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Machinarium
0 Playsin 10 hours
Ben and Jess discuss Machinarium, the hand drawn 2009 indie darling that fans at the time had difficulty defining.
Quest Quest podcast is Ben Vigeant and Jess Morrissette.
Editing by Ben Vigeant
Show art by Kevin "WilcoWeb" Wallace
Watch us on Twitch!
Ben: https://www.twitch.tv/ps_garak
Jess: https://www.twitch.tv/decafjedi
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Talk with us on Discord!
https://discord.gg/ve9fqjgPp2
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Transcript
Engaging the Audience: Listener Interaction
00:00:15
Speaker
That's right. I'm stopping early. Wow. Sometimes, sometimes it runs long. Like you got me. I wasn't even ready. I'm not even in the head space to talk about adventure games. Yeah.
00:00:26
Speaker
You know, sometimes ah it I could run it long, but guess what? I could stop it early too. You got to keep them guessing. Yeah. that Keep them on their toes. Yeah. Like,
00:00:39
Speaker
and, and you know what? I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed in the listeners. Yeah. Actually, I'm disappointed in the listeners. I'm not disappointed in you, Jess. I'm disappointed in the listeners. I'm disappointed the listeners because, um you know, last week I did the the thing where I like, you know, kind of ah chatted like during ah while the the song played.
00:01:03
Speaker
Not a single comment. No one said anything about that to me. Yeah, I got a lot of complaints about People are DMing me. is like, you do something about Ben. i'm'm I'm disappointed in all of you.
00:01:14
Speaker
i ah you know I did what I thought was a fun little reference ah and ah to ah David Lynch ah dictating that the tune of ah Laura's theme.
00:01:28
Speaker
uh to angelo badly menti but uh you know uh the uncultured swine yeah i can't believe more people didn't pick up on that because that's exactly what i was thinking you were doing as you did it and or you could just think it's hilarious yeah i didn't i didn't think you even need to be commented on it was so obvious what you were doing uh like you know it went without saying wine that listened to this podcast Yeah, I just cast your pearls before him.
Nostalgia in Breakfast Choices
00:01:53
Speaker
no i'm Welcome to Quest Quest. The adventure game podcast. and did it did it did it did it Breaking news, Ben. Oh. ah Pumpkin pie Pop-Tarts are in stores now.
00:02:07
Speaker
Oh, so this is this is a direct... This is because one of the comments that we did get that we barely talked about food last week. Well, I mean, this is an indirect response to that, but certainly, you know, we want to give the listeners what they want. And I have to tell you, Ben, have you had, first of all, where are you at on Pop-Tarts?
00:02:27
Speaker
So I first want to put it ah let's let's let's hold for one second and say, let's make a pledge right now. Okay. Okay. We're going to talk about these pumpkin pie pop tarts, but I do not want to fall into the the trap of of ah discussing ah pumpkin spice lattes or or things of that nature, because I feel that that is well trod ground.
00:02:52
Speaker
do Do you ah co-sign this pledge? I mean, you see people walking around their pumpkin spice lattes this time of year. And I mean, I've got thoughts, but i'll I was at Target today and you should, it was just like a sea of pumpkin spice lattes and just whatever one of the great onion articles, Mr. Autumn man, one of my absolute favorites.
00:03:17
Speaker
and Anyway, so let's talk. Where am I at on
00:03:26
Speaker
I have not had Pop-Tart on a regular basis since I was like a kid. Wow. I have had a couple as an adult, but like,
00:03:42
Speaker
As an adult, I generally have like boring adult cereal. Like I have muesli. Oh, you're like Kashi in it up and stuff like that. Yeah, I have Kashi. I have muesli. mix it with ah like Greek yogurt or kefir. Yeah.
00:04:03
Speaker
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Kefir? I don't know. Kefir. So there isn't a single cartoon character on any of your cereals? There is. and Wow. Look at like Mr. Big Boy over here.
00:04:18
Speaker
There is, there's, this is, this is, you know, when I was talking about grown up like video games or grown up adventure games, this is like, I, I am just thoroughly like just the most dull, like really,
00:04:39
Speaker
i you know, I'm like, I'm having the Wall Street Journal of cereals, you know? Wow. See, I would never dream of eating a Pop-Tart for breakfast. Like I would just collapse into ah blood sugar crisis by like 10 a.m.
00:04:54
Speaker
If I just ate what is essentially, you know, a ah pastry of pure sugar for breakfast. But as a dessert, I'm telling these pumpkin pie Pop-Tarts, Ben, they're quite good.
00:05:06
Speaker
where Where are you on pumpkin pie in general? You know, I like it quite a bit. I'm not a huge pie guy, but honestly, like. As a proud southerner, i assume that you're a pecan pie man. No, I prefer pecan pie, actually. Oh, Yeah.
00:05:25
Speaker
I've never tried pecan pie, but I have had a lot of pecan pies. And yeah, no, I love a good pecan pie. I like here are my top three pies, all very autumnal. um Because I am an autumn guy.
00:05:37
Speaker
I'm also I'm also an autumn guy. Yeah, I'm gonna say pumpkin pie, pecan pie. And I like a good sweet potato pie. Sweet potato. I think I've only had sweet potato pie, like once and so i got I gotta I gotta I gotta go back because I've had so pumpkin pie i I my problem with pumpkin pie is I think there's a lot of bad pumpkin pie oh absolutely yeah so like in general I'm gonna turn down pop like this is like our cake discussion couple weeks ago where it's like nine times out of ten i will turn down pumpkin pie
00:06:24
Speaker
But that 10th time, it's because it's a good pumpkin pie. And a good pumpkin pie is great. It's hard to beat. But I will say there are more bad ones floating around out there than good ones. Yeah, I think the the problem with pumpkin pie is that um like it's it's hard to to make in a way where you're just not like just slurping it out of a can.
00:06:53
Speaker
Yeah, slurping is the sound ah too. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that yeah it's not great. And there might be ways, like, I think there's ways to dress that up. I i would not be surprised if I've had a good pumpkin pie that, like, you know, had a can involved.
00:07:10
Speaker
But a lot of them just, like, kind of stop stop at the slurp, as they say. that says that's how they That's how they say it. um You know, that's what I like about sweet potato pies is typically, in my experience, they are spiced with with similar spices to a pumpkin pie. But it's much easier to start with a actual fresh, real sweet potato and puree it into a pie filling as opposed to pumpkins. Would you get the double funk? You get the funk of a canned product and the funk of a pumpkin, pumpkin funk.
00:07:46
Speaker
pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin pump pump dj pumpkin that's good that's my new halloween dj character so okay so yeah pop tarts when i was a kid i had them as breakfast which is like you know that seems horrible uh now i think about it but um yeah i uh i'm not much a what what is what's your breakfast then if you're not having a pop tart for breakfast My breakfast is is very regimented.
00:08:21
Speaker
um What I'm going to do every day for breakfast, I'm going to get three brown and serve sausages, ah precisely three. And with that, I'm going to have two eggs, which I will crack into a bowl. Mm I will salt and pepper and then I will put into my microwave for one minute and 35 seconds.
00:08:45
Speaker
Are these all microwaved together? No, two separate runs, two separate runs. Because if you add anything into the microwave with the egg, things get uneven quickly. um So yeah, I'm going to get like an over easy egg straight out of the microwave. And then I'm going to douse them liberally in Sriracha and eat that for breakfast.
00:09:06
Speaker
pretty good that's what you're eating kashi and greek yogurt and adult things what's that sorry you're eating kashi and yogurt and adult things i i go for eggs weekends are for eggs that's what we say in the ben regent household weekends are for eggs weekends are for eggs though uh yeah you know like sundays are for cuddling that's all we always say around here You know, i so Sundays are for Cuddlin.
00:09:34
Speaker
um but ah But, you know, you can you can throw an egg or two in there as well.
00:09:44
Speaker
What have you been up to, Ben? How are you? I'm fine. I'm trying to think. have i i'm i'm I'm scanning to to see if if anything particularly interesting.
00:09:57
Speaker
here Here we go.
Joy of Improv Performance
00:09:58
Speaker
i i if ah If you enjoy, you know, I'm going to throw throw a plug in here. Uh-oh. going to put a plug right up top.
00:10:08
Speaker
Uh, discuss this. Uh, what's the, what's the website? Uh, golden age radio. Um, if, uh, if you go to improvised radio.com, you could, uh, download a couple ah live shows that I was in of this I've been doing for the past couple years this improv show here in Chicago ah where we improvise radio shows
00:10:42
Speaker
And so that's been like one of my other, ah like, of from like the 40s and 50s. And so that's been one of the things I've been up to. you That's been like enormous fun doing that. Like, especially because it's like, I just get to, I'm i'm such a fucking stinker.
