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Diggy Hole (The Dig: Part 3)
11 Plays5 months ago
The End! We are wrapped on The Dig and moving onto The Witcher: The Last Wish next!
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Book Synopsis
When an asteroid out of nowhere threatens to hit Earth, a space shuttle is sent to nudge it into a safe orbit. Venturing to the surface, three crew members become trapped as the asteroid suddenly leaves orbit, transporting them to a strange planet light years away.
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Transcript
Introduction and Patreon Shoutout
00:00:00
Speaker
That's great.
00:00:00
Speaker
That's that's a huge deal.
00:00:02
Speaker
It's like out of the court, out of the studio system, back to him and to his family after 25 years.
00:00:09
Speaker
That's such a big damn deal.
00:00:11
Speaker
That is not something anybody just anybody gets.
00:00:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:15
Speaker
So that's fucking excellent.
00:00:16
Speaker
Good for him.
00:00:17
Speaker
Good for him.
00:00:18
Speaker
Good for him.
00:00:20
Speaker
And you know who else it's good for?
00:00:22
Speaker
Who's that?
00:00:24
Speaker
Hey there everybody, welcome back to Pixel It.
00:00:25
Speaker
My name is Kevin.
00:00:26
Speaker
With me as always, as is, as is Phil.
00:00:29
Speaker
Is, as is.
00:00:31
Speaker
Today we're finishing up The Dig.
00:00:34
Speaker
The Dig.
00:00:37
Speaker
Here we go.
00:00:38
Speaker
Here we go.
00:00:39
Speaker
Before we get there though, I have an announcement to make.
00:00:45
Speaker
Patreon.com slash PixelitPod.
00:00:47
Speaker
That's the announcement.
00:00:48
Speaker
That's always the announcement.
00:00:51
Speaker
It's from my heart to your brain.
00:00:55
Speaker
PixelitPod.com or Patreon.com slash PixelitPod.
00:01:00
Speaker
Both will get you there.
00:01:02
Speaker
We got three tiers.
00:01:03
Speaker
$1, $5, $10, and $10 gets your name shouted out in every episode.
00:01:07
Speaker
To that end, I want to thank Jesus Loves You, Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mudder, Middle of Things, Sigma Sal, Chet!
00:01:13
Speaker
Beaks, dammit, thick.
00:01:16
Speaker
And friendly friend, thank you for being a friend.
00:01:19
Speaker
Patreon.com slash PixelitPod.
00:01:21
Speaker
Do it today.
00:01:24
Speaker
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Book Discussion - The Dig
00:01:27
Speaker
So why don't we go ahead... The body in the marsh.
00:01:33
Speaker
Let's just get this book wrapped up so we can talk about it.
00:01:36
Speaker
When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them
00:01:43
Speaker
In the mind.
00:01:44
Speaker
Let's put one more Alan Dean Foster body into that.
00:01:49
Speaker
That shockingly full marsh.
00:01:53
Speaker
The marsh is shockingly full.
00:01:55
Speaker
We got like how many bodies we got in there.
00:01:57
Speaker
We're almost at 200 bodies.
00:01:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:59
Speaker
Next episode will be 200 bodies.
00:02:01
Speaker
So 200, 200 bodies, everybody.
00:02:05
Speaker
You know, I was thinking about what we were.
00:02:07
Speaker
I was thinking about what we were talking about before with what we should call our fans and basing it around the market.
00:02:13
Speaker
Marshies.
00:02:14
Speaker
Yeah.
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Speaker
Marshies.
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Speaker
Marshies.
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Speaker
The Marshies.
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Speaker
The Marshies.
00:02:19
Speaker
I think that's lovely.
00:02:22
Speaker
It's cute.
00:02:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:24
Speaker
Sup, Marshies?
00:02:25
Speaker
Yeah, there we go.
00:02:26
Speaker
Sup, Marshies?
00:02:27
Speaker
It's your boy, Kevin.
00:02:30
Speaker
Slap that subscribe button and leave us a like.
00:02:35
Speaker
Be real alpha if you did that.
00:02:37
Speaker
Be real alpha.
00:02:39
Speaker
Sigma mindset.
00:02:40
Speaker
Got to get on that grind set.
00:02:43
Speaker
Skibbity.
00:02:44
Speaker
That a thing?
00:02:47
Speaker
That a thing?
00:02:49
Speaker
I'm sure it is.
00:02:50
Speaker
I don't know.
00:02:50
Speaker
It's something to do with like putting half life in a toilet and flushing it, I think is how you get skibbity.
00:02:58
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:58
Speaker
All right.
00:02:59
Speaker
I like it.
00:02:59
Speaker
I like it.
00:03:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:00
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:00
Speaker
Just.
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Speaker
All right.
00:03:03
Speaker
Chapter 16.
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Speaker
Lowe returns to Ludger Ludger Ludger and begs him to help Meg get Maggie out of trouble.
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Speaker
And it is not going well.
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Speaker
They get into a little bit of a physical altercation and it doesn't go well for Brink.
00:03:22
Speaker
Lowe just starts taking the crystal and tell crystals and tells him he will get them back when he's when he's done helping.
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He basically pulls a like when you've thought about what you've done.
00:03:32
Speaker
When you've thought about your actions.
00:03:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah.
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Brink agrees and they run off to find her.
00:03:37
Speaker
They arrive in the museum spire where Maggie was last and the ghosts try to point them in the right direction only for them to ignore the light show.
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Speaker
they eventually find Maggie trapped in a mucus-like web, and the spider thing comes back.
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And Ludger leads it away while flashing his lights at it, distracting enough to move it away from while Lowe frees Maggie.
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Speaker
And when she is free, the monster turns and runs back towards them, and they're like, ah...
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Speaker
And the three run back out to the exit, eventually getting to safety into the sphere and back to the central thing.
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Speaker
Maggie wishes she could just click her heels three times and go home.
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Speaker
And who could blame her, really?
00:04:20
Speaker
Who could blame her?
00:04:21
Speaker
And that's that's pretty much that's chapter 16.
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Speaker
Chapter 17.
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Speaker
The Cossetans are happy that the humans have made it out of the monster's trap.
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Speaker
Meanwhile, Maggie is apologizing to Lowe for stomping off like she did.
00:04:36
Speaker
To thank him, she kisses both Boston and Ludger on the cheek.
00:04:42
Speaker
And Lowe basically responds like...
00:04:47
Speaker
I caramba.
00:04:48
Speaker
Hello, nurse.
00:04:52
Speaker
It's this.
00:04:53
Speaker
This is I like to think of this last third of the book.
00:04:56
Speaker
I think the whole book is like this, but this is the first time I really started thinking about it in terms of this is a 50s sci fi movie.
00:05:04
Speaker
You know, it's like women and your women things are very silly and dumb to me until you show me some level of affection.
00:05:10
Speaker
And then by gosh, by gee willikers, I'd like to see her ankles.
00:05:15
Speaker
By gosh, by God, by golly.
00:05:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:18
Speaker
And that's where we're at.
00:05:23
Speaker
Yeah, that's where we're at.
00:05:25
Speaker
I caramba.
00:05:28
Speaker
Bart Simpson's Simpson noises.
00:05:31
Speaker
He does a little jig and then Brink doesn't care, though.
00:05:34
Speaker
He's like the life crystals.
00:05:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:36
Speaker
And Lowe gives the crystal.
00:05:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:39
Speaker
He didn't give a shit.
00:05:39
Speaker
Lowe gives the crystals back after a bit of tension, but holds on to a pocket full of them.
00:05:44
Speaker
Brink nearly freaks out and then moves on.
