Transcript
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: That's that's a huge deal.
Speaker: It's like out of the court, out of the studio system, back to him and to his family after 25 years.
Speaker: That's such a big damn deal.
Speaker: That is not something anybody just anybody gets.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's fucking excellent.
Speaker: Good for him.
Speaker: Good for him.
Speaker: Good for him.
Speaker: And you know who else it's good for?
Speaker: Who's that?
Speaker: Hey there everybody, welcome back to Pixel It.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me as always, as is, as is Phil.
Speaker: Is, as is.
Speaker: Today we're finishing up The Dig.
Speaker: The Dig.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: Before we get there though, I have an announcement to make.
Speaker: Patreon.com slash PixelitPod.
Speaker: That's the announcement.
Speaker: That's always the announcement.
Speaker: It's from my heart to your brain.
Speaker: PixelitPod.com or Patreon.com slash PixelitPod.
Speaker: Both will get you there.
Speaker: We got three tiers.
Speaker: $1, $5, $10, and $10 gets your name shouted out in every episode.
Speaker: To that end, I want to thank Jesus Loves You, Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mudder, Middle of Things, Sigma Sal, Chet!
Speaker: Beaks, dammit, thick.
Speaker: And friendly friend, thank you for being a friend.
Speaker: Patreon.com slash PixelitPod.
Speaker: Do it today.
Speaker: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker: So why don't we go ahead... The body in the marsh.
Speaker: Let's just get this book wrapped up so we can talk about it.
Speaker: When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them
Speaker: In the mind.
Speaker: Let's put one more Alan Dean Foster body into that.
Speaker: That shockingly full marsh.
Speaker: The marsh is shockingly full.
Speaker: We got like how many bodies we got in there.
Speaker: We're almost at 200 bodies.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Next episode will be 200 bodies.
Speaker: So 200, 200 bodies, everybody.
Speaker: You know, I was thinking about what we were.
Speaker: I was thinking about what we were talking about before with what we should call our fans and basing it around the market.
Speaker: Marshies.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Marshies.
Speaker: Marshies.
Speaker: The Marshies.
Speaker: The Marshies.
Speaker: I think that's lovely.
Speaker: It's cute.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sup, Marshies?
Speaker: Yeah, there we go.
Speaker: Sup, Marshies?
Speaker: It's your boy, Kevin.
Speaker: Slap that subscribe button and leave us a like.
Speaker: Be real alpha if you did that.
Speaker: Be real alpha.
Speaker: Sigma mindset.
Speaker: Got to get on that grind set.
Speaker: Skibbity.
Speaker: That a thing?
Speaker: That a thing?
Speaker: I'm sure it is.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It's something to do with like putting half life in a toilet and flushing it, I think is how you get skibbity.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Just.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Chapter 16.
Speaker: Lowe returns to Ludger Ludger Ludger and begs him to help Meg get Maggie out of trouble.
Speaker: And it is not going well.
Speaker: They get into a little bit of a physical altercation and it doesn't go well for Brink.
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.
Speaker: He basically pulls a like when you've thought about what you've done.
Speaker: When you've thought about your actions.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Brink agrees and they run off to find her.
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.
Speaker: they eventually find Maggie trapped in a mucus-like web, and the spider thing comes back.
Speaker: And Ludger leads it away while flashing his lights at it, distracting enough to move it away from while Lowe frees Maggie.
Speaker: And when she is free, the monster turns and runs back towards them, and they're like, ah...
Speaker: And the three run back out to the exit, eventually getting to safety into the sphere and back to the central thing.
Speaker: Maggie wishes she could just click her heels three times and go home.
Speaker: And who could blame her, really?
Speaker: Who could blame her?
Speaker: And that's that's pretty much that's chapter 16.
Speaker: Chapter 17.
Speaker: The Cossetans are happy that the humans have made it out of the monster's trap.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Maggie is apologizing to Lowe for stomping off like she did.
Speaker: To thank him, she kisses both Boston and Ludger on the cheek.
Speaker: And Lowe basically responds like...
Speaker: I caramba.
Speaker: Hello, nurse.
Speaker: It's this.
Speaker: This is I like to think of this last third of the book.
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.
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.
Speaker: And then by gosh, by gee willikers, I'd like to see her ankles.
Speaker: By gosh, by God, by golly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's where we're at.
Speaker: Yeah, that's where we're at.
Speaker: I caramba.
Speaker: Bart Simpson's Simpson noises.
Speaker: He does a little jig and then Brink doesn't care, though.
