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Episode 18 - Duck Detective and Harvester
2.5k Plays6 months ago
We all knew it was coming eventually. THE BIG TWO! Such a natural pairing of two pieces of media we probably don't even need to mention it. But we will. Matt and Roses play and talk about Duck Detective: The Secret Salami and Harvester. The 1996 FMV video game Harvester. The episode basically records itself.
We also say goodbye to a dear, dear, dear, dear friend.
Email us! [email protected]
Games Mentioned:
- Kings Quest V (R.I.P.)
- Duck Detective: The Secret Salami
- An English Haunting
- Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
- Nightmare Frames
- The Last Door
- Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
- Resident Evil
- Silent Hill
- Case of the Golden Idol
- Harvester
- Night Trap
Recommended
Transcript
Farewell to King's Quest V References
00:00:01
Speaker
There's something we need to talk about. There's something very important that we need to discuss about this podcast. About the podcast? Yeah. About how amazing it is? I know. Roses, it is time for us to stop bringing up King's Quest V every episode.
00:00:27
Speaker
No, I can't. Every single episode, either me or you, talks about the Yeti, the pie, the mutton chop. No, it's me too. It's not just you, the mutton chop, the cat, the stick, the boot. The people listening who have never played King's Quest now have a full walkthrough, memorized.
00:00:49
Speaker
But I didn't even explain how to get to the bandits camp yet. I can't stop talking about King's Quest V, it's my favorite. Okay, how about this? We can talk about King's Quest V. Somebody call us out, how dare you? We can keep talking about King's Quest V, but we have to retire. And we can say a fond farewell to them right now. You can eulogize them if we want. We have to say a fond farewell to the boot cat stick mouse.
00:01:19
Speaker
Basement puzzle. It cannot be our frame of reference for everything ever. Okay, well. Okay. Goodbye, boot stick. We love you, dear friend. Cat rat, yeah. You are the worst puzzle that's ever been made, and we loved you so much for it. And now, okay, now we have to say goodbye to the cheese in the machine puzzle.
00:01:46
Speaker
No, I can't. I can't let it go. No, I can't let it go. I love that puzzle that I have a problem. Can we say, can we? Can we say goodbye to the throw the pie in the Eddie's face puzzle? Yes.
00:02:02
Speaker
Okay. Yes, we can say goodbye. You know what, Yeti puzzle? It's been a good run. I didn't think you were as hard as other people did, and I will miss you dearly. In memoriam, amen. We love you, King's Quest. Well, we feel ways about you, King's Quest. Well, Rose's loves you, King's Quest.
00:02:24
Speaker
We both have feelings about you, King's Quest V. And, you know, we'll return to you like a dear friend one day.
Physical Appearance and Skincare Debates
00:02:30
Speaker
But from now on, the secret objective of this podcast, when you look at our task list in the upper left-hand corner of our screen, secret task is do not mention King's Quest V. I'm gonna try so hard, but no guarantees. We're gonna try so, so hard. In memoriam.
00:03:13
Speaker
Everyone pushing up roses here. Welcome back to save your game with me as always the sparkling the I Got nothing the best. Oh No, it's not that it's just that I have to redo my adjectives like every week I don't want to use the same one, you know, I've used enigmatic effervescence all the e ones you know energetic we can't have to retire the e ones and go to something else and
00:03:41
Speaker
I like sparkling because it makes me feel like a- The sparkly boy. I feel like a twilight vampire. That's exactly what I was thinking. And it's true, too. You've now met me in person. Yeah. We finally met in person. Kind of vampiric, really. Yeah, when you see me, I do literally shimmer in the sunshine. You have the clearest skin I've ever seen in my life.
00:04:09
Speaker
What is going on? Okay, I'll tell you. Okay, the secret to my skin is never moisturize it, take too hot of showers, drink too much, eat too much sugar. That is not fair. And have pizza every day. Good, great. And then you get skin as nice as mine.
00:04:31
Speaker
I'm kind of sad I missed the long haired Matt era. That era is now gone and past us. Yeah, and you know, and I'm sorry. I know I was like a little, I mean, I was still really, really strong, but I was a little less strong. It's kind of like Samson when you cut my hair. Some of my strength goes away.
00:04:52
Speaker
That's okay. That's, that's forgiven. You were pretty strong. We didn't test the jumping. I'm a little upset. I didn't test the jumping. Well, we were mostly indoors and except for, and then when we were outside, everyone was, uh, marveling over my sparkling skin that shimmered in the sunshine. Like, yeah, just the shimmer is like gold. He shimmers like gold. And just so you, so you guys know, pushing up roses is 11 feet tall.
00:05:21
Speaker
that is something i learned and and she'll never tell that yeah she'll never be honest about that on the podcast or no i'm very you know i'm very i'm very very uh self-conscious about my 11 foot tall being everybody always thinks i'm short and that's the truth everyone always thinks i'm short but i'm not i'm actually i would say it's pretty tall taller than me
00:05:42
Speaker
Am I taller? No. Am I taller than you? I think so. Well, okay, hold on. I think you were just intimidated. That's all that was. Height check! Height check! Who are you saying that to? I'm five. No. I'm five eight. I am almost five eight. Almost. You know what? Put it over my boots. My boots put it over. I was just going to say, you are probably wearing boots and I was probably wearing canvas sneakers. So yeah, you probably were taller than me.
Game Reviews: English Haunting
00:06:13
Speaker
Yeah, or you just felt that way because I was so magnificent in person that you were like, oh my God, she's so tall. Yeah, that's also probably true. That's probably what happened. I understand. I'm very intimidating. How are you? How's your week been? How is life?
00:06:33
Speaker
It's good, I played some games yesterday. I got my hair fixed today, so I have good hair and good games, which is a good combination to have, it's all good. There's, I think one of the games that you've been playing, I've also been playing, so I wonder if we should sequester that into a segment. Okay, what have you been playing?
00:07:01
Speaker
I have been playing, and finished, Duck Detective, The Secret Salami. So played and finished. Why don't we sequester that into a segment? Why don't we? Because we are going to talk today, dear listener, about Harvester. That's what this episode's going to be about. Yay! I don't know why we're doing this. 1996 exploitation schlock.
00:07:25
Speaker
FMV game harvester, but why don't we do a short segment about duck detective in between? Yeah And then the other game that I've been playing for this podcast, but also for myself as well I think we are gonna cover but I booted it up because I was I have a genuine interest is an English haunting. Oh Yes, I don't know how far I am in it. I'm in this this
00:07:52
Speaker
this feeling, this emotion of, I want this to ramp up as soon as it can because right now I feel like I'm not doing much. And that's not to say I don't like it. It's got this, we already, we talked about this in our demos episode. It looks beautiful.
00:08:11
Speaker
It sounds beautiful. Yeah. You know, it takes place in early nineteen hundreds and the music and the settings that they match that they match that time in London. So everything looks really nice. I found the puzzles that I've done so far pretty great. I'm not overly struggling with anything.
00:08:33
Speaker
But I need it to ramp up, Matt. I need something to happen. Why don't you give me just like a hint as to how far in you are. I have not gotten my lantern working, so I've not been in that basement in the house yet, where the shoeshine boy is. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes. So that's the place I'm supposed to go.
00:08:57
Speaker
I love the premise, by the way. I think the premise is great. And again, I know we spoke about it in our demos thing, but just for the listeners real quick, we're playing a character that is kind of one of the heads of a metaphysics department. And our partner has
00:09:14
Speaker
gotten himself into some trouble. He seems to have taken a donation to the school. A donation was made to our department, but our partner, another professor, took it, allegedly. Absconded with it. Yeah, yeah, withdrew it from the bank and ran away. Yeah, and now he's nowhere. And so some of the other higher ups at this university we teach at, they're like, you know what?
00:09:38
Speaker
You have, we're gonna shut this department down unless, in 72 hours, you can prove that ghosts exist. I'm like, well, that's impossible, but I'm gonna do my best. Our character says as much too as like, this is impossible.
00:09:53
Speaker
Yeah, this is an impossible time frame. I really do. I really do enjoy that promise. There's a lot of things I am just loving about this game. I think where I'm getting a little a little and I'm not stuck. I'm just like waiting is I'm kind of I'm kind of comparing this to Gabriel Knight.
00:10:12
Speaker
right in a sense that there's something supernatural that could possibly occur right now we're very grounded uh we have a map that we it it's very similar the way you travel around a city yeah bounce yep bouncing around a big city talking and the settings are kind of similarly structured but the difference is gabriel night went hard right away and then i kind of did it did it go hard right away i'm actually trying to remember the beginning of gabriel night you have uh you wake up from a nightmare
00:10:41
Speaker
Yeah, you wake up from that intense, so it does go kind of hard right away. You're already having kind of these supernatural haunting dreams with haunting imagery. Then you do spend a long time investigating a murder and voodoo without really seeing any action or anything super interesting happening.
00:11:04
Speaker
I don't think it's the lack of action. I think it's the way the story was told. I always felt a little bit tense with Gabriel Knight. And then I kind of thought about The Last Door and kind of made a comparison there. Sure. That game goes hard immediately.
00:11:19
Speaker
You are in it immediately. And I think maybe I was craving that because now I'm kind of, I'm still in this casual mode. I'm getting to know my settings. I've unlocked a ton of settings, which is very satisfying by the way. Love unlocking new settings, just like in Gabriel Knight.
00:11:38
Speaker
But I feel like I'm almost there, but I needed to ramp up because right now it's not. And another thing I feel like I don't know if I have to warn the viewer about this, but because it is time accurate, like you're accurate, so are the way people talk.
00:11:58
Speaker
Um, and thus in London at this time, there will be sex workers. They will be called prostitutes. Uh, men will refer to them as whores. And I don't know how I feel about that. How do you feel about that? How do you feel about using language accurate stuff for that kind of stuff? Um, you know, I,
00:12:21
Speaker
I think it becomes more dicey when you get into race or sexuality, even nationality. I think when you're talking about a profession, I think it is... It's hard, right?
