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Dropsy
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Before Hypnospace Outlaw there was Dropsy, a point and click adventure game about a despised clown that just wants to help people and make them smile.
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
Give us a review, they help people find this show! Unless you hated it, in which case, don't.
Talk with us on Discord!
https://discord.gg/ve9fqjgPp2
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Transcript
Introductions and Personal Anecdotes
00:00:29
Speaker
Jess, I've got some business up top. Oh, wow. Wow. Business here on Quest Quest, the adventure game podcast. ah Yeah, I've got some business up top. I'm Ben, PS underscore Garrick on Twitch. I'm Jess, Decaf Jedi everywhere.
00:00:44
Speaker
Jess, here's my business up top. Last night, I woke up at let's say, 3 a.m. Mm-hmm. And I had a Charlie horse. Oh, no.
00:00:55
Speaker
Oh, no. Are you okay today? I'm fine today, but, like, I feel it when I walk around. Yeah. It does. Those are so fucking painful, aren't they?
00:01:05
Speaker
Oh, they're the worst. They're the worst. No, i mean, are we talking thigh or calf? i I believe that would... um I think it was the calf.
00:01:18
Speaker
Yeah, it was the calf. And the thing is, is that
00:01:24
Speaker
Like, I don't think I've talked about this on the the podcast, you know this, but like, I recently sprained both my ankles. Did I talk about this on the pod? Yeah, parkour.
00:01:37
Speaker
yeah I was doing parkour. And by that, I mean, i was walking down the street looking at my phone. No one to blame but myself on that. Mm-hmm. But anyway, so I've had no end various leg and foot pains and problems for the past three weeks since doing that stupid thing, which I know if you're listening, you might even be looking at your phone and walking down the street right now.
00:02:02
Speaker
Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. This is our PSA. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. um But anyway. But if you are going to do it, do it while listening to Quest Quest. do you Yeah, yeah, yeah. i guess So you can always associate us with a searing pain. um But ah so, like, I've had just nothing but various leg and foot aches and pains. and starting physical therapy in two weeks, which hopefully that will, ah you know, work towards resolving this.
00:02:36
Speaker
um But, ah you know, I'm just now I feel like at least as as an adult, I think I've only exclusively gotten Charlie horses at 3 Is that, does that trick for you?
00:02:54
Speaker
Unless I've done something really stupid. Like I've had a few, like where maybe I've just like been seated or something and stretched out in a weird way. And then it it kind of cramped back on me. But yeah, it's, it's a sleepy time thing for me mostly.
00:03:08
Speaker
Yeah. Like, it's like, you know, because for me, it's a, I wake up and I'm like, i have the, question like in my head, it's like, why am I awake right now? And then, and then I i feel it.
00:03:21
Speaker
oh it's the unbearable pain well but there's a moment before the pain because it's like a rubber band snapping yes yes and there's a moment where i recognize like what is about to happen which is even like it's it's it's the crest of a roller coaster Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm just like, oh no, I know.
00:03:46
Speaker
And here's the thing. I've once successfully gotten out of a Charlie horse. how'd you do what's your secret don't know i don't know what i did don't know what i did spoon or i just was like i'm gonna maneuver my my leg in such a way that i'm not going to to do this and i did you like turn into the skid and somehow like prevent it i have no idea what i did have no idea it's it's it's knowledge that i only have a 3 a.m only sleepy ben knows that only sleepy ben
00:04:20
Speaker
let me tell you about my situation that I've recently encountered. Yeah. Um, first you need to know two things about me and my sleep habits. All right. First of all, I am a back sleeper.
00:04:32
Speaker
I sleep team flat on my back. and Second, I like to like have a little feather like above my head that like as I snore, like goes up in the air and then flutters back down. It's its yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Second, I sleep under a weighted blanket.
00:04:47
Speaker
I like the weighted. Aren't they amazing? Oh yeah. Because well, for me it was, I always liked sleeping under a comforter and then I realized that it was the weight of the comforter. Yeah. Yeah. But I still sleep under a comforter. I go to hide from the the weight of the world is under my weighted blanket. That's right. But the combination of the two, I've gotten in a bad habit in my sleep now, sleeping on my back under a weighted blanket, turning my toes down.
00:05:16
Speaker
downward, like almost like a ballerina on point. Oh yes. I've been here. I've done with the weighted blanket, holding them down. Oh, yes. That's a recipe for pain. Yeah. So I wake up the next morning and just my ligaments, tendons, and my ankles are just completely stretched out. And because, yeah, yeah it's like, I've had a small amount of weight bearing down on them in that uncomfortable toes pointed forward sort of way.
00:05:42
Speaker
And a few nights ago, I managed to simultaneously get some sort of charley horse slash ah cramp in of both shins. Oh, in both like whatever ligament tendon is running through there. Like you know what was trying to do is like forcibly pull my toes back up to a 90 degree angle.
00:06:03
Speaker
I get my feet back in the direction they belong against the weight of the weighted blanket. And I have never wanted to die. Oh, it's horrible. So it was just like, it'd be easier not to survive this at this point. Yeah.
00:06:18
Speaker
Yeah. It might as well just, just, uh, you know, send me to the farm upstate, you know? Yeah, absolutely. It was, it was unbearable. um but You know what, Jess?
00:06:29
Speaker
ah i I did that two weeks ago with my weighted blanket, and normally that's fine because my my feet are quite flexible. But you know what makes a foot not flexible? is screening it Yeah. it yes and uh and so like I like the whole next day like I had finally kind of gotten over like the the the crutches went in the closet and you know I wasn't running around but I was happy to like I could walk around okay and then like the whole next day I was just like I am in
00:07:02
Speaker
horrible pain like i hurts to walk again because my yeah both my feet were in the ballerina point yes all night and so now i have to to hike up uh the the weighted blanket and i leave my feet exposed yeah now now are you are you the only person with the weighted blanket or is this a shared between you and your your lovely wife It is my own. It is your own. She has a we've, we've long slept with two comforters or blankets on the bed due to, I don't want to point fingers. Right. But one of us can't share a ah blanket in any way. One of us, when they want to roll over, grabs the blanket and then rolls with it to their side. Now remember which one of us already established they slept on their back.
00:07:55
Speaker
I'm not pointing fingers here. to Take my wife, please. um But yeah, we've long slept a separate blanket. So I am under the weighted blanket. She is under a normal person blanket. She's under a normal blanket.
00:08:09
Speaker
i mean, I have all the non-prescription blanket. An over-the-counter blanket. It'd be amazing. It'd be amazing if you can get a prescription weighted blanket. like It's like, give me a hundred pounds. such a I want something that you can't do on the street. Like something that like has very strict warnings about having children near it. yeah I want to be slowly flattened over the course of night.
00:08:34
Speaker
Like, doesn't that sound good? i want to feel like I'm being held down. Like, you know, forcibly. That's what I'm going for.
00:08:43
Speaker
I think that's how I would sleep. bad I want to, I want to, to, yeah, I want to be crushed. And, and, and is this, is this some sort of sex thing? Now it is. Yeah.
00:08:53
Speaker
that's That's the kind of podcast we are now. Sorry, it's adventure games and weird crushing fantasies. Yeah, that's, yeah. ah How are you doing,
Culinary Experiences and Gaming Nostalgia
00:09:07
Speaker
Jess?
00:09:07
Speaker
I'm doing pretty well. You know, Ben, have to warn you. m I'm coming into this with a little bit of lethargy because I had a big dinner. I went out to our local Thai restaurant. know Now, Jess.
00:09:21
Speaker
Yeah? I've heard this well lethargic excuse before. Yeah, no, you're feel it tonight. This is the real deal. Our listeners have already picked up on it because, Ben, we're out for Ty. And this is the Ty place you've been going for years. Yeah, the one we've been going to. amazing. They held your daughter.
00:09:41
Speaker
They held my daughter when she was a baby. we walk in. they are like Our drinks hit the table like within 10 seconds of us being there because they know what we all want. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the neighborhood Ty place. Love that place. Love it. Love it. i Love a place like that.
00:09:56
Speaker
I ordered what can only be described as the largest plate of basil fried rice that has ever been served to human being. Now, the way they prepare this, it's going to be basically like a drunken noodle turned into a fried rice dish. So it's that flavor profile. Tons of of dark soy sauce, tons of basil, some chili paste in there.
00:10:18
Speaker
This is, this is, this is the weighted blanket of food. it really You're wearing a weighted blanket in your stomach right now. And I mean, the play, honestly, this came in front of me and I think it was legitimately like four servings of fried rice. And i feel like I ate three of those and brought home a small amount in a box because I felt ashamed to finish it all.
00:10:43
Speaker
But I'm moving slow, Ben. My mind is slow. Don't expect my usual witty repartee. It's not coming tonight. that's Man, i that's so real.
00:10:56
Speaker
That's so real. Like, it's also, it's the challenge of, it's like, you know, you go to, like, a restaurant that you love. this This is a restaurant that that makes big,
00:11:08
Speaker
ah you know, large serving sizes. And you like... And because you love this restaurant, and you know that they're going to make the thing that you love. You're going to eat a little extra.
00:11:24
Speaker
Yeah. But then there's that little bit left. Yes. and And you're not going to get rid of it. Because this is food you love. It's food I love. But it's just like...