Speaker: He's like the life crystals.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Lowe gives the crystal.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He didn't give a shit.
Speaker: Lowe gives the crystals back after a bit of tension, but holds on to a pocket full of them.
Speaker: Brink nearly freaks out and then moves on.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: They find one where Maggie had seen one earlier and Lowe had found another one as well.
Speaker: And then they find a third in the planetarium, but they can't find a fourth.
Speaker: Lowe proposes talking to the Cosseton and they offer Brink the chance to come along, but he is like, no, my life crystals.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's really hung up on these things.
Speaker: He's really hung up on these.
Speaker: And there's actually a lot more of him in this adaptation than in the game.
Speaker: Yes.
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.
Speaker: And it's constant.
Speaker: And you just want to slap the guy after a while.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the two of them make their way back to the mummified Cossetan and wake him up with a life crystal.
Speaker: In the Cossetan chorus, they talk about how cruel it is that they keep resurrecting the creator.
Speaker: Maggie is able to speak with it and promises to help them.
Speaker: And it promises to help them if they promise to let it die.
Speaker: It's like, please stop doing this.
Speaker: Please stop.
Speaker: I am so tired of this.
Speaker: Chapter 18.
Speaker: Maggie has an interview with the creator, which doesn't really have a name, but just a title.
Speaker: And also it prefers being called the engineer.
Speaker: So the engineer gives background on the Cossetans, how they sent off probes to other planets and so forth.
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.
Speaker: So they were like.
Speaker: Living so long that they're like, OK, well, how can we go?
Speaker: How can we go now to infinite life?
Speaker: And that's how why they end up creating the eye.
Speaker: The engineer was not happy with the idea of the eye.
Speaker: So it killed itself as a warning to those using the eye.
Speaker: But that didn't stop them.
Speaker: That didn't stop people from doing it.
Speaker: Then the engineer then mentions that there's like a billion thought forms in the room with them right now.
Speaker: And Lowe is like, oh, yeah, he's like, I didn't I didn't seem crowded at first.
Speaker: What do you think about that?
Speaker: Only female in the room.
Speaker: Pretty good, right?
Speaker: Pretty good.
Speaker: Chapter 19.
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.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, sure.
Speaker: Fine.
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.
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.
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.
Speaker: And during this, Lowe decides that she has a beautiful smile.
Speaker: I think this part is starting.
Speaker: It's where it started to annoy me, where like his sudden crush on this girl is accelerated on a level that accelerated.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Do we have to force this?
Speaker: All right, fine.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: His arm is trapped in the crevice.
Speaker: His arm is trapped in a honey jar because he saw a life crystal in there and he can't get it out.
Speaker: He won't let go of the pickle.
Speaker: He won't let go of the pickle.
Speaker: Because he wanted a pickle.
Speaker: So his arm is stuck and he can't get it out.
Speaker: He's really Winnie the Poohed himself into it.
Speaker: It's so it's it's it is such a silly moment with such dire consequences.
Speaker: It's ridiculous.
Speaker: It's absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker: So we're treated to a harrowing scene of Lowe cutting off Brink's arm.
Speaker: It's gross.
Speaker: Like, it's actually I actually felt a little sweep of like, oh, like nausea.
Speaker: They spent some time trying to dig out his arm, but they can't.
Speaker: So they're like, well, we're going to have to cut it off.
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.
Speaker: Oh, as soon as he was free, Maggie placed a green crystal on the stump, which caused it to heal.
Speaker: And Brink was mildly disappointed that the crystal didn't grow his arm back.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He wanted lizard powers.
Speaker: He was like, I'm going to get this.
Speaker: It's going to grow right.
Speaker: The shit back.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: You're lucky with what you got.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: You're lucky with what you got, buddy.
Speaker: He seems like he's in a better headspace now, though.
Speaker: A little bit.
Speaker: A little bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's been humbled thoroughly.
Speaker: He's been humbled.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Chapter 20 with Brink, they put the four plates back in, but nothing happens at first.
Speaker: Brink then starts losing his cool.
Speaker: Whatever positive gains he had after getting his arm cut off, they're all gone.
Speaker: And Lowe actually says that is like any improvements that this guy had from losing his arm are gone.
Speaker: Gone.
Speaker: Gone.
Speaker: That's all it took.
Speaker: He loses cool.
Speaker: He's getting very wacky.
Speaker: Suddenly the fifth door opens and it's another tram and Brink is like, well, maybe this van takes us to Orlando.
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
Speaker: He is out of his damn gourd.
Speaker: It is over for him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Out of his damn gourd, Maggie yells at him.