00:12:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's changed its function and public perception so many times in history. And it's always been prevalent in every part of history. So I just don't see how we get around it. And I don't think people being super woke about sex workers would... I think that would feel very weird.
00:13:05
Speaker
Sure. And it would be different if they were pulling a King's quest. If these, if the sex workers were damsels, if they were in distress, if it went into, let's be honest, you know, police quest, white power, man fantasy. Yeah. Then I think it would be different, but the characters themselves are smart and savvy and perfectly fine. They're not portrayed in a negative light. That's what I was just going to say. And the people who speak ill of them are portrayed in a negative light.
00:13:35
Speaker
Yes, they're they're people who yeah, the people who are the worst to the sex workers are all bad people and our character doesn't seem thrilled to be spending time with them but isn't really feel it doesn't the judgment isn't vocalized and isn't and it's nobody's judgments of them are rewarded so
00:14:00
Speaker
from that angle i think i feel okay about it but i can see how if you um
00:14:08
Speaker
I can see how if you identify as female or if you have any sort of connection to sex work, it might bristle up against, you know. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, I can kind of accept it because of the tone, because of the context, but I'm always a little on edge about that kind of stuff, you know? Sure. Just from previous games and how they've handled that kind of thing and just being in the gaming space, just in general.
00:14:36
Speaker
So I'm always, I guess, I don't know if wary is the right word, but I'm always alert, making sure that the context makes sense. And so I think I am okay with that. And I'm just, I'm just dying for something to happen. I think I just, I didn't quite get there. I think I spent maybe an hour and a half on it. Just kind of looking around and talking.
00:15:02
Speaker
I think you're on the cusp. It is sort of a quiet game. It does ramp up a bit, but you are gonna experience some lulls. And I mean, you did in Gabriel Knight as well, but I see what you mean. Playing Gabriel Knight, you felt attention the entire time. I think I did feel that in this game. So maybe me and you are having just slightly different experiences with how we're like personally reacting to it. But definitely you were on the cusp of
00:15:32
Speaker
weird things happening and some funny things happening.
00:15:36
Speaker
So- It has some humor to it. I'll give it that. I liked some of the quick cuts and some of the humor. I will say this, I realized this is the funniest thing ever, and also annoying. Why can't us as adventure gamers, why can't we get a matchbook that doesn't fall into a puddle? Why? Why? Why? Why? The game knows what it was doing. Devs, you knew what you were doing. You did it on purpose because you know.
00:16:06
Speaker
that there's no such thing as a dry matchbook in an adventure game. I mean, absolutely they did. Yeah. Absolutely. Even the characters like, Oh, so sorry. So I'm just so clumsy. I just don't immediately. Yeah. Just immediately. I'm like, really? Yeah.
00:16:23
Speaker
like you're kidding me right and then so I realized I couldn't go ahead another game we'll be talking
Introducing Lorelai and the Laser Eyes
00:16:28
Speaker
about today you do get a dry matchbook oh okay oh you mean harvester yeah yes well they're not all obviously they're not all wet yeah I know I just still I still could not believe that yeah and because of that I went to the house
00:16:43
Speaker
which is arguably going to be a tense or frightening moment. And I went into this basement and it was dark, right? As it is in adventure games. If you don't have a lantern, you don't have a light source, it's gonna be dark. And so I got there with my wet match and my lantern, I'm like, oh, I'm not ready for this. But the music was absolutely horrifying to me.
00:17:06
Speaker
and I like it was so scary I jetted out of the basement so quickly because I knew I couldn't light my lantern and the music was terrifying me I'm like oh no nope nope nope nope ghosts and I'm I'm a person that believes in ghosts and is afraid of them okay so great perfect in english haunting so postmodern adventure so far has done two games nightmare frames which was also a period piece
00:17:34
Speaker
said in Exploitation Hollywood, you play a horror writer in Exploitation. Oh, is it like very Stephen King? I don't know. I haven't read much Stephen King, but you play an Exploitation-era horror writer who is out of work and then, I guess, kind of stumbles upon a real satanic cult in Hollywood. Fun times. And in this one,
00:18:03
Speaker
you play, yeah, this metaphysics professor in London who is having to deal with like the spiritism movement. And I mean, what I like about both these games is just like how crazily well researched they are. I think that's why I was kind of like, oh, it's a little bit Gabriel Knight-esque, because there's clearly research into the time and the subject matter, too.
00:18:30
Speaker
There's even, so there's a lot of like gothic horror elements to this, in English, haunting there, which, you know, gothic horror was a little bit slow, but you do go into an early, you know, 1900s horror bookstore at one point, and all it is, like there's no point in it, and the character even remarks there's no reason he should be in there.
00:18:54
Speaker
And all it is is just references and jokes about early 1900s and late 1800s horror novels. And it's very, very cool. That's awesome. But anyway, yeah, so you are tentatively enjoying it, but you are worried that it's going to lose your interest.
00:19:18
Speaker
Yeah, and part of that is in my own head, like I just, I can't be comparing it to Gabriel Knight, you know, I have to make sure that it's its own, or the last door, which was very, which very much like, I had a great reaction to, I loved the last door. So I'm trying to like keep it as its own identity, if it's a little slower, if it's a little more subdued than it is. And I'm, you know, I'm still very much enjoying it,
00:19:45
Speaker
because man it is it's an adventure game like through through it's very um very just point to standard point and click format which i like i i that's the kind of game i want to play so
00:20:00
Speaker
Yeah, I'm curious. I'm probably going to play more of it maybe tonight or tomorrow and see what happens. I think it's what, a seven hour, six hour, seven hour game maybe? I don't know how long it is. I have not beaten it yet. I am 2.6 hours into it and I feel like I'm coming across like a midway point. Okay. But I don't know. Who knows? It could go much longer. Yeah. I am 87 minutes in.
00:20:25
Speaker
okay so that's where we're at but yeah i would love to talk about the other game that we played and finished uh which is the duck detective yeah i think we should let's let's do that in another segment also i do want to say to the um yes
00:20:41
Speaker
because they've asked us this before to let them know when we are going to go a little deeper into games so that they can catch up before the episode comes out. And we never do because we kind of, we plan all our episodes, but we shuffle them around a lot and we, a lot of times we'll make a decision about what our next episode is gonna be in between.
00:21:04
Speaker
recordings. That's true. Yeah. Cause you know, life. So next episode we will be talking about in English haunting and nightmare frames. So if you guys want to catch up and play those games or play a little bit of those games, um, then you can follow along in our discussion next week. Definitely. Good job, Matt. Thank you. I remember to do something
00:21:29
Speaker
We're doing great. So before we talk about Duck Detective, I have been playing one other game that I want to talk about real quickly. And I think I have to talk about it quickly because I don't really know what's going on. Oh boy. That is Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. That's an interesting name.
00:21:51
Speaker
Mm hmm. It's a black and it's a mostly black and white game. It's tank controls and you almost feel a little bit like you're in a modern version of like one of those old like Silent Hill or Resident Evil or something. Okay. But it's there's no combat. It is a puzzle game.
00:22:11
Speaker
okay you are like so like so logic puzzles yeah you are summoned to this mansion or this this hotel i guess it is and i i can't really figure out why we're there i can't figure out what we're supposed to be doing there has been at least one murder uh okay there's been at least one ghost at least one
00:22:33
Speaker
Yeah, I can't tell if there's been more than one. And it's basically just like there are puzzles scattered all over this place. Most of them involve coming up with the right numbers or combinations for locks and putting together logic puzzles that you find scattered about the hotel.
00:22:59
Speaker
and then matching them with the correct, say, door or container. Sounds like the seventh guest. I think it's a little more mist-like. Yeah. Because none of the puzzles have mini-games associated with them. Okay. It's not like you dip into, like, that box game where you have to make more boxes than the other guy, or, like, you're trying to, you know,
00:23:24
Speaker
flip all the switches and they turn another switch every time you, like there's none of that stuff. It's all just like you're getting these really esoteric clues and then having to sit down and like think really hard about shapes and patterns and math and words. It's...
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think you would love it. But for people who really like smashing their head against puzzles.
Deep Dive into Duck Detective
00:23:58
Speaker
All right. You know, the other thing I would compare to is like the Professor Layton games. OK, OK. Where, yeah, they're all just kind of logic, logic puzzles that you don't do in the game. You do want a piece of paper and then input your answer into the game. Yeah.
00:24:15
Speaker
Anyway, that's Lorelai and the Laser Eyes. It's weird. I don't know if I love it, but I know that it's got a lot of puzzles that have been keeping me entertained. Well, that's good. I mean, maybe it's one of those things where once you're fully done with the journey, with the game, you'll be like, yeah, I liked it. You know...
00:24:32
Speaker
I started it and I was like, this is going to be so hard. All of this is so like, I am so confused about anything. And then I found that actually a lot of the puzzles are easier than I expected. Like that's always nice. I thought to myself, like.
00:24:49
Speaker
What if I just try the easy solution on this puzzle and it'll be wrong and then I'll move on and it worked and I was like, oh, OK, so I think I just figured out what the solutions to like seven different puzzles were because they're nice, the thing that's right in front of them. And I hadn't even I thought that it was going to be more complex than that.
00:25:09
Speaker
The game also tells you exactly how much of it you've completed, and I think I'm like 38% of the way in. So maybe it gets harder and harder, but my experience so far was, oh my god, this is gonna be the hardest game I've ever played. And then all of a sudden, like. Like, missed. Like, I find missed very, very difficult, so. Right, and it's similar to missed, where it's like, oh, actually, this is a little easier than I expected. I think I was letting myself, in both cases, get intimidated by the game
00:25:37
Speaker
And then when I actually just started trying things.
00:25:42
Speaker
it was kind of like, oh, okay, that's all it wants. That doesn't make these puzzles easy, but it makes them achievable. Yeah. I find the graphics a little off-putting, even though these are my colors, man. Normally, I'd be all up on that, but it looks almost a little irritating, I'll say that.
00:26:10
Speaker
Again, it almost feels like smoothed out versions of Resident Evil or Silent Hill or something. There's odd camera angles, there's tank controls.