00:11:02
Speaker
Yeah. That's what people say. When I do I'm just such a fucking stinker when I do that show. i You know, and um like, I don't know. i'm i'm i'm I'm the person that always like adds some sort of magical element.
00:11:21
Speaker
Like I'll just be sitting, like we'll be on stage for like 10 minutes and then I'll be like, and then I'm a genie. Yeah, then a magical, literally in the last show, I was just like, I'm a magical owl.
00:11:32
Speaker
I'm here to grant your wish. Like, I don't know. Nothing's more boring when someone describing their improv joke. Go there. That's the more interesting thing I've been up to. But nothing's more interesting than talking about, Jess, what have you been playing?
Borderlands Series Discussion
00:11:47
Speaker
Oh, Ben, what have I been playing? In addition to playing the game that we're going to talk about today, no spoilers. If you've looked at the title of this episode, you've already spoiled yourself. You just need to blindly consume every episode we put out.
00:12:01
Speaker
I've been playing a little bit. i don't know. I got the itch for Borderlands 4. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Like, i started looking at Borderlands 4, and i was like, I enjoy Borderlands. You know, we've talked about Borderlands on this podcast. You attempted to play a Borderlands game once. It didn't go great, but you made your your best shot at it. And I started looking at Borderlands 4, and...
00:12:25
Speaker
and I eventually noped out of it due to the price tag. It's launching at $70 and I just don't feel great jumping at the $70 price point on anything, especially a game that I know $49.
00:12:40
Speaker
will be forty nine and then 29, and then a free epic game. Yeah, a free epic game. Yeah, it's like, it's the most going-to-go-on-sale game ever, if the rest of the franchise is an indication.
00:12:54
Speaker
But I got my itch going, and I decided to go back and play Borderlands the pre-sequel. And I've been having a little bit of fun with that. You know, what I love about Borderlands, in addition to the great piss jokes, um would probably be...
00:13:12
Speaker
I just, there's something about the gunplay in the game that has always appealed to it's just like really smooth shooting. Like, I don't even know that I'll, it's a rare case where the gameplay in a shooter like that far like outweighs the story and setting and characters and everything for me. It's just a,
00:13:31
Speaker
a nice feeling game and that feeling really persists borderlands one through three for me like it' it's pretty good but yeah i've been playing the pre-sequel lately it's fun stuff i'm playing as nisha who's a wild west sheriff lady the and it it looks like borderlands for like i haven't looked too closely at it but it seems like other you know other than the fact that it has uh stability issues on the pc which will yes certainly i assume be resolved uh at some you know later future date uh it seems like people like it think so it also sounds like
00:14:30
Speaker
negative reaction that Borderlands 3 got. Like just in front of... What's interesting, like to see all the pre-release press, it's all a bunch of, you know, it's like, we have kept everything you like from Borderlands 1 and 2 and gotten rid of everything you hate about Borderlands 3, unless there were parts of Borderlands 3 you liked, in which case all of those are definitely in Borderlands 4 also. so It definitely felt like the marketing scheme was, you know,
00:14:57
Speaker
ah This is a game for yeah everything to everyone sort of version it. It's like whatever you love about Borderlands, this game is the one that has it. It's so interesting to me because it's just like, yes, absolutely.
00:15:13
Speaker
Like with, with Borderlands, there is like a, a group of people, you know, certainly vocal on social media. I don't know how, how actually plentiful because it's like Borderlands sells well, right?
00:15:28
Speaker
Like those games are like really franchise. It had popular movie based on it. Yeah. They made a Hollywood. Jamie Lee Curtis was in it. Freaky Fridays. Jamie Lee Curtis was in it.
00:15:40
Speaker
and and And so it's like there' you know there's a lot of like and and critics and there was discourse over Borderlands and like you know obviously I have my own, my feelings on that tone.
00:15:59
Speaker
Just not for me. And... But it is funny because it's just like, obviously, that tone is very appealing to a very large group of people. A lot of people love those characters, and a lot of people love that world, and a lot of people love that humor.
00:16:15
Speaker
And so I'm just kind of like, I hope that they didn't change it too drastically for the people that like, you know, because it's like a lot of people you know, bought those games and I assume enjoyed them.
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah. And loved all those kooky characters. Yeah. And so it's just like, I hope that you didn't like throw the baby with the bathwater for like a bunch of like, you know, Twitter scolds.
00:16:43
Speaker
like No, I mean, this is a good point because like Something tells me if you've been someone who's like been sitting around for the past, what, 15, 16 years ever, how long it's been, maybe 17 or 18, however long the franchise has been around, and you've just been eyeing it from the sidelines, you've probably had your opportunity to play it if you ever wanted to to this point. like The idea of attracting a new fan by changing the core of the game doesn't seem but again, fans seem to like it.
00:17:13
Speaker
except for the fact that on PC, performance is apparently trash. it It's just very interesting to me, especially because it's just like, yeah, they're not going to win me over to Borderlands. Like, I'm not... It's also that it's like... And, you know, I'm not putting myself in the the shoes of, like, you know, everybody that had a ill word to say of Borderlands.
00:17:35
Speaker
But it's also, it's just like... My tastes in particular aren't like popular tastes at all. No one should listen to me if they want anything to sell. I'm on an improvised old time radio show.
00:17:50
Speaker
I don't know. That's pretty hot right now. naughty that That fills a need that no one has. Well, you were just telling me, though, before the podcast that from now on, now that you've heard that GTA 6 is going to be a quintuple-A game, that you're not bothering with triple-A games anymore. Like, that's, like, a few A's short of what you're interested in. It's just GTA 6 and Star Citizen for me from now on.
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. It's like, you know, because this is such a like obnoxious stance for me to take, right? Like a guy that's just like, ah like Borderlands, not for me.
00:18:33
Speaker
But it's just like, I want to stand up for the people that like Tiny Tina or whatever. You know? Sure, they're problematic elements, but you know, what is a problem? Not the problematic parts. I feel like I've been defending. wow. Handsome Jack? Question mark?
00:18:51
Speaker
Is that like a problematic character too? I don't i don't know. Yeah. I don't know who Tiny- to I don't know who any of these fucking characters are. Handsome Jack has a horse named Butt Stallion. Is that funny to you?
00:19:03
Speaker
Not at all. Wow, that's weird. Cause that's, that's like a huge joke. That's like, you know, popular. I have that- But there's people that love that shit. Let them in. Let them enjoy things. Don't yuck their yum.
00:19:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. You know- No bummers. I'm a, I'm a big time. i my yum is yuckin'. right well then it's not fair to ask you my yum is yucking and so that has like i've negatively polarized myself into being like obnoxious quarter wins wow which is maybe the most obnoxious stance anyone has ever taken ever Wow, Ben, I'm impressed. I'm so bold. The gymnastics you've done, the bravery on display here. the bravest human that's ever lived on this planet.
00:19:54
Speaker
Yeah, there are a lot of podcasters out there just saying a lot of things. But I don't know if any of them are as brave as you've been. Why have you been playing? Uh, sure.
00:20:06
Speaker
I've been playing... Uh, I've been playing a game called Star of Providence.
Gaming Preferences and Skills
00:20:12
Speaker
Mmm. That's not a Borderlands game, right? No. And it probably is sold, like, I don't know.
00:20:19
Speaker
Let's see how many, yeah how many Steam reviews we got here. Uh, 2,400 positive, overwhelmingly positive. So let's say, you know, tens of thousands of copies, maybe one, right?
00:20:34
Speaker
Yeah. This is Star of Providence is a is the type of game that I like to play that I'm bad at. And I've talked about like a lot of games like this.
00:20:47
Speaker
It is.
00:20:57
Speaker
They don't love me bad. Yeah, I'm not good at them. But, and this has been true since I'm a little, like I was a little kid. I loved stuff like 1942 and like, like, like shmups.
00:21:11
Speaker
Like I enjoy shmups. I'm just dog shit at them. I've yeah never been good at shmups. And yet... I buy them. Yeah. yeah Because- That's me with fighting games. Yeah. I'll always be terrible at fighting games, but I found them just remarkably fascinating. But yeah. like There is so much of this game that I've purchased that I will never see.
00:21:33
Speaker
ah There are so many levels of this game that I will never get to. but that's fine because I'll just kind of like, I think i' the furthest I've made it, I don't know how far it goes, but it's like the furthest I've made it is to the third level. Maybe somebody's listening and it goes, it's like, there's actually four, like, you know, because it's a like a procedurally generated, like, you know, it just kind of, but,
00:22:00
Speaker
It's like I die all the time. i have no idea what, like how to make the power-ups like, you know, all, like it has all sorts of like different power-ups that all you can kind of make, you know, synthesize with each other and all of that.