Speaker: It's no use.
Speaker: He's not coming back.
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.
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.
Speaker: And it activates the eye for like five seconds, like all the the goes and the super bright and all that stuff.
Speaker: And then it's like, oh, OK, well, we need more green crystal then.
Speaker: That's a problem.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: because you know who has the green crystals?
Speaker: Our favorite character.
Speaker: Our favorite German, Ludger Brink.
Speaker: They go back to him and they find him trying to basically repair a machine, the machine that produces the life crystals.
Speaker: He's like trying to break open the vending machine at this point.
Speaker: Yeah, and he's going to lose his other arm doing that.
Speaker: He's reaching up an offending machine.
Speaker: With his one good hand.
Speaker: With his one good hand.
Speaker: Really tempting fate.
Speaker: So Lowe is like, okay, well, if I help you out, can I have like, you know, half of what this machine makes?
Speaker: And Brink is like, okay.
Speaker: Lowe figures it out.
Speaker: He gets it to operate and it operates and it spills out a bunch of new life crystals.
Speaker: And Brink is like, psych.
Speaker: And he takes all of them and he starts running away.
Speaker: And they describe it as likely it is to keep going with the Daffy Duck comparison.
Speaker: It's like overflowing pockets.
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.
Speaker: Like it's absolutely insane.
Speaker: He's he's McDuck in it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They they get into an altercation and Lo is like Maggie guard the door and we are in a fight scene.
Speaker: Fight scene.
Speaker: Brink versus Lowe.
Speaker: How's this going to turn out?
Speaker: Very quickly.
Speaker: It's going to resolve itself very quickly.
Speaker: Brink goes after Lowe.
Speaker: Lowe basically judos him right off a cliff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he's quick to say, I didn't do that.
Speaker: He stepped where there was no floor.
Speaker: That's I cannot be held responsible.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He Brink literally coyote times for a sec.
Speaker: He has he's in like coyote time.
Speaker: He's just like floating in the air.
Speaker: And oh, he's he's going down.
Speaker: Puts up a little sign.
Speaker: Help.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Help goes down and he goes splat.
Speaker: They
Speaker: They are like, well, I don't think the green crystals are going to fix that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They make up this.
Speaker: It's graphic.
Speaker: They make a point about like how his head is shattered and there's brains everywhere.
Speaker: And it's like, oh, actually, that could be probably if it can only repair what's there.
Speaker: It's like, that's a good horse moment if they like repair his brain and only half of it exists.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that could be bad.
Speaker: That could be bad.
Speaker: But yeah, there's not enough of him to salvage with a green crystal just all over the place.
Speaker: But Maggie absolves him saying it was self-defense.
Speaker: He's like, you're fine.
Speaker: You're fine.
Speaker: Everyone saw that, right?
Speaker: He had a gun.
Speaker: He had a gun.
Speaker: He was threatening me.
Speaker: So they grab the crystals and they hustle back low and Maggie.
Speaker: Basically, chapter 21 is they stuff the machine full of crystals, turn it on.
Speaker: Maggie gets killed when the machine turns on makes Boston promise not to bring her back.
Speaker: And he goes to the other.
Speaker: He's like, all right, here we go.
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.
Speaker: And they're like, how can you save us?
Speaker: There's no exit.
Speaker: And they're like, all right, Sart.
Speaker: Oh, wait, no, is that no exit?
Speaker: Was that Sart?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You got it.
Speaker: You got it.
Speaker: I got it.
Speaker: Don't have one.
Speaker: Don't have one.
Speaker: Um, so he goes, the exits right there.
Speaker: And there he, there, he like points at an exit sign and they're like, we don't see an exit.
Speaker: And he goes, Oh, that's weird.
Speaker: And they're like, Oh, we must be blind to it.
Speaker: And the only reason he, he can see it is because he's human or something.
Speaker: Um, and it gets real hand wavy at this point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The rest of the book is that's exactly, they really, um,
Speaker: They really yada, yada, yada their way through the rest of this book.
Speaker: My notes on chapter 21 are yada, yada, yada.
Speaker: They go home.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the Kassatins go out.
Speaker: They're back on their planet.
Speaker: They're like, oh, also like the green crystals.
Speaker: The reason why Brink went crazy is because it wasn't like dialed in right.
Speaker: You got to you got to like you got to do the bullshit and then use it.
Speaker: And he's like, oh, the Halloween episode of The Simpsons where it's like, what was it?
Speaker: It was like a gun that like turns it.