00:26:24
Speaker
And there's a sequence at one point where you go into a computer to play a virtual version of Lorelei in the laser eyes, and it is super pixelated 3D models. It looks exactly like Resident Evil. So clearly that's where it's taking its, you know,
00:26:45
Speaker
visual cues from oh yeah especially with the tank controls or even even maybe alone in the dark or something it's yeah it's a weird game it's weird I don't think I do not think it's for everybody
00:26:57
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I can tell just by listening to her description, like, nah, I'm not gonna play that. Yeah. All right, do you wanna do a quick swank-smack-smack-smack-menums and talk about- Swank-smacks? Swank-smacks. That's my favorite department store. Yeah.
00:27:48
Speaker
Okay, you make your joke and you can lead us in when you're done with your joke. You know, now I'm afraid that this joke isn't, so, because listeners don't know that we just spent like 10 minutes working on technical issues. Guys, listen. And at the beginning of those technical issues, you were telling me about how you liked your idea for Nightmare Frames better. Yeah, I was. Which is haunted glasses. I was going to say, and I think this might, so,
00:27:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah
00:28:17
Speaker
I don't know if this is even a joke anymore. Because I was just going to say something true, which is that that's what Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is kind of about. Like, that's kind of what that game is about. Yeah, we were discussing at break that Matt is a little imp, and he's like, yeah, I should play Nightmare Frames. And I'm like, oh, is it about haunted glasses? And he's like, yeah, it is.
00:28:45
Speaker
And I'm like, really? He's like, no. I'm like, what the fuck, Matt? I really thought it was about like, possessed. Cause like, you know, I do a lot of goosebumps and are you afraid of the dark things? And those are, they have like stories about haunted glasses.
00:29:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I told you it was a horror story where all you have to do is not wear a pair of glasses, but for some reason everybody keeps putting them on. And I believed him. These glasses will kill you, don't put them on. And you just set them on your nightstand and you stare at them for hours and you're like, alright, I gotta put them on. God, why? Oh no, they're haunted! Yeah, I told you.
00:29:30
Speaker
Okay, welcome back to the show. How was your break? I know how your break was, it was terrible, we were doing the technical issues. It was terrible, we had tech problems. Okay, we've both played the game, Duck Detective, the Secret Salami. The Secret Salami, yeah. Duck Detective, the Secret Salami I think is the full name. Which we promise you guys is not as dirty as it sounds.
00:30:00
Speaker
It is not even a little. It's basically a game you can play with little kids. It doesn't mean to be called that at all. It's accidentally called that. Interestingly, I said that as well. I streamed this game when I was playing it. So I was like, oh, I think you play this with your kids.
00:30:23
Speaker
I mean, there is swearing in the game, but it's not egregious. You know, there's no F-bombs. There's like maybe a hell thrown in there or a dam thrown in there. Yeah, I actually wrote a review for this game that should be going up at some point on Adventure Game Hotspot.
00:30:43
Speaker
What I said was that there are adult references that will most likely go over a kid's head, but it might cause a very precocious child to ask some uncomfortable questions. There are occasional slight drug references, occasional slight sex references, and occasional cursing.
00:31:05
Speaker
But not in a way that, not much worse than those ones they would sneak into like Nicktoons or a Pixar cartoon or something. No, those are far worse, honestly. This one was pretty tame, I think. But yeah, so you finished it? Yeah, so let's start with what you thought about it.
00:31:32
Speaker
Well, I loved it. I think I knew I would love it, though, because we both played the demo when that was out for next fest and I was so excited. And I think the reason I was so just so thrilled was the voice acting in this game is phenomenal. So good. It's so good, you guys. I was really impressed.
00:31:53
Speaker
It never got boring. It was structured pretty well. Here's something I struggled with though, and I'll do a little refresher on the structure of how to solve crime, but you are a duck detective, you're a private eye, you're going through some stuff, you have a bread addiction, your wife divorced you, and some anonymous person has called you in to investigate a stolen lunch.
00:32:20
Speaker
which you will forget about by the end of the game. Right. You get very sidetracked. Yeah. Yeah. You get very sidetracked throughout the game. So it's pretty cut and dry. You are, you got your little notebook, kind of like, um, kind of like Dagger of Amon Rock. You can go refer to your notebook and put in information and stuff like that. And your goal initially is to get to know people
00:32:46
Speaker
See, in this game, nobody tells you their name. You have to deduce their names because nobody is introducing themselves. So actually figuring out their names via finding clues in the world that you're in or having convos with other people, like not a single person introduces themselves. You find out the names. I have actually a little bit of a problem with this. I think that the deduction in this game actually requires just a tad bit of guesswork.
00:33:13
Speaker
Yes, there are times you learn two names. And once you like, for example, you learn the names Laura and Sophie at roughly the same time. And you know, it's one of their birthdays. Yes. So once you know which ones Laura or once you know who Sophie is,
00:33:37
Speaker
everything else that you need to deduce falls into line. But there is like a little leap. You do have to go, I think this is probably Sophie. And then then you say, OK, yeah, oh, it was. All right. Now I know everything else.
00:33:53
Speaker
But the game is full of that, where it's kind of like a case of the golden idol light, where you have sentences that describe the crimes, and you're filling them in with words that you pick up during your investigation. Yeah. And those words, they come from clues, from observational clues, you know, finding notes, finding dates on calendars, looking at people's PC screens. That was a big one.
00:34:21
Speaker
and also just talking to people in the office. This is set at an office. Yeah, a bus depot office. Bear bus. Bear bus. Very cute. And yeah, you're looking for the secret salami in the bear bus. It's, again, we promise there's nothing sexual going on. There's nothing. It is literal salami, you guys, literal. And it's a bus about, that has,
00:34:50
Speaker
an actual bear as its logo and its branch manager. Yeah. And all the all the characters are animals. It's very adorable. It's very well well voice acted. But I'm going to I'm going to agree with you. And I was hoping that you would agree with me on this because there are parts points in my stream where I felt deflated trying to get the correct words for these deductions. And you're not penalized for them, which is nice. You know, what are they going to do?
00:35:20
Speaker
kill you like in Daggerball Monroe? I don't think so. So there's no penalty, just your dignity being knocked down, you know? It's the same, yeah, exactly. It's the same as Case of the Golden Idol or Return of Overdin, where it's just, you know that the fun in this game is making your deductions. And so when you have to guess, you feel like you've just ruined a bit of the fun for yourself.
00:35:48
Speaker
Yeah, and man, I was going pretty well at the beginning of the game. I was getting everything. I felt pretty good about myself. And I think what happened, and I kind of went into this on my stream, was you are solving just like any mystery, right? There's usually more going on than one suspects in this office setting, right? So everybody's got their own little story going on. And every time I figured out someone's story, my brain locked in on it.
00:36:18
Speaker
it didn't it refused to let it go and i thought everything was so intertwined that i kept kind of messing up my deductions even though i knew even though like later i i gathered i'm like oh it's not gonna be that because i already figured that out so
00:36:35
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, I really at the end there was a few I was really struggling that I got so close to it was just a matter of like the right The right words and going back and looking at notes and stuff like that I was frustrated because there is a seduction that is part of this crime that
00:36:58
Speaker
I didn't pick up on. I didn't either. Until the game gave me a sentence that required me to figure that out. I was like, wait, I thought this person was just desperately in love with this other person. I thought they had a short relationship and broke up.
00:37:21
Speaker
Right. I don't I don't see any clues leading up to here that shows me that this woman was intentionally seducing the man to help to make him participate in the crime ring. And same. No, and I say as much in my stream. I'm like, I thought this character was innocent.
00:37:40
Speaker
and just another victim of something else. I'm glad that you were on the same page because I'm like, Matt is going to be so disappointed when I tell him how stuck I got in this game. Well, this is the thing. The case of the Golden Idol is so meticulously structured so that every piece can only be its piece.
00:38:00
Speaker
And if you've guessed something wrong, you go, oh, I'm an idiot for guessing. I shouldn't have filled in that name or that word until I really understood what was going on. With Duck Detective, I felt like guessing was the only way I was gonna get this.
00:38:17
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. Same. I'm like, you know, did you use the hint system at all? Did that help you? No, I didn't use the hint system. I probably should have. I might've had a more fun time. Honestly, it's pretty helpful without being in your face, without giving you the solution. It'll say, why don't you go revisit that note over there? Why don't you talk to this person that maybe you missed? Maybe there were a few cases of where I simply forgot to interrogate somebody about a specific subject.
00:38:44
Speaker
Did you knock over all the trash cans? Of course I did. That was the most fun. For some reason, I thought that was the funniest thing. So basically as the Duck Detective, you're like a sticker. Yeah, it's so cute. You just like toddle around as like a person moving a sticker across like a color forms board or something. If you are older than 30, you will know what color forms is.
00:39:13
Speaker
There's a lot of objects that are 3D and tangible and you can just barrel into them and knock them all over the place and nobody comments on it. It's just like kicking trash around the whole office. It's so funny to me. I knocked over some people's pen holders and I'm like, what's my bad?
00:39:34
Speaker
Nobody gets annoyed about it. Everyone just like carries on as if nothing's happening There's also a dedicated quack button so you can just run around the office quacking. I didn't know that Yeah, it was it was
00:39:50
Speaker
x on my controller but i don't know when it would be on the keyboard or mouse yeah i feel like damn my chat didn't bring that up either so we must have just completely i'll have to bring that up though because i might do my own review on this game since it is quite adorable
00:40:05
Speaker
You can just run around the office knocking trash over and quacking at the top of your lungs and it's so funny. There are a lot of untitled goose game where the very first thing you do is like quack or honk rather. Right it felt yeah. It felt like what people enjoy about untitled goose game.
00:40:25
Speaker
Yeah. Also, who is who is your favorite character in the because I have a favorite and you know, I do. Who is your favorite? Oh, man, maybe I'm just a maybe I'm a basic bitch, but I liked the Duck Detective the most.