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:50
Speaker
Lowe explains to Maggie all about the life crystals and bringing Brink back before they decide to look around for more plates that look like the ones that launched the ship.
00:06:00
Speaker
They find one where Maggie had seen one earlier and Lowe had found another one as well.
00:06:05
Speaker
And then they find a third in the planetarium, but they can't find a fourth.
00:06:09
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Lowe proposes talking to the Cosseton and they offer Brink the chance to come along, but he is like, no, my life crystals.
00:06:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:17
Speaker
He's really hung up on these things.
00:06:19
Speaker
He's really hung up on these.
00:06:20
Speaker
And there's actually a lot more of him in this adaptation than in the game.
00:06:25
Speaker
Yes.
00:06:26
Speaker
And we've talked about why that might be in previous episodes, but it's very noticeable in this because he is very, very much jonesing for those damn crystals.
00:06:38
Speaker
And it's constant.
00:06:40
Speaker
And you just want to slap the guy after a while.
00:06:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:44
Speaker
So the two of them make their way back to the mummified Cossetan and wake him up with a life crystal.
00:06:51
Speaker
In the Cossetan chorus, they talk about how cruel it is that they keep resurrecting the creator.
00:06:56
Speaker
Maggie is able to speak with it and promises to help them.
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And it promises to help them if they promise to let it die.
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It's like, please stop doing this.
00:07:07
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Please stop.
00:07:07
Speaker
I am so tired of this.
00:07:11
Speaker
Chapter 18.
00:07:12
Speaker
Maggie has an interview with the creator, which doesn't really have a name, but just a title.
00:07:17
Speaker
And also it prefers being called the engineer.
00:07:23
Speaker
So the engineer gives background on the Cossetans, how they sent off probes to other planets and so forth.
00:07:29
Speaker
And the calamity on their planet was not a natural one, Bill, but a philosophical one where they basically created this thing called the eye, which allowed for constant thought patterns to enter into a state of immortality on the planet.
00:07:43
Speaker
So they were like.
00:07:44
Speaker
Living so long that they're like, OK, well, how can we go?
00:07:49
Speaker
How can we go now to infinite life?
00:07:52
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And that's how why they end up creating the eye.
00:07:56
Speaker
The engineer was not happy with the idea of the eye.
00:07:58
Speaker
So it killed itself as a warning to those using the eye.
00:08:02
Speaker
But that didn't stop them.
00:08:04
Speaker
That didn't stop people from doing it.
00:08:06
Speaker
Then the engineer then mentions that there's like a billion thought forms in the room with them right now.
00:08:13
Speaker
And Lowe is like, oh, yeah, he's like, I didn't I didn't seem crowded at first.
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Speaker
What do you think about that?
00:08:24
Speaker
Only female in the room.
00:08:28
Speaker
Pretty good, right?
00:08:30
Speaker
Pretty good.
00:08:33
Speaker
Chapter 19.
00:08:35
Speaker
The engineer explains that even now he still doesn't want to join them because it is exhausted and would rather the embrace of death than immortality, the immortality of being bored.
00:08:47
Speaker
I mean, yeah, sure.
00:08:50
Speaker
Fine.
00:08:52
Speaker
They then talk to it about the eye and it mentions that theoretically it's possible to actually reverse the process and bring everyone back.
00:09:00
Speaker
The engineer also explains how to operate the asteroid ship and to go back to Earth using the four plates, one of which they can find nearby.
00:09:09
Speaker
Lowe and Maggie get into a debate about using up all the Constantine's time on questions about how they can leave instead of like digging into the actual stuff of the universe.
00:09:18
Speaker
And during this, Lowe decides that she has a beautiful smile.
00:09:23
Speaker
I think this part is starting.
00:09:26
Speaker
It's where it started to annoy me, where like his sudden crush on this girl is accelerated on a level that accelerated.
00:09:34
Speaker
Come on.
00:09:35
Speaker
Come on.
00:09:36
Speaker
Do we have to force this?
00:09:37
Speaker
All right, fine.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:40
Speaker
The chorus is sad that they might use the fourth plate to just fly away when Lowe and Maggie get a call from Brink.
00:09:46
Speaker
His arm is trapped in the crevice.
00:09:48
Speaker
His arm is trapped in a honey jar because he saw a life crystal in there and he can't get it out.
00:09:55
Speaker
He won't let go of the pickle.
00:09:56
Speaker
He won't let go of the pickle.
00:09:59
Speaker
Because he wanted a pickle.
00:10:03
Speaker
So his arm is stuck and he can't get it out.
00:10:05
Speaker
He's really Winnie the Poohed himself into it.
00:10:08
Speaker
It's so it's it's it is such a silly moment with such dire consequences.
00:10:16
Speaker
It's ridiculous.
00:10:17
Speaker
It's absolutely ridiculous.
00:10:21
Speaker
So we're treated to a harrowing scene of Lowe cutting off Brink's arm.
00:10:26
Speaker
It's gross.
00:10:27
Speaker
Like, it's actually I actually felt a little sweep of like, oh, like nausea.
00:10:33
Speaker
They spent some time trying to dig out his arm, but they can't.
00:10:38
Speaker
So they're like, well, we're going to have to cut it off.
00:10:41
Speaker
OK, he uses an alien alloy that he found with a sharp edge and he gets it all superheated and he cuts through Brink's arm only to have trouble with the bone.
00:10:53
Speaker
Oh, as soon as he was free, Maggie placed a green crystal on the stump, which caused it to heal.
00:11:02
Speaker
And Brink was mildly disappointed that the crystal didn't grow
Cultural Tangents and Nostalgia
00:11:05
Speaker
his arm back.
00:11:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:06
Speaker
He wanted lizard powers.
00:11:08
Speaker
He was like, I'm going to get this.
00:11:09
Speaker
It's going to grow right.
00:11:10
Speaker
The shit back.
00:11:10
Speaker
You know what?
00:11:12
Speaker
You're lucky with what you got.
00:11:13
Speaker
It's fine.
00:11:14
Speaker
You're lucky with what you got, buddy.
00:11:16
Speaker
He seems like he's in a better headspace now, though.
00:11:19
Speaker
A little bit.
00:11:20
Speaker
A little bit.
00:11:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:21
Speaker
He's been humbled thoroughly.
00:11:23
Speaker
He's been humbled.
00:11:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:26
Speaker
Chapter 20 with Brink, they put the four plates back in, but nothing happens at first.
00:11:32
Speaker
Brink then starts losing his cool.
00:11:35
Speaker
Whatever positive gains he had after getting his arm cut off, they're all gone.
00:11:41
Speaker
And Lowe actually says that is like any improvements that this guy had from losing his arm are gone.
00:11:47
Speaker
Gone.
00:11:47
Speaker
Gone.
00:11:48
Speaker
That's all it took.
00:11:53
Speaker
He loses cool.
00:11:56
Speaker
He's getting very wacky.
00:11:58
Speaker
Suddenly the fifth door opens and it's another tram and Brink is like, well, maybe this van takes us to Orlando.
00:12:11
Speaker
sure and then he does a little bow or as alan dean foster puts it a little prussian bow that's right a little prussian bra bow which honestly yeah that would be the prussians so and he walks away babbling in german and at this point all i can imagine is is he's basically daffy ducking it back to the green crystals
00:12:36
Speaker
He is out of his damn gourd.
00:12:39
Speaker
It is over for him.
00:12:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:42
Speaker
Out of his damn gourd, Maggie yells at him.
00:12:45
Speaker
It's no use.
00:12:46
Speaker
He's not coming back.
00:12:48
Speaker
So him and Maggie, Lowe and Maggie, travel to the fifth and final spire and find what seems to be the control room for the eye.