00:11:37
Speaker
I shouldn't have eaten this much. And now like, and then you, and then you, you hit the, the, the challenge, which is, it's like, well, I shouldn't have eaten this much, but this is not lunch.
00:11:48
Speaker
Right. if you look at it and you're just like, this is not, this is less than a lunch, but I don't, but it it is, but, but it is wasteful to get rid of it. And so it's like, well, is this a lunch? And I have like an apple and a banana.
00:12:05
Speaker
Yeah. Or am I just gonna feel bad tonight? And by that, I mean, not feel guilty because I threw it away, but feel bad because i just swallowed a cannonball.
00:12:18
Speaker
Yes. Now, I mean, there's also that part of me that is thinking the whole time. It's like, you've already eaten too much f fried rice. yeah Exactly. That's what I'm saying. What's more bites. Yeah. That's exactly what I'm saying. Not even leave the restaurant with it. Like, I'm just going to ahead and just like knock it out. You look at it and you're just like, that's not lunch.
00:12:35
Speaker
So I must eat it for dinner. Yes. I've already eaten like six times that amount of rice. What's a few more bites. But I didn't do that. And I will say that it was amazing, Ben. Is there anything more comforting?
00:12:48
Speaker
than a big plate of fried rice. You know, I love fried rice, but I'm generally fried rice is not, not where, where I would not be what I would order either. Like this is the first time i' probably ordered this in 20 visits. like Okay.
00:13:01
Speaker
And that was normally I'm a, I'm a curry boy. I'm a curry boy. yeah i'm a curry boy all the curry boys that's what they call us um and yeah i you know ah fried rice is never what i reach for uh as as someone in a relationship with a fried rice boy ah you know you know that i'm i'm i'm getting scoops of that shit You're passing up fried rice. It's sitting there. I'm not gonna kick fried rice out of bed for eating eating crackers, you know? yeah Yeah, yeah. We're eating fried rice eating itself.
00:13:41
Speaker
Disgusting. auto cannibalism Well, speaking of auto of cannibalism, Jess, what have you been playing? Oh, gosh, Ben. Hi. I've had a ah frustrating gaming experience lately that i'd like to share with everyone.
00:13:55
Speaker
I decided to, don't know why I'm, I've been thinking about Tomb Raider lately and don't have a lot experience with the early Tomb Raider games. ton Tomb Raider, so I thought to myself, I'd like to go back and play Tomb Raider 1. I haven't played it really since...
00:14:14
Speaker
probably PlayStation 1 very seriously at all. And even then, I just played a little bit. So I decided to grab the Tomb Raider 1, 2, and 3 remastered collection. Right.
00:14:26
Speaker
That came out about two years ago. it's from Crystal Dynamics and Aspire. And... You know, it has the quality of life stuff that you want from an update like that. runs nicely in modern Windows. It has, you know, all kinds of stuff you'd expect. yeah And some some upgraded graphics and stuff. actually kind of prefer the the old look.
00:14:48
Speaker
Oh, the old look is way better. Yeah, what I really was excited about was it had what were described as modern controls as an option. Got rid the tank.
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah, you still play as the tank controls, which I tried for a little while. It's like, how did this game become the massive phenomenon that it did? Everything was tank controls. at the Yeah, it was built on such precise jumps. Like, I went to the little tutorial level inside Lara's mansion.
00:15:13
Speaker
It's like, here's how you jump from one ledge to another. yeah And that was one of the most difficult experiences of my gaming lab. It was unbelievable. And that's like the tutorial. That was the first jump in the game.
00:15:23
Speaker
Yeah. um But then the modern controls, which give you normal run around. They make aiming your pistols feel a little bit more natural and things like that. moves a bunch of Lara's basic maneuvers off of the controller or hides them under like hold down right trigger while pressing this other button. So you lose things like her ability to do side jumps and back flips and The button to grab a hold of ledges now requires you to press two buttons at the same time, if I'm not mistaken. can you Can you remap that? Is that remappable? No. You have tank controls or modern, and as far as I can tell, at least short... It's not in the menus, as far as I can tell. Maybe you can fiddle with some I and I's or something like that. Or like maybe with ah the steam input.
00:16:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. Maybe you could. You might be able to override that, but... It's too bad because running around without tank controls is wonderful. But right away, thing, I mean, there's a lot of grabbing ledges and and mantling up in a Tomb Raider game. So I don't know. i don't know. Maybe just replaying the early Tomb Raiders isn't for me. i really Most of my Tomb Raiding was done on the...
00:16:40
Speaker
the sort reboot series that came out in the Xbox 360 era. there There are so many. It's been rebooted so many times, including like right now, which I hear nothing but good news about. Yeah, no, absolutely.
00:16:54
Speaker
You know, was it ah was it Tomb Raider? What was the one from the 360 era where they remade the first one?
00:17:06
Speaker
Ooh, what was that? Because they've remade the first one, I think, a couple times now. I liked the prequel one, which I believe was 2013, just called Tomb Raiders.
00:17:17
Speaker
Or Tomb Raider by Crystal Dynamics. i am I have that one in my It's a Tomb Raider Legend. Or wait, no. Anniversary is what I'm... Okay, gotcha.
00:17:28
Speaker
Um... I've had that in on on Steam for a while. I think they gave it away at some point in 2020. Yeah, that sounds right. This will help you stay home thing.
00:17:42
Speaker
And I still haven't installed it, but I know that people loved it. So I should play it. Yeah, i should check that. Maybe that's the answer. If I want some old school Tomb Raider, maybe that's the the version of it I need to tackle.
00:17:57
Speaker
I can't do tank controls. I'll just never be able to do tank controls. I really enjoyed... and I played a contemporaneous to it. So I played in 2007, I played Tomb Raider Anniversary, and I really enjoyed that. wonder if Anniversary runs well on modern computers, or if it has already become aged and ancient.
00:18:22
Speaker
Dude, 2007?
00:18:25
Speaker
Uh, let's see. Like games for as games for windows energy to it. You know what I played it on? I played it on game. On what game.
00:18:39
Speaker
Oh, game. The video. Sam and Max distribution. Yes. Yes. That's right. That's all I think of it as. That's exclusively the only thing I imagine. Um, but, but yeah, um, that's the last Tomb Raider I put any time in, uh, which was, 19 years ago.
00:18:59
Speaker
Wow. cool Wow. Then I played a bit of the remaster, and you want to know what? I had the same exact problem as you. Oh yeah? was like, these controls are, or not the re, like the re-release. I was like, these controls suck. And then I was done.
00:19:12
Speaker
Yeah, I really did. It's like original controls suck. New controls, worse. Can't play this game. Now, I didn't try mouse and keyboard, which maybe, maybe that's where the solution lies. I'm probably more nimble on a mouse and keyboard than I am on a controller, but who's to say? It's impossible to say at this point because I've already uninstalled it.
00:19:36
Speaker
Wow. Get off my hard drive, Lara Croft. Ben, what have you been playing? Well, Jess, this is going to be a follow-up. This is going to be a, like, I mentioned this one a couple weeks ago, and now I'm bringing you bring it back up. Bringing it back. i So I mentioned a few weeks ago that I started playing Civilization 7 again with the new patch.
00:20:04
Speaker
Still playing it. How's it doing? What do you think? What's the deal? You know, so I still, I think like Civ is a game that like, you know, it really kind of like unlocks itself to you over a bunch of plays.
00:20:18
Speaker
So I still, so this might still be an ongoing what's been but been playing a series here, but definitely playing like the test of time patch.
00:20:32
Speaker
of Civ 7, am playing it and I'm like way warmer, way warmer. I'm like, I'm i'm playing it and I'm, so I think what the, like, it presents some of the information a bit better, which was a problem. Like, the initial, like, the UI wasn't great. Still not the best, but we're doing better. That's one.
00:21:03
Speaker
Two is, like, I think the biggest thing that people talked about with this was that they got rid of the, oh, see if...
00:21:17
Speaker
swapping or they didn't get rid of it, but they allowed you to hold onto the same state. That mechanic was fascinating to be like i I still do it. play like How does that feel in the game? I've read about this for a million reviews and angry Steam comments and things like that. but i don't I don't mind it because i here's here's the thing.
00:21:39
Speaker
i I understand why... Now, I haven't played... I know that that's something that ah the Civ-like game, Humankind, did first. So I haven't played that, so I couldn't tell you what it was like in that game.
00:21:53
Speaker
What The reason why think they did it... Because the thing is, is that when you change civs, and if you're unfamiliar with this in Civ 7, what it is is that each age, of which I believe that there are three in Civ 7, at the end of the age, you had to change into a different civ, and there were set civs that were like ancient civs, and then age of exploration civs, and modern civs. So it was like they all lived in a certain...
00:22:26
Speaker
time so that you like it kind of makes sense right is there a progression like in terms of these sieves evolve into a specific list of sieves or so you you wouldn't be able to pick any sieve you would have there would be one that historically makes sense for your leader and the sieve that you were playing as it's like oh it makes sense Because you hold on to the leader. The leader remains the same. Okay. um the So that's something. And then also during play, you would also unlock other sieves to to swap into based off of actions that you took.
00:23:09
Speaker
Gotcha. It'd be like, okay, well, you know, you built like a dozen ships. So like, you know, this sieve is an ocean faring sieve. So that like, you know, you've unlocked this for the age of exploration.