00:40:44
Speaker
Eugene McQuacklin whose name I forgot and I just got a note like right before we started recording I get an email back from my editor on my review saying I just read his name is Eugene McQuacklin and calling duck detective the entire review
00:41:00
Speaker
I mean, they do, in your defense, they do refer to him as the Duck Detective when you're deducing. He's not, you know what I mean? He's definitely called Duck Detective more often than he's called Eugene McQuacklin. Absolutely. And by a factor of like 20. Absolutely he is. Absolutely. My favorite character is Freddy, the crocodile. Okay, I thought you would. I thought it was either that going to be him or Laura, but I thought Laura's work ethic would annoy you.
00:41:29
Speaker
I mean, I felt sorry for her. I thought her caffeine addiction and anxiety would endear you to her. I mean, I was endeared to her. I wanted to protect her. You know, she had a little friendship with one of the other workers there, the giraffe named Sophie, and so cute. But Freddy is just completely innocent. He's nearly blind. He's holding the wrong mug. He's holding Laura's mug.
00:41:59
Speaker
He has the he has a bag of salami and he's like, oh I just thought somebody put that there It's going on but it turns out he's a big duck detective fan on Twitter like a like a stan and
00:42:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's really cute. I like the voice acting done by Brian David Gilbert. That's Brian David Gilbert? Yeah, it is. The Unraveled Guy. That guy, I had no idea that was his voice. That guy's so fucking funny. He's so funny, yeah. Wow, okay. Yeah, it's such a cute performance.
00:42:48
Speaker
I felt like so bad for Freddy because you learn real quick that poor Freddy is being framed. It's really obvious. I don't think any any thief would just keep the evidence in front of them. It's just it's very funny that Eugene's like, you know, you have the slummies right there. He's like, oh, I just thought somebody I thought I was like surprise slummy. And I just the whole game, he's just standing there holding a cup that says Laura.
00:43:17
Speaker
Yeah, he stole, he accidentally, he didn't steal it. He has bad eyesight, which you talk right away. He stole, he took Laura's mug. And Laura hates him. Did you send anyone to prison at the end? I did. I sent one person to prison. I sent one person to prison. I bet we sent different people to prison. Oh no. Okay, we're gonna say spoiler alert here. Okay.
00:43:42
Speaker
and I'll play some, I'll play like static here, and then I'll play static after we're done talking about the spoiler alert, because it'll be real quick. So just fast forward to the static. Okay. Who'd you send to prison? Manfred. Okay. Because he's horrible. He literally kidnapped someone. Yeah. Well, didn't she, I thought she was in on the kidnapping.
00:44:11
Speaker
No, she wasn't in on the kidnapping. He abducted her. Oh, maybe I misunderstood that part. I sent her to prison because Manfred had a... Okay, the bison was entirely innocent. We can agree there, right?
00:44:29
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't send him to prison. And the bear, and this is what Duck Detective says after you choose not to send him to prison, he has a family he's gotta take care of, who he's the sole breadwinner for, and he's only doing this because his business is falling apart. Yeah, but he still kidnaps someone.
00:44:51
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. I guess I misunderstood. So it did feel a little bit to me like he was just a desperate man in a desperate situation. Like what's prison gonna help there? It's only gonna make a bad situation worse. But then- So if you do send him to prison, Dr. Tech is like, yeah, he was in charge of the whole thing. He got people in on it. And see what happened was Sophie felt bad. She wanted to snitch.
00:45:18
Speaker
And so he abducted her. Oh. Yeah. So Sophie, I sent Sophie to prison because she, to me, it was like she was the ruthless one of the group. She was the one who had no motive besides just greed and okay, fucked with the bison, whatever the bison's name is, just fucked with his heart for no reason. Boris, yeah.
00:45:42
Speaker
Yeah, like, the bear was trying to provide for his family and he was feeling desperate. She manipulated a man into breaking the law.
00:45:54
Speaker
Just because out of just like pure, unadulterated greed. Like she has- But she felt bad about it. That she had a change of heart, which I think you didn't clock. Because I don't think you would've sent her. Yeah, so I said, I sent Sophie. And then I felt bad. Because then I was like, when she was the only one who went to jail for the whole crime, I was like,
00:46:17
Speaker
Oh, maybe I'm a little bit of an asshole. And now that you know that she was kidnapped and stuffed into a bus, that's very illegal. Yeah. OK, I will play the static and we'll come back. All right. OK, so final thoughts on Duck Detective.
00:46:42
Speaker
I love it. I highly recommend it. Like I said, some of the deducing is challenging, but there is a hint system. It's fun. It's short. So it's not, I think I was streaming it. So, you know, keep in mind, I'm kind of playing with other people. I spent maybe three and a half hours on it in the stream. So yeah, I liked it. I think it's gorgeous. Great voice acting. Yeah. Fun, fun game recommend.
00:47:09
Speaker
Uh, I feel the same way. I think it's, I just think it's a top notch game. It's only about two hours long. Um, yeah. And to me, that was the perfect length.
Exploring Harvester's Controversial Themes
00:47:19
Speaker
But if you're a person who doesn't play a lot, like if finances are a concern for you with playing video games, so you don't play a lot and you need a game that you can play, you know, for a long time or a bunch, that's something you might want to consider, but yeah.
00:47:38
Speaker
To me, Two Hours was the perfect length for this game. Yeah. I mean, it's like going to a movie, but now you own the movie. Honestly, it's about the same. It's like 12 bucks to see a movie out here. So yeah. All right. That's Duck Detective. Do you want to talk about Harvester with me?
00:48:03
Speaker
about the best game in the world? Yeah, I dare. Why don't we put on janky racks of chinos? Okay, man.
00:48:37
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back. I'm Pushing Up Roses, my co-host Matt Aucamp, and we're here to tell you about Harvester. Harvester? Oh my goodness. It is a 1996 full motion video acted, like live acted game. Live acted, yep. By DigiFX Interactive.
00:49:03
Speaker
And yeah, I'm never going to remember that honestly because I don't think they did anything else I don't I honestly don't know what do you think about that studio? I do know this was a controversial game when it came out kind of so Yes, yes and no okay in essence so the point of this game is
00:49:23
Speaker
And I'm sure people know about it. It's kind of a cult classic now, especially when it was re-released for download on GOG and Steam. You know, streamers found it. People re-found it. They're like, what the hell is this? So this game actually went through some production hell. It was actually delayed for a while. It was meant to come out around the time that video games were going to Congress. So around the Night Trap era.
00:49:47
Speaker
in the Mortal Kombat era. Oh, okay. I remember the story about this game. You're right, it's... Okay, I see where you're... Okay, go ahead. Sorry.
00:49:55
Speaker
So it kind of misses a few marks because it took so long to get out that that was passed. We're in 1996 now, man. We've got our N64s out. We don't care anymore. Night Trap, who cares? Rural combat, we're past it. But that being said, it was banned in a few countries for
00:50:20
Speaker
being a gory and inappropriate, I guess you could say. Another interesting fact is, I don't know if you clocked this, but the actor is dubbed the main guy that you play. That's not his voice. He is dubbed the whole time. I did not know that. Yes. Yep.
00:51:00
Speaker
now keep in mind this this game is kind of meant to be unnatural and have something off about it but there's something extra off about his voice acting and that's because it is dubbed uh he is not they're matching another person's voice to that body i did not know that stuff about this game yeah it's wild but yeah the the devs really wanted to
00:51:02
Speaker
I thought it was.
00:51:24
Speaker
make commentary they want to make an adventure game clearly while making commentary on the games that went to congress at the time and on violence and if violence affects kids or just people in general and it's it's very interesting the main point i always took that i always take away from harvester is it's not quite sure um
00:51:47
Speaker
You know what I mean? Because there are parts in this game that acknowledge that, yeah, America has a violence problem. And that's, but that's not, that's not our, the studio's responsibility. That's someone else's responsibility. And so they're kind of, you know, taking a few knocks at Hollywood for, for being this way, for being this shallow kind of violent way. And at the same time, they're making fun of it by essentially
00:52:16
Speaker
Some spoilers here. Not that anyone cares about Harvester spoilers, but essentially your character is in a murder simulator, which is what Congress would call some of these games, right? These are murder. We're teaching kids how to murder. Your character is in a murder simulator.
00:52:33
Speaker
So it's trying to make the notion that it's so over the top that of course it doesn't turn kids into murderers. I don't agree with like, obviously if you were exposed to violence all the time as a kid, of course it's going to affect you. We are the product of our environment and what we're influenced by all the time. But you know, they're going pretty hard at it and saying like,
00:53:00
Speaker
This doesn't matter. I can't, I can't decide. I can't decide if the game thinks it matters or not because of all of these different angles. Like you said kind of earlier, it's layered. There's a lot of layers to this game. Well, it's also, the game is, it tries to have its cake and eat too in a lot of different ways. Yeah. There are times that the game seems to think that media does influence violence.
00:53:24
Speaker
And there are times that it seems to think it does not. And it does the same thing with there are times that it seems to be ridiculing the idea of homophobia and there are times that the game is just straight-up homophobic. There are times that the game is ridiculing old-school sexism but participating in 1990s sexism.
00:53:49
Speaker
And that is purposely. I feel that is purposely. I feel like it is trying to get up right up to that edge, you know? Right. But I don't know what point they're trying to make at that point. So, OK, why don't we walk through the game and why don't we walk through it as if as if this is all as sincere and B-movie as it appears. And then we can revisit these things in the context of the twist at the end. Yeah.
00:54:17
Speaker
So do you wanna start out with just like the very basic plot here? Yeah, let's just give them the very basics. So you're playing a character named Steve Mason and you wake up and you have amnesia. Yeah. You don't remember anything. You seem to wake up in what is your own home and you have a mom there, but she's very off. She's speaking very off. You have a little brother who's also very off. He's glued to the TV watching
00:54:44
Speaker
violent TV. So you're pretty much already getting kind of these points thrown at you. But yes, you have amnesia. You're able to leave the house and explore this town that's called Harvest. That's the name of the town is Harvest.
00:55:00
Speaker
And everybody, again, is a little off. But the one thing that's consistent is everybody wants you to join the lodge. That seems to be the thing to do. But in order to join the lodge, you have to do tasks that the, let's call him the lodge master. I don't know if he has a name. All I know is that his mouth doesn't move when he talks and it's very strange. Correct.