00:22:17
Speaker
I don't have a brain for any of that shit. Like, I'm just like, that gun seems good, you know? Yeah. I mean, that's a shmup. That's me. like I like the one that splits my gun into two guns.
00:22:28
Speaker
that's a good That's a good one. Jess, did I tell you? So you're the person that introduced to me Watching my favorite thing that you stream, and I think I'm the only person that feels this way, you know this.
00:22:43
Speaker
Yes. Because I've told you many Yes. My favorite thing to watch you stream is... Galaga? That's right. And, like, usually when you stream it, there's, like, two viewers. And it's me and, like, you left your, like, browser window open.
00:22:58
Speaker
And... So I love watching it. I don't know why, like, because it's, you know, it's Galaga and you're a perfectly, like, fine Galaga player. Yeah, and not not good. We need to stress here. Yeah, like, just an adequate, like, coin jockey. You're guy that's been playing it since you were a small child. Yes. So you just have these skills.
00:23:16
Speaker
I did not, like, Galaga wasn't in... that many of the arcades I went to as a kid. I think there were like the later, yeah maybe we'd have a Galaxian and or like the later stuff.
00:23:32
Speaker
But Galactica just wasn't in that many of the arcades I went to as a kid. And so it's one that I got into older, especially because they have those caps all over the place that have Pac-Man.
00:23:45
Speaker
yeah Yeah, now they're everywhere. Everywhere. Anyway, um you showed me, because I didn't know this, the thing where you can have the two, like where the alien ship heals your ship yeah and then like takes it up and then you can liberate it. And then it's not that you get your life back. It's that now you have two ships that fire.
00:24:09
Speaker
um And i never knew I never knew that. You're the first person to show that to me and then i So when I was recently on at my family vacation, where there were ah three generations of my family under like one massive lake house roof,
00:24:29
Speaker
Uh, they like a multi-cade in there that the, that the kids, and when I say kid, like I'm like, like, uh, like 12 to five. We're like kind of fascinated with, and it was a multi-cade and it had Galaga, had Pac-Man.
00:24:44
Speaker
It had, ah like, you know, like Mappy and like it had all the, like all the, the kind of classics on this multi-cade. And the kids were loving Galaga. They were all playing Galaga because Galaga is a good game.
00:24:59
Speaker
No matter what your age is, like yeah everybody loves Galaga. It's perfect. And so actually I showed my 21 year old nephew, he was playing Galaga and I was like, do you want to see a cool trick? And he's like, what? And then I showed him getting the same shit down.
00:25:18
Speaker
And he's just like, what? And then he showed it to his like cousins. Oh, this is amazing. And like eight, seven year olds.
00:25:30
Speaker
And they were all like, look, got into the thing. Like they all became obsessed with playing Galakad and getting the other ship down so you'd have two ships firing. firing Yeah. Can't believe I didn't tell it. Like, this has been on my mind to tell you about this. It's like, I gotta tell Chester. This is amazing. love this story.
00:25:46
Speaker
I feel honored on the one hand. I mean, it ah now I do think that this this secret is included in the attract mode. Think about who's watching that shit. I didn't dig deep find this.
00:25:59
Speaker
But, man, as a kid, have to say, that was the coolest thing I'd ever seen in a video game. Just like the idea that you can also mess it up. You can actually at least shoot your ship down or you can shoot the ship that's escorting your ship.
00:26:16
Speaker
And now your ship's just a bad guy by itself. I mean, you can really mess that up and kind of love. got Now want to play Galaga. So stream some Galaga, man. Yes, of course. And So the Star of Providence, don't know. It's it like, I saw it at somebody playing at Summer Group Games done quick.
00:26:41
Speaker
They were playing it, they were playing it obviously at like such a high level that I could never even hope to. And this isn't even, and I want to be clear, I don't even like, it you know, somebody listening to this is like, Ben, you just have to believe in yourself and play it.
00:26:56
Speaker
know, you have to be like the the thoroughly unproblematic and good guy, Melton Gladwell would say. and uh put your 10 000 hours billion hours the outlier at this fucking game freakonomics i don't have any interest in that i just like flying the ship around and avoiding bullets poorly i just like those games and i'm bad at them and that's just the way it is it's kind of like how you're compelled to play like civilization you know like yeah yeah it's the same thing because
00:27:32
Speaker
I'm also not a good Civilization player, but I'll never be one. I should be better. And I bought Civilization at release all these years. Like, i just i just do. It's just there's certain games I'm just going to buy, even if I'm never going to beat them. And I mean, I've beaten Civilization, obviously. like...
00:27:53
Speaker
ah but like You know, one of my favorite UFO 50 games is the shmup in it. Like there's like this, a like very, there's a couple shmup type games in it, but there's one that's specifically like very shmupish.
00:28:12
Speaker
And a lot of people hate that game because it's really hard and it is, and it's kind of unfair and it is, but you know what? It's one of my favorites just because I like those games and I just like to play them. And that's, you know, but you know what,
Pixel Art and Game Aesthetics
00:28:26
Speaker
Ben?
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah. I support you. I think you keep playing them. Yeah. Like, it's just fun to Like, the game Ikaruga. You ever play Ikaruga?
00:28:37
Speaker
No. i've heard i think I've heard of it. It's a very, it's like a well-known, you know, as far as these go. uh like japanese uh shmup that is like also at least as far as i'm concerned again maybe there's a listener that's like ben this is actually not very hard it's like to me it's unbelievably difficult but that like a neo geo era game or am i way off i'm not gonna look this up No, we shouldn't either.
00:29:09
Speaker
I think it came out first on the Dreamcast. We got it. We got it. I first played it on the GameCube.
00:29:20
Speaker
Because we had it on the GameCube. And I just would play and play and play it. And just get my ass handed to me. And I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, man. don't know what to say. I just like...
00:29:33
Speaker
I just like ah playing those those games and having my ship destroyed. And Star of Providence is another one. And you know what? It just like... I... yeah You know, I'm kind of... I'm kind of over... Like... ah Mentally... I'm kind of over... Kind of pixel-asetic things. I'm like... Alright, but like... You know, we we can move on from this kind of...
00:30:03
Speaker
like this this level of nostalgia but actually still haven't no no like i mean it sucks i like we're in the pixel business here too ben here yeah i know we are in the the pixel business and it's like you know we work at the pixel factory you can't shut down the pixel factory and you know i think about like the the drifter which has like that pixel uh style and you know what Brings me right in there.
00:30:31
Speaker
Like, you know, yeah I just see those beautiful, big, chunky pixels in the way that those those guys, like, you know, whoever does the art or, who you know, that they do like the lights, the the lighting in it.
00:30:45
Speaker
I'd say dynamically lit pixels are, uh, that's kinda, it's kinda a thing. It's like, that that's a good. so Yeah. I like those pixels. So yeah, mean, and I, and I really want us to move on like from that style or at least change it up. And, you know, like the drifter actually has a very, you know, different style within that, but it's like, I, you know, I appreciate it when,
00:31:09
Speaker
like you know uh adventure games especially have kind of moved on from that style including what if we talked about a game today that doesn't have pixel art uh yeah let's do it uh more like a hand-drawn aesthetic maybe today we are talking about machinarium uh by ah All right. like I've been calling machinarium.
00:31:35
Speaker
Machinarium? I could be... I could totally be wrong. I've called it machinarium all these years, but it could be machinarium. Machinarium.
00:31:46
Speaker
um I've just called it machinarium all these years, but i you know I've also been calling her Crandall instead of Krabappel. um And ah it's ah developed by... ah ah another name that I might this is one of those things like we you know we try to get people who email us their names right and then this is a case of like it's like oh man I definitely should have like listened to you know one of the developers of this game say the name and a manita design came out in 2009 and on everything
00:32:24
Speaker
two thousand and nine and ah it's on everything yes like ah it is on i let me just read this because i just kind of find this funny this is uh came out in 2009 and um it uh like i'm looking at uh wikipedia here here's the platforms that lists are you ready yes windows windows phone great osx linux PlayStation 3, parentheses, PlayStation Network.
00:32:55
Speaker
So it's like it's on whatever. PlayStation Vita, iOS, BlackBerry Playbook. What is that? Android, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and TV OS.
00:33:11
Speaker
I'm surprised. I thought it was WiiWare, but I guess not. WiiWare. WiiWare. we wear Paul. Paul. Paul, you hear about this? Paul. Paul. Yeah. WiiWare.
00:33:24
Speaker
don't know why that was a little more beavicy. This is a, just a case of it's less an impression of David Letterman and more just doing norms impression of David Letterman.