Speaker: You have to turn on to the good setting or something.
Speaker: Oh, no, no.
Speaker: It's it's it's a crusty clown doll.
Speaker: That's what it is.
Speaker: That's what it is.
Speaker: Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker: It's like, oh, your problem here is you got the doll switched over to evil.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: That's what it was.
Speaker: That's that was the entire issue.
Speaker: That was the entire issue.
Speaker: They literally say that like they're like, oh, yeah, you just overdid it a little.
Speaker: You're fine.
Speaker: You just over.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So like, yeah, you just got to tune it up.
Speaker: Right.
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.
Speaker: But he's like old now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He lost like 15 years of his life.
Speaker: So that, cause like, what is it?
Speaker: He exists.
Speaker: He learned about the secrets of death or something.
Speaker: He went to the other side and he came back.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's like, yeah, they said I could learn all this shit, but it would cost me like 15 years of my life.
Speaker: And then one of the aliens is like, oh, but he'll still live for a very long time.
Speaker: It's, it's all very like,
Speaker: It's like, by the way, you guys are going to live like so long.
Speaker: Yeah, not going to live forever, but it's going to be awkward.
Speaker: You will crave death by the third century.
Speaker: You just trust me on this one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You ever see any vampire books where how vampires get they get bored?
Speaker: You are going to you are going to you don't think you would be interested in serial killing now.
Speaker: Just wait.
Speaker: You wait.
Speaker: You're you're going to most dangerous game.
Speaker: You're going to be most dangerous gaming yourself like all over this bitch.
Speaker: It's going to be all over.
Speaker: It's going to be you're going to get an island.
Speaker: Might even Dr. Moreau a little bit.
Speaker: Oh, well, we know that Brink is going to Brink.
Speaker: That's what Brink is going to do.
Speaker: 100% going to Dr. Moreau this shit.
Speaker: No question.
Speaker: Yeah, that's probably he'll probably go with that instead of like base serial murder, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So they're like, hey, do you guys want to go home?
Speaker: And they're like, hey, freeze frame.
Speaker: And then don't you forget about me starts playing.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Breakfast Club voiceover.
Speaker: You didn't think a scientist, a jock and a reporter would get along.
Speaker: But we're the Breakfast Club.
Speaker: Hey, hey.
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
Speaker: Is he actually cool or do we know anything about Judd Nelson?
Speaker: I don't know if he's cool.
Speaker: I just I always thought he looked cool.
Speaker: I'm going straight for the personal life section of his Wikipedia.
Speaker: Do it.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Not much.
Speaker: Not much.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: No news is good news.
Speaker: No news is good news.
Speaker: Judd Nelson is 65.
Speaker: That sounds about right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But he's forever like the age he was in Breakfast Club.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: In my head.
Speaker: When I think Judd Nelson.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: But something in my in my brain and my heart would be like, oh, yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I guess we did forget about him a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's, I will say you, your daughter is, is a little old for bluey.
Speaker: So you don't watch bluey.
Speaker: Do you?
Speaker: Oh no, she is not old for bluey.
Speaker: Bluey is, is good for everybody.
Speaker: I'm, I'm, I'm young enough for bluey.
Speaker: But yeah, she, we were just, she just watched, she was watching bluey episodes like last week.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When I was when I there is a great episode of that because that's the show that my son is obsessed with.
Speaker: Like he'll he'll watch things and kind of zone in and out and move on to some other thing.
Speaker: But when Bluey's on the TV, he is he is wrapped.
Speaker: He loves locked in.
Speaker: It's the first thing I've ever seen that wasn't me or his mother that makes him belly laugh.
Speaker: And he doesn't talk it.
Speaker: What the hell was that?
Speaker: Some asshole with a dirt bike on the street outside.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: Florida, my friends, Florida.
Speaker: Oh, there's a great episode where they go to the movie theater.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they're watching.
Speaker: I think the best thing about it is they kind of lampoon standard kids cartoons and everything like that.
Speaker: And the best part to me is at the very end.
Speaker: And I was thinking about this song when this book, when I finished this book, they all just start singing.
Speaker: And it all worked out.
Speaker: Everything's fine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's that's immediately where my head went when I finished this book.
Speaker: I was like, oh, great.
Speaker: Everything's little.
Speaker: Here's the little bow.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Here's the bow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So what do you think of the book in total?
Speaker: I.
Speaker: I don't know how much I would get out of it just reading it for myself.
Speaker: It's very much of its time.
Speaker: It's a very old fashioned kind of sci-fi thing, which is very cool in some ways.