00:55:23
Speaker
He'll give you these increasingly violent and or immoral unethical tasks to do around this town. There's only one other person in the town that also doesn't remember anything. And that's Stephanie Potsdam, who is your neighbor, I guess. And she also has amnesia. She's saying no one believes them and that there's something wrong. And to bond over this, they have very bad FMV sex. It is the worst sex you will ever see in your entire life.
00:55:52
Speaker
You know, for all this game is trying to do, it's certainly skimped. Where did she get that really fancy lingerie, by the way? I don't know. She's just, that's what she wears, you know? So, yeah. And you and her are engaged to be married and you do not know who she is at all. Right. Never mind. Yeah. She is the entire game. But yeah, in order to feel something, you know, they,
00:56:20
Speaker
They get it on. And you can get it on at any time, I think, if I'm recalling, if you want to see that scene. I think you can have sex two separate times. I think you're right. I think you can have you can have sex on like the third day and then you can have sex right before Stephanie dies. Well, so romantic. Quote unquote dies. Quote unquote. Because there's a twist.
00:56:46
Speaker
breaking down like the individual events, right? So you wake up, when you say your brother's glued to the TV, he's watching violent TV, like these really unbelievably violent, I'll use the parlance of the 1950s where this is supposed to take place, a Cowboys and Indians show.
00:57:12
Speaker
Yes, yeah. But Steve makes comments as if he does think this is inappropriate. He does think that it is inappropriate for a kid to be watching stuff this violent. And that starts to make me wonder what the perspective of this game is, right? Right. And we even go to the station, if you recall, we go to the station that is in charge of that show, of that very violent show.
00:57:40
Speaker
And it seems like the game is saying, yeah, Hollywood doesn't care. It's wrong and they don't care, but they're gonna do it anyway to profit because that's America. They basically give you two dialogue options in all of these encounters. And one is clearly like the evil option and one's the good option. And the evil option is being like, oh yeah, rules. And the good option is being like, this is wrong and kids shouldn't be watching this. And it's like, what if I feel somewhere in between these two things?
00:58:10
Speaker
Where's the nuance here? Scarvester is not a game with nuance, my friends. Your brother keeps telling you about your dad being missing and people keep talking about your dad being sick. Maybe we'll get to that in a little bit, but you talk to your mom, she doesn't really want to talk about your dad.
00:58:35
Speaker
Did you ever try to say fuck to the mom? Of course. Yes, of course. Of course I did. Yeah. It's really uncomfortable. Yeah, it is. I mean, yeah, it's very uncomfortable. We can talk about it. You know, she in this in this town of harvest.
00:58:56
Speaker
sex is very taboo in this game because it is like this sadistic masochistic thing where the women dom their husbands so hard that it leaves them incapacitated. So the dad is not missing, he is simply incapacitated or as the mom says, out of commission. So if you ask the mom to, if you say, you know. All you have to say is fuck, yeah.
00:59:25
Speaker
Yeah, all you have to say is, fuck yeah. She'll be like, maybe later since your father's at a commission, you know? Yeah, she asks if you're if it's an invitation and then you get the option to be like, you know, or yeah, I want to go for it or something like that. It's so fucking weird. It's very strange. And then, yeah. And then she says like, maybe later if you ask her to go for it.
00:59:50
Speaker
Um, yeah. So I mean, that proves right there that this is not, this is not our mom. It's not our beautiful house. It's not our beautiful white. It's not anything. Uh, and clearly every mom in the game also is the same actress. Yes. It's the same mom. Yes. It's the same mom. And he, you can comment on it as well. Steve does comment on it several times. Yeah.
01:00:15
Speaker
Um, and that being said, it, I want to mention cause this is sort of interesting for adventure games. I think it's, it's both point and click. Also you do get a text parser and that's why you're able to just input, uh, certain words. Correct. So you can input the word fuck and see what people say to that. It's bad. It's bad. It's bad. Most words don't work.
01:00:39
Speaker
even words that are incredibly relevant to the game or the conversation you're having. Somebody will say something like, um, you know, like, Oh, don't go near Mr. Potts. Damn. He's a weird guy or something. And then you say, Mr. Potts damn. And they'll be like, I don't understand what you're talking about, dear. And it's like, what the fuck? You just, you just told me this man's name.
01:01:02
Speaker
Yeah, those kind of prompts rarely work, I find. The best prompt that does that is probably the Colonel's Bequest, where you get interrogative. That's part of it, you are interrogating people. And that works pretty well, and it stays
01:01:18
Speaker
pretty relevant and it understands all the keywords. This is a crapshoot in a harvester. I'll give you two other games that it works really well. And one is Mean Streets, which is what I like so much about that game. The first Tex Murphy game ever is really good at this. In fact, you have to remember details and ask people about them with a text parser. That's how you do the investigation. And that's why I like that game so much.
01:01:47
Speaker
And then more recent games, like the Devecki Studios games, like the Infectious Madness of Dr. Decker does it really well. But yeah, this game does it horribly. It's not good. It's so hopeful too. I'm like, oh, neat. I love a text parser moment. I hope this is clever. It is not. It is not. You can really only ask about things that
01:02:15
Speaker
And this is a weird thing, too. You have topics show up in like a like a menu that you can ask about. Yeah. And they just start disappearing from the menu for no reason, whether you click on them or not. Do you think that is intentional, knowing what we do about the game?
01:02:37
Speaker
No, I think they programmed it to be like, oh, you can comment on the things that were just said without collecting them, which is, to me, just bad design. Sure, sure. So there's some other characters, so, oh.
01:02:59
Speaker
There's another weird thing, which is you take your- you- Instead of getting the newspaper delivered every morning, you have to bring your newspaper out to the newsboy or he shoots and kills you dead.
01:03:11
Speaker
right and that's one of the first puzzles too yeah yeah yeah they everyone's like remember to take the paper out for the for the newsboy or whatever right and you're like i don't know what that means i guess they mean go get the paper from the newsboy and then you walk outside and he's like do you have my paper and you're like no and he shoots you dead
01:03:32
Speaker
Yeah. The people of harvest are not great. Although interestingly, there are a couple quote, good characters like, um, the waitress at the restaurant, but everybody else is a very particular type of awful. Um, Mr. Mr. Or weird. Mr. Pottsdam has a peephole that he drilled in Stephanie's wall that he watches her.
01:04:01
Speaker
He just watches her, right? He watches even during your horrible sex scene. He's watching and panting on the other side of the peephole. He's obsessed with meat. He's obsessed with meat. He's obsessed with getting into the lodge. At one point, he kidnaps a little girl, and this is going to get rough, people.
01:04:24
Speaker
Yeah, it gets really dark. At one point he kidnaps a little girl, molests her, and then buries her alive. Yeah, yeah. And part of the game is you saving the little girl. And people get mad at you for saving... Some people celebrate you for saving the little girl. Some people get mad at you for saving the little girl. And nobody believes that Mr. Pottsdam did it.
01:04:46
Speaker
right you can even catch him in the act um yeah you can that's why i'm i'm recalling the the exact scene where you're actually catching him he tells he tells you he's he's digging a hole and he tells you he's burying a cat and you say where's the cat and he's like back at home leave me alone you could get and he's like you could get yourself in trouble for
01:05:07
Speaker
things like this or something like that. He's basically warning you about observing things. And then the next day you find out the little girl, the daughter of Edna, the owner of the diner. Yeah, the waitress. Yeah, she's missing.
01:05:24
Speaker
and if you go to where Mr. Potsdam was and dig up the grave yeah she's just in there she's just in it yeah yeah and you can save her um um and yeah there's also there's dark moments in that somebody unalives themselves um because you are instructed to do such terrible violent things in order to get into the lodge it's like um
01:05:49
Speaker
initiation almost is like they're testing you on how far you can go. They tell you it's all just pranks, but almost every prank results in something horrible. They tell you to scratch up a car and it drives a man insane. They tell you to steal a barber pole and it makes a guy electrocute himself to death by accident. Yeah, that results in death.
01:06:16
Speaker
and then, and burning down the restaurant, which yields some of the worst results. And it's, they tell you to steal fabric, so here's another thing. Okay, so the firemen are just like an elaborate gay joke. Correct, yes. They say that they're- Flaming, get it? Yes. Do you get it? Yes, exactly. They call their, they say it's the house of flame. And the firemen are just in there painting a naked man at all times.
01:06:42
Speaker
and they have a nice bolt of purple fabric that you have to steal and when you do they basically get into a non-stop fight. They don't see just people reference and then they are not around to put out any of the fires that then later happen in the town including the one you start.
01:07:06
Speaker
Yeah, even the diner owner says something about her close friendship with the guy from the barbershop who got electrocuted to death. And you wonder if maybe like these things have all been like connected.
01:07:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think they are connected. I think they're all leading into the next thing. Right. There's so much dialogue in this game, and some of it is hidden. Maybe not intentionally, but again, because dialogue options, things to ask about just kind of disappear from your menus. So I get the sense that there is some connection, because both the man whose car you scratch and the barber
01:07:55
Speaker
They both have the same kind of alarm systems. So I wonder if it's. If you put the pieces together, if you get all the dialogue and put the pieces together, if it's something like you scratch the car to distract the man so that you can steal the barber pole.
01:08:12
Speaker
It's like that song, like the old woman who swallowed a fly. Yeah. I just keep doing stuff. Right. About the homophobia, right? There is a character that you meet who is just utterly condemns. This is the general store owner. She utterly condemns the fireman. Yeah. And you have to buy porn from her at some point. Yeah. Oh, I remember that now. Yep.