00:33:43
Speaker
Like, ah it's you know norm didn't have that many like characters he's not someone that you would call an actor and yet he had one really he had he had a couple he had a take on that he had a couple and the ones that he had were really good like that david letterman like you know it's a good impression If it, if, if it like, if that's the one that kind of overshadows, like in the same way that it's like, you know, like Sarah Palin never said I could see Russia from my house. He kind of replaces actual David Letterman with that impression in my head at some level. Yeah. ah
00:34:23
Speaker
ah And then who is doing Schaefer? Who is doing is it Mark McKinney? I think it was Mark McKinney. I've been talking a lot about Mark McKinney in light of all of our disappointment, Scott Thompson.
00:34:39
Speaker
And, and I've been saying, I think maybe Mark McKinney had the biggest, post kids in the hall career like obviously dave foley might lay claim to that but i think mark mckinney ended up having the biggest one uh quest quest podcast at gmail.com if you agree and not if you disagree i'm not interested in disagreeing with anyone i only want praise all right mackinia machinarium It, uh, it's a game. It came out in 2009. Uh, I played about, uh, two thirds of it.
Exploring Machinarium and Indie Games
00:35:15
Speaker
Um, I think I played about one third. I would, I would agree. I like, I know about, I would say about a third, like maybe around there. um but, uh, I want to before we even get into like the, the game itself,
00:35:33
Speaker
i i like Have you ever played any of the other from this developer? um from this ah developer I don't think I have. I'm looking out there. rather him oros Yeah. and I haven't played any of these.
00:35:49
Speaker
ah I've heard of botanicula. I've heard of that one, but no, I haven't played any of these. I remember playing Samorast around the time of its release because that came out. That's the first one they're credited with.
00:36:07
Speaker
That was um like a flash game 2003. in two thousand three And it was very like, it's like, oh, you like you click on this, this thing.
00:36:20
Speaker
And this other like, it's it's it's kind of similar to machinarium. It's just that like, you're like machinarium like, and and again, it's been a minute since i've I've played it. So I could be a little off here.
00:36:38
Speaker
But my, my understanding is that Machinarium was like their, their big swing. And yeah, it says like their first full length game.
00:36:49
Speaker
Yeah. Samorast and Samorast two are, are like kind of little Adobe flash, uh, like, like bites. And I remember playing Samorast around the time of its release and being like, Ooh, like, Oh, this is like a cute little doodad, you know?
00:37:07
Speaker
Like, yeah, it's like a ah cute, uh, like it was a very cute little, little thing. And Machinarium, it comes out in 2009. And this is a discussion you and I were talking about a little bit yesterday.
00:37:25
Speaker
um and that has really been on my mind is that Machinarium, when I look at it and when I play it, is that it feels very unbelievably of that particular moment.
00:37:44
Speaker
yes and by that i mean like the indie game the movie the that era like yes it because playing machinarium makes me think about braid in it makes me think about like fez yeah and that yeah that moment of xbox live arcade And like kind of the big coming out party for, ah for indies where like, like the gates started to open up and we like this, you have this generation of indies that all like were wildly popular machinarium.
00:38:36
Speaker
uh uh and if i am mispronouncing it there's somebody like listening to this that like winces every time they hear me say it um uh that game like it uh oh it was camp it was supposed to be on we wear but it was uh uh they couldn't get it under 40 megabytes it feels like such a we wear game uh but yeah i can imagine 40 megs be a little tricky But it's like that, like those 2000, like, so when when does, so Braid is the year before. Yeah.
00:39:10
Speaker
And they all kind of have this artsy vibe to them. 2012. Yeah, sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, yeah, it's that artsy-ness element, you know, that it's like we're not trying to create games that look like all of the big publisher type games are trying to do something a little more personal, a little more artistic at some level. I think all of them share that sort of vibe in common.
00:39:36
Speaker
They, they, yeah, there's like, you know, super meat boy that comes out in 2010. I'm just listing like, those are the indie game, the, the movie, but like, oh fish but like you mentioned when we were talking about this, like before the pod, like it made you think of a world of goo. Yeah. Which is 2008. Yeah.
00:39:55
Speaker
yeah Okay. Yeah. And I mean, it's mostly because like this era of puzzlers and indie games is an era that I didn't play a lot of games from at all. I wasn't playing a ton of games in general at that time. And World of Goo was just like a random one I picked up at some point. And while it's, you know,
00:40:17
Speaker
way more down the puzzle direction i mean there's no real adventure elements speak of in world of goo if you're familiar with it again i think some of the aesthetics the vibes the very for sure in just the indie feel of it gave me a little bit of uh of what machinarium also did yeah there's this feeling of like And I'm, you know, maybe somebody like, you know, maybe there's there's a written piece or or something about this, but there's like the so the popular indies of that time all have that, like a very handmade
00:41:00
Speaker
feel to them like they all have like a very different like all of them have a strong art direction even if it's like a completely like world of goo has like the a hand-drawn aesthetic as does machinarium as does braid but it's all like none of them you could say are drawn in the same way exactly just that they have a hand-drawn they're also all kind of um like
00:41:33
Speaker
ah mildly cute. was going to say cute protagonist seems to be a big, but like brave. Definitely. very Yeah. They're also like, they're all mildly cute.
00:41:45
Speaker
They also all kind of share that. They're like kind of winkingly subversive. Uh-huh. um In a very similar way, like, you know, Braid is just like, ah what if um I did a ah extremely ah like serious minded satire of the Mario Brothers?
00:42:09
Speaker
What would you do then? And oh like, you know, World of Goo has like this kind wry like narrative ah about like industrialization. Yeah. And then like Machinarium has this, you know, kind of dark like decaying world of like rust and like leaky oil and trash.
00:42:40
Speaker
But then it's populated by all these unbelievably cute robots. It honestly made me think of Wally. and yeah It's got strong Wally vibes. I'm sure this is a term someone else has used before, but I kept thinking like, this is junk punk.
00:42:54
Speaker
is kind of, I was junk punk. Yeah. It's like, yeah, I mean, and yeah, that definitely Wally vibes. You're a little robot on a trash heap of a world. Uh, so it's got that going for And, and I, and I, I wouldn't like, I'm sure that there's that like, you know, so this is what 2009 Wally comes out the year before, but I'm sure there's no, like, I, it doesn't feel direct. I wouldn't, I wouldn't feel like there's any inspiration at all.
00:43:21
Speaker
Uh, there, it just like, that era of indie of like this group of games. And I know that there were a bunch of other like indie games coming out. And, you know, we don't like that. We don't talk about anymore because they were all forgotten, you know?
00:43:40
Speaker
Yeah. ah But like the ones that were like the top line, big deal, million seller ones, like they all kind of had. And,
00:43:51
Speaker
and I have a ah big annoying theory about it, which is that it's like, it also kind of feels downstream of like in the mid to late aughts, you like in the culture, ah there would be, and you know, I'm talking American culture.
00:44:12
Speaker
So like, you know, uh, Machinarium is a game made the Czech Republic and in like very obvious ways too, which I want to get into. yeah, But it's like, I think about when I think about like mid aughts, mid to late aughts, I do think about like this run of kind of similarly tweet indies, like kind of post Royal Tenenbaums.
00:44:39
Speaker
Yes. I was going to say like the Wes Anderson kind of vibe that latches in. Yeah. And like that are all like very handmade and bespoke and deeply melancholy.
00:44:52
Speaker
yeah we All of these games that I just named also have. And like, I'm not saying that the Mastinarium is inspired by the Royal Tenenbaums. That's insane.
00:45:04
Speaker
I'm saying that it's like, there was a lot of movies, television, music from like 2003 on that had like that kind of like the, the independent film and music realm kind of had that feel at that moment and then at that at the end of like the aughts and the early 2010s, you have a run of indie games that are all handmade and melancholy and kind of quirky. A few years after this has been at the center of pop culture. Yeah, I think sort of seeing as downstream from those exact kind of cultural trends makes sense to me too.
00:45:45
Speaker
So I think you're onto something here, Ben. Yeah. I don't know what we had to be melancholy about in the aughts, but... Oh, and the the great thing is, is that, you know, now everything's fucking great.
00:46:09
Speaker
You hear about this modernity? Have you heard about the crisis? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Crisis day. Yeah.
00:46:25
Speaker
But no, I mean, I think you're onto something. I mean, for listeners who don't know anything about Mashonair, maybe not they even know how pronounce the title. A game that you probably have in your Steam library. Yes.
00:46:38
Speaker
ah That you just probably have. You might not have even played it. Yeah. Yeah, this yeah this is has probably been in so many bundles and so many other things. Yeah, you probably own it on multiple storefronts at this point.