Speaker: I think I stand by what I've been saying these past few episodes where as an adaptation of
Speaker: I think it might be one of the strongest adaptations that we have read simply based on how many choices there were.
Speaker: There are some places where it follows the book, the game very closely.
Speaker: There are some places where it doesn't follow it at all.
Speaker: And through it, it works.
Speaker: It is a cohesive choice.
Speaker: It's not my favorite book in the world, but as far as being an adaptation, it's gold medalist.
Speaker: I was incredibly impressed with how it was written.
Speaker: And I only came away with more questions in terms of like...
Speaker: What point was the game at?
Speaker: You brought up a great point last episode of how so much gore and stuff had been removed from the game.
Speaker: So how much of that, how much of this book was from a game that never materialized?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
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?
Speaker: Just wanted to, what's up with the dig?
Speaker: What's up with that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker: I'm sure he still remembers every detail about riding the dick.
Speaker: Well, I mean, he remembered a lot.
Speaker: He remembered a lot about about what was it?
Speaker: Shadowkeep or shadow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Shadowkeep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, and you're absolutely right.
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.
Speaker: I don't remember.
Speaker: I don't have anything to add.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: Fair enough.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't really want to talk about stories I wrote five years ago.
Speaker: So, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, I get it.
Speaker: You know, Alan came on to talk about a book that he wrote 40 years ago.
Speaker: By God, the man's a pro.
Speaker: God damn pro.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: That was your thought.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I mean, that's about it.
Speaker: That's about that.
Speaker: It was, it's fun.
Speaker: It's an adventure.
Speaker: It has, it has, you know what it has?
Speaker: It has kind of, um,
Speaker: early 80s, late 70s, Disney movie, Last Starfighter kind of vibes.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Except for a few individual pieces that are real fucking heavy, like the alien who desperately wants death.
Speaker: Just wants to die.
Speaker: Who has lived long enough that they don't want to live anymore.
Speaker: Outside of details like that, yeah, it had very, what did Keeler call it?
Speaker: In our group chat, he sent something about,
Speaker: something wicked this way comes.
Speaker: And he called it like,
Speaker: the crappy Disney movies or something like that.
Speaker: Oh, I hold on.
Speaker: I am literally pulling that up right now.
Speaker: So we're, uh, yeah.
Speaker: Uh, I got, I got this little fucker at a shop in Des Moines today.
Speaker: It's not on Disney plus.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All that shit.
Speaker: I,
Speaker: I couldn't agree more with that assessment.
Speaker: And this is what that makes me think of for the most part.
Speaker: And the picture was of a copy, a laser disc.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Because that's his jam.
Speaker: Something Wicked This Way Comes, which is, I believe, his current method of collecting things.
Speaker: That's his thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was records before.
Speaker: Now it's laser discs.
Speaker: It all blends together, really.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He doesn't have to buy different kinds of boxes.
Speaker: You know, it's no laser discs fit right in with the records.
Speaker: It's perfect.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, it's perfect.
Speaker: I think.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What about you?
Speaker: What?
Speaker: What did I think?
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: What did you think?
Speaker: I liked it.
Speaker: I think it has.
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.
Speaker: Or in the game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: Where it's like, it's like as it deviates, you're like, oh, okay.
Speaker: This is, you know, a space adventure.
Speaker: This is a, this is a Buck Rogers.
Speaker: This is duck Dodgers in the 51st century, you know, doing some shit.
Speaker: We got Marvin the Martian over here.
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?
Speaker: The dig would have been better as a pure adventure game and not as a point and click.
Speaker: Interesting.
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.
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.
Speaker: Uh, you know what?
Speaker: Maybe more like a cinematic platformer.
Speaker: Uh, okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Like, yeah, like flashback or fade to black or, you know what?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I could totally see that.
Speaker: I could totally see that.
Speaker: But with more puzzle elements, maybe.
Speaker: I don't know.
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.
Speaker: And games that have point and click games that have tried them.
Speaker: They're usually not great.
Speaker: And what I think of is, is it Shadow over Innsmouth?
Speaker: That Lovecraft point and click game from like the early, like the 1990s.
Speaker: You know what I'm talking about?
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's Shadow over Innsmouth.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Got to look that up.
Speaker: I beat that a couple of years back.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, we played it.
Speaker: We both played it for a thing.
Speaker: I thought.
Speaker: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker: We totally did.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Before the show.
Speaker: Before the show.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: You had another shadow of the shadow of the shadow of the shadow of the comet.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I used to host with a friend of mine.