01:08:38
Speaker
and she she's like this is hell that's good like this is healthy for a young boy of your age it'll keep you from becoming one of those like amoral whatever she says like these disgusting like she says something judgmental right yeah talking about the firemen
01:08:58
Speaker
And so the game is clearly, especially knowing what we know, is being satirical here. It is trying to tell you this woman is a product of 1950s shitty reality and she's a bad person for being so homophobic. But at the same time, the game is giving you this pun about flaming
01:09:23
Speaker
right it like you said earlier it's participating in it as well all the firemen point gets lost all the firemen are a gay joke all of them have these really over the top lispy fey accents yes all yeah yep i remember i can hear it in my brain right now yeah and again they spend all their time painting a nude man like yeah who they keep under a sheet when uh right yeah right right and it's just so
01:09:55
Speaker
It's just so bizarre because, yeah, some of this is legitimately offensive, but one could also say, if you wanted, one could make the argument like, yep, we're doing that on purpose. It is on purpose. We're not meaning to participate in this, but we are trying to offend certain people. You know? I don't understand what satirical about being like having a bunch of, you know,
01:10:22
Speaker
Gay stereotypes being the firemen like I don't see how that satire to me. That's just meant to make people go Yes, exactly. It's meant to be edgy edgelordy There's no real point to some of these things and it's just interesting because there are like we said there are some good points. It's not devoid of interesting thought
01:10:49
Speaker
You know, thought, what am I trying to hear? What am I trying to see here? Thought-provoking ideas. Yeah. Thought-generating, yeah. Which we'll get to when we talk about the twist, but like, okay. The game, again, clearly we're supposed to hate Mr. Potterdam for- Potstam, yeah. Potstam, sorry, for peeping on Stephanie. Yes.
01:11:15
Speaker
We're also supposed to have, there's conflicted views about pornography, right? There is a police deputy who is married and so he's not allowed to buy pornography from the general stores. That's why we have to buy him pornography. But when you talk to him, he says basically like a man has needs and he's not getting them met by his wife and he's not allowed to have pornography. And so you feel a little bit bad for this guy. Like, oh, this guy is saying he can't,
01:11:45
Speaker
He can't ejaculate. He has no respite for his sexual appetites. That does legitimately suck. That is a bad fate for a human being and no one on earth should be completely denied all their sexual agency, right? Right.
01:12:08
Speaker
then the game is trying to present this like distorted, warped reality. And it's also so clearly, it's at the same time trying to tell you pornography is bad, right? Like it's trying to ridicule this woman for saying, oh, that's a healthy appetite for a growing boy.
01:12:26
Speaker
when you buy the porn and it's like, well, which is it? Are we supposed to feel bad for the guy who can't get the porn? Are we supposed to feel disgusted that anyone would want to look at porn? And, sorry, and I know I'm going on and I want to hear your perspective, but what I'm building to is
01:12:45
Speaker
The game also does put in a ton of fucking cheesecake shots of Stephanie undressing in lingerie, shackled up to a machine in her bra and underwear, right? It's hard to say. There's one basically independent female character in the whole game and she spends the entire game
01:13:15
Speaker
prisoner right yeah and half the game naked yeah yeah and I guess if you were to look at it like it is an exploitation game and I talked about this in my review too that this is the best thing I can can compare it to is like a John Waters
01:13:40
Speaker
type of movie where there are things in there just to shock and offend you. I don't know if you've seen many of the John Waters films prior to Hairspray or something, but they were controversial and they did weird things on camera and they didn't have a satirical point. I think John Waters just wanted to see how far you could push something. Right.
01:14:03
Speaker
You know, where's the line? When do you get offended by something and does it matter? It's almost kind of like a nihilistic viewpoint, but but that but that's so but that's not fair because the game is trying to make a point. So you can't be like, here's the point we're trying to make, but also we're also just trying to shock you. Right.
01:14:24
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think it knows which lane it's in or which lane the devs meant to put it in. And maybe, you know, like I said, it did go through production hell. There's so many characters. I wonder if everything just kind of got lost because, you know, as well as I do that this game changes genre.
01:14:45
Speaker
by the third disc it is not an adventure game by the end and yeah and there are plenty of things in this game that have no bearing on the game's plot or right any of the puzzles they're just things that are there and you don't really know why they're there at all besides just to be weird um yeah i that's what
01:15:10
Speaker
is so confusing about this game is the game trying to tell us the world is like a corrupted and morally failing spiral that is all about objectionism and sex and violence and cruelty and murder and what like, and it's trying to like show us this like,
01:15:38
Speaker
almost like cautionary tale of like, this is how the world go. This is the direction the world's moving in. Or is it trying to tell us none of this is that big of a deal and everybody's stupid for blaming all of the world's problems on things like violence in movies and video games or pornography or sex. Yeah, I think it's.
01:16:03
Speaker
Really, I think the best way to say that and to describe it is that it's just missing the mark. I think that's what they wanted to do. I think they wanted to say, this isn't a big deal. Look, we're making this into a game. We're putting all these edgy things into it. It's not a big deal. And that's, are you still there? Okay, cool. So yeah, I think they tried to say that,
01:16:28
Speaker
We're gonna be as edgy as we can because it's not a big deal, you guys. But it got mixed up with some of these more morally generated dialogues. You know what I mean?
01:16:41
Speaker
But I do believe that they were trying to make something edgy for the sake of edgy, but maybe something got lost in translation. Maybe even the devs felt bad about a few things. So they wanted to put their own perspective or tried to put nuance in it. But I would say this game does not have nuance in it.
01:17:02
Speaker
No, I think it has layers, but none of them are nuanced. The only way you could see nuance in this game is by observing how some of the layers contradict each other. But like you're saying, I don't think that was intentional.
01:17:18
Speaker
Yeah, I wish I knew what the intention was as far as far as I know, that's the intention. Because like I said, it was it was going to be released around the time when those games went to Congress. So I can only speculate really, that that was their intention was to make something shocking.
01:17:36
Speaker
for the point of doesn't matter look you played this game are you a murderer now you know what i mean it was kind of almost bratty right so this is bratty sentiment you know before we get to the third disc which is has the twist and has and it's just i don't even want to deal with that it's just so different um yeah i do want to talk about the things that
01:18:02
Speaker
that I wonder what you think about them that's like why is this in the game?
01:18:08
Speaker
First of all, there is an abandoned house where a woman lives named the Wasp Woman and she's surrounded by wasps. Like her entire house is one big wasp nest and you can talk to her and she tells you that wasps are misunderstood and that too many people want everything to be productive. And wasps are beautiful just for existing, even if they don't make honey, even if they do hurt people.
01:18:36
Speaker
which is an interesting sentiment but doesn't go doesn't go anywhere right and she has no bearing on the game you do not need to go into that house to beat the game right no i there are playthroughs that i went into the house or playthroughs where i didn't at all i think that was i really do think
01:19:00
Speaker
the devs even though they were trying to say this doesn't matter they were still trying to be somewhat artistic with it you know by putting in these little tidbits right to make it artsy or poignant maybe to drive home the point that
01:19:15
Speaker
This game can exist even if it hurts people. And it still has some kind of point to it, just like wasps. And you know, nobody likes wasps. All they do is hurt people. They're jerks. So I'm thinking that is meant to be
01:19:32
Speaker
A metaphor for the game. Yeah, yeah. I don't think it's readily apparent. And I think if you're playing it, you want this to go somewhere because you want it's an adventure game, right? So any character you talk to, you wanted to have some bearing on what you're doing. But I think that was purely metaphorical.
01:19:52
Speaker
okay um or just weird yeah weird for the sake of weird the other thing is there is a uh there's a missile silo yeah there's a there's like a military base full of nuclear missiles being guarded by a man with no legs he lost them in world war two um and he's got there's no controls on the missiles meaning he's got a button on his person
01:20:20
Speaker
that if he presses it, all the nuclear missiles will launch. And he's got a machine gun. You can talk to him. He's a real problematic creep about basically every issue. He's like on the wrong side of every single issue that is brought up in the game. And
01:20:48
Speaker
uh if you select the wrong dialogue options at certain points he shoots you in the head and then blows up the world yeah you can mess up massively and just end up blowing up the world i i don't recall if he has any if he progresses the game in any way because i feel like i was so
01:21:10
Speaker
on the edge of ruining my game that I tried to just avoid that in general. So I'll say Harvester is interesting in that there are a couple puzzles that you can solve in different ways. Yeah. There are you need to blackmail somebody and there's several different ways to get the evidence to blackmail them.
01:21:31
Speaker
Then other minor things like you need to scratch a car and you can use a bunch of different inventory items to do it depending on what you have. So I imagine there are other branches like that, other ways to solve puzzles that I am unaware of. And I don't know if he factors into any of those, but I will say in my first playthrough a couple of years ago,
01:21:54
Speaker
I kept going back to him and could never find a use for him. Then I played it again right away to get a different ending and didn't talk to him at all. In this playthrough, I played today to refresh myself. I played about half the game. And I got out of this. I got to the third disc, which again, we'll talk about. And I didn't talk to him. I talked to him once to get him to shoot me and blow things up, just so I remembered that was there.
01:22:24
Speaker
yeah that was the only time i talked to him the whole game like he hasn't so yeah i don't know if you can use him to solve a puzzle but i know you can get through the whole game without talking to him once
01:22:36
Speaker
Yeah, and because it is such a risk to talk to this character, I'm just like, nah, it's pointless. I don't want to mess up my game. But like you're saying, the development hell and that there's like these competing messages in the game. I wonder if what you were saying earlier, like there's all these characters that maybe had other arcs that got deleted from the game or like the game in a different direction and they wanted to leave the performances in or something.
01:23:06
Speaker
That's true, there really are a lot of characters. Now that we're re-talking about it, it's like, oh my god. This is overwhelming. Yeah, there's the postman who keeps burning stuff down. Here's another one. These characters give you a hint as to how to steal the barber pole.
01:23:27
Speaker
But there is a little person and a big, tall hick wearing only overalls, and they are in the barbershop. I think, what, are they playing chess or something? Yeah, I think so. I think they're playing a game. They're playing some sort of game. You don't have to talk to them the whole game. They'll give you, again, a little bit of a hint about just the fact that there is an alarm system in there, but that's it.
01:23:58
Speaker
And to be honest, some of the dialogue is so grating that I was, I feel like I was not incentivized to talk to everybody because I'm like, there's only so many gross conversations I can, I can handle, you know? Agreed. Yes. And, uh,
01:24:17
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know what the purpose of all these characters was. I don't either. I mean, I guess if we keep in mind what is about to happen in the third disc, they may not have any purpose whatsoever. You also have a massive inventory by the time you hit the third disc, and you have a bunch of weapons.