00:46:49
Speaker
But yeah, the the the whole setup here is you are a little robot dude in this in this junk pile of a world. And you start working your way through it at first in little self-contained levels, solving puzzles to get out of them. It's very much like one room puzzlers.
00:47:10
Speaker
And then as you a little bit further, starts to open up a little bit and there's more room to to move from location to location. It's a game ah without spoken dialogue. You get bits of story that are delivered ah largely ah through actions on screen or flashbacks that our protagonist has of having encountered other robots before and things like that.
00:47:35
Speaker
Ben, why am i missing this description of of the game?
00:47:41
Speaker
I mean, you know, I think you got it. What's interesting to me is that when I was like looking at it, like on Wikipedia and I was reading like some other stuff preparing for this, is that like all of the characters and stuff like have names.
00:47:55
Speaker
But obviously, as far as I can tell, they're not referred to in the game because there's no written dialogue. But like, if you look at Wikipedia and you look at like when I've read other people or like I was reading a walkthrough, which again, I'll get get into.
00:48:14
Speaker
um But like the i apparently everybody has names. It's great. Yeah. I don't know if that would add to my appreciation. I mean,
00:48:26
Speaker
I'm going to go ahead and and say it, Ben. I'm just going to lay my cards on the table here if you'd like to see my cards. yeah um I did not particularly care for this game.
00:48:38
Speaker
I bounced off of it pretty hard. yeah in ah well One thing, and I'll respond to that in a second. One thing... that ah is that like those first segments where it's just one screen and even like once it started to expand into it's like two or three screens and then it expands further to it's like three, four and five screen little segments.
00:49:05
Speaker
i it kind of reminded me a little bit of goblins. Interesting. Goblins feel. yeah it's a Goblins them up. But no, I mean, but but yeah, let's let's talk about you not ah enjoying it Yeah. I'll also say that I realized playing it. This is, it's also not a game for me. Yeah.
00:49:28
Speaker
And that's how i put this when we were texting about it. Yeah. You and I can have similar tastes. So yeah, it's like, this is a lovely game. Like when I say it's not for me, it's, it's not to say this is a criticism of myself as much as it is the game in any way.
00:49:43
Speaker
Like it's a lovely game. It is well-made the puzzles. ah are pretty clever. They're just not my kind of puzzles. The twee cutesy robot is not my kind of protagonist.
00:50:02
Speaker
I mean, honestly, i don't like the junk punk aesthetic. Like that's not not a look. How do you feel about WALL-E? Um, you know, it gets a lot better once they're on the big spaceship. yeah That is one of that, that, that to me is a like Jess trail mix level. so anyway I know. Um, that's not the right take. Like the right take is before there's any dialogue, spoken dialogue in the film, this like silent play between Wally and Eve there on the decimated earth.
00:50:36
Speaker
is the good oscar winning part of wally and that it gets bad once you're up on the by and large space and i wouldn't even say cruiser bad not bad not it it's just not the part people love um and i think i'm quite the opposite i don't like a dirty cluttered visual aesthetic i think and that's why lot of this is i don't know i don't how do feel about the opening of space quest 3 Well, that's all in beautiful 16 colors. If this was 16 colors, you'd like it?
00:51:08
Speaker
I don't know. This is in pixels? This is in two colors. This is in brown and gray, um which are not my two first choices. What I will say, so I differ from you in in a and a couple things. I agree with you.
00:51:22
Speaker
Like, so this... i know This is it again. Yeah, this is not. And yeah, i'm i' I would never call this a bad game because it's yeah obviously a good one.
00:51:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's it. It is a like ah a game that like I realized. so i Last night when I was playing through it, ah like i was I was playing it i on my TV ah with and my boyfriend was hanging out. So he was he was watching and I was like, yeah, oh this will be fun to watch if you want to like come over.
00:51:59
Speaker
And he said to me, because he grew up playing them. He's like, you know what this game reminds He's like, this kind of reminds me of the Nancy Drew games. Oh man. and And.
00:52:11
Speaker
And the, the thing about like those and the thing about like this game is that it does have. like it does have like you have an inventory and there's some kind of like kind of what uh one would call like kind of your your standard inventory based like point and click puzzles there's some of that there's some of that in the game um But, ah and then there's also what I would call like kind of a Goblins style puzzle, like, so I can return to that so I can explain. Like, Goblins has a bunch of puzzles where it's like, you ah like push a button and something happens and then you have to figure out, like, it's like, okay, so how do I make the thing that happens when I push that button work for me?
00:53:02
Speaker
Yes. You know, when I push this button and the conveyor belt moves around, how do I figure out how to hook onto that conveyor belt so it can lift me up to that platform I need to get to to escape this room?
00:53:14
Speaker
Yeah. And that's a like goblins has like kind of puzzles like that. But then also, and this is where I got bumped. And this is probably like you know, beyond like the aesthetic aspect.
00:53:28
Speaker
ah problems that that you had it where you probably got bumped too is that it also has like just kind of like just kind of puzzle puzzles dropped in it like just little like brain teasers and little like like it's just like here's like where you stopped and I told you to get up to because I wanted you to get aggravate as aggravated by it as I did is like there's a There's a part where you have to ah play this robot in tic-tac-toe, except that it's like five in a row. It's a 10 by 10 grid. Yeah.
00:54:07
Speaker
yeah You have to get five. You're playing nuts and bolts, and you have to get five in a row on a 10 by 10 grid. And everything is brown. So even though like yeah the the bolts and and nuts look distinct,
00:54:23
Speaker
when I started to get cross-eyed and be like, I would miss when my opponent would like get close to five because I just like everything, like kind of all fell into the same sludge of the same, you know, yeah like quake, like palette.
00:54:42
Speaker
yes And like, I, like I was getting, I ended up having to find like a YouTube page where somebody is like, all right, here's how you do it.
00:54:52
Speaker
Like, yeah. Um, yeah. But it also, you didn't get to this. It has a sliding tile puzzle. It has, it has like a bunch of like just little like stock puzzles in And,
00:55:06
Speaker
and And a tough trial and error, too, which isn't bad in a game like this, but, like, lots of, like, you have to rewire this panel, and you're just going to have to twist these wires around until it does the thing you want to do by trial and error, which, again, is fine for this sort of goblins-esque puzzle structure. Good.
00:55:27
Speaker
sir What really made my boyfriend and I laugh is like walking into a new room and you would just see like this big like assortment of pipes.
00:55:38
Speaker
And he's just like, oh, you know of that like, like we both like just started. It's like, i you know, that's going to be a fucking thing where I got to make the pipes do some fucking shit. This is the beginning of every level for me. Like I walk into it's like, oh shit. yeah like you You just see all the the things and you're like as an adventure game fan or any sort of fan like gaming fan, like you just see all those component parts of it. Just like going to have to I'm going to have to make that like, oh, I'm going to have to figure out there's a panel over there and I'm going to open it up and there's just going to be like 20 switches I'm going to have to manipulate.
00:56:20
Speaker
ah Like, it's like, i just fucking know that when I switch one switch, three switches elsewhere are all going to flip one way and I'm going to to figure out how to get the three correct switches facing down.
00:56:34
Speaker
Like, and that's actually, I don't think that's a puzzle in here, but like, you know, like, it's just like, you know, you like it's all puzzle box puzzle, not all of it, but there's a lot of lot of puzzles.
00:56:47
Speaker
And then also there's a lot of them and you didn't get this far, but there's like parts where you get like those puzzle box puzzles and then you finish one. And then it's like, great. Here's five more.
00:56:59
Speaker
Oh, you see, and I don't even hate that inherently. But for me to like plow through a game that's doing a lot of those, I need cutesy dialogue and character and story. Like I need, at the very least, I want King Graham at the end of it to like be, whoa, that was a tough one or something. yeah just Let's call up Josh.
00:57:27
Speaker
This will be episode seven. Let's just call up Josh. and give him like choice Can you do voiceover for Machinarium? Yeah. Voice. Because right now, most of the voices are like, mm-mm-mm-mm, and things like that. They make that fucking noise anytime you click.
00:57:43
Speaker
This is something that drives me nuts. This is something that drives me nuts, and this is something I never, this is an adventure game peeve, is that you can only manipulate something, like, and it tells you this right up up top, so this isn't, like, a secret, but, like, it will only let you, like, it will only highlight that you can do something,
00:58:05
Speaker
if you're within like kind of like an inch radius, I hate this. Sometimes like I'll, I'll see something and I know I'm like, all right, I, I know that this inventory item is just going to have to like tap with that thing.
00:58:21
Speaker
And then that I, like, I know what I have to do but then like, I would, you know, move over and try to click on it and win highlight. And then I'd be like, all right, I guess I don't.