00:23:22
Speaker
Um, but anyway, I think that the reason that they did this was it's like, there was this really great, i forget the name of this podcast. There's this, uh, podcast that, uh, the designer of Civ 4, uh,
00:23:38
Speaker
This guy, Soren Johnson, who, like, his game right now is Old World, which is pretty good. um he did this podcast where he would interview designers, and they were, like, you know, two two designers having a conversation. It was always pretty interesting, and he's a very interesting, smart thinker. A lot of fun to to listen to talk.
00:24:00
Speaker
Um, and, uh, like there was a really good one, I believe he, he had Sid on once and that was pretty interesting. it's been a long time since I've listened, so could be totally wrong. Anyway, but he had, um, the guy, he had, uh, John Schaefer, who was the guy that designed 5.
00:24:18
Speaker
on and so it was two guys talking Civ shop for like for a while right yeah and it was a really really interesting conversation especially because Civ 5 is so different so it's like they're kind of talking about like their game philosophies and stuff like that one of the things that they both talked about again this is from my recollection of the podcast listened to you probably like seven years ago it's flawless ah Yeah, absolutely correct. But I seem to recall that like they a thing that they both agree on was it's like a game of Civ is too long. It is insane to design a game like Civ.
00:25:00
Speaker
because a game like Civ has like, you know, hundreds of turns and they were both like, it's too many turns. A game of Civ is too many turns. It is so difficult to design a game, let alone make new, completely new versions every seven years or whatever. And expect it to be equally fun across 100 different turns. Yeah.
00:25:23
Speaker
And, and so like, and that's something that's really stuck in my head. And so it's like the, the two of them like had different, um like you know different approaches but it's like soren i seem to recall said maybe it was like this is like i will not design another game that is that many turns and like i don't believe that old old world haven't played it in a while but i don't think old world is like 700 turns or whatever up anyway um so what i think this, like, I think the intent on the civ swapping was an idea of let's try to break a really long game of civilization into definitive, discrete chunks. and therefore we can really focus on keeping them like kind of interesting and introduce like really big dramatic changes
00:26:22
Speaker
that like keep the player engaged um and make it like three different board games. Yeah. Not different board games, but you know what mean. And so I think that was the idea. And like, the thing is, is that each age does have different ways of doing it, like in different like focuses and features and stuff like that.
00:26:45
Speaker
But ultimately, i just don't think ah like the civ swapping quite worked there. It was also big change of this patch.
00:26:57
Speaker
is that they really kind of changed, like they had, ah I forget the name of it, but they had a system where it would kind of railroad you into how you would like end and age or something like that. I forget what that system like legacies or something. i forget. Yeah. And they got rid of that and they replaced it with something called triumphs, which is a lot more open ended and reformed.
00:27:21
Speaker
Gotcha. better because it's like having a railroad in a game like Civ where it's not like the fun of it is that it's, you know, you can, you can do whatever you want.
00:27:35
Speaker
Um, uh, uh, like tramps is a much better system. So, so far so good. I'm going to need even more games on it before I determined if I liked it, like, you know, really liked it, but definitely on the right path.
00:27:50
Speaker
All right. Well, there you have it.
Listener Interaction and Gaming Discussion
00:27:53
Speaker
We got to jump to it. We have an email. We have it an email. Yeah. QuestQuestPodcast at gmail.com.
00:28:01
Speaker
This is from Friend Club. Dear Ben Quest and Jess Quest. That's true. We're like, all you know, we just...
00:28:13
Speaker
In your latest episode as of this email, Sarah J. Benincasa dared a millennial listener of this podcast to admit they're not familiar with MSD3K or Joel Hodgson.
00:28:25
Speaker
I'm here to confess guilty as charged. Now, now he goes on and I did want like a thing I should have said to her, which is spoilers on this email.
00:28:38
Speaker
It's like I should have said it's like our listenership isn't entirely American. Yes, Which is why I'm like, so actually a lot of our listeners totally might not be familiar. Yeah.
00:28:52
Speaker
And there's several states we're banned in. So I mean, like our international audience is actually quite large. So anyway, he continued. I'm in my 40s, but I grew up in a small remote town in Israel.
00:29:03
Speaker
So while I was exposed to a lot of media that drew me to the crowd Quest Quest came from, like Adventure Games Homestar Runner, I only knew Mystery Science Theater was a weird acronym struggled to pronounce. I was exposed to a lot more British humor, ah which is why I make all those trite Monty Python jokes and enjoy Simon the Sorcerer better than just us.
00:29:22
Speaker
Well, I mean, that's not saying much. With time, while still overseas, I realized that it was just pronounced Mystery Science Theater, and it partially solidified into this notion of a series of someone involved being trapped on a satellite, watching bad movies, two robots, and some more punishment, gripping all the way. Never had the chance to see any of it.
00:29:41
Speaker
Definitely not in my formative years. Joel Hudson never crossed my radar. Once I had moved over to the U.S. as an adult, I never got around to it. So many other things to catch up on. Like Caddyshack.
00:29:52
Speaker
Or how, while a thick blanket was a comforter. What? We didn't talk about this. And you could find one at Walmart. You wrapped it in a duvet cover, which you can only find in a set with pillow covers at a Target.
00:30:06
Speaker
I hope this explanation saves everyone the cross-country drive. Craftfully yours, see? Uh, cool. You know, have to be 100% honest, Ben.
00:30:20
Speaker
My Mystery Science Theater 3000 exposure is relatively low as well. Like...
00:30:28
Speaker
don't think I've probably seen more than three or four episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. And I'm a little ashamed of that. I mean, what I've seen, i but I enjoy. Can I give you your recommendations?
00:30:42
Speaker
Yes. it's a Because there's, you know, there's a lot. Let me... Let me think on it because this isn't something we we we game proud of. We have a segment next week. ah Ben gets just going on Mystery Science Theater 3000. I didn't bounce off of it. like yeah i The first time I even heard of it, I think I may have read about it in some magazines here and there, but I think the first time I i saw it, ah my college roommate, Corey, came back from, I think, like fall break.
00:31:13
Speaker
to campus and brought some VHSs that he had recorded he was home with him and it was a bunch of episodes of Space Ghost Coast to Coast all right and then like one episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and because we were at a campus like that didn't have TVs with cable really anywhere. Everyone just like had VCRs in their dorm rooms and we watched whatever we get our hands on.
00:31:44
Speaker
And I think we watched those few episodes of space ghosts and that one episode of mystery science theater. Do you remember what episode or can you give me a vague description? It was,
00:31:56
Speaker
a science fictiony one rather than a horror one it's a lot okay and it had i mean yeah this won't help you at all it had very stiff-legged robots that were black and white yes it was black and white okay that helps narrow it down yes stiff-legged robots yes but that's all i can give you what year is this this would have been 96 97 okay so was it was most likely from comedy central and not okay for that would make sense on this they they move over to sci-fi in 97 so it's possible here's here's what i will recommend this is this is what i'm going to recommend uh just just just one right off of you know right off the bat uh space mutiny okay
00:32:50
Speaker
space movie uh that's a ah really it's a it's a really wonderful uh episode here's the thing about mystery science theater um is that as i said last week almost all of it is is on ah youtube um and including like as again as i said ah last week they're starting to roll in like the the new episodes that they made and And, uh, well, I think, you know, some fans are, you know, we'll say like, Oh, those new episodes, you know, because there's no one likes any no one likes i think' old is good.
00:33:32
Speaker
yes What is new is threatening and poor. Yes. ah There's a lot of, there's a lot of good. And it's like the, the new mystery science theater episodes, uh, have a lot of like, there is some stuff as a fan that I, I think is,
00:33:48
Speaker
not like where i'm like you know i cross my arms and go like oh i wouldn't have done it that way um but uh i i think the the new episodes are good and they're also it's like oh well you know like they're you know there's more contemporary references um that said space mutiny is from that 1997 season and uh it's really funny so thank you i'll say i'll say well we'll start off here with space mutiny and and we can check back in i um i uh met a actor from a mystery science theater movie and uh it it's really funny because
00:34:39
Speaker
um i she like i I bumped into her and i heard her name and I just kept repeating it to myself in my head.
00:34:51
Speaker
And a joke, like I heard like a joke on the name, like kind of tickling my brain. And I'm just like,
00:35:01
Speaker
where did I like what is this like this why who is this like and then I realized it was someone in an episode this uh she was one of the actors in the movie Hobgoblins which is one of my favorite episodes but not one that I would recommend um to to start off with is To me, Hobgoblins is, if this sounds ah appealing, maybe it it is a really bad, and they made a ton of these in the 80s, a really bad ah Gremlins knockoff.
00:35:37
Speaker
Ah, yes. and yes yeah and but it was like a whole sub shot yeah yeah and and for some movies i guess is the one i think of yeah kind of yeah gremlins adjacent there and and for some people hobgoblins as a movie like that episode of mystery science theater the movie is just too unwatchable like they're just like i can't but for me i i could watch that movie without mystery science theater i think it's just so corny and bad uh like i really enjoy it So it's an episode of Mystery Science Theater I'd seen a million times.
00:36:11
Speaker
and then like And then later I i texted her. And I was like, hey, were you in the movie Hobgoblins? This is killing me. I have to know.
00:36:22
Speaker
And this was in Los Angeles, by the way. So the odds were good. And she texts me back and says, LOL. Did you see that Mystery Science Theater? And ah
00:36:37
Speaker
So I was like, all right. So to me, that's as big a celebrity sighting in Los Angeles as, you know, like if, you know, ah if, if you saw like, you know, some actually distinguished actor, because I've seen her in this movie like 20 times.