Speaker: We used to host a horror video game podcast.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Something that if this ever becomes a full time job, I'd like to resurrect.
Speaker: Like to get back to that.
Speaker: Yes, that was super fun.
Speaker: Yeah, it was a lot of fun, I think.
Speaker: And so.
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.
Speaker: It is like, it is, it is such bullshit.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's a lot to say for,
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
Speaker: shitty grainy kind of FMV that was filmed on.
Speaker: Like, I'd be interested in finding out what some of those FMVs were actually shot on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, I guess some of them were on tape.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But others were.
Speaker: I can't imagine anywhere on 16 millimeter.
Speaker: I probably not.
Speaker: But no, I just remember that those games were
Speaker: Looking back at it now, they're very campy and very over the top.
Speaker: That blew my brain apart when I was a kid.
Speaker: I was blown away.
Speaker: So I have a real love for those.
Speaker: There's something about that that's appealing for this game.
Speaker: Overall, though, it's...
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.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which happens.
Speaker: And I believe, did we mention that he dedicated the book to Steven Spielberg?
Speaker: Oh, no, I didn't.
Speaker: I didn't see that.
Speaker: He dedicated the book to Steven Spielberg.
Speaker: I believe what he said was, I've been waiting years for those dinosaurs.
Speaker: Good job or something like that.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: So big old, big old Jurassic Park fan.
Speaker: Yeah, clearly.
Speaker: I mean, it's a masterpiece.
Speaker: Everybody, it is a masterpiece.
Speaker: Say what you will about Michael Crichton.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: Flawed man.
Speaker: Big time.
Speaker: Flawed man.
Speaker: For example, flawed dead.
Speaker: Who does that?
Speaker: Who does that?
Speaker: Also, way too tall.
Speaker: Too tall.
Speaker: Too tall.
Speaker: He was just over the line on height.
Speaker: Like if he was a basketball player, that would be one thing.
Speaker: But as an author, he was like, what was he?
Speaker: Like six, seven?
Speaker: He was like, yeah, six.
Speaker: He was in giant range.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: If you're not a basketball player or a professional wrestler, you got to shorten up, buddy.
Speaker: Get with it.
Speaker: Get with it.
Speaker: Shave off some inches.
Speaker: What are you doing?
Speaker: Leave some for the rest of us.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Phil.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, OK.
Speaker: Well, I played a couple of demos last week.
Speaker: I didn't have a lot of stuff, but I did play two very interesting demos.
Speaker: The first one I'm going to bring up is called The Horror at High Rook.
Speaker: Um, this game, I believe both of these games are fully released.
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.
Speaker: Um, this is like a deck.
Speaker: Builder slash board game slash horror game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's really interesting.
Speaker: You play this.
Speaker: You have this team of Lovecraftian, you know, experts.
Speaker: You've got like the adventurer and the academic and all those tropes.
Speaker: It is very Darkest Dungeon art style.
Speaker: Very darkest dungeon on art style.
Speaker: I wonder if there's a name for this specific art style.
Speaker: It's this really shadowy, high contrast kind of thing that they do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, no, but yes, 100%, very darkest dungeon.
Speaker: But you have got a board and you've got your cards and...
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.
Speaker: Ultimately, it's it's
Speaker: a really fun rotation.
Speaker: It's really interesting.
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.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But it's it's but it's actually a valid way of doing it because you've got
Speaker: different complications and things that happen and they're going to last for a certain amount of seconds.
Speaker: And it might hold you off.
Speaker: Certain items will only last for a certain amount of time.
Speaker: And you can pause it and everything like that if you need.
Speaker: But it adds a level of tension to it and a bit of urgency that you wouldn't otherwise have.
Speaker: There's a grindiness to it.
Speaker: that I found to be kind of funny.
Speaker: I couldn't believe how much I was grinding on some of these rooms.
Speaker: There were certain things I was looking for, and I just wasn't getting them at the right times.
Speaker: And you have to keep these people fed.
Speaker: You have to keep them rested.
Speaker: You have to keep them sane, because they're all a bunch of hothouse flowers.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: You gotta do all that shit while you're searching.
Speaker: You're just turning this mansion upside down looking for shit.
Speaker: And ultimately looking for the pieces of a literal puzzle that expose some sort of dark Cthulhu-esque kind of thing.
Speaker: Really interesting.
Speaker: The demo is the first level.
Speaker: A really good demonstration of what it's about.
Speaker: I think it's really interesting.
Speaker: I think people might...
Speaker: quite get a kick out of it if you don't mind a little bit of grindiness.