00:58:32
Speaker
And then like, it's like, oh, I'm actually not close enough. So it's just not going to, Like, it's just not going to recognize that as a potential action. and Yes. Nuts.
00:58:43
Speaker
Like, yeah, it doesn't even like change the cursor to the like, i can touch this thing. This drove me crazy, especially since again, with the hand drawn graphics. a lot of the times like oh it's hard to tell your hotspots blend into the background yes and these are usually fairly busy backgrounds with a lot of pipes and wires and machinery type stuff. mean, it's, it's a machinarium.
00:59:03
Speaker
Uh, there's machinery everywhere. Uh, there's machinery coming out the wazoo. yeah Um, yeah, but sometimes, yeah, i would just like, I would look at somebody like, Oh, I probably can interact with that box over there.
00:59:14
Speaker
And I'd hover my cursor over it and the cursor wouldn't change. And I'd be like, Well, I guess not. I'll look at something else. Then remember, like, five minutes later, I'll walk near. It's like, oh, I just wasn't standing close enough for the cursor to change.
00:59:28
Speaker
And the game explains this to you. i know. It's not secret. it's It's like, don't get fucking mad if you're a big fan. Like, understand. The game tells you. got so mad. I got so mad.
00:59:39
Speaker
The game tells you right away. It's just that. adventure games moved on from that in 1988 and yeah like and we all agreed that was a good change and so like we we all need like we all have to get on the same fucking page here because we can't be playing a game came out in the 21st century that pulls that shit on me like we just can't do that i don't have time for that i'm a grown man ben um i'm a grown man yeah we're both big boys We're big boys. We don't eat Pop-Tarts for breakfast. No, I have fucking muesli.
01:00:14
Speaker
and i have two eggs.
01:00:18
Speaker
Now, but... I do want to really emphasize that it's just like, this is a game. And like, again, you and I have very similar taste in adventure games. Like, this is just a game that is emphatically not the type of game that you and I like.
01:00:36
Speaker
Yeah. Like, it's so evidently well crafted. Yeah. ah Like, it's not even that. It's like, because I've played beautiful games that I would be like, and this kind of sucks.
01:00:49
Speaker
um Like, it's, no, it's a good game. It's just not, like, it's also the type of ah adventure game. And again, like, Goblins is kind of like this, where it's like, you you have...
01:01:06
Speaker
an overall objective, like eventually you find out that these two bad guys are up to no good. And so you're just like, okay, like these two bad guys, I don't like them. So we have to stop the thing that these two bad guys are up to.
01:01:19
Speaker
And, but there's not like your, your little guy doesn't have like ah special, like urgency about it. It's just kind of like,
01:01:30
Speaker
the the game is that you're just kind of solving puzzles in a direction. Yes. You know, like, it's just like, it's it's not that you're like, well, I'll do that because that will get me closer to the bad guys.
01:01:44
Speaker
It's just like, I'm going to do this because there's a puzzle and that will get me into the next room and the next room will, will like, will give me the next puzzle, you know? Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think this is one of the things again,
01:01:58
Speaker
And if you just love puzzles, like if that's the part of adventure games that really like pull you in, i imagine that's not such a bad thing for me. It was just sort of like, well, don't feel like this game is going to give me much back if I keep solving these puzzles other than more puzzles.
01:02:16
Speaker
And that's probably unfair in that I was in the beginning of some of this larger story starting to unfold when I bounced off of the tic-tac-toe game.
01:02:28
Speaker
But yeah, I think that was something that just kind of threw me off. Now, of course, this game wouldn't be that difficult. ah Thanks to the fact that it has a built in walkthrough.
01:02:41
Speaker
This is so annoying. This is the most annoying thing I've, this is worse than can't walk over there and touch that. this ben it has a walkthrough built into the game with lovely pictographs to show you what to do why don't i just click on that every time that i want to skip through a level that's frustrating me well because it makes you play like this deeply irritating mini game punish from like It'd be one thing, like, and it's also kind of like, I think it predates Flappy Bird, but it has its Flappy Bird characteristics. Like, yeah it's like a Flappy Bird shmup.
01:03:21
Speaker
well But I would enjoy shmup. Like, it is, i don't know. it It's very, and I think and now,
01:03:36
Speaker
they wouldn't but like, and I haven't played any of their recent games. So maybe, but like, if, it if, if, if this was their first full length game now, they wouldn't bother with it. I, that, that feels more like a ah like kind of being protective of like hints and nudges and stuff kind of thing.
01:04:00
Speaker
Yes. ah That I don't really think you get as much of any. I feel like at some level, it's like an appeal to the grognards who don't want their games being made easy for them that I think we just decides like, you know, somebody wants to cheat through your game.
01:04:16
Speaker
They paid the same amount to get it as anyone else. Let them cheat through your game. ah Yeah, it's just like, it's, cute it's too cute for its own good to like, I mean, yeah, how long does I, I'll tell you, full disclosure, I got so mad at the mini game. Oh, I just immediately found a website. Yeah, like you look up get up I was just like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna play your game.
01:04:38
Speaker
I never completed it. Like I played it for like a minute either. And it was still going. So it's like, I have to play a minute where I'm like piloting through this little flappy bird type area, shooting at spiders and stuff.
01:04:50
Speaker
And presumably at the end of it, the hint book pops up. And I think you have to do it every time you want to access walkthrough, right? And the walkthrough only shows you like, which is fine. It only shows you like the page that you're like,
01:05:01
Speaker
Yeah. The screen that you're on. It's just annoying. Like it's it's it's, it's, it's, it's friction that I don't think needs to be there. Like, it's just like, well, you've already, you aren't looking at walkthrough unless you're already experiencing friction with the game and then to add friction to the act of cheating.
01:05:20
Speaker
ah or Or if you want to to do that, like do like just do like add a timer or something. like Some games have done that, and it's like, that's also annoying, and I'm also just going to look it up on my phone if I'm like sufficiently irritated.
01:05:36
Speaker
But it's like, come on, man. Like... You know, it was like something that should have been patched out at like version 1.3 something. It's like we launched with this feature and now it's optional. Now there's just a skip on that for people who want to just get straight to the walkthrough.
01:05:54
Speaker
So there's a couple of things that the game makes me kind of think about when I, when I play it. Um, one is is, is like number one. So as I said, I, I am considerably, uh, like I love the look of the game, like in the, like the junk punk,
01:06:10
Speaker
or what how what have you aesthetic of it. I love, I love like the hand-drawn look. I love, like, I also think that the game looks ah particularly timeless because it's like, it's this game that came out like a little while ago now. Like, you know, it it came out, what, 16 years ago? Yeah, you could drop it today and it'd still be a good looking game. Yeah, no, yeah, exactly. If it came out today, everybody would be like, look at this beautiful new game.
01:06:38
Speaker
Um, and, i so I like that is, uh, like that, that is one, one thing I also like, so, uh,
01:06:58
Speaker
and I, I, I also want to like, kind of talk about when I was playing it, it also made there, there are two things that made me think of one was, ah like viewers of my stream um know that like I'll fill the time when I've completed a game, but I still like have stream time left.
01:07:21
Speaker
Like I'll play like old, like I'll play like a Freddy fish game or like something like an animated storybook. And i like there's something from like the multimedia era, like for kids is something I like to do.
01:07:38
Speaker
And it that kind of large hand-drawn living world with, like, animation happening kind of everywhere really put me in the mind of those kind of animated storybooks that would come out in, like, you know, ah the early CD-ROM era, uh,
01:07:58
Speaker
ah and and so i find that like that's another thing like those games you know made for five-year-olds where it's like you could just click every anywhere on the screen and there would be a cute little animation um like you know it it looks like one of those which you know just kind of hits near my heart like i'm just kind of like oh i love ah like i loved those games um The other thing, and this now will tie into the the Czech Republic of it, um is that it made me think of, and it's funny, i had to look up...
01:08:38
Speaker
if, if this was an inspiration because I didn't want to be like guy that saw one thing from the Czech Republic and goes like, well, I'm getting real Czech Republic vibes from this. You know, like, I don't want to like make, you know, I'm a fucking ugly American. ah you know, my, my, my knowledge is, is remarkably shallow.
01:09:02
Speaker
Um, but like, you seem very prog aggressive to me, but, um, But it did like playing. I was like, I wonder if ah like this was i inspired a bit by Jan Sveinkmeyer.
01:09:21
Speaker
Another name I might be mispronouncing. So apologies. Yeah. who he's a, like a Czech animator, like a filmmaker. He did very memorably.
01:09:32
Speaker
ah And this is the, like his most popular film is this stop motion animated Alice in Wonderland.