00:37:01
Speaker
Ben, have you ever heard of the sci-fi dine-in theater restaurant at Walt Disney World? No, you should Google this, the sci-fi dine-in theater restaurants. Sounds like, uh, that, that song from Rocky Horror.
00:37:16
Speaker
It kind of does. It does. Yeah. Oh yeah. All right. So yeah, here it is. Okay. So let me tell you, this is a restaurant at Hollywood studios at Walt Disney world. And the concept is you're seated in booths that look like vintage cars. yeah automobiles Yeah. And you have like a science fiction theater setting and on a large movie screen, the the place darkened, which is wonderful. If you've been out in the hot Florida sun all day, it's just like a darkened setting.
00:37:46
Speaker
And on a movie screen, they show clips of B movies, science fiction, B movies from the forties and fifties on a loop, which is, i mean, I suspect a lot of those same films, there's a good chance also appeared at mystery science theater.
00:38:02
Speaker
But it is such a charming, you know, not everything at Disney pulls off the charm it's going for. For me, this one was quite lovely. It's like a drive-in movie experience. This in the resort area? actual Or it park? This is like okay around the corner from Star Tours.
00:38:19
Speaker
damn, that's annoying because it's like, because I have been to the resort. ah Yes. Not Walt Disney World. I was there for work conference. I did go to Disney World, but I did stay at the resort, which was nice.
00:38:35
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Anyway. All right. It's quite good. It's quite charming. It has mystery science theater vibes. And you know what? You can sit there and be a silhouette who's saying snarky things about the movies that are being screened there.
00:38:50
Speaker
Well, you know, mystery science theater ah makes a cameo in the game that we're talking about today, which is Dropsy. Did you know that? Did you see that?
00:39:01
Speaker
dr Yeah, Dropsy. Yeah, I'm prepared to talk about it. Did you see the Mystery Science Theater camera? I don't think I did. but in um In the TV at ah in Dropsy's home. can turn on the TV and flip through the channels. One of the channels is is watch is Mystery Science Theater.
00:39:18
Speaker
Wow. I'm surprised they didn't get sued. i will pay they it l ah A distinct. the the It looked a little different.
00:39:29
Speaker
It looked a little different. Not exactly the the right robots. The robots looked a little different. Like, yes, but if it is clearly. Well, everything looks a little different in Dropsy. That's true. So, yes, this week we are talking about the 2015.
00:39:49
Speaker
Hard to believe. I know we say this about every game from the 20 teams. It is a retro game. The 2015 point and click adventure game. i believe the freshman effort from Jay Tholen, who later went on to design um Hypnospace Outlaw, which is a favorite of this podcast. Yes, listen to that episode. It's a good one.
00:40:15
Speaker
uh uh dropsy uh i'll i'll i'll go through because i i don't think you know we have episodes of this podcast where it's uh a game where like everybody has played it ah you know even if they haven't finished it but everyone has some sort of level of familiarity like when you know we discussed king's quest 4 last week Then we have ones perhaps that like a lot of people have, have played or like more recent ones where it's, it's, it might be a mix.
00:40:50
Speaker
It might be, people might not have ah played it or they might just be, have heard of it, but it's not, it's not part of the eighties and nineties canon of games that people played when they were, you know, 10.
00:41:02
Speaker
Precisely. Before adventure games died. And so Dropsy is a adventure game that has absolutely no written language in it, including in ah the the ui like, you know, getting out of windowed mode or full screen is all in icons and pictographs.
00:41:25
Speaker
Um, and, uh, the, the plot is, is that, uh, you are Dropsy the clown who, uh, is, is shunned and hated in the, the island that he calls home, uh, uh, because of, uh, a horrible circus accident, uh, uh, the circus that he was performing at, uh,
00:41:50
Speaker
burnt uh down and people blame dropsy for it erroneously not not his fault this is uh free dropsy his uh so he uh lives with his uh father who is ailing uh in like this kind of wrecked ah ah circus tent.
00:42:13
Speaker
Dropsy does not speak ah any language. He doesn't speak ah any language and he only like kind of understands the general vibes of what people are saying, which is why you only see in icons.
00:42:30
Speaker
ah And he is ah the friend of all animals. So while people might be repelled by Dropsy because of his history,
00:42:40
Speaker
or terrifying visage uh yeah his terrifying visage which which scares himself if you look in the mirror enough yeah mean he looks like he has a jack-o'-lantern for a head at times So as you play it, ah it ah reveals like a bizarre conspiracy, like weird corporations. There are ah like black sites on this island.
00:43:09
Speaker
There are mysterious monoliths. and odd creatures that live in caves. i And ah all the while,
00:43:23
Speaker
ah you ah and ah you you travel through mostly understanding what's going on. yeah that's about right. And um your objective ah Like, while there there is the plot objectives of the game, but your objective mostly is to give out
00:43:49
Speaker
any um like is to to to give out acts of kindness and love yes and so jess you you you don't care for this game about uh spreading love and kindness where one of the verbs in uh the is is give hugs um uh so so why are you such a cynical miserable person that doesn't like it a game about being a good person I can relate to a game based around the premise of just getting up every morning and your main quest is trying to get people to like you. Like that feels like very real. Not add getting up from your surreal nightmares. Gave that from my surreal nightmares into the real world, which is its own different surreal nightmare. um And yeah, just simply trying to convince people who are dubious about me to actually like me.
00:44:46
Speaker
That I feel like I get now. Granted, a day spent handing out hugs sounds like a nightmare to me. I'm not not trying to like hug strangers if I can help it.
00:44:56
Speaker
Well, you, you, you, you get their, their consent. If they don't want to hug you, they're not going to. Oh, they're very clear about that. Like they were extremely clear. Their their pictographs will tell you, uh, I don't want to drop C hug right now. Um, I think it's, they refer to it like in the marketing. It's like ah a, a wet, like a, like a moist tug. Yeah. It's like a warm, moist hug or something. yeah But no, I mean,
00:45:23
Speaker
There's a lot that I do like about this. yeah I will say, you know, something I realized as I was playing, and and I mentioned this is as we were preparing for the episode. You think that some level... You know, maybe we've all made too much of the I'm afraid of clowns thing. And, you think we see a resurgence of that with the resurgence of Pennywise and, you know, welcome to Derry and all that sort of stuff. And, you know, just watched Widow's Bay, which had a very scary clown in one episode. haven't watched that yet. I know everybody knows that. On Sarah's recommendation last week, I have binged all of Widow's Bay up to the current episode dan now. So yeah, was like, you know, Ben, you told me like for years to watch something like Mystery Science Theater. And I'm like, I'll get around to that.
00:46:09
Speaker
Sarah? have a charming, hilarious published author. That's right. And all of a sudden. She casually mentions it. I'm just like, I've got to subscribe to Apple TV now. many fucking books do I have to write before you respect me? God damn it.
00:46:25
Speaker
ah ha I couldn't respect someone who sleeps under a weighted blanket. Least of all myself. I was going to say, i you know, like ah the the Groucho Marx quote. Never want to be like, I'm i'm mangling it. I wouldn't want to be a member of a club that would have me in it.
00:46:45
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no. But... no I mean, I think that that has gotten a little played out at this point, but I will say it's not so much the the clown element, I think, for me. I think...
00:47:01
Speaker
that I've discovered in recent years about myself that like a melancholy tone is not something I enjoy in much of my entertainment in general, unless it's the Smashing Pumpkins album, Melancholy the Infinite Sadness, which is one of my top five albums of all time. They topped you off.
00:47:21
Speaker
Yeah, I got all the melancholy I need. ah Thanks to Billy Corgan, um who in a lot of ways is like the dropsy of alternative rock. He just wants people to love him.
00:47:31
Speaker
yeah He doesn't know how to make it happen. Yeah, yeah no. But yeah, i think that for me, As much as love... This a very melancholic game.
00:47:43
Speaker
For sure. Absolutely. And as much as I love, like, the message behind it, because at some level, it's a little bit of a bait and switch. You see a weird-looking clown, and your immediate instinct is, this is going to be a creepy game about a creepy clown.
00:48:00
Speaker
And this is anything but that. That is not the vibe Dropsy himself is bringing to the table. Instead, what you get is kind of the... the very real horror of a society that sometimes tosses people aside and a society that doesn't always provide people with what they need in a meaningful way. And in a of ways, there's not the supernatural horror. I think that I was expecting just from, know, it's a game about a creepy looking clown.
00:48:32
Speaker
Instead, a lot of that as, as, melancholy and weird as the game can be feels very real to me. And I like that about it, but I will say as heartwarming as, as drops these mission to, you know, to, to sort of brighten the world that he lives in. Maybe be ah I found it a little bit of a bummer to play through in that regard.
00:48:56
Speaker
not a knock on the game that's just a a me a preference now yeah here's the thing like well well first i i i love a melancholic tone um yes so that will that that obviously is a big difference ah but also like for me though that there's like you know it has this melancholic tone of not only Because as you play the game and, and you know, we're not going to, we're not going to spoil ah too, too much.
00:49:29
Speaker
And even if, even if we did ah spoil it and say like, because there are like late game, like plot twists and reveals, I don't think that would really lessen your enjoyment of the game. I'm not going to do it It's not that kind of game. If we did do it, we would go back and just cut that part out.