Speaker: I didn't expect some people in the comments like have been expressing just how frustrating they find it to be.
Speaker: I don't I didn't find it that bad.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But it's definitely a part of the game that you should know.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So that's a that's a really interesting one.
Speaker: The hard high rook.
Speaker: I definitely recommend people take a look at that.
Speaker: And then I played the demo for a game called necrophysis.
Speaker: This is.
Speaker: Kevin, what was the game that came out a few years back
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.
Speaker: Oh, fuck.
Speaker: Why am I?
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: I will talk about necrophosis while I look this up.
Speaker: Okay, sure.
Speaker: Well, it's very that it's a very Giger.
Speaker: And I think it is the the artist name is Belinsky, Bikinsky, something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's a Polish artist.
Speaker: It's very much influenced by that.
Speaker: These very biomechanical, grimdark,
Speaker: atmospheres that you you're in this.
Speaker: Scorn.
Speaker: That's what it was.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Very scorn.
Speaker: It's not it has no shooting elements as far as I could tell based on the demo.
Speaker: It is just a it is it is more of an adventure game in the way that you were describing before.
Speaker: You are in this it's kind of in a weird way.
Speaker: It's like an open world adventure game.
Speaker: You are not in an open world, but it's big enough.
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.
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.
Speaker: And I remember I remembered enjoying it, but not being crazy impressed by it.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: They've definitely taken it, taken, they've upped the ante with this one.
Speaker: It still has, it still has kind of the meaningless, grimdark narrative.
Speaker: Like you're clearly in some form of hell or some damn thing like that.
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.
Speaker: It's yeah, yeah, it's it's very indie with a lot of indie jank.
Speaker: Yeah, but I will say for them, they worked really hard on it and it actually does.
Speaker: Despite the jank there, it's there's a there's a full fledged game in there.
Speaker: It's it's pretty good.
Speaker: I think the two things that annoyed me were one, you're literally just running around this, this in this level.
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.
Speaker: Um, and whereas like in a game like resident evil, which that's basically what you're doing to be fair.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: You are going from room to room.
Speaker: It's kind of a maze of a mansion or what have you.
Speaker: And with this, it's just this kind of big, wide open area with the occasional cave or something like that.
Speaker: And that's and that's just it.
Speaker: I don't know, it felt it was just not as intriguing of a gameplay experience as I would have hoped.
Speaker: And the narrative is very kind of like meaninglessly the things they say don't matter as far as I can tell.
Speaker: It's all very like one of the first things you meet is this horrifying.
Speaker: The art's great.
Speaker: And you meet this horrifying angel of death or something like that that recites the Ozymandias poem to you.
Speaker: And then you go and you go and you read all this stuff that's really intense.
Speaker: And if you're not paying attention, you might believe that it's very meaningful.
Speaker: It is not.
Speaker: It's all this like, you live in a world of suffering.
Speaker: Look around you and see the decay that creeps into your bones.
Speaker: It's all that all the time, which is fine.
Speaker: By the way, Percy Shelley.
Speaker: Yes, yes, that's it's that's fine.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Having said all that, I am really intrigued just based on how much love went into the art style of this.
Speaker: The world is huge.
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?
Speaker: Oh, view distance.
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.
Speaker: And that's what it is, is kind of crazy.
Speaker: And as far as I can tell, it's not an asset flip or anything like that.
Speaker: It seems to be original work.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's it's.
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
Speaker: I have not played a whole lot other than Clara Obscure Expedition.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Three this week.
Speaker: I'm pretty much at the end of the game.
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.
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.
Speaker: So it's like go go go defeat the big bad.
Speaker: Or look at all of our optional side quests.
Speaker: Would you like to know more?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Would you like to know more?
Speaker: So I think something I really appreciate about the game is how much it is.
Speaker: It cherishes the JRPGs that it's based on.
Speaker: It is like, and I know there's been a lot of discourse.
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.
Speaker: Oh man, come on guys.
Speaker: As the internet will, because look, the French did it or something.
Speaker: I don't know, some bullshit.
Speaker: They fixed it.
Speaker: They fixed JRPGs.
Speaker: Oh fuck you.
Speaker: What a ridiculous thing to say.
Speaker: This game is a JRPG through and through.
Speaker: I mean, I still call it like kind of basically like a persona without all the bullshit.
Speaker: And when I say without all the bullshit, I mean like the additional 40 hours of the social stuff.
Speaker: It's just like the speed.
Speaker: It goes with it.
Speaker: But it is persona.
