spotify channel.
01:43:54
Speaker
um You could email us, mattandroses at gmail.com, or you could join our Discord. There will be a link in the show notes. Yeah. Or you could ah also ah follow our Instagram.
01:44:07
Speaker
We post updates. Sometimes we post art. Matt's been good about posting embarrassing outtakes from moi. So it's fun. We have a fun time on our socials.
01:44:19
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. So, you know, come back next week. There's a game that I am hoping we get to talk about next week, a game I'm really looking forward to that's supposed to come out.
01:44:29
Speaker
If we get a review code for it, there'll be ah a really a really exciting kind of came out of nowhere game and nice um that we're talking about next week. otherwise Otherwise, we'll be talking about a game from a couple of years ago that also, you know, that people really loved. So, yeah.
01:44:46
Speaker
well Either way, we'll be talking about a good and exciting game next week. Yes. All right. So that leaves only one thing left for us to say. What? What is it? This podcast is Suffer.
01:44:58
Speaker
And art is also still Suffer. Sorry, guys. This has been Suffer. All right. Bye, everyone.