00:49:48
Speaker
Yeah. ah ah but um ah But anyway, i but I, you know, I think the, the, they're like, because there is this melancholy and it's not only the melancholy of like being,
00:50:07
Speaker
Like, you know, because I don't think Dropsy is particularly... He is melancholy, and he is... Like, he has moments of sadness and upset. But, like, largely, he feels pretty guileless. Like, he just wants to please people.
00:50:22
Speaker
And... um But there's the melancholy you you feel as like the player, like removed because you see the situation that drops he's in and how he's being treated you feel bad.
00:50:35
Speaker
Yes. But then also as you play the game, like you see a lot of people ah dealing with ah various injustices, both large and small.
00:50:49
Speaker
yeah Because like the ah you know the the world contained on this island that Dropsy lives on is like a world with great injustices. And a world like you know his his father is sick and they don't have the money to afford medication for him.
00:51:14
Speaker
Like, you know, there's like, and then over the course of the game, you meet other people who are hurt in a really, like real way. Uh, and like, you know, is like, you know, those are bummers, you know, like the, the, the, the McElroys would hate it. And, um, that's right. The, but like,
00:51:42
Speaker
you know, for me, why I love this game so much ah ah beyond that, like, and and we'll get to it, like, there's a lot of the aesthetics and and other stuff that I really enjoy in this game.
00:51:57
Speaker
But what I really like about the the game is that i you know, In these troubled times. um These unprecedented times.
00:52:08
Speaker
Playing something, and this is actually how I felt when I played it, and in like because I bought it at release, because i just saw it, and I was just like, this seems interesting. um Is I love...
00:52:22
Speaker
the i i love to play something so thoroughly about like doing like good and selfless yeah acts and like, uh, you know, these moments where like, and, and having this turn of like, you know, the people, they rejected dropsy, but then dropsy like revealed you know, what, you know selfless acts of kindness can do.
00:52:57
Speaker
And in such like, you know, I was teasing you at the beginning, of course, like, yeah, but like, it is, you know, we we live in a time where it's very easy to be cynical.
00:53:10
Speaker
um And ah it's it's exhausting. It's exhausting to breathe that air, to to be in a world where like it feels like you're downwind of the cynicism factory, and there's just big clouds of billowing cynicism everywhere.
00:53:32
Speaker
coming at you. And so to play a game where you're this character that is the antithesis of that is like, to me, a wonderful breath of fresh air. Like I feel, you know, something strong from the, the, the game. And I know I'm not going to get too far into this because this isn't really ah my expertise, but I know, like, I've seen, like, people write essays, and there are YouTube videos out there, and and stuff like that. I watched one of them a while back that I thought was pretty good.
00:54:12
Speaker
Like, that it's also informed by, ah like, ah ah Jay's ah faith. Like, there there is definitely, and within, like, the full narrative, ah like, there is, like,
00:54:28
Speaker
You know, it it it it is a a game and it, you know, ah it it both operates independent of, but also you can do a very, like, strong, like, religious reading of the game if you'd like to. Mm-hmm.
00:54:44
Speaker
Um, and, and I think that is just great. You know, something that really did leap out at me as I was playing this and something I really liked about Dropsy as a character is,
00:55:00
Speaker
As you play through it I couldn't help but draw comparisons to other adventure game protagonists. You know, you think about someone like a guy brush three foot, maybe one of the better examples where his interactions with nearly everyone in his world are usually about getting him ahead, getting him something he needs, putting one over on people so he can move on to solve whatever problems are in front of him.
00:55:27
Speaker
And in that sense, even when you're doing fetch quests for people and things like that, oftentimes it's largely just to benefit yourself as the protagonist. And i do think, mean, while there's some elements that, mean, certainly this is a game with progression from start to finish and there are puzzles you have to solve along the way and things like that.
00:55:47
Speaker
But the fact that Dropsy is, he's not trying to make people like him because he's scoring people like me points necessarily. Yeah. He's trying to make the world a better place. And as a result, people begin to like him, which I think is a, an admirable way to tackle this again in a genre where protagonists oftentimes are just you know, egoistic jerks. Cruel.
00:56:17
Speaker
Yeah, cruel in many cases. Yeah, I mean, there there is no cruelty in in Dropsy. I mean, there's from it's almost there is yeah cruel there's plenty there's plenty around him, and i think that's what's fascinating. yeah I think that's the interesting switch again. You know you see a game with a creepy clown to realize it's the world around him that's creepy ah and and terrible is is kind of a fun subversion. And...
00:56:41
Speaker
and um And I think and another thing about it is that a lot of the game is like, there are plenty of just optional puzzles.
00:56:52
Speaker
Yes. That like you do just so just so like you you You solve someone's, ah like, hatred of Dropsy by you you do a good deed, and then they're, they're like, and then they'll they'll, you'll hug. And when you hug someone, like, this this big icon, like, pops up on the screen and with confetti and stuff.
00:57:18
Speaker
And then also in Dropsy's bedroom, a doodle of that person goes up on the wall. And so ah like, you can...
00:57:29
Speaker
like there but there are a lot of people that you can do good deeds for where that's just it like that that that is the whole thing it's just to get that um and uh and also it's like if you're you're the dog you can also find all the fire fire hydrants to be on um because dropsy does have animal friends Yeah, you can, over the course of the game, you amass, you start with a dog, you also get a little bird, and I believe it's a mouse is the last one. and um
00:58:05
Speaker
And, yeah, and um so thats that's another thing I really like about the game. And something, I was talking about this on the Discord, which the Discord link is in the show notes.
00:58:19
Speaker
Um, like I was, uh, you know, we were continuing our discussion of King's Quest four, uh, in, in the discord. And, um, like a thought that I didn't, uh, talk about last week was that that's the last of the, here's a big open woods,
00:58:40
Speaker
uh, King's quest game. Yeah. the wondering It's a lot tighter after this. Yeah. Like after that, um, you know, King's quest, like, uh, you know, the the next time that King's quest, uh, became like kind of open chunks where you explore, it became an action RPG. Um,
00:59:00
Speaker
And ah Dropsy has gated parts, but pretty early on, it opens up a big world to wander through. And one of the things that I noted, like kind of talking about it is that there's also just screens like in King's Quest 4 and also in in Dropsy that only exist to traverse through them.
00:59:22
Speaker
Yes. Which is interesting, you know, and I kind of like that. That's something I i like. It's and I don't even know what the difference is between a game where I enjoy exploring that.
00:59:36
Speaker
in a game where like, this world's too big. I don't like this. This is a waste of my time. We've already mentioned it in this episode already. Simon the Sorcerer is a game with too much of this, too many, you know, screens that only exist to be a another slow slog between point A and point B. And that game doesn't pull it off.
00:59:58
Speaker
And maybe it's just like, if you're charmed with the game, you'll put up with it. Yeah. if the game isn't winning you over ah having feeling like you're having to spend unnecessary time especially when you already know where you're going and you just have to trudge through this again you think there's also fast travel eventually in this game eventually there's tyrandia is another game that i think at times can this can be a real bear especially if in some of those randomized gem quests you have to really backtrack far you know and that one i think is another one where this openy feel works against it to some degree we haven't done it we gotta get to that um that's i still haven't played kyrandia 3 oh shit well then you have to play it then we'll get to it ah yeah maybe know i haven't streamed any kyrandia
01:00:48
Speaker
Is that the way? No, I didn't want to. did the first one. I didn't want to take that back. have a stream two though, which I love. I love to, I know you're a hater. I'm not a hater of two. I'm just not like, I'm, I'm, I'm just kind of like, yeah, this is the best one.
01:01:03
Speaker
you know, stuff like that. Not a high bar. Yeah. you know But, um, you know, one thing I want to, uh, so one thing I want to, uh, touch on with, with dropsy that I alluded to a little bit, but we didn't talk is its whole aesthetic, um, uh, both, uh, uh, music and art.
01:01:28
Speaker
Uh, so first I'm going to talk about, ah the the music because I think I don't know how you felt I fucking love the music in this game music ah one of my favorite parts of it this is something that absolutely worked for me yeah it's very
01:01:54
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I mean, it's, what would you, smooth jazz? Almost Muzak in like, not a non-derogatory way. No, I don't know if I'd call it that, but like, a year you're close. Like, there's, there's such like a comfortable feel to this song in particular. Yes. Is my favorite of all the tracks, though. They're mostly good. Like, I've, are all the, in fact, revisiting this, this game,
01:02:23
Speaker
yes i went i i went and i bought this on vinyl it's it's on the way i feel like that song could easily have been in like a charlie brown television special just like yeah you're getting that's that's the genre that's the genre it's like this yeah it and all of the the the music and it also has like this kind of Like you could tell it was recorded live. There's kind of like, you can kind of hear like a little bit of like the realness of it. I don't know. You know, listen, I, I don't have a music education. I know how say any of this shit.
01:03:00
Speaker
I mean, i'm an amateur musicologist, but i don't know if that counts, ah um but But I mean, i i think the the the music is so intensely distinctive. And like, you know, that was one of the things when I i got the game was it immediately pulled me in. I was just like, damn, this is really great.