00:12:57
Speaker
They can't figure out how to operate it and look around and find a slot for what could be a crystal and they drop one in.
00:13:04
Speaker
And it activates the eye for like five seconds, like all the the goes and the super bright and all that stuff.
00:13:12
Speaker
And then it's like, oh, OK, well, we need more green crystal then.
00:13:20
Speaker
That's a problem.
00:13:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:23
Speaker
because you know who has the green crystals?
00:13:26
Speaker
Our favorite character.
00:13:28
Speaker
Our favorite German, Ludger Brink.
00:13:34
Speaker
They go back to him and they find him trying to basically repair a machine, the machine that produces the life crystals.
00:13:44
Speaker
He's like trying to break open the vending machine at this point.
00:13:49
Speaker
Yeah, and he's going to lose his other arm doing that.
00:13:52
Speaker
He's reaching up an offending machine.
00:13:55
Speaker
With his one good hand.
00:13:56
Speaker
With his one good hand.
00:13:58
Speaker
Really tempting fate.
00:14:01
Speaker
So Lowe is like, okay, well, if I help you out, can I have like, you know, half of what this machine makes?
00:14:10
Speaker
And Brink is like, okay.
00:14:14
Speaker
Lowe figures it out.
00:14:16
Speaker
He gets it to operate and it operates and it spills out a bunch of new life crystals.
00:14:20
Speaker
And Brink is like, psych.
00:14:23
Speaker
And he takes all of them and he starts running away.
00:14:25
Speaker
And they describe it as likely it is to keep going with the Daffy Duck comparison.
00:14:30
Speaker
It's like overflowing pockets.
00:14:33
Speaker
So you have to imagine I chose to imagine him in a lab coat with just like gems falling out of his pockets like Scrooge McDuck.
00:14:41
Speaker
Like it's absolutely insane.
00:14:44
Speaker
He's he's McDuck in it.
00:14:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:48
Speaker
So.
00:14:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:52
Speaker
They they get into an altercation and Lo is like Maggie guard the door and we are in a fight scene.
00:15:01
Speaker
Fight scene.
00:15:02
Speaker
Brink versus Lowe.
00:15:04
Speaker
How's this going to turn out?
00:15:05
Speaker
Very quickly.
00:15:07
Speaker
It's going to resolve itself very quickly.
00:15:11
Speaker
Brink goes after Lowe.
00:15:13
Speaker
Lowe basically judos him right off a cliff.
00:15:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:19
Speaker
And he's quick to say, I didn't do that.
00:15:22
Speaker
He stepped where there was no floor.
00:15:24
Speaker
That's I cannot be held responsible.
00:15:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:27
Speaker
He Brink literally coyote times for a sec.
00:15:31
Speaker
He has he's in like coyote time.
00:15:33
Speaker
He's just like floating in the air.
00:15:35
Speaker
And oh, he's he's going down.
00:15:39
Speaker
Puts up a little sign.
00:15:40
Speaker
Help.
00:15:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:41
Speaker
Help goes down and he goes splat.
00:15:45
Speaker
They
00:15:46
Speaker
They are like, well, I don't think the green crystals are going to fix that.
00:15:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:51
Speaker
They make up this.
00:15:52
Speaker
It's graphic.
00:15:52
Speaker
They make a point about like how his head is shattered and there's brains everywhere.
00:15:57
Speaker
And it's like, oh, actually, that could be probably if it can only repair what's there.
00:16:02
Speaker
It's like, that's a good horse moment if they like repair his brain and only half of it exists.
00:16:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:09
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:16:11
Speaker
Yeah, that could be bad.
00:16:13
Speaker
That could be bad.
00:16:14
Speaker
But yeah, there's not enough of him to salvage with a green crystal just all over the place.
00:16:23
Speaker
But Maggie absolves him saying it was self-defense.
00:16:28
Speaker
He's like, you're fine.
00:16:29
Speaker
You're fine.
00:16:31
Speaker
Everyone saw that, right?
00:16:32
Speaker
He had a gun.
00:16:34
Speaker
He had a gun.
00:16:35
Speaker
He was threatening me.
00:16:38
Speaker
So they grab the crystals and they hustle back low and Maggie.
00:16:42
Speaker
Basically, chapter 21 is they stuff the machine full of crystals, turn it on.
00:16:49
Speaker
Maggie gets killed when the machine turns on makes Boston promise not to bring her back.
00:16:55
Speaker
And he goes to the other.
00:16:57
Speaker
He's like, all right, here we go.
00:16:58
Speaker
And he goes through the portal and into the eye and he finds the billions of Kossitans and he's like, all right, well, I'm here to save you guys.
00:17:06
Speaker
And they're like, how can you save us?
00:17:09
Speaker
There's no exit.
00:17:11
Speaker
And they're like, all right, Sart.
00:17:16
Speaker
Oh, wait, no, is that no exit?
00:17:19
Speaker
Was that Sart?
00:17:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:21
Speaker
Yes.
00:17:22
Speaker
You got it.
00:17:22
Speaker
You got it.
00:17:23
Speaker
I got it.
00:17:24
Speaker
Don't have one.
00:17:25
Speaker
Don't have one.
00:17:29
Speaker
Um, so he goes, the exits right there.
00:17:32
Speaker
And there he, there, he like points at an exit sign and they're like, we don't see an exit.
00:17:38
Speaker
And he goes, Oh, that's weird.
00:17:40
Speaker
And they're like, Oh, we must be blind to it.
00:17:42
Speaker
And the only reason he, he can see it is because he's human or something.
00:17:47
Speaker
Um, and it gets real hand wavy at this point.
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:52
Speaker
The rest of the book is that's exactly, they really, um,
00:17:56
Speaker
They really yada, yada, yada their way through the rest of this book.
00:17:58
Speaker
My notes on chapter 21 are yada, yada, yada.
00:18:00
Speaker
They go home.
00:18:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:04
Speaker
So the Kassatins go out.
00:18:06
Speaker
They're back on their planet.
00:18:08
Speaker
They're like, oh, also like the green crystals.
00:18:11
Speaker
The reason why Brink went crazy is because it wasn't like dialed in right.
00:18:15
Speaker
You got to you got to like you got to do the bullshit and then use it.
00:18:20
Speaker
And he's like, oh, the Halloween episode of The Simpsons where it's like, what was it?
00:18:24
Speaker
It was like a gun that like turns it.
00:18:26
Speaker
You have to turn on to the good setting or something.
00:18:29
Speaker
Oh, no, no.
00:18:29
Speaker
It's it's it's a crusty clown doll.
00:18:32
Speaker
That's what it is.
00:18:33
Speaker
That's what it is.
00:18:33
Speaker
Yes, yes, yes.
00:18:34
Speaker
It's like, oh, your problem here is you got the doll switched over to evil.
00:18:38
Speaker
That's right.
00:18:38
Speaker
That's what it was.
00:18:41
Speaker
That's that was the entire issue.
00:18:43
Speaker
That was the entire issue.
00:18:46
Speaker
They literally say that like they're like, oh, yeah, you just overdid it a little.
00:18:50
Speaker
You're fine.
00:18:50
Speaker
You just over.
00:18:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:52
Speaker
So like, yeah, you just got to tune it up.
00:18:55
Speaker
Right.
00:18:55
Speaker
And like we already got Maggie back up and they're like, we also found your German friend and we put him back together.
00:19:01
Speaker
But he's like old now.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:04
Speaker
He lost like 15 years of his life.
00:19:06
Speaker
So that, cause like, what is it?
00:19:08
Speaker
He exists.
00:19:09
Speaker
He learned about the secrets of death or something.
00:19:12
Speaker
He went to the other side and he came back.