01:24:39
Speaker
There's no place to use those weapons. You can attack anybody at any time, but almost every single time you attack somebody, you'll go to jail and the game's over. I don't know why you have this collection of weapons. Is that not for the third disc, which I refuse to play ever again? It's that frustrating to me. I do remember enough of it, but man. Okay, so the third disc, your entire inventory gets wiped out and you are given one weapon.
01:25:08
Speaker
Right at the site No, you find the cycle you find the site later you were given the sickle that is the harvester logo Right. Yeah the circle so
01:25:20
Speaker
Yeah, it changes into melee. Right before the third disc, I guess we should say, you get invited into the lodge. Stephanie is presumed dead because she goes missing and on her pillow is a skull and a spine. Right.
01:25:41
Speaker
And, and an invitation into the lodge. If you bring the invitation, invitation, the guy's like, nah, this isn't it, man. You have to go get her skull and spine and that's the invitation. And so you break into a more, like you break into their like family crypt or some shit. Oh my God. It's so weird. And then, oh my God. Then you're in the lodge, which is a new game. Yeah, it's a new game completely. There's no more.
01:26:11
Speaker
I guess what you could call point and click puzzles. You are. Not no more. There are, yeah, there are actually a bunch of them. It's just. It's just, there's a lot of combat now. There's now so much combat and some of the point and click puzzles can be avoided by just killing people. That's true. Yep. That is true. So it's become clear. I think it may be, it's not clear to the viewer yet.
01:26:38
Speaker
that the game is now, you are in the murder simulator now. So everyone is pushing you to join this lodge. Why? To train you, essentially, to become a killer. Why? We don't quite know, but that is essentially what we're doing. So the game
01:26:56
Speaker
changes genres completely and obviously that's by you know by very strategic design here um yeah i think that's that's really i i could go deeper with it but i don't think the game is trying to be that deep i think they just wanted combat to represent the the murder simulator part of this
01:27:15
Speaker
point you know you just travel through all these like even more distorted visions of reality and there's like a bunch of gore and dead bodies you get attacked by monsters you kill them and it's it's literally like you have a button that's attack and you have it the whole game and again you never it is tricky you never use it but you could just you like right click on the mouse or whatever and then he just swings his weapon
01:27:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. That's it. And you just kind of walk through all these weird levels, solving like very obtuse puzzles, and they all have some sort of like morality claws that are way too muddled to even dissect.
01:27:55
Speaker
um yeah and like there's one room where a bunch of babies are eating a mother and the mother starts lecturing you on how this is what motherhood is about yeah this is what motherhood is yeah yeah it is i mean i will say it's it's not as gross as maybe some of the things you see in phantasmagoria but it's it is gross and the sentiment is gross you know it's like what the what is the point right at some point you get like a human torso and you have to throw it into like a bubbling
01:28:27
Speaker
like sewer so that a monster doesn't come out and eat you. You know, classic adventure game puzzles.
01:28:35
Speaker
At other points, you have to just kill totally innocent people because they have an item you need. It's so weird. Is there anything about this section you want to talk about, or should we just fucking skip to the end? It's just so bizarre. There's nothing to talk about. I just want to say it is one of the most frustrating gameplay experiences I've ever had, though. The combat is not good. I was dying a lot. The puzzles aren't good either.
01:29:03
Speaker
the puzzles aren't good either no they're they're bad it's too long there's too many rooms they're all ugly i just i have nothing so long you're it yeah it is not half the game but it yeah i can like half the game
01:29:21
Speaker
It does, yeah. I can honestly say at least I was having some fun in this weird town of Harvest. At least there were things to do and people to talk to. Now I'm fighting for my life? This is not why I choose adventure games. I like fighting games a lot, but I don't want a hybrid. I don't want a hybrid one necessarily. And if I do want one, I want it to work.
01:29:48
Speaker
you know the controls need to be in somewhat working condition yeah absolutely so okay yes i agree so you get to the end of this thing if you can stand it and if you can stand it yeah what you find out is what rosa said you are in a simulator
01:30:08
Speaker
there is a society of what call themselves harvesters, it's serial killers. And they want to make other serial killers to just like cull the human race. And they are trying to make you into a serial killer. And that's what this whole thing has been about. And they have tried to make a realistic world, but the participant subconscious
01:30:37
Speaker
always influences the simulacrum.
01:30:41
Speaker
Right, so there's like quote glitches, you know what I mean? Right, so taking the newspaper out rather than bringing it in, your mom wanting to fuck you. Then you can start to work your way backwards and think like, okay, maybe when you don't know, when you're a kid and you don't know what your parents are doing behind the doors, maybe you could imagine a violent scenario. And maybe that's why in this world,
01:31:12
Speaker
What the parents do in the bedroom is so unbelievably violent. Maybe because you're a horny teenage boy, that's why every man in this game is unbelievably horny.
01:31:27
Speaker
Right right right you can kind of like maybe maybe you do see the idea of your you do see your girlfriend's father as just like a meat-obsessed Yeah, ladies pedophile yeah, because maybe you know
01:31:48
Speaker
I don't know, maybe some Freudian thing, like they're the gatekeeper of the woman that you wanna be with. Like maybe there's some deep psychology shit to that. And yeah, so again, you can go back and kind of look at a lot of these scenarios and be like, okay, maybe this is how.
01:32:08
Speaker
Oh, there's also like an insanely disciplinarian, like violently disciplinarian teacher at one point, so you can look back at that and be like, oh, okay. Oh yeah, yeah, I almost forgot about that. Yeah, she beats children with a baseball bat. Yeah. And seemingly kills one, it's hard to tell. Yeah. So it does change the context of this game a little bit, because you're kind of like,
01:32:36
Speaker
Okay, so this was supposed to be a Schlocky B movie. Right. All of this was supposed to be weird and wrong and hyper-exaggerated and morally warped. Yeah. And that's why, that's why, listener, we, me and Roses are bouncing back and forth about the morality of this game so much, because it's like... Yeah.
01:33:04
Speaker
Okay, you're saying a lot of this is bad by saying it is a simulator created by serial serial killers to turn people into serial killers, I guess to help them see the worst sides of humanity and why humanity must be destroyed.
01:33:23
Speaker
But at the same time with the sentiment of like, but this isn't this couldn't see how absurd this is. Why are you calling video games? Do you see how absurd this is? This would never happen in reality. But also, you know, yeah, but also you're doing it as the game designer. You also did make me interact with the child molester and
01:33:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. You know, black male people for being caught making out in the closet and have sex with this woman who I don't know and doesn't know me and like we're just thrown together by this like, and make me watch her undress like seven times.
01:34:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's a lot, guys. She's in her underwear a lot. Oh, and you find out that every time you've been advancing in this horrible lodge game, it has been inflicting pain on Stephanie, who is still alive and in her underwear and strapped up to a torture machine.
01:34:27
Speaker
So I just, what? Yeah. So I mean, what do you feel? How do you feel like, and we'll talk about the very ending in a second, but how do you feel about this twist? Not great. Um, I feel like they got their point across. I feel like the point is finally concluded. If you get, if you tolerate the third disc and you can get to that, then you can maybe decide
01:34:55
Speaker
that the main intention was to show the viewer that video games being murder simulators is absurd. Look at this. Did this turn you into a bad person? They're taking it so exaggerated that you can then determine that that is their intent. But again, that doesn't erase the competing messages that we get in game.
01:35:17
Speaker
that they also decided to put in. If I
Media Influence and Game Impact
01:35:21
Speaker
look at it purely as like an exploitation film-esque type thing, I can maybe get a little entertainment out of it, but man, I mean, I am entertained by how frustrating most of us are. And I think, and this is weird,
01:35:41
Speaker
but I'm just gonna say it, I like this game. Yeah, no, I do like it, which is weird to say. It's become kind of this cult classic that you kind of know what you're getting into, but part of me does realize and know that there is an edgelord thing to this. You know what I mean? Part of me knows that they were purposefully
01:36:04
Speaker
not trying to be as schlocky as maybe we thought, and they were just trying to maybe be offensive, you know? It could be edgy. So part of me, like, I do like the game, but I'm like, these devs, what were they doing? And the first time I played it, like, I'll admit, and this is a little embarrassing, but the first time I played it, I actually had my mind blown by this ending a little bit.
01:36:28
Speaker
Because and again, it's a little bit embarrassing because they know how basic of a twist this is how like It's made it's kind of seems deeper than it is And we've torn that apart throughout the you know But the first time it was like as I was playing the I think this is why the first time as I was playing the game I kept thinking You know this
01:36:54
Speaker
what is this ridiculous game? I've discovered something that I know has a cult following, but I've discovered something that is just utterly bizarre, and I can tear it apart, because what were these people thinking? And then at the end, it's like, oh, they're telling you, we did this intentionally.
01:37:14
Speaker
Yes. And then you're like, oh, and you like it makes you sort of feel like like they got you and like you they out they outsmarted you. Yeah. But then again, as we like reexamine the game, it's like, well, they're not as smart as I kind of thought they were at the moment. Right. Right. I will give it credit for trying to do this, you know, for trying to
01:37:44
Speaker
put in those little artistic moments in there and put metaphors in there and try to give us a message. I like that some of the message are like, yeah, America is really violent and that kind of sucks. And nobody takes really responsibility. Nobody really cares. Only to have that be obliterated by being in a simulation that is literally a murder simulator.
01:38:10
Speaker
Um, which if you don't know, I believe is what politicians were calling some of those games at the time. Oh, and that's why, yes, it is direct. It is direct. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That makes sense. So, you know, games like night trap and mortal combat. I believe some of the politicians referred to it as a murder. Someone did. When are we going to do our episode on night trap?