01:09:44
Speaker
that if you look up screenshots of it, you'll be like, oh yeah, the people that worked on this like are definitely familiar with Jahn's Smykmeyer. When I was playing, I was like, this has really given me ah Alice vibes and then so I like I googled like you know machinarium Jan Svinkmeier and there is an I was like poof ah there is an interview where but he was he wasn't ah like the developer he was specifically talking ah about like his earlier games
01:10:22
Speaker
ah like the the earlier i like I think Samorost but even then i'm just like okay like this is this is kind of a reference like an art reference point um ah like ah that like it really put me in the mind of and that movie is a ah fucking ah disturbing classic The yeah white rabbit vomits sawdust. It's amazing.
01:10:47
Speaker
Sounds great. Sounds like my kind of movie. Yeah, I mean, for me, yeah I didn't have that cultural reference. I think for me, what it kind of evoked was what I associate, especially in animation and cartooning, sort of a post communist kind of vibe. Oh, yeah. Like, yeah, like crumbling infrastructure you know excesses of capitalism on display everywhere sort of scarcity and reuse and all of that sort of stuff that you a rusted world that i think i associate with a lot of post-communist uh art art and cartoony type stuff yeah it made me like think of
01:11:33
Speaker
like um you know some like other stuff from like that eastern european yeah block era like area stuff where it's just like you have uh like these movies or these animations or something where it's like this very like stark, like kind of brutalist, uh, like landscape in kind of disrepair in kind of like a state of decay, but also with like signs of life and joy occurring in them. And like budding hope within this desolate landscape. yeah Yeah. Like it's, it's, it's because, you know, like not because it's like,
01:12:20
Speaker
It's not the world of Nash and Arium is a world where it's like you're rooting for the protagonist and he's like this cute little guy. yeah he's the underdog in every sense. Yeah.
01:12:32
Speaker
And there's like this little, like there's this robot band ah like in a scene and you get to make them play their little robot band music. So it's like there's like, you know, little pets and there's like, it's very...
01:12:47
Speaker
Like for all the starkness and the, like the rust and the Brown and the leaking oil and like the, the weird little like chirps and like kind of how officious some of like the, like kind of authority figure yeah robots look.
01:13:06
Speaker
There's still robots. Yeah. Yeah. Like there's still like these moments of joy and happiness and like pops of color and like, you know, the ah like the the robot that just wants to smoke in the like the jail cell.
01:13:25
Speaker
And like there's just all these these really kind of moment. And and yeah, like, again, that that that kind of make me think of, you know, the stuff that I have watched and enjoyed of like that that region of Europe.
01:13:43
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree. And again, you know the the more I talk about that that we're talking about this and sort of thinking about in that context, you know, again, it's not an aesthetic I love, but i think this game executes it really beautifully and really thoughtfully. Like, you know, yeah, I think that, you know, there's there's no question that this is working for the game. It's just that, again, the game is not quite what I'm looking for in an adventure. And that's on me. That's not on machinarium in any sense.
01:14:18
Speaker
I mean, is I was thinking the earlier day, you know, it's a great game for me. uh that's a that's a good one that one's fun that's a great one yeah it's got the it's got like a real french canadian vibe going on to it uh with its host it's it does i've never noticed that yeah no it's really fun uh you sanitarium uh there are all kinds of great uh arium games out there uh arium uh games out there uh but yeah uh
01:14:51
Speaker
machinarium uh gorgeous game just one i bounced off of in part because of a cruel tic-tac-toe puzzle you made me play forward too i was ready to quit already and you said just no you you were respect you're not very far in the game i was like i must be six to seven hours in and you're like jess you're like 20 minutes and you just are really struggling with these puzzles These simple baby puzzles. I mean, I use the, what like it was at a, like a certain point I was just kind of like, I'm just going to be using the walkthrough. couldn't beat the flappy bird. So I couldn't use the walkthrough.
01:15:27
Speaker
Well, this is, I, you want to know i have a secret code. It's called a Google machinarium walkthrough. i just went to chat GPT and said, how, when machinarium. And it wrote a great essay for me about critical thinking.
01:15:43
Speaker
Oh, good. Perfect.
01:15:47
Speaker
yeah you know it's also one other thing I know like it sounds like we're revving up there's one other thing I want to hit on before before we do which is that like so I remember at some point like I don't know when it ended up in my steam library it could have been that I just woke up one day and it was there but I think I got it like close to its release and and I just remember because it's like This game comes out in 2009, as I said.
01:16:21
Speaker
And that is like kind of... like so you have Telltale kind of doing the Telltale thing. And this is when Telltale is still doing like kind of point and clicks.
01:16:32
Speaker
But this is still... the like this is this is still part of the like adventure games are dead of adventure game releases.
01:16:49
Speaker
And this is very much ah adventure games are back, uh, sort of entry into that. Yeah. And i remember playing like just the first couple screens and, With the sense of it's like, all right, like, I love adventure games. Like, here we go. And then I played it and I remember just shaking my head and being like, oh, man, they they just keep pulling this shit on me. Like, they're just not going to make games I like it ever again. Like, you know, like, it it was like, I was just like, I just want to fucking King's Quest.
01:17:19
Speaker
Like... yeah yeah yeah you know that was yeah and i think this was one i think even some of its advertising very much framed it and uh you know adventure games are finally back we've revived them they're not dead anymore uh it's back and it's machinarium i and this is my experience i didn't play this one at release but a lot of the ones i did pick up during the the aughts during the adventure games are dead period this was oftentimes my reaction to it's like really this is what we're doing for adventure games now it's not what again i where's where's king graham where's rosella where's valenice where are all these uh characters i love where's gwydion where's alexander so where's rumpelstiltskin And I want to read this little, so like a point that I used ah like for reference, um like when I was preparing for this podcast is I read this piece on like game developer.com from 2009.
01:18:15
Speaker
two thousand and nine So contemporary to like when the game first came out, it's an interview ah like ah with one of ah the designers And like, there's this lead to the story.
01:18:31
Speaker
ah and it like, here's a, here's a chunk from like the opening paragraph. um which is I had the occasion to play through most of it, the Penny Arcade Expo, which is funny that ah like it's referred to as the Penny Arcade Expo and not PAX, which, you know, but so but maybe that was like the first year. I don't even remember.
01:18:51
Speaker
Anyway, and during that time was disheartened to hear a number of bystanders struggle to define it. I heard comments like, it seems sort of like an action game, but you can't control the characters or,
01:19:05
Speaker
It's a puzzle game like Tetris. The closest one journalist was able to come to figuring it out was a bit like Myst, but really it's just the classic adventures genre in its most straightforward form with some puzzle mini games on the side.
01:19:24
Speaker
Though the term may have fallen out of public view, the design concepts at work are still striking and machinarium will not disappoint fans of the genre. And there's there's a couple interesting things at work here.
01:19:37
Speaker
One is that I disagree with you, Brandon. um ah I was disappointed. ah and Yeah, there go. There you have it. But it's just kind of funny that it's just like in 2009, this game comes out and it has like an inventory and you move a little guy around on and on a screen to solve puzzles.
01:19:58
Speaker
And people are seeing it and going like, what is what the house sorccery What is this? is this? It's not quite a Zelda.
01:20:08
Speaker
I guess it's Tetris. I'm trying to solve something, but there are no falling blocks. So what is it? Klax? Like... It's Steven Spielberg's boom blocks. Yeah, it's a Steven Spiel. It's a boom blocks them up.
01:20:22
Speaker
um Yeah, no, this is funny. You know, mean, this idea yeah you know that this genre had collapsed so thoroughly that we don't even have the words to describe a game that clearly fits within this genre as it reappears just a few short years later.
01:20:39
Speaker
It's like, oh, my grandfather told me of something called a monkey island, if you can imagine. Like, and it's like, and this is from like a very like sober public, like it's from game developer.com. It's not from like, this isn't like, you know like a, i like a video game website that has like a tab they ah for babes, you know, like this is, uh,
01:21:08
Speaker
Like, like, like this is this is random. And it's just like I have the occasion to see this ah but a bit of a curiosity at the Penny Arcade Expo. Everybody marveled at this game and they were scratching their heads.
01:21:23
Speaker
It was not an asteroid. This I'm sure of. But what I would call. Is this a Marvel madness? Isn't this 720?
01:21:34
Speaker
Some sort of mappy? hi i am but there one One person came up to and said, what is this, root beer tapper? Like...
01:21:50
Speaker
one One man came up and was like, where are the flippers? I'm trying to push the buttons on the side and nothing's occurring. Where is the pinball? like One thing's for sure, Machinarium is a terrible spreadsheet.
01:22:04
Speaker
A a pizza has not arrived at my home. like um One man who who had a ah thick, authentic Scottish accent picked up the mouse and said, and and spoke to it, said, hello, computer.