00:19:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:14
Speaker
He's like, yeah, they said I could learn all this shit, but it would cost me like 15 years of my life.
00:19:19
Speaker
And then one of the aliens is like, oh, but he'll still live for a very long time.
00:19:23
Speaker
It's, it's all very like,
00:19:26
Speaker
It's like, by the way, you guys are going to live like so long.
00:19:30
Speaker
Yeah, not going to live forever, but it's going to be awkward.
00:19:32
Speaker
You will crave death by the third century.
00:19:35
Speaker
You just trust me on this one.
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:38
Speaker
You ever see any vampire books where how vampires get they get bored?
00:19:43
Speaker
You are going to you are going to you don't think you would be interested in serial killing now.
00:19:49
Speaker
Just wait.
00:19:50
Speaker
You wait.
00:19:51
Speaker
You're you're going to most dangerous game.
00:19:55
Speaker
You're going to be most dangerous gaming yourself like all over this bitch.
00:19:59
Speaker
It's going to be all over.
00:20:00
Speaker
It's going to be you're going to get an island.
00:20:02
Speaker
Might even Dr. Moreau a little bit.
00:20:05
Speaker
Oh, well, we know that Brink is going to Brink.
00:20:09
Speaker
That's what Brink is going to do.
00:20:12
Speaker
100% going to Dr. Moreau this shit.
00:20:14
Speaker
No question.
00:20:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's probably he'll probably go with that instead of like base serial murder, you know?
00:20:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:22
Speaker
So they're like, hey, do you guys want to go home?
00:20:25
Speaker
And they're like, hey, freeze frame.
00:20:29
Speaker
And then don't you forget about me starts playing.
00:20:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:34
Speaker
Breakfast Club voiceover.
00:20:36
Speaker
You didn't think a scientist, a jock and a reporter would get along.
00:20:45
Speaker
But we're the Breakfast Club.
00:20:48
Speaker
Hey, hey.
00:20:51
Speaker
low just freeze frames fist in the air freeze frames uh and now boston low played by judd nelson yeah oh well that would be i mean yeah we're talking the early 90s judd nelson i think that would be a great bit casting i think that would work that guy is underrated he is a super cool guy he's cool you know what i mean he's cool
00:21:14
Speaker
Is he actually cool or do we know anything about Judd Nelson?
00:21:17
Speaker
I don't know if he's cool.
00:21:18
Speaker
I just I always thought he looked cool.
00:21:20
Speaker
I'm going straight for the personal life section of his Wikipedia.
00:21:25
Speaker
Do it.
00:21:25
Speaker
You know what?
00:21:25
Speaker
Not much.
00:21:26
Speaker
Not much.
00:21:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:28
Speaker
No news is good news.
00:21:29
Speaker
No news is good news.
00:21:35
Speaker
Judd Nelson is 65.
00:21:38
Speaker
That sounds about right.
00:21:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:40
Speaker
But he's forever like the age he was in Breakfast Club.
00:21:45
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:21:46
Speaker
In my head.
00:21:47
Speaker
When I think Judd Nelson.
00:21:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:49
Speaker
If I met him and he was anything less than Bender, it would be it would it would I would I would know I, you know, I'm an adult and I feel like, oh, yeah, it's nice to meet you.
00:22:00
Speaker
But something in my in my brain and my heart would be like, oh, yeah.
00:22:04
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:07
Speaker
I guess we did forget about him a little bit.
00:22:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:13
Speaker
So it's, I will say you, your daughter is, is a little old for bluey.
00:22:19
Speaker
So you don't watch bluey.
00:22:20
Speaker
Do you?
00:22:20
Speaker
Oh no, she is not old for bluey.
00:22:22
Speaker
Bluey is, is good for everybody.
00:22:26
Speaker
I'm, I'm, I'm young enough for bluey.
00:22:29
Speaker
But yeah, she, we were just, she
Analyzing The Dig as an Adaptation
00:22:31
Speaker
just watched, she was watching bluey episodes like last week.
00:22:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:34
Speaker
When I was when I there is a great episode of that because that's the show that my son is obsessed with.
00:22:39
Speaker
Like he'll he'll watch things and kind of zone in and out and move on to some other thing.
00:22:46
Speaker
But when Bluey's on the TV, he is he is wrapped.
00:22:49
Speaker
He loves locked in.
00:22:50
Speaker
It's the first thing I've ever seen that wasn't me or his mother that makes him belly laugh.
00:22:56
Speaker
And he doesn't talk it.
00:22:59
Speaker
What the hell was that?
00:23:01
Speaker
Some asshole with a dirt bike on the street outside.
00:23:06
Speaker
Got it.
00:23:06
Speaker
Got it.
00:23:08
Speaker
Florida, my friends, Florida.
00:23:11
Speaker
Oh, there's a great episode where they go to the movie theater.
00:23:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:19
Speaker
And they're watching.
00:23:20
Speaker
I think the best thing about it is they kind of lampoon standard kids cartoons and everything like that.
00:23:28
Speaker
And the best part to me is at the very end.
00:23:30
Speaker
And I was thinking about this song when this book, when I finished this book, they all just start singing.
00:23:34
Speaker
And it all worked out.
00:23:37
Speaker
Everything's fine.
00:23:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:41
Speaker
And that's that's immediately where my head went when I finished this book.
00:23:44
Speaker
I was like, oh, great.
00:23:45
Speaker
Everything's little.
00:23:47
Speaker
Here's the little bow.
00:23:47
Speaker
Good.
00:23:48
Speaker
Good.
00:23:48
Speaker
Here's the bow.
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:51
Speaker
So what do you think of the book in total?
00:23:56
Speaker
I.
00:23:57
Speaker
I don't know how much I would get out of it just reading it for myself.
00:24:02
Speaker
It's very much of its time.
00:24:05
Speaker
It's a very old fashioned kind of sci-fi thing, which is very cool in some ways.
00:24:09
Speaker
I think I stand by what I've been saying these past few episodes where as an adaptation of
00:24:16
Speaker
I think it might be one of the strongest adaptations that we have read simply based on how many choices there were.
00:24:27
Speaker
There are some places where it follows the book, the game very closely.
00:24:32
Speaker
There are some places where it doesn't follow it at all.
00:24:34
Speaker
And through it, it works.
00:24:37
Speaker
It is a cohesive choice.
00:24:39
Speaker
It's not my favorite book in the world, but as far as being an adaptation, it's gold medalist.
00:24:47
Speaker
I was incredibly impressed with how it was written.
00:24:52
Speaker
And I only came away with more questions in terms of like...
00:24:56
Speaker
What point was the game at?
00:24:58
Speaker
You brought up a great point last episode of how so much gore and stuff had been removed from the game.
00:25:03
Speaker
So how much of that, how much of this book was from a game that never materialized?
00:25:10
Speaker
Right.
00:25:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:11
Speaker
So I would be half tempted to reach back out to Alan Dean Foster again, just to be like, hey, buddy, what's up?
00:25:19
Speaker
Just wanted to, what's up with the dig?
00:25:22
Speaker
What's up with that?
00:25:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:24
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure.
00:25:25
Speaker
I'm sure he still remembers every detail about riding the dick.
00:25:30
Speaker
Well, I mean, he remembered a lot.
00:25:31
Speaker
He remembered a lot about about what was it?
00:25:34
Speaker
Shadowkeep or shadow.
00:25:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:36
Speaker
Shadowkeep.
00:25:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:39
Speaker
You know, and you're absolutely right.
00:25:41
Speaker
And we have had authors that I've reached out to before for interviews that have literally written us back to say, guys, that was 25 years ago.
00:25:49
Speaker
I don't remember.