01:38:31
Speaker
No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, if I can get it running well, good lord. I'm not sure I can even tolerate night trips. I got this with you. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that I could either. Yeah, OK, so now we'll talk about the very, very end. OK. So then the last thing you do in the game is
01:39:01
Speaker
you make a choice. You get and again, this sort of gets in the way of their point, I think. So your choice is to stay in harvester and marry Stephanie
01:39:19
Speaker
Right, I forgot we had a choice. Yeah, go on. Live out your life in what you now know is a simulation, you know is fake while your body is in suspended animation somewhere and your real body will live whatever, five minutes, but you will experience an entire life. Again, knowing it's meaningless. Or you can give in, you can kill Stephanie. Stephanie is in her underwear at your feet screaming.
01:39:49
Speaker
Yeah. You can attack her with the attack button. So terrible. Kill her and you'll go back, then they'll allow you to go back to your body and become a serial killer. Yeah, you can become a serial killer. That's the choice. That's the end of the game. Again,
01:40:15
Speaker
if they're making this point that, hey, isn't this all ridiculous? Or if they're making this point, isn't all the stuff we just put you through a symptom of an ailing society? Whichever way they're going, either way, attacking a live actress
01:40:39
Speaker
In her underwear, groveling at your feet with a weapon until she dies, I don't see how that's making your point! No, it's not. It's kind of gross, honestly, if you think about it. And again, they're doing it with intention. They're trying to say it doesn't matter.
01:41:00
Speaker
Which is rough, which is a rough sentiment to get down with these days. Which is to be like, yeah, it doesn't matter. To not further think about the actions of what you're doing is strange. So I actually chose the simulation. I didn't want to kill Stephanie. Yeah. And when they say it doesn't matter, it's like, again,
01:41:24
Speaker
Maybe I'm leaning into this too hard, but that's a real actress. That's a real actress that is in her real underwear, in her real body, and I am pretending to kill her, and she is screaming. Does it not matter? That is going to give me an emotional effect. Yeah.
01:41:48
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. So it does matter. Yeah, it's not going to turn me into a real life serial killer, but it matters. Like this is actually uncomfortable. This is actually disturbing.
01:42:02
Speaker
Yeah. And no matter what anyone says, the media you grow up on influences you. It just does. It just says that's why you have favorite things. That's why you have favorite types of music, you know, cause it does influence you. And, and you're, and I'm not saying that all media creates serial killers and that's how it happens. Of course it's way more complicated than that, but it matters. You know, it matters. It frames what people think and what people feel and what people believe.
01:42:32
Speaker
So, yeah, of course it matters. That's the fucking thing. It matters both less and more than this game is telling me it does. Again, I don't think video games are going to make a person violent, but I think they are going to have an impact on a person. I don't think a video game is going to make somebody a perverted sex addict.
01:42:51
Speaker
But I think it is going to have an impact on how they view sex. Right. Or how media can impact how you view women, or how you view yourself. This is really well known and documented, but I had an eating disorder for a very long time.
01:43:08
Speaker
And it is a product of my environment. You know, I had a mom that was dieting very consistently. One of my Barbie toys came with a scale that you could put her on and it always weighed 110 pounds.
01:43:23
Speaker
Yeah, it was rough out there. I mean like that night the early 90s were tough I knew it was bad, but I didn't know they gave you a scale with like a solid like And the weight was always 110 and I you know I was overweight growing up, so I was also
01:43:44
Speaker
not fitting people's what they wanted of me, very unpopular, bullied. So yeah, those things do impact people. I would say that me impacted me directly. In order for Barbie to be that tall with that large of boobs.
01:44:01
Speaker
It's impossible. How could she possibly weigh 110 pounds? It makes no sense, but little me was like, oh, okay. Everybody should be 110 pounds, including now 5'8 Sarah, which makes no sense for me. Barbie? Yeah, of course it affects. Barbie toys in their proportions?
01:44:26
Speaker
seem like they're probably like six feet tall. Right? They're like Amazonian women almost. Yeah, they're clearly tall people. Yeah, they're clearly tall. With giant boobs. That's so ridiculous. Sorry, I'm getting hung up on this, but 110 pounds. I'm surprised I haven't told you this before, because it's comical, right? But at the time,
01:44:52
Speaker
It was definitely a catalyst. I felt it. I was already upset with how I was being treated by other kids. So it's just another thing. You know what I mean? It's just another thing that
01:45:05
Speaker
corporations and media is telling me is correct, is telling me this is the right way to look. And not everyone's gonna be affected like that, and that's fine. But there is enough, I think I can say this pretty confidently, especially in young girls and those who have had eating disorders, there's enough of a pattern, right? There's enough of a pattern
01:45:27
Speaker
where this is happening to young girls and boys, too. It is mostly women, I will say that. It doesn't differentiate gender, but it is mostly little girls. And there's a pattern. So we can at least go by that research and those statistics and say, OK, well, something is affecting them. This is reminding me of I remember a friend who had
01:45:56
Speaker
when she was young, she asked her mom if she'd have big boobs when she grew up. And her mom was like, well, I don't and your grandmother doesn't. So it's unlikely that you will. And she said she remembers like crying in her room and her mom having to comfort her for like the rest of the night. And that she was like a child. Like she was like under 10, right? Like she was like a little girl crying that she wasn't gonna have giant boobs.
01:46:27
Speaker
Yeah. What do we do to little girls? What the hell? The pressure, the pressure is enormous. And that's why I'm so candid about it. Yeah. And willing, you know, willing to discuss. Yeah. Our environment, our media that we consume. Absolutely. If you're susceptible to it, which I was.
01:46:45
Speaker
Yes. And again, it doesn't exist as an isolated case, clearly. I'm not the only one with this exact story, right? Right. So it's enough that we need to be conscious about what we put out there, you know? Right.
01:47:01
Speaker
And I don't think that's asking a lot. I don't think being conscious of what we put out there is asking a lot at all, but some people seem to think it is. Well, yeah, I mean, some people freak out when you put a black person in a movie. Yeah, I know. I know. It's not realistic, guys. It's my best stuff, yeah. It's my best will, actually. I was there. I was there. I was there and I didn't see a black person.
01:47:29
Speaker
Yeah, yeah for a while. We were kind of in this in the sentiment of like well didn't happen to me So it didn't happen to you either what yeah, yeah Okay, yeah, I think That's harvester, that's harvester there you go guys. That's the video game harvester. We've only talked about the video game harvester If you think we lost track of what we're talking about we didn't that was harvester
01:47:57
Speaker
That was Harvester, yeah. Everything was Harvester. Okay, I just need a palate cleanser real quick. Before we say goodbye, let's do one more quick Spanky Pack's Dorinos. Okay, I can do that. It's my favorite game. It's Matt's favorite game. It's not my favorite game. It's my favorite game.
01:48:41
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody. Hey, Rezes. Hi. I'm Matt Still. I'm your friend, Matt. I hope so. You didn't change genres on me during the break. I'm vigorously stabbing over here. There's no one to stab. I'm just doing it. God. I'm really good at stabbing, too. Oh, good to know. Good to know, Matt.
01:49:04
Speaker
It's because you played Harvester, right? People better hope they don't wander into this place. And also I just do it with my hands. They're just, they are. Oh, you don't have a knife or anything. You're just making the motion. No, they're like, they're like honed steel, these hands. Okay. You know, I met you in person, right? Yeah. And what'd you think of my honed steel hands?
01:49:36
Speaker
No comment. Y'all are just gonna have to meet Matt in real life and make your own judgments. Well, everybody, thank you for listening. This has been an interesting one. I think, did you have fun chatting about? I did. Okay, yeah. I had fun, even though some of the subject matter maybe was a little bit of a bummer, but again, I just do want to say, as we wrap up here, I like the game Harvester.
01:50:03
Speaker
I don't know if I could entirely explain to anybody why, but I like it and I will probably play it again at some point in my life. Yeah, same. I'm kind of on the same page. I do. Obviously, I think we've done a really good job explaining our issues with it.
01:50:21
Speaker
but I'm gonna say I don't like the third half. That's not why I wanna play an adventure game. So I can't stand by the flip in video game genre, but the adventure game parts of it, yeah, I did enjoy it in a morbid way.
01:50:40
Speaker
We are part of the Adventure Game Hotspot Network. Go check them out, adventuregamehotspot.com, where I will sometime very soon have a review, a written review of Duck Detective. Yes. If you want a little bit more detail about how I feel about that game, check that out. Also, write reviews for us.
01:51:06
Speaker
I did it. Good job. Wow. Yeah, that's really good to get them out there. Yeah, it's totally going to work. Right reviews. But yeah, in all seriousness, apparently reviews are important. I learned this last week, I guess, when Pat was trying to explain it to me.
01:51:25
Speaker
It's some algorithm stuff. Look, it's not that I think they should be important. Yeah, but they just are. It's not that my ego is so fragile I need to see that number go up. It's literally just about...
01:51:40
Speaker
the fucking algorithms. It's the same on YouTube, honestly. The more comments and engagement you get, the more reach your stuff will have. And also, we got a bullshit one-star review. I'm not going to talk about it, besides the fact that it's not from a listener, I don't think. I don't think so. If it is, if you are a listener and you did give us a one-star review because you absolutely hate us, and instead of just turning it off, you were like, then write us, and I'd be interested to know. And then I'll stop blaming it on,
01:52:10
Speaker
some jerk but But yeah Anyway, or you can you can write me and you can let me know what can I do to make it right? What can I do? No, I'm just good No, yeah, I don't fucking care We're gonna make the show we want to make Damn
01:52:36
Speaker
But email us, mattandroses at gmail.com if you just wanna, if you have a question, keep it short. Try and think of an interesting question that would be fun to listen to an answer to rather than just like, what's your favorite venture game again? It's Grim Fandango. Just so I don't get that question this week. It is Grim Fandango. And remember next week, we will be talking about Nightmare Frames
01:53:05
Speaker
And... Because that's glasses! And an English taunting. So if you want to keep up with us, play those games real quick. And that leaves only one thing left to say and I just can't think of what it would be. Get plenty of water and foliage in your diet.
01:53:26
Speaker
yeah uh i get i like yeah i just shocked you with my my new motto i guess that's it okay bye everybody matt no what it's it's of course podcast is art and artists