01:03:25
Speaker
music like every single like uh like different piece really like took me somewhere i'm really the music adds a lot you know i think it goes from like you know if if the tone elsewhere can feel a little bit melancholic as we said before i mean that think the music are melancholic i don't know it almost feels more wistful to me which is close to melancholic this feels like a like a lazy summer day yeah You know, this is the only one I pulled for this. There is like, there are a couple pieces that are straight up like kind of music. Like there's like the corporation theme yeah when you're in. Which is meant to sound like music.
01:04:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway. So good. then Then also meanwhile, so then you have a color palette that is very bright.
01:04:17
Speaker
Candy colored. Yes. Yeah, I was washed out in candy colors and in a really appealing way. like The graphics on this are top notch. It has incredibly expressive character designs and animations. Like, I think that's something that stands out. You meet a lot of people game. There are a lot of characters in this. There are a lot of characters. Easy to do when there's no...
01:04:42
Speaker
voiced like i mean it probably wasn't easy to drop any of these characters because they're all very distinct like so fear if if you worked on this and you're listening you're like it wasn't easy at all yes i understand yeah ah but yeah easy to do without voices that's true easier yeah i mean the against like what would king baby of the junkyard sound like if we could If we could actually hear him. and they all They all kind of make seamless noises. So you do kind of get a little bit yeah of it.
01:05:13
Speaker
But yeah, they all have like these very exaggerated, like kind of caricature type looks, like very, ah like kind of big, uh uh you know some people have like really big heads some characters kind of look like i hesitate to say like quote unquote normal but yeah just have normal like proportions uh yeah yeah like the two women hanging out in the stoop that's exactly what i was thinking about Yeah, they they they are not particularly exaggerated. But, you know, you yeah i mean, again, the guy runs the junkyard is like a a wacky cartoon character at some level. And, yeah, you definitely, i mean, it's really an accomplishment.
01:06:00
Speaker
how you get to know these characters considering that most of your actual interactions with them, again, are sort of nonsense, simlish style dialogue, and then little floating icons over their heads. Which sometimes are a little confusing. Sometimes can be a little bit abstract and vague. But, i mean, it's very clear when they don't like dropsy, but some of the others are. Okay.
01:06:28
Speaker
yeah yeah But yeah, you know, the, the animations and the character designs go so far into letting you know who these characters are in the absence of that sort of dialogue.
01:06:41
Speaker
So, and yeah, like, and, and there's like, as you, like their animations, like Dropsy has this incredible walk animation. It's like very, very like a great, but all of the characters have like just these really wonderful, like cartoon characters.
01:06:59
Speaker
uh movements um dropsy might go in my walking animation hall of fame uh currently the inaugural class of the decaf jedi walking animation hall of fame are sam from sam and max uh hit the road and specifically hit the road okay yes i love his swinging arms as he walks and then of course yeah you know when you get him like up and down like towards a yeah it's very distinct yes good point And probably the greatest walking animation of all time. I think that everyone can agree on this Laverne from day of the tentacle.
01:07:34
Speaker
Ooh, that is a good one. I mean, all those characters all like, yeah, yeah. Uh, Jess, uh, you don't see this, but Jess is doing it. Just double marionette.
01:07:45
Speaker
It's like, i have, yeah. Yeah. No, but Laverne's amazing. Speaking of Day of the Tentacle, it's like Dropsy does have like hoagie build, I would say. Like a big pot belly. Body by hoagie. Big, big round head. Dropsy doesn't have fingers. ah Like he just has like kind of a blobby arm. Yes, I can relate to that.
01:08:14
Speaker
ah so so just when we were talking uh before the stream or before the the record uh i said you so you've been you've been playing uh perfect tides the the first perfect time yes uh by meredith grant which we may talk about soon um but uh uh So you've been playing it and and yeah i know you really love it, as as do i That first Perfect Tides game is excellent.
01:08:48
Speaker
ah So I'm going to ah i'm going to say So about Perfect Tides, having when we recorded our our interview with ah Meredith, who designed those games, ah like a couple months ago, was it four months ago you said? It was four months ago, impossibly.
01:09:09
Speaker
and when we enter when when we had that interview with her, like I had only played, i would say maybe the first quarter of perfect tide station to station now i've played all of it um and i'm probably going to play it again in the the near future um uh i think perfect tide station to station is a masterpiece i think it's one of the best adventure games made in the century and possibly periods Um, certainly. i mean, it's one of the top two centuries of adventure games. Yeah.
01:09:44
Speaker
Uh, the 17th and this one the, uh, the So, and I love the first Perfect Tides. I adore that game, but I don't consider it a masterpiece on the level of Station to Station. I think ah ah Perfect Tides Station Station is a masterpiece. i I love that game.
01:10:10
Speaker
Um, we like, that was one of our longest runs of stream. Like maybe not one of our longest, but it was a long run of streams because I was savoring it. Like i was like, I don't like usually as a streamer, uh, like,
01:10:28
Speaker
by the time that I get to like week four of a game, I start to get a little itchy and yeah think people probably detect it in me too. Like that's when, if I'm solving it myself up to that point, I start to like, kind of have a, like start looking at walkthroughs. It's like, all right, all right. I'm kind of,
01:10:45
Speaker
um But no, Station to Station, I wanted to be in Station to Station as long as I possibly could. um i So Perfect Tides, the first Perfect Tides, I think is an extremely good game.
01:10:59
Speaker
um And ah and i have the same feeling about Dropsy. I think Dropsy is an extremely good game. think both of the both Perfect Tides and Dropsy, very, very, very different games.
01:11:13
Speaker
but they're both more kind of traditional ah point and click adventure games. They have inventories, they have puzzles. They're like, there's a certain type of informed by actually both of them, I would say are both informed by like kind of a, like something of a Sierra type idea. Both of them have like,
01:11:39
Speaker
a uh like you access your verbs by putting the mouse at the top of the screen perfect tides just straight up has like the the mid-era sei like interface um and then uh the the like the next game so station to station uh eschews uh most puzzles um it is not a traditional uh point and click adventure game there are there's uh i would say maybe light puzzling but it's not you're not really it is it's mostly about the decisions that you make in the moment um
01:12:21
Speaker
And, ah you know, the the next game ah that, ah you know, that Jay Tholen designed ah is another game that I would consider a masterpiece. I would consider one of the best games, adventure games of the century. That would be Hypnospace Outlaw.
01:12:38
Speaker
And that also, like, it's not puzzle-like. It actually has some pretty devious puzzles, I would say. Yes, but not in the way that you imagine puzzles. Not conventional. i mean, as unconventional as Dropsy's narrative style is,
01:12:50
Speaker
The puzzle design is very conventional. Yeah. And on that that's not a knock on it, but it's just very much in the, in the traditions of the field. Whereas hypnospace outlaw is its to very different.
01:13:01
Speaker
Yeah. And, and, and so like, and because, yeah, if you've ever played any adventure game, any point and click adventure game, ah you you'll immediately figure out dropsy right away and you'll know what to do.
01:13:16
Speaker
uh it's not like there were like having played it a couple times now there's like one or two puzzles that like i found a little challenging but i wouldn't call it like a hard game i would call it like no uh easy to medium at points yeah and um And some of the hard parts are less about the puzzles and more about some of the sometimes being confused about exactly what a character needs from you due to the nature of the the pictogram yeah style interface. Yeah. i mean, yeah. But overall, yeah, these aren't difficult puzzles. But, you know, my my larger point here is, is that like these are two games where ah it it feels like it's like
01:13:55
Speaker
these these two creators that that made some really wonderful, ah ah beautiful games that i love um made ah ah strange and excellent point and clicks that kind of play ah and and tweak and modify things ah but But stay within the boundaries of ah traditional ah like 90s point and click adventure design. And then for their sophomore effort.
01:14:27
Speaker
threw all that away like yes in a good way like with uh like took those ideas like said it's like all right i made i made point and click adventure game now i'm gonna do my own thing yes and and so that's a that's a quality i really like about dropsy it's ah also quality i really like about perfect tides um and like you know for me as somebody that loves hypno space outlaw, I, I, another game that has incredible music and a totally like wild color palette and, uh, stuff like that.
01:15:05
Speaker
You know, it feels like, uh, you know, your, your band put like your, your favorite band put out like an incredible album and it's your favorite album.
01:15:17
Speaker
And then you listen to the album before it. And it, it isn't like you, you love this album and it's not, it doesn't have everything that you love about your favorite album, but you're like, I love this band.
01:15:33
Speaker
So I love this too. You know what I'm saying? like going back and listening to Gish after you've really gotten into Sammy's dream by the Smashing Pumpkins. Yeah, exactly like that. Uh,
01:15:46
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, I think anyone like has that where it's like, oh, buy my my favorite band's album. And I listened to the the one before it and you could see that they're kind of working towards. yeah absolutely. Yeah. And they're working towards like you, you know, like, um you know, if your favorite, they might be yeah Giants album.
01:16:05
Speaker
is flood their second album then you and but then you listen to you they might be giants their first album you're like oh this is pretty good it's not flood but it's pretty good yeah yeah i mean sometimes it's even fun like when you occasionally catch like what feel like prototyping of ideas like say you picked up uh you know he's the DJ, I'm the rapper by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. u And you're like, I love this album. It's got all my favorite songs. i It's got brand new funk. It's got parents just don't understand. yeah
01:16:40
Speaker
It's got human video game where like Ready Rock C, their ah their beatbox does like a great Donkey Kong sound. That's pretty amazing. And you're like,
01:16:51
Speaker
Later, you're at your local Big M, which is like the department store in your hometown, and they have a cassette of Rock the House, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince's debut album. And you pick that up. And it's got some great songs out too, like you Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble.