00:25:50
Speaker
I don't have anything to add.
00:25:52
Speaker
And you know what?
00:25:53
Speaker
Fair enough.
00:25:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:55
Speaker
I don't really want to talk about stories I wrote five years ago.
00:25:57
Speaker
So, yeah, yeah.
00:25:59
Speaker
But yeah, I get it.
00:26:00
Speaker
You know, Alan came on to talk about a book that he wrote 40 years ago.
00:26:04
Speaker
By God, the man's a pro.
00:26:10
Speaker
God damn pro.
00:26:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:16
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:26:17
Speaker
That was your thought.
00:26:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:19
Speaker
I mean, that's about it.
00:26:20
Speaker
That's about that.
00:26:22
Speaker
It was, it's fun.
00:26:23
Speaker
It's an adventure.
00:26:25
Speaker
It has, it has, you know what it has?
00:26:27
Speaker
It has kind of, um,
00:26:30
Speaker
early 80s, late 70s, Disney movie, Last Starfighter kind of vibes.
00:26:34
Speaker
Sure.
00:26:35
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:26:37
Speaker
Except for a few individual pieces that are real fucking heavy, like the alien who desperately wants death.
00:26:45
Speaker
Just wants to die.
00:26:46
Speaker
Who has lived long enough that they don't want to live anymore.
00:26:51
Speaker
Outside of details like that, yeah, it had very, what did Keeler call it?
00:26:56
Speaker
In our group chat, he sent something about,
00:27:00
Speaker
something wicked this way comes.
00:27:01
Speaker
And he called it like,
00:27:03
Speaker
the crappy Disney movies or something like that.
00:27:06
Speaker
Oh, I hold on.
00:27:06
Speaker
I am literally pulling that up right now.
00:27:08
Speaker
So we're, uh, yeah.
00:27:12
Speaker
Uh, I got, I got this little fucker at a shop in Des Moines today.
00:27:17
Speaker
It's not on Disney plus.
00:27:18
Speaker
And as part of what I lovingly refer to as shitty Disney, which is in, which is in an era of cat from outer space, Tron, the black hole, and this pizza dragon.
00:27:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:29
Speaker
All that shit.
00:27:30
Speaker
I,
00:27:31
Speaker
I couldn't agree more with that assessment.
00:27:33
Speaker
And this is what that makes me think of for the most part.
00:27:36
Speaker
And the picture was of a copy, a laser disc.
00:27:40
Speaker
Yes.
00:27:41
Speaker
Yes.
00:27:42
Speaker
Because that's his jam.
00:27:42
Speaker
Something Wicked This Way Comes, which is, I believe, his current method of collecting things.
00:27:48
Speaker
That's his thing.
00:27:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:50
Speaker
It was records before.
00:27:51
Speaker
Now it's laser discs.
00:27:52
Speaker
It all blends together, really.
00:27:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:55
Speaker
He doesn't have to buy different kinds of boxes.
00:27:58
Speaker
You know, it's no laser discs fit right in with the records.
00:28:00
Speaker
It's perfect.
00:28:01
Speaker
Exactly.
00:28:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's perfect.
00:28:02
Speaker
I think.
00:28:03
Speaker
I don't know.
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:04
Speaker
What about you?
00:28:04
Speaker
What?
00:28:05
Speaker
What did I think?
00:28:05
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:28:06
Speaker
What did you think?
00:28:08
Speaker
I liked it.
00:28:08
Speaker
I think it has.
00:28:10
Speaker
You know, what's funny to me is I think the weakest parts of it are when it has to kind of like cue back in closer to what happened in the book.
00:28:18
Speaker
Or in the game.
00:28:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:21
Speaker
Totally.
00:28:21
Speaker
Where it's like, it's like as it deviates, you're like, oh, okay.
00:28:25
Speaker
This is, you know, a space adventure.
00:28:27
Speaker
This is a, this is a Buck Rogers.
00:28:30
Speaker
This is duck Dodgers in the 51st century, you know, doing some shit.
00:28:37
Speaker
We got Marvin the Martian over here.
00:28:39
Speaker
And you know what I was thinking just today, I was I was at work doing something and I made the realization as I was walking in to a meeting I was having with a vendor and I was like, you know what?
00:28:58
Speaker
The dig would have been better as a pure adventure game and not as a point and click.
00:29:07
Speaker
Interesting.
00:29:08
Speaker
So think about it like like so more like not not like a point and click, but more like a like a like a puzzle, like a like a kind of thing.
00:29:24
Speaker
maybe like a missed, like a first person or a third person like puzzle game, but not, uh, not specifically as a point and click, because I think the problem is point and click.
00:29:37
Speaker
Uh, you know what?
00:29:39
Speaker
Maybe more like a cinematic platformer.
00:29:42
Speaker
Uh, okay.
00:29:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:42
Speaker
Like, yeah, like flashback or fade to black or, you know what?
00:29:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:48
Speaker
I could totally see that.
00:29:49
Speaker
I could totally see that.
00:29:52
Speaker
But with more puzzle elements, maybe.
00:29:54
Speaker
I don't know.
00:29:54
Speaker
It was like because I because I'm reading I was thinking about all these action sequences in the book that in point and click games are just not possible to do.
00:30:05
Speaker
And games that have point and click games that have tried them.
00:30:08
Speaker
They're usually not great.
00:30:10
Speaker
And what I think of is, is it Shadow over Innsmouth?
00:30:17
Speaker
That Lovecraft point and click game from like the early, like the 1990s.
00:30:21
Speaker
You know what I'm talking about?
00:30:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's Shadow over Innsmouth.
00:30:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:27
Speaker
Got to look that up.
00:30:27
Speaker
I beat that a couple of years back.
00:30:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:30
Speaker
Oh, we played it.
00:30:31
Speaker
We both played it for a thing.
00:30:33
Speaker
I thought.
00:30:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's right.
00:30:34
Speaker
We totally did.
00:30:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:36
Speaker
Before the show.
00:30:37
Speaker
Before the show.
00:30:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:30:42
Speaker
You had another shadow of the shadow of the shadow of the shadow of the comet.
00:30:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:46
Speaker
Yeah, I used to host with a friend of mine.
00:30:49
Speaker
We used to host a horror video game podcast.
00:30:52
Speaker
Right.
00:30:52
Speaker
Something that if this ever becomes a full time job, I'd like to resurrect.
00:30:55
Speaker
Like to get back to that.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yes, that was super fun.
00:30:58
Speaker
Yeah, it was a lot of fun, I think.
00:31:01
Speaker
And so.
00:31:02
Speaker
getting back to the point shadow of the comment has like random, like action sequences, so to speak, where you're like running from a monster and you're going to memorize this pattern in a maze and go through the right doors and all that.
00:31:16
Speaker
It is like, it is, it is such bullshit.
00:31:19
Speaker
It is one of those scenes where it's like you, you have the guide up on another, uh, on another monitor, just so you make sure you go through the right path every time.
00:31:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:30
Speaker
There's a lot to say for,
00:31:31
Speaker
old there's a lot to say for old point clicks uh uh but i i rarely play them without a guide and it's like that that's the reason but yeah yeah i think you're right i think there's something to that um that's interesting that's a really interesting idea i i don't know why but my brain immediately went with fmv uh oh man this could have been fun with that i'm a sucker for a little bit of fmv uh especially the old shitty grainy kind
00:31:57
Speaker
shitty grainy kind of FMV that was filmed on.
00:32:01
Speaker
Like, I'd be interested in finding out what some of those FMVs were actually shot on.
00:32:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:08
Speaker
Like, I guess some of them were on tape.
00:32:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:13
Speaker
But others were.