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
Speaker: There's like mini games that are absolute bullshit.
Speaker: The game director said, yeah, I was inspired by the mini games in Final Fantasy 10, which were absolute bullshit.
Speaker: And as it's like very sweet, like this game is it.
Speaker: And pardon my French, an homage to all the JRPGs that have come before.
Speaker: And very clearly that.
Speaker: And I and I want to say that for worse,
Speaker: For better and for worse.
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.
Speaker: Well then, yeah, definitely.
Speaker: People want that great big adventure, you know?
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.
Speaker: And I was like, they don't I don't think they even consider a Claire Obscure.
Speaker: I don't think they think about you.
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.
Speaker: And Don responds, I don't think about you at all.
Speaker: Rockstar don't think about anybody but Rockstar.
Speaker: Again, for better or for worse.
Speaker: So yeah, they're not thinking of a startup French company.
Speaker: It's a cute theory.
Speaker: It's a cute theory.
Speaker: But yeah, no, I really love the game.
Speaker: I'm close.
Speaker: I'm like, I'm kind of debating where, what do I do?
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?
Speaker: Or do I just kind of like...
Speaker: power my way through it.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: We'll see where I land on that.
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.
Speaker: Only because it was... You actually just added it to your wish list, I saw.
Speaker: Oh, yes!
Speaker: That looks amazing.
Speaker: I'm really looking forward to that one.
Speaker: It's fascinating.
Speaker: I played it.
Speaker: I played it, and I was like, okay, yeah, I...
Speaker: there are people who will play this endlessly and I played it for about 20 minutes.
Speaker: It was like something about it wasn't necessarily clicking with me.
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.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like you're pressing down to make the blocks go down to the bottom.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's interesting.
Speaker: That's the thing that I was that that doesn't matter so much, but it was I was just playing it.
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.
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.
Speaker: That's OK.
Speaker: That happens.
Speaker: Yeah, that happens.
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.
Speaker: I do feel bad about refunding things, but I'm also trying to keep a budget.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: We got to do what we got to do, my friend.
Speaker: I did wish that it had a demo.
Speaker: It does not have a demo on its page.
Speaker: I was kind of surprised that it didn't.
Speaker: It just seems like it's built for that kind of thing.
Speaker: But all right, you know.
Speaker: I'm intrigued.
Speaker: I'm intrigued.
Speaker: So take a look at it.
Speaker: See if it's for you.
Speaker: I'm going to have a look at that one.
Speaker: That looks great.
Speaker: But I'm doing it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Thank you all so much for listening.
Speaker: Uh, coming up next, uh, Phil, what do we got next in terms of books?
Speaker: We're, we are going to be starting finally, uh, getting in on some Witcher action.
Speaker: The Witcher.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we're going to be starting with the first, uh, book from the Witcher.
Speaker: Uh, and that's going to be a lot of fun because, uh, uh,
Speaker: I hope because I've heard nothing but good things about stories.
Speaker: So I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker: And it's a short story collection that's kind of treated as a novel retrospectively.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I'm a sucker for a nice short story collection.
Speaker: So I'm quite looking forward to that.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's The Last Wish, which is it's the first.
Speaker: Yeah, it's the it's the first novel.
Speaker: It's basically short story collection.
Speaker: And it is more or less like the first season of The Witcher has a lot of this stuff from The Last Wish.
Speaker: I believe also it like goes into the season two of The Witcher.
Speaker: I'm talking about like the actual the TV series.
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
Speaker: I mean, I know the third one deals with the Wild Hunt, but the first two are just, they're out there.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, no, no.
Speaker: The third Witcher really hit me with the, oh, I'm not sure I can do the open world, which was cool.
Speaker: quickly disproven by my love of Cyberpunk 2077.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: That's totally fair.
Speaker: That's totally fair.
Speaker: But I don't know.
Speaker: Maybe it's fantasy open world.
Speaker: Maybe I need maybe if I'm in a city, like if I'm in a city setting, I think I'm fine.
Speaker: But if it's just like.
Speaker: And this is the same thing with Red Dead Redemption 2.
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.
Speaker: Is it the third person aspect of it, maybe?
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: But anyway, that'll be next episode.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But, you know, until then, thanks so much for listening.
Speaker: Now, Phil...
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.
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.
Speaker: OK, sure, sure.
Speaker: Do I go down there and what supplies do I bring?
Speaker: OK,
Speaker: First off, first off, you have to get like a brand new pair of New Balance shoes after that.
Speaker: But here's well, here's the thing with the New Balance, though, make sure that they