01:22:25
Speaker
man with
01:22:29
Speaker
a pin that said, I stopped smoking, knew all the better. i the man with a pin that said i stop smoking knew all the better Now your joke, sorry. one One man walked up to it and said can this machine feel love?
01:22:49
Speaker
And then sparks flew out of the screen.
01:22:59
Speaker
oh i mean, yeah, who knows what this thing is? ah Yeah, it's, it's machinarium, which may or not even be how you pronounce it. Yeah, what?
01:23:12
Speaker
Well, you know, Here's the important thing. The important thing is don't want anyone to add us with how to pronounce this. Please do not correct us. Don't correct us, one.
01:23:23
Speaker
ah ah Don't, ah yeah. You have no idea how hard this is. This is so hard.
01:23:33
Speaker
One of us, and I'm not going to tell you who, but one of us has pneumonia right now. Yeah. ah And also one of us only speaks the truth. The other one only lies.
01:23:46
Speaker
That's not true. Don't trust him. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. i What we really did this week was my goal of let's not talk about a Sierra game this week.
01:24:01
Speaker
but I mean, literally that's just a peek behind the curtain. That's the genesis of this episode. We ended our last one. It's a mega drive of this episode. yes that's true for our international listeners as soon as we got grayson off the call last week we said there says like we can't do another sierra game ben we can't just do sierra games even though that's what our listeners want to hear they want to hear us talk about a king's quest they want to hear us talk about a ah space quest it's you know which we haven't spoken about at all we're never going to and um ben won't let me yeah
01:24:34
Speaker
It's kind of like ah like the Doughboys podcast, but which is like where they talk about chain restaurants. um not done Not World War I. Has not done an episode about McDonald's.
01:24:48
Speaker
Yeah. And that's like kind of like, all right, they've done one about McDonald's breakfast, but they kind of put like an asterisk on that. They're just like, but we didn't do like, know, we haven't done like the, like the Big Mac, you know, like we haven't done the McDonald's episode, you know? And so it's like, I, you know, that might be the space quest thing with you.
01:25:07
Speaker
But anyway. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure we'll talk about Sierra next week. Yeah, we're going to talk about ah Jones and the Fastlane. Oh, wait. Oh, man. Fuck, i should that that that would have been a good a kicker joke.
01:25:21
Speaker
Oh, well. um Anyway. a So, yeah. any Any final thoughts before we close the book and probably not talk about one of... I mean, I don't know. here i am... i left this very... Because they've continued to make... They've made a bunch of games. Mm-hmm.
01:25:39
Speaker
And this was their first full length game. So I am like curious, uh, about like, you know, they, they put out, a game like their most recent release was in, uh, 2021.
01:26:01
Speaker
It's a horror point and click adventure, ah called happy game. hey i And like, it's like, I don't know.
01:26:12
Speaker
Like, I don't know. They have another, they have another game coming out next year. ah Like, it's like, you know, um i'm I'm curious. Like, are they, like, is it, do they kind of stick to this kind of form or, or, you know, like,
01:26:32
Speaker
ah what's what' ah what's what's the deal? So maybe we'll come back. I don't know. I i am actually quite curious. And certainly the visuals of all these other games they put out are also, i mean, they all have a striking artistic style.
01:26:45
Speaker
I mean, in that sense, I think they're definitely carrying through on some of the groundwork laid here. machinarium yeah i mean i think ultimately like you know you're gonna have a good time looking at it unless you just you know disagree with it on aesthetic grounds like just like yeah unless you hate junk punk and you just hate that little wally robot walking around and being all sentimental and uh too much uh what it hello dolly yeah very cute it's a lovely yeah i love that anyway
01:27:19
Speaker
All right. ah So that was our definitive talk on that. um Please write into us if you enjoyed this game more than us and tell Ben and I why we're wrong.
01:27:31
Speaker
Don't correct the pronunciation of the title. We aren't interested in those emails, but reach out to us. QuestQuestPodcast at gmail.com. You know, I think that this sort of game is also like,
01:27:45
Speaker
very appealing to people that bounce off of the games like the adventure games that you and i love because there's a certain type of like it like puzzle fan that is like I don't need all the dialogue and I don't need all the right like you know like you know I enjoy that this has a nice little wrapper and you know? Yeah, no,
Humorous Scenarios and Nerd Culture
01:28:06
Speaker
absolutely. And I can say, i mean, it's just two different types of nerd, uh, both equally nerdy, but I mean, ought to be great in this little insult sword fighting.
01:28:17
Speaker
Yeah. You know, what would be great is, you know, if, uh, like there was a scene and you go into this, this guy's, uh, house and he's like, Oh, you have to see this terrible monster that gave me a hook. And,
01:28:30
Speaker
Like you go through and there's like 20 different doors and you're just like, oh what did what is it? And it's just a parrot. It's just a cute little parrot. know, it'd be great is if there was a scene where you had to like steal something from this mansion. Yeah. And once you got in, like ah the local constabulary like confronted you and like you had this like elaborate fourth wall breaking fight that sort of really just made light of the mechanics of the genre itself just along the way.
01:29:02
Speaker
You know, i think what would like, that's pretty cool. You know, what I think would be great is like if there was like a scene where like you're you're tossed underwater and just out of reach are all the things like yeah you're you're tied to like a really heavy object.
01:29:18
Speaker
And ah like, but fortunately, you can hold your breath for an abnormally long amount of time for someone. How long? Like 12 minutes around there, around there. Uh, not that long, but around. You ever take, yeah. Yeah. Give definitely take a few. Okay.
01:29:37
Speaker
But not too much. Okay. And like, so you have a rope and, uh, but around you are like scissors and a knife and all of this. And then meanwhile, above you, like standing, like on, let's say there's like a pier or a dock above you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like there are two people that have like kind of a, uh, conversation.
01:29:56
Speaker
can you hear them? Like yeah want hear the whole dialogue. And it's like, I mean, like, like you just hear it's text. hu um Or if you remade it, like you could probably get some pretty good voice actors.
01:30:07
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Real ringers. If this was like done by like a company that has a lot of money, you know, at their business. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, but like all this stuff that like, you know, could like cut.
01:30:19
Speaker
ah So i just walk over and like grab like. But no, you couldn't. You couldn't because it's just out of reach and you're just like, oh my God, I'm going to drown. But don't worry. I've got a fair amount of time. And then okay all you have to do is just pick up the thing they that you're tied to. It's like kind of a gag, you know, it's just kind of. Oh, okay. Cause you're underwater and like the weight really doesn't matter. Like you just pick it up.
01:30:41
Speaker
Like yeah it's just like, and then I'll just go up the ladder. That's right here. Like, okay. Not actually an issue. Like it just turns out not to be a problem at all. Like, uh, yeah, but I think that would be pretty good.
01:30:52
Speaker
No, I think that would be, I mean i think all these, i mean, if we could workshop some of these ideas, I think they have potential. Yeah.
01:31:02
Speaker
But, but what if we, we had all of that in a game or perhaps a series and then just kind of ended it with like kind of a slide whistle. Yeah. Like at some level, like after we've like gotten people really like hooked on these sorts of things at the end, it was just like, Oh, you like that character? You idiot.
01:31:20
Speaker
That character was a sad man this whole time. And you enjoyed him and all of his adventures. Boy, you really wasted a lot of money and time on these things, didn't you? He was a sad man this whole time. And you thought he was cool. You enjoyed him and you like cared about him and his girlfriend and later wife. Look at you, idiot.
01:31:42
Speaker
Thanks for buying it. Wow.
Podcast Promotion and Media Frustrations
01:31:44
Speaker
What a journey we've gone on Anyway, you enjoyed this podcast, ah rate, review, tell a friend, post about it on ah yourre your social.
01:31:53
Speaker
ah Post Facebook. only good reddits if if you post about it on like some shit reddit i don't care for that um uh uh and then uh you know shoot us an email quest quest podcast at gmail.com and uh be sure to join us next week when uh we play ah secret of lucky island
01:32:41
Speaker
We kinda owe him at this point. We cheated him at the beginning.
01:33:04
Speaker
One kicker thought that's still going to be in this one kicker thought. Don't you hate it on a TV show when they cut like the theme short and you're all like juiced up for the theme. And then it just like plays like a tune from it or something.
01:33:17
Speaker
then Yeah, because this is the episode that's like 22 minutes and 45 seconds. And there's not time second too long. Like it's a season finale. And they're just like, yeah, we can't have the opening credits. I always hate that. It drives me crazy. Yeah. We weren't under those kind time constraints. We just chose to do it. Yep.
01:33:31
Speaker
right. Bye.