00:32:15
Speaker
I can't imagine anywhere on 16 millimeter.
00:32:18
Speaker
I probably not.
00:32:20
Speaker
But no, I just remember that those games were
00:32:24
Speaker
Looking back at it now, they're very campy and very over the top.
00:32:27
Speaker
That blew my brain apart when I was a kid.
00:32:30
Speaker
I was blown away.
00:32:32
Speaker
So I have a real love for those.
00:32:34
Speaker
There's something about that that's appealing for this game.
00:32:38
Speaker
Overall, though, it's...
00:32:41
Speaker
It's an admirable work of fiction based on a game that was clearly gutted at the last minute because people got mad at Steven Spielberg over Jurassic Park.
00:32:55
Speaker
Right.
00:32:55
Speaker
Which happens.
00:32:58
Speaker
And I believe, did we mention that he dedicated the book to Steven Spielberg?
00:33:04
Speaker
Oh, no, I didn't.
00:33:05
Speaker
I didn't see that.
00:33:06
Speaker
He dedicated the book to Steven Spielberg.
00:33:08
Speaker
I believe what he said was, I've been waiting years for those dinosaurs.
00:33:12
Speaker
Good job or something like that.
00:33:15
Speaker
Got it.
00:33:15
Speaker
So big old, big old Jurassic Park fan.
00:33:18
Speaker
Yeah, clearly.
00:33:20
Speaker
I mean, it's a masterpiece.
00:33:22
Speaker
Everybody, it is a masterpiece.
00:33:24
Speaker
Say what you will about Michael Crichton.
00:33:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:28
Speaker
Oh, sure.
00:33:28
Speaker
Flawed man.
00:33:29
Speaker
Big time.
00:33:29
Speaker
Flawed man.
00:33:30
Speaker
For example, flawed dead.
00:33:32
Speaker
Who does that?
00:33:34
Speaker
Who does that?
00:33:36
Speaker
Also, way too tall.
00:33:37
Speaker
Too tall.
00:33:38
Speaker
Too tall.
00:33:40
Speaker
He was just over the line on height.
00:33:44
Speaker
Like if he was a basketball player, that would be one thing.
00:33:46
Speaker
But as an author, he was like, what was he?
00:33:49
Speaker
Like six, seven?
00:33:50
Speaker
He was like, yeah, six.
00:33:52
Speaker
He was in giant range.
00:33:53
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:33:54
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:33:55
Speaker
Come on.
00:33:56
Speaker
If you're not a basketball player or a professional wrestler, you got to shorten up, buddy.
00:34:02
Speaker
Get with it.
00:34:03
Speaker
Get with it.
00:34:03
Speaker
Shave off some inches.
00:34:05
Speaker
What are you doing?
00:34:06
Speaker
Leave some for the rest of us.
Gaming Experiences and Reviews
00:34:08
Speaker
Come on.
00:34:09
Speaker
Come on.
00:34:09
Speaker
Anyway.
00:34:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:12
Speaker
Phil.
00:34:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:15
Speaker
What are you playing?
00:34:16
Speaker
Oh, OK.
00:34:18
Speaker
Well, I played a couple of demos last week.
00:34:22
Speaker
I didn't have a lot of stuff, but I did play two very interesting demos.
00:34:27
Speaker
The first one I'm going to bring up is called The Horror at High Rook.
00:34:32
Speaker
Um, this game, I believe both of these games are fully released.
00:34:36
Speaker
Um, but this one, uh, I missed during the next fest, but that was when it was really, uh, pushing its demo out there.
00:34:44
Speaker
Um, this is like a deck.
00:34:47
Speaker
Builder slash board game slash horror game.
00:34:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:54
Speaker
It's really interesting.
00:34:56
Speaker
You play this.
00:34:57
Speaker
You have this team of Lovecraftian, you know, experts.
00:35:01
Speaker
You've got like the adventurer and the academic and all those tropes.
00:35:08
Speaker
It is very Darkest Dungeon art style.
00:35:11
Speaker
Very darkest dungeon on art style.
00:35:13
Speaker
I wonder if there's a name for this specific art style.
00:35:17
Speaker
It's this really shadowy, high contrast kind of thing that they do.
00:35:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:23
Speaker
But yeah, no, but yes, 100%, very darkest dungeon.
00:35:27
Speaker
But you have got a board and you've got your cards and...
00:35:32
Speaker
You are basically trying to each each level that you're in, you're trying to solve it by using your characters and their gifts, their skills in different rooms and different ways to search for items that will help solve a puzzle.
00:35:51
Speaker
Ultimately, it's it's
00:35:54
Speaker
a really fun rotation.
00:35:58
Speaker
It's really interesting.
00:35:59
Speaker
There are timers on it, which I was kind of thrown off by because I'm not used to seeing timers on a game that isn't like originally made for cell phones.
00:36:10
Speaker
Right.
00:36:11
Speaker
But it's it's but it's actually a valid way of doing it because you've got
00:36:17
Speaker
different complications and things that happen and they're going to last for a certain amount of seconds.
00:36:24
Speaker
And it might hold you off.
00:36:26
Speaker
Certain items will only last for a certain amount of time.
00:36:28
Speaker
And you can pause it and everything like that if you need.
00:36:31
Speaker
But it adds a level of tension to it and a bit of urgency that you wouldn't otherwise have.
00:36:40
Speaker
There's a grindiness to it.
00:36:43
Speaker
that I found to be kind of funny.
00:36:46
Speaker
I couldn't believe how much I was grinding on some of these rooms.
00:36:52
Speaker
There were certain things I was looking for, and I just wasn't getting them at the right times.
00:36:57
Speaker
And you have to keep these people fed.
00:36:58
Speaker
You have to keep them rested.
00:37:01
Speaker
You have to keep them sane, because they're all a bunch of hothouse flowers.
00:37:06
Speaker
And...
00:37:07
Speaker
You gotta do all that shit while you're searching.
00:37:10
Speaker
You're just turning this mansion upside down looking for shit.
00:37:16
Speaker
And ultimately looking for the pieces of a literal puzzle that expose some sort of dark Cthulhu-esque kind of thing.
00:37:25
Speaker
Really interesting.
00:37:27
Speaker
The demo is the first level.
00:37:31
Speaker
A really good demonstration of what it's about.
00:37:34
Speaker
I think it's really interesting.
00:37:35
Speaker
I think people might...
00:37:37
Speaker
quite get a kick out of it if you don't mind a little bit of grindiness.
00:37:43
Speaker
I didn't expect some people in the comments like have been expressing just how frustrating they find it to be.
00:37:48
Speaker
I don't I didn't find it that bad.
00:37:51
Speaker
Right.
00:37:52
Speaker
But it's definitely a part of the game that you should know.
00:37:55
Speaker
Right.
00:37:56
Speaker
So that's a that's a really interesting one.
00:37:58
Speaker
The hard high rook.
00:37:59
Speaker
I definitely recommend people take a look at that.
00:38:03
Speaker
And then I played the demo for a game called necrophysis.
00:38:09
Speaker
This is.
00:38:10
Speaker
Kevin, what was the game that came out a few years back
00:38:16
Speaker
that you and several of our friends despised that had the HR Giger thing that I wanted to play really bad, but I still never did because of how much you guys like really just fucking hated it.
00:38:29
Speaker
Oh, fuck.
00:38:30
Speaker
Why am I?
00:38:31
Speaker
Hold on.
00:38:32
Speaker
I will talk about necrophosis while I look this up.
00:38:34
Speaker
Okay, sure.
00:38:35
Speaker
Well, it's very that it's a very Giger.