01:17:06
Speaker
ah But as you listen to this, it's like you can even see elements of like some of the lyrics that would reappear in the in the big thing, some of the themes that they build on in later works. So in a lot of ways, i feel like dropsy is the dj jazzy jeff and the fresh prince rock the house to hypno space outlaws uh he's the dj on the rapper yeah that's exactly you know you you took all the words right out of my mouth it was like it was like you know we were merged as one for one moment yeah it's at some level i mean do you see yourself more as dj jazzy jeff or the fresh prince oh i i see myself as uh all of them wow wow that's beautiful
01:17:50
Speaker
ah But yeah, I mean, you know, listen, we could all we could all do this, but it's it's it's just it's like, I love i love i love this. Like, I love going back and yeah, and yeah and doing it. Because I played these backwards. I played hypnospace outlaw and then came back to drop C. So I am very much having that experience in real time. And, and you'd agree that like, are are you with me? Like hypnospace is like in the upper tier of, of, of games released in.
01:18:21
Speaker
Yeah. 25, 26 years of the century. Yes, I would say, I mean, Hypnospace Outlaw is is wild. Like, it is ah so out of the box. It is so ambitious. It plays with the genre in ways that really, and certainly no game before had, and I'm not sure if many games have since. um I mean, it is, it's fantastic. It's sort interesting, yeah as you say, to i see a game like Dropsy that very much plays
01:18:54
Speaker
by the conventional rules of the genre, you know, it almost is like, I can imagine the rules so you can break them. Yeah. You had to get that out of your system. You had to get your, like, you know, by the numbers adventure game, which you had to call tropsy about the numbers adventure game. Or to call perfect tides to by the, land by the way, I mean, we will have an episode on it. So let's not like, yeah, let's not be around the bush. Yeah. But yeah, yeah I mean the same day. yeah i mean,
01:19:21
Speaker
Getting that out of your system so that you can make something a little bit more experimental, a little bit more personal, a little bit more out of the box is fun to see. Yeah. um yeah i think the origin of this one too is a fascinating one like yeah that were you on something awful like was that you you were there right i was i was definitely on something awful uh when so okay so uh uh some some background for this so the the uh like
01:19:55
Speaker
uh in i think what like 2008 like this is on the wiki yeah it's early like 2007 2008 yeah it off as a many years ago was so there was a and i've i've looked i've found this thread many many years ago i looked at it what it was was uh there was a a thread that was, on the, massive and at the time, like enormously internet influential, um, internet forum, something awful.
01:20:35
Speaker
Uh, ah there there was a ah thread of it's like, hey, here's this clown, Dropsy's friend, like, again and you know, once again, I'm in in ah trying to, like, describing something I saw like 15 years ago.
01:20:53
Speaker
ah But it's like, here's Dropsy, ah like, he's he's on this island or something, like, ah where what should he do? And people in the thread would all like say uh and there there were there was art there was doodles yeah so like they they would pick the next action and then jay would draw the the scene that was described right and it just sort of unfolded that way and um so This was on, so this is, once again, so this is on the the Something Awful forums, which were enormously huge in internet culture at that particular moment.
01:21:34
Speaker
Before, like, you know, this is, so that's 2008. So that's like just at the birth of like everyone's trying to get onto social media.
01:21:47
Speaker
Like obviously my space and some other stuff existed earlier, but like now everybody like a larger, which, which would eventually be one of the main things that would kind of like that and Reddit and stuff like that.
01:22:02
Speaker
Anyway, yeah something awful is like, you know, what happened and all of that is another discussion entirely. Anyway. um there, there was a genre of posts. So I, uh, had an account on something awful, ah since 2003, that was when I made wow my account. It's 2003.
01:22:27
Speaker
And if I, uh, drop, uh, if, if I drop out of this record, it's because my cat is, rolling around directly in front of the computer and keeps getting close to the keyboard.
01:22:39
Speaker
uh, but ah Anyway, um so there was like ah a popular trend in general bullshit, which was the main kind of general chat sub forum on something awful. Yeah.
01:22:57
Speaker
ah where it was like kind of ah ah like kind of narrative story threads. um And like, sometimes it would be like that type of choose your own adventure, but there would also be ah like, there were various people that were kind of personalities that were ah like, they were like, here's my day job as like, I'm a,
01:23:25
Speaker
I'm the guy that delivers collagen water or no, it was people playing pranks on their collagen delivery. Man. That was what it was pretty mean, which was again, that's what that website was. Um, but, uh, that was, uh, like it it, it was part of, of that whole thing was like, it was very popular in the forum at, at the time in my recollection,
01:23:51
Speaker
for for people to to do these kind of either interactive or not interactive, like big story mega threads on the general bullshit subforum, largely because they subforumed everything else out of being able to be discussed in that forum.
01:24:17
Speaker
yeah which was like, that was the problem. Uh, was that like, you couldn't like be like, Hey, anyone see this movie? Because there was a movies before him. Hey, anyone plays video game? There's a video game. Like, Hey, who's watching this TV show or there's a TV like, you know? And so like that, that sub forum became like, you have to, if you have like, you know, you, you were the admin of a a forum. Uh, you, you had to,
01:24:47
Speaker
uh have the general forum but it's like and you see this in so many discords today right like you go on a discord and there's like 5 000 channels yes nothing to watch
01:25:03
Speaker
oh but like it's my child's on mtv that doesn't even show videos oh my god yeah what the hell
01:25:14
Speaker
um but yeah i don't know um it came out of that and then i decided to provide a short history lesson on uh the general bullshit forums of uh something awful circa the late 2000s you know i don't think i even knew something awful existed somehow I was on the internet kinda at that time and just was completely unaware of something awful. Like, I don't think I heard of it until years later.
01:25:45
Speaker
i don't know how that's possible. I don't know. I guess I was just on dig.com all the time. was just, I was just, I was just, was just uploading things. Fark. Were you on Fark? I was on Fark. I was on Fark. Yeah. The people in something awful made fun of Fark all the time.
01:26:02
Speaker
wow we were so awesome over park mean all the time i'm not kidding i mean oh yeah there's good reason to yeah i mean absolutely yeah um yeah uh i mean you know it's interesting like i mean it's probably fine that you weren't there it was uh it was a nasty mean place uh Yeah, no, no. It was yeah it was ah it was like, ah you know, me like having like kind of happy nostalgia for this forum.
01:26:33
Speaker
I don't want to align that there a lot of really horrible internet things were born or gestated there. Like, you know, this isn't me saying, and I stand with everything that happened there. No, that's weird because that's what the clip is going to say on YouTube. When you play the, yeah, yeah. yeah and When I edit around this, that's exactly what you're go to say. Yeah.
01:26:55
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, it was an interesting, it was, and i mean, now that we're we're we're fully detoured onto this, it was interesting because it was like ah me, like, you know, I'd done a little time on your forum on the the sub subspace channel and I had been on other kind of,
01:27:15
Speaker
ah forums that were all like probably like at their biggest maybe maybe like 150 people how many yeah people did you get onto subspace you probably got a lot of people I want to think I had about a thousand registered yeah but I want to think active like if it ever topped like a hundred that were active simultaneously I'd be surprised yeah Yeah, that that that that sounds about right. and And so it's like going over to something awful, which I think had like, with you know, you would log on and it would say like, there's like, you know, 20,000 people looking at it at at that moment. Like it was a real, like, ah like i'm I opened up something awful right now.
01:28:05
Speaker
And, ah you know, something awful it still exists. 2026. It's still going. ah There are registered users logged in and browsing.
01:28:20
Speaker
wow there are two hundred and thirteen ah thousand users ah total um But yeah, like it is, you know, even, even now in it's like, you know, all these years later, well, well, well past its relevancy.
01:28:41
Speaker
ah Like there's still. ah you know, 2000 and some change people on it at this moment as we record.
01:28:54
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'm shocked. I went to FARC just now. And I mean, there are a lot of articles on the front page with like a dozen comments or so. But, you know, here's one ah with the headline, boomers finally gain their revenge on other generations that has 136 comments. So, you know, there's still people like that are FARCing.
01:29:14
Speaker
Listen, there's still people on fucking Slashdot. Ah, that's amazing. Like I just opened up Slash... Let's, ah you know what? Let's look at some old... Let's, it's say let's say but you know... and Healthy masculinity is remembering some some guys. and ah And so let's remember some old websites and see if they're still active.
01:29:38
Speaker
Looking at Slashdot, there's a a post today and it has 78 comments. wow um you know there's a the so i mean i don't know is i'm on boing boing it's still going strong let's see um they have a review of 007 first light on boing boing looking at a meta filter this one seems a little slower this one meta filter is definitely well past this Let's see what dig is now. Oh, when you go to dig, let me tell you what happens, Ben. Yeah. It auto redirects you to dig.com forward slash AI.
Exploration of Dig AI and Media Critique
01:30:20
Speaker
So right away, we're off to a good start. It doesn't take you just to the root directory. It's shuffling you straight to something called dig AI. Same mission you remember, find what matters early.
01:30:31
Speaker
AI news is our first vertical. It moves fast, which makes it the perfect testing ground for our new engine. Dig's got it all. And it's all everywhere. Now the real question is who's human and which humans to trust.