00:38:40
Speaker
And I think it is the the artist name is Belinsky, Bikinsky, something like that.
00:38:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:47
Speaker
He's a Polish artist.
00:38:49
Speaker
It's very much influenced by that.
00:38:53
Speaker
These very biomechanical, grimdark,
00:38:59
Speaker
atmospheres that you you're in this.
00:39:02
Speaker
Scorn.
00:39:02
Speaker
That's what it was.
00:39:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:03
Speaker
Very scorn.
00:39:06
Speaker
It's not it has no shooting elements as far as I could tell based on the demo.
00:39:11
Speaker
It is just a it is it is more of an adventure game in the way that you were describing before.
00:39:17
Speaker
You are in this it's kind of in a weird way.
00:39:19
Speaker
It's like an open world adventure game.
00:39:23
Speaker
You are not in an open world, but it's big enough.
00:39:25
Speaker
that feels like maybe you are and you're just kind of scrambling all over the place, looking for the different pieces to these puzzles to help move forward.
00:39:36
Speaker
The studios are, I believe they're Russian and they did a short game called The Shore that I played and it was another Lovecraftian kind of thing.
00:39:49
Speaker
And I remember I remembered enjoying it, but not being crazy impressed by it.
00:39:54
Speaker
Sure.
00:39:55
Speaker
They've definitely taken it, taken, they've upped the ante with this one.
00:40:00
Speaker
It still has, it still has kind of the meaningless, grimdark narrative.
00:40:07
Speaker
Like you're clearly in some form of hell or some damn thing like that.
00:40:11
Speaker
This is, this is basically looks, I saw this on my queue the other day and I was like, oh, we making scorn likes now.
00:40:21
Speaker
It's yeah, yeah, it's it's very indie with a lot of indie jank.
00:40:29
Speaker
Yeah, but I will say for them, they worked really hard on it and it actually does.
00:40:32
Speaker
Despite the jank there, it's there's a there's a full fledged game in there.
00:40:36
Speaker
It's it's pretty good.
00:40:39
Speaker
I think the two things that annoyed me were one, you're literally just running around this, this in this level.
00:40:46
Speaker
Anyway, the, the, the demo part, you're just running around this open area, looking for things that you can pick up to fit into other things.
00:40:54
Speaker
Um, and whereas like in a game like resident evil, which that's basically what you're doing to be fair.
00:40:58
Speaker
Sure.
00:41:00
Speaker
You are going from room to room.
00:41:02
Speaker
It's kind of a maze of a mansion or what have you.
00:41:05
Speaker
And with this, it's just this kind of big, wide open area with the occasional cave or something like that.
00:41:13
Speaker
And that's and that's just it.
00:41:15
Speaker
I don't know, it felt it was just not as intriguing of a gameplay experience as I would have hoped.
00:41:21
Speaker
And the narrative is very kind of like meaninglessly the things they say don't matter as far as I can tell.
00:41:30
Speaker
It's all very like one of the first things you meet is this horrifying.
00:41:34
Speaker
The art's great.
00:41:36
Speaker
And you meet this horrifying angel of death or something like that that recites the Ozymandias poem to you.
00:41:48
Speaker
And then you go and you go and you read all this stuff that's really intense.
00:41:53
Speaker
And if you're not paying attention, you might believe that it's very meaningful.
00:41:57
Speaker
It is not.
00:41:58
Speaker
It's all this like, you live in a world of suffering.
00:42:02
Speaker
Look around you and see the decay that creeps into your bones.
00:42:05
Speaker
It's all that all the time, which is fine.
00:42:09
Speaker
By the way, Percy Shelley.
00:42:12
Speaker
Yes, yes, that's it's that's fine.
00:42:15
Speaker
It just it's just it doesn't it doesn't a impressive narrative make at least as far as much what I read.
00:42:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:24
Speaker
Having said all that, I am really intrigued just based on how much love went into the art style of this.
00:42:30
Speaker
The world is huge.
00:42:33
Speaker
And I mean that in the sense of like, you want to try, no matter what kind of setup you've got, no matter what kind of rig you got, you want to try and get as much, what's the setting for like seeing off in the distance?
00:42:49
Speaker
Oh, view distance.
00:42:50
Speaker
Yes, you want you want as much view distance as possible because you've got mountains of these giant ancient statues and and the landscape.
00:43:02
Speaker
And that's what it is, is kind of crazy.
00:43:04
Speaker
And as far as I can tell, it's not an asset flip or anything like that.
00:43:07
Speaker
It seems to be original work.
00:43:09
Speaker
Right.
00:43:10
Speaker
And it's it's.
00:43:11
Speaker
really impressive uh just from an artistic uh standpoint uh nothing about nothing about the game itself is all that weak it doesn't fall on its face i just uh the cycle of it uh sometimes got a little okay um but i think it's worth a look so yeah that's that's uh necrophysis that is what i've been playing kevin oh what are you playing
00:43:37
Speaker
I have not played a whole lot other than Clara Obscure Expedition.
00:43:42
Speaker
Sure.
00:43:43
Speaker
Three this week.
00:43:46
Speaker
I'm pretty much at the end of the game.
00:43:50
Speaker
It's I'm at a spot in the game where it's like I'm in Act Three and Act Three only has one goal and it's like, go, go beat the big bad.
00:44:00
Speaker
But at the same time, when you start act three, you get full access to the map to kind of go like go back and do whatever you need to.
00:44:09
Speaker
So it's like go go go defeat the big bad.
00:44:14
Speaker
Or look at all of our optional side quests.
00:44:22
Speaker
Would you like to know more?
00:44:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:24
Speaker
Would you like to know more?
00:44:26
Speaker
So I think something I really appreciate about the game is how much it is.
00:44:34
Speaker
It cherishes the JRPGs that it's based on.
00:44:39
Speaker
It is like, and I know there's been a lot of discourse.
00:44:45
Speaker
I have not seen it, but I've heard it where a lot of people are using this opportunity to be a little bit racist about JRPGs.
00:44:52
Speaker
Oh man, come on guys.
00:44:54
Speaker
As the internet will, because look, the French did it or something.
00:44:58
Speaker
I don't know, some bullshit.
00:44:59
Speaker
They fixed it.
00:44:59
Speaker
They fixed JRPGs.
00:45:01
Speaker
Oh fuck you.
00:45:03
Speaker
What a ridiculous thing to say.
00:45:04
Speaker
This game is a JRPG through and through.
00:45:08
Speaker
I mean, I still call it like kind of basically like a persona without all the bullshit.
00:45:13
Speaker
And when I say without all the bullshit, I mean like the additional 40 hours of the social stuff.
00:45:21
Speaker
It's just like the speed.
00:45:24
Speaker
It goes with it.
00:45:26
Speaker
But it is persona.
00:45:29
Speaker
in Belle Epoque French setting with a lot of stuff that is very like obviously you know the creature design is amazing the mechanics are some of them you can actually pinpoint and be like okay they got this from that they got this from that they got this from that
00:45:51
Speaker
There's like mini games that are absolute bullshit.
00:45:54
Speaker
The game director said, yeah, I was inspired by the mini games in Final Fantasy 10, which were absolute bullshit.
00:46:01
Speaker
And as it's like very sweet, like this game is it.
00:46:08
Speaker
And pardon my French, an homage to all the JRPGs that have come before.
00:46:14
Speaker
And very clearly that.
00:46:16
Speaker
And I and I want to say that for worse,
00:46:20
Speaker
For better and for worse.
00:46:22
Speaker
Like it has a chance to be game of the year on a lot of people's lists, especially because GTA six left this, the moved its release window to next year.
00:46:35
Speaker
Well then, yeah, definitely.
00:46:36
Speaker
People want that great big adventure, you know?
00:46:39
Speaker
Somebody was saying that I saw somebody mentioned like, oh, you know, the rock star was too scared with all the all the Claire Obscure getting like game of the year buzz.
00:46:51
Speaker
And I was like, they don't I don't think they even consider a Claire Obscure.
00:46:59
Speaker
I don't think they think about you.
00:47:03
Speaker
It's that scene from Mad Men where what's his name goes into the elevator and goes, you know, I feel really sorry for you.
00:47:10
Speaker
And Don responds, I don't think about you at all.
00:47:16
Speaker
Rockstar don't think about anybody but Rockstar.
00:47:19
Speaker
Again, for better or for worse.
00:47:21
Speaker
So yeah, they're not thinking of a startup French company.
00:47:28
Speaker
It's a cute theory.
00:47:29
Speaker
It's a cute theory.
00:47:31
Speaker
But yeah, no, I really love the game.
00:47:34
Speaker
I'm close.
00:47:35
Speaker
I'm like, I'm kind of debating where, what do I do?
00:47:40
Speaker
Do I go in and finish off some of the side quests and level up so that the final dungeon is a little bit easier?
00:47:45
Speaker
Or do I just kind of like...
00:47:47
Speaker
power my way through it.
00:47:49
Speaker
We'll see.
00:47:51
Speaker
We'll see where I land on that.
00:47:54
Speaker
Otherwise, the only other game I played it briefly and it was one of those it was a buy and, you know, I played it for a bit and then I ended up returning it was Drop Duchy.
00:48:08
Speaker
Only because it was... You actually just added it to your wish list, I saw.
00:48:14
Speaker
Oh, yes!
00:48:14
Speaker
That looks amazing.
00:48:16
Speaker
I'm really looking forward to that one.
00:48:17
Speaker
It's fascinating.
00:48:18
Speaker
I played it.
00:48:20
Speaker
I played it, and I was like, okay, yeah, I...
00:48:23
Speaker
there are people who will play this endlessly and I played it for about 20 minutes.
00:48:28
Speaker
It was like something about it wasn't necessarily clicking with me.
00:48:31
Speaker
I think it was the the fact that it was like it's a it has that Tetris element, but it's like you're not reacting to the blocks dropping like you're moving the blocks down yourself.
00:48:44
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:48:44
Speaker
Right.
00:48:45
Speaker
Right.
00:48:45
Speaker
Like you're pressing down to make the blocks go down to the bottom.
00:48:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:48:50
Speaker
That's interesting.
Preview of Next Book and Wrap-Up
00:48:51
Speaker
That's the thing that I was that that doesn't matter so much, but it was I was just playing it.
00:48:58
Speaker
I was like and then there's like some combat things where I was like, okay, it's not it's not 100% what I was looking for in like the game in my head was different.
00:49:11
Speaker
Like I had a game in my head based on what I saw in the screenshots that didn't necessarily play out the way I was hoping it would when I actually played the game.
00:49:20
Speaker
That's OK.
00:49:21
Speaker
That happens.
00:49:21
Speaker
Yeah, that happens.
00:49:24
Speaker
But if I do recommend people go check out the page for Drop Dutchie and and take a look at it because, you know, it's a it's a small, small dev, you know, doing their best.
00:49:37
Speaker
I do feel bad about refunding things, but I'm also trying to keep a budget.
00:49:44
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:49:46
Speaker
We got to do what we got to do, my friend.
00:49:49
Speaker
I did wish that it had a demo.
00:49:54
Speaker
It does not have a demo on its page.
00:49:56
Speaker
I was kind of surprised that it didn't.
00:49:58
Speaker
It just seems like it's built for that kind of thing.
00:50:02
Speaker
But all right, you know.
00:50:04
Speaker
I'm intrigued.
00:50:05
Speaker
I'm intrigued.
00:50:08
Speaker
So take a look at it.
00:50:09
Speaker
See if it's for you.
00:50:11
Speaker
I'm going to have a look at that one.
00:50:13
Speaker
That looks great.
00:50:17
Speaker
But I'm doing it for tonight's episode.
00:50:22
Speaker
Thank you all so much for listening.
00:50:25
Speaker
Uh, coming up next, uh, Phil, what do we got next in terms of books?
00:50:30
Speaker
We're, we are going to be starting finally, uh, getting in on some Witcher action.
00:50:37
Speaker
The Witcher.
00:50:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:38
Speaker
So we're going to be starting with the first, uh, book from the Witcher.
00:50:42
Speaker
Uh, and that's going to be a lot of fun because, uh, uh,
00:50:45
Speaker
I hope because I've heard nothing but good things about stories.
00:50:48
Speaker
So I'm looking forward to it.
00:50:50
Speaker
And it's a short story collection that's kind of treated as a novel retrospectively.
00:50:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:56
Speaker
But I'm a sucker for a nice short story collection.
00:50:59
Speaker
So I'm quite looking forward to that.
00:51:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's The Last Wish, which is it's the first.
00:51:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's the it's the first novel.
00:51:09
Speaker
It's basically short story collection.
00:51:11
Speaker
And it is more or less like the first season of The Witcher has a lot of this stuff from The Last Wish.
00:51:22
Speaker
I believe also it like goes into the season two of The Witcher.
00:51:27
Speaker
I'm talking about like the actual the TV series.
00:51:31
Speaker
I don't in terms of the game I don't know where the stories in the last wish kind of like fall into the game series because I've never played the first two Witcher games either am I either am I
00:51:48
Speaker
I mean, I know the third one deals with the Wild Hunt, but the first two are just, they're out there.
00:51:55
Speaker
I think the third Witcher, I've got like 20 hours in it, but I do think that might have been the game that made me go, oh, I might be too old for these games.
00:52:06
Speaker
Yeah, no, no.
00:52:07
Speaker
The third Witcher really hit me with the, oh, I'm not sure I can do the open world, which was cool.
00:52:15
Speaker
quickly disproven by my love of Cyberpunk 2077.
00:52:20
Speaker
True.
00:52:21
Speaker
That's totally fair.
00:52:22
Speaker
That's totally fair.
00:52:22
Speaker
But I don't know.
00:52:24
Speaker
Maybe it's fantasy open world.
00:52:27
Speaker
Maybe I need maybe if I'm in a city, like if I'm in a city setting, I think I'm fine.
00:52:32
Speaker
But if it's just like.
00:52:35
Speaker
And this is the same thing with Red Dead Redemption 2.
00:52:38
Speaker
I couldn't really get into Red Dead Redemption 2 that far because it's just like, oh, I'm going through hills and valleys and dirt roads.
00:52:44
Speaker
Is it the third person aspect of it, maybe?
00:52:48
Speaker
Maybe.
00:52:49
Speaker
Maybe.
00:52:51
Speaker
But anyway, that'll be next episode.
00:52:54
Speaker
We're starting on The Witcher and then we'll have a special announcement also for some fun things that we're planning on doing over the summer.
00:53:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:05
Speaker
But, you know, until then, thanks so much for listening.
00:53:09
Speaker
Now, Phil...
00:53:13
Speaker
I it's it's it's weird, but I I was putting books back on the shelf and then I pulled a book off.
00:53:22
Speaker
But a secret compartment that I never knew was behind my television suddenly opened up and there's just a stone staircase going down now.
00:53:34
Speaker
OK, sure, sure.
00:53:36
Speaker
Do I go down there and what supplies do I bring?
00:53:39
Speaker
OK,
00:53:43
Speaker
First off, first off, you have to get like a brand new pair of New Balance shoes after that.
00:53:51
Speaker
But here's well, here's the thing with the New Balance, though, make sure that they