01:30:45
Speaker
That doesn't sound fun. So we may have 9 million connections found the 2000 voices that move first and surface what they touch before it spreads. Kick the tire AI news first more topics coming soon.
01:30:58
Speaker
o What piece of shit bought this website. Like Jesus fucking hell. Holy smokes. Well, I don't want to remember websites anymore. Nope. It's but so fun. no man yeah This is, this is bullshit. Like, Oh yeah. Like it's like, Oh, there's a 2.7 K likes of this post. Like how many of them are fucking real?
01:31:33
Speaker
No, this is the future, Ben. I'm reading it, and it looks really good.
01:31:41
Speaker
So is this like, is this is this now like, what is
01:31:48
Speaker
this? What
01:31:51
Speaker
is this? bad I'm mad. I'm looking at... What are you seeing right now? I'm just looking at just what it looks like when you click on one of the stories and like how it horrible.
01:32:14
Speaker
Oh. Oh, no. yeah it's Ben, describe this. to I don't even know how to describe it. It looks... i mean ah yeah I'd rather, i'd rather, you know, go to rotten.com and spend a minute longer on this. And I'm not going to go to rotten.com.
01:32:32
Speaker
I don't know if that exists anymore, but I'm not going to do that. i I'm not going to do that either. um but But I'm done going to dig really knock the wind out of my sails. Yeah, no, it is. up i Just to give people a sense of this, like when you click in on articles now, then this is great radio.
01:32:55
Speaker
I'm dig forward slash a like there's a little chart that's like sentiment. where it like summarizes everyone's comments on this. So it's like this story I'm looking at about Claude writing 80% of code base, whatever, like 40.8% of the responses are positive and 59.2 are negative. And then there's a chart full of cluster engagement.
01:33:19
Speaker
Yeah. yeah and but I've closed closed my tab. I'm not looking at this. I mean, listen, I, to, to, to bring us back to the subject. I was talking earlier about like the fucking cynicism factory, like just pulling. It's like the, the, my windows are wide open. Yeah.
01:33:36
Speaker
uh which by the way i discovered that i have to buy new windows for my uh condominium i'm not very happy about this is where they get man this is where you set it on fire yeah and let your insurance take care of things i'm not supposed to we can't have this recorded um now uh nobody's listening to this but feel at this point they all tuned out when we started talking about websites we remembered you're fine man now's the time to discuss all of your all of your criminal activities you're currently plotting It was the perfect plan. I hit all of my plans in plain sight on my podcast after we started the most boring conversation possible. this now As you Kazer Soze away from your burning condo.
01:34:18
Speaker
But anyway. um But it's like, it feels like i I have like my windows just like directly open and there's a smokestack, like just billowing, like so cynicism smoke into it. Like just looking at dig. I'm just like, this is the shit I'm talking about. i need fucking clown. How did Kevin Rose let that happen? How'd Kevin Rose let that happen?
01:34:39
Speaker
and Not the clowns in Congress. They're not the clowns in Dropsy. that's the The real clowns, like Dropsy, if Dropsy was in Congress, he'd did show those guys a thing or two. But like, you know, the the real clowns, Jess? Yes.
01:34:57
Speaker
The real clowns. The real clowns are the clowns in Congress.
01:35:04
Speaker
or insert your parliamentary into a tiny car listen you know to be more inclusive or international listeners or insert your parliamentary system here the MPs in parliament i listen I've been reading international news lately and uh and whoa no I switched over I flipped over to the to newspaper C1 oh no it's bad You see, I didn't see anything about it on dig. So I really don't know what's going on around the world anymore. I got all my news from dig. So, so I know how they're just in everything's great from quad. oh Yes.
01:35:44
Speaker
I need to lose some of the cluster data on that to be sure, but you got to check the cluster data. Cluster analytics are really what I'm looking for in news. You should. Yeah. Like you got to check the cluster data. Like it's, you know,
01:35:59
Speaker
And that's the problem. Like before we had AI, we didn't have cluster data. Like I would look at a news story, like, and it would not provide cluster data on it. And I would just say, what's the point? and just Some of them were a real cluster too. Some of those news stories were, yeah, themselves. Yeah.
01:36:17
Speaker
A real cluster flop. And, and now this stuff, I'm happy to say it's not even, it's, it's I would, it's not suited to line a bird cage. Yeah.
01:36:28
Speaker
So think about that. a All right. Do we have anything else to say about dropsy? mean, and like I said this isn't the tone I'm generally looking for, but there's a lot. This isn't. I really dig about this game. That's That's it. Yeah. isn't my game. The game that you dig.com slash AI.
01:36:51
Speaker
Yeah, the that's the thing. The cluster analytics on this were all off for i ran the numbers on it. And, you know, like I was clustering down in the lower left-hand corner and it's clustering up in the upper right-hand corner. Jess, I'm looking at an x-ray right now and I see a cluster in you.
01:37:10
Speaker
It's that basil fried rice. ah this it's like um It's like a football in my stomach right now. You're you're Lucy and you just swallowed the football. okay they put I ordered it with beef and Ben, they do like nice pieces of sirloin when you order beef there. It's like a really nice, like, it's not just like here is some beef. It's like steak and it was so good. That fills you up.
01:37:40
Speaker
filled me up. and so With rice. with which has and With eggs cooked in oil. Yes. And I have to estimate probably about the equivalent of four shakers worth of salt. If I had to like just roughly estimate, like I've drank ah probably two gallons of water since I got home. And that's only adding to the, you know the dropsy-esque swelling of my belly. Mm hmm.
01:38:09
Speaker
I'm not going to make it Ben. This is probably the last episode of quest quest with me as host. And I know Grayson's just been waiting in the wings, licking his chops, champing at the bit. Yes. He's looking as champs.
01:38:21
Speaker
Yeah. But he's a real champ liquor that crazy. Ready to step in here when I can't serve. he He's, he's got 25th amendment. man He's limbering up.
01:38:32
Speaker
Oh yeah. The 25th amendment. that's real. Yeah.
01:38:39
Speaker
ah Anyway.
Dropsy Game Reflections and Personal Insights
01:38:43
Speaker
All right. Well, that's dropsy everyone. yeah Again, I like, I, I gave my life, but I can I can, I can accept it is, it is a a game that like, you know, I can understand why it's delightfully weird. yeah Delightfully weird is what you're looking for. Yeah. it's and And that's exactly the speed. Here's the thing. I think hypnospace outlaws is quite melancholy too.
01:39:10
Speaker
It is. And, you know, there's a nostalgia there that oftentimes, you know, has melancholy wrapped up in it. ah Yeah. i mean, maybe just being separated from the humanity of it by like one level of mediation for me.
01:39:27
Speaker
ah I don't know. i don't know. Maybe, maybe I'm just afraid of clowns. Man.
01:39:35
Speaker
We love clowns. We saw that clown together. That's true. We did. do you remember? Yeah. I was like, there's a clown, Ben. Yeah. if We saw that clown. There was just a clown walking down the street and you want to know who it was?
01:39:50
Speaker
A Senator. Wow. Wow. All right. Well, folks, thank you so much for listening. Or an MP for our international listeners.
01:40:04
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Or, you know, insert, you know, you got it. Mm-hmm. Insert legislator here. Yeah. They're all buffoons. They're they're all buffons.
01:40:16
Speaker
um They're buffons. They're all performing in the the great tradition of French buffons. Anyway. yeah Talk about a circus.
01:40:28
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining us for another wonderful episode of quest quest. The adventure game podcast. Uh, if you would like to send us an email, ah you know, defending your friends, the clowns in Congress. Mm. Uh, uh, well, I met lot of people even voted for some of those clowns.
01:40:48
Speaker
Not me. ah Wow.
Civic Engagement and Game Debates
01:40:52
Speaker
tip Everyone I vote for loses. Um, exclusively. Like, uh, anyway. Um, yeah.
01:41:02
Speaker
I need to go on poly market before the next election and really figure out like where my wins are going to be. i need to vote for some winners for a change. I think I'd feel better about democracy if I voted for someone who won the election. Anyway, quest quest podcast at gmail.com rate review five stars. We love it.
01:41:18
Speaker
also We love it. Find helps people find, uh, this podcast. It's, it's really great. Um, uh, when they do that and then, and then they're like, why are they talking about actually you know i say it's like why why are they uh uh talking about what they eat for 50 minutes at the beginning but that's most podcasts and people are no really you just skip it uh now that's what the 45 seconds ahead button is for the 45 seconds ahead button yeah i just have a have like a skip five i've got 45 i can't mess around ben all right anyway
01:41:56
Speaker
Join us next week when we discuss the ah new to me adventure game Space Quest 4.
01:42:25
Speaker
All right. So Jess, this is an important question. and you know what? We might've, uh, this, this might've been kind of part of other discussions, but I think this deserves its own, which is, uh, do you believe, do you know if there's been, if if there are more than two time rippers?
01:42:45
Speaker
This is a great question. Yeah. There's Roger Wilco jr. Yeah. Because established, we know that the Time Rippers are the good guys. Yes. Well, we kind of know that. so Time Rippers sound... Okay.
01:43:01
Speaker
The reason I thought that the Time Rippers are the bad guys, because Time Rippers sound like... That sounds like bad guys. Yes. And also, when you hear sequel police, you think, I can trust the police. Yeah.