Transcript
Speaker: yeah we're at the end of spooky month huh we're at the end of spooky month but not for me because i'm always spooky i've learned something about myself yeah you know where this is going i know um okay there is a guy at the studio that specifically says i am sweet and all i did was compliment his statue now granted Yeah, that's sweet.
Speaker: That's a sweet thing I'm also invested in this statue because um i was in a class with him like last term and I didn't get to see it. And it was like this huge hand-built sculpture. I'm like really invested. and yeah so I've asked before. And so I saw him today. I'm like, hey, how's your statue going? I'm like, really invested. I want to see. That's sweet.
Speaker: That's so thoughtful. He's like, that's so sweet. And in my brain, I'm like, no no no, you just don't know me. That's all that is. I'm very evil.
Speaker: or does Or do you maybe not know you as much as you think you might? Because you you are a sweet person. That's true. You're mean to people?
Speaker: No. Yeah. do you are are you Are you supportive of people and complimentary? I guess so. Isn't that just human behavior? Yeah, sweet human behavior.
Speaker: So stupid. I'm so scary. You're so not. I'm so spooky. it's it's ah you ah You like spooky things. I love spooky things. I like dark things. Does that not does that not intimidate you?
Speaker: No. um You like ah the aesthetics of spookiness. and but And maybe even sometimes the aesthetics of evil.
Speaker: But you do not behave evilly. You have a moral compass. And not only that, you like to make decisions that benefit other humans and make ah the world ah better in big or small ways, right? Right. But that doesn't mean that I'm not scary and intimidating. Right.
Speaker: You're right, but it does mean you're not evil. Not evil. That's the first point. And then, so if you know a person is never going to hurt you, then it it's hard to be scared of them.
Speaker: I see. i see. I see. Okay. I see what you're saying. And then if we continue moving along, you are consistently friendly to other human beings huh and open with your ah feelings and, as we just found out, praise.
Speaker: But that's because I've been in therapy for the last, like, 30 years. Okay, so you might have been a little evil 30 years ago. I don't know. I didn't know you back then. But right now, you are sweet. Evil child? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that kid from The Omen.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. why do we never Why do we never see that, right? Like a movie about an evil child... who's like the demonic and like Macaulay Culkin in... um Oh, The Good Son? The Good Son. And like and then cut to 30 years later after they've gone through therapy and had a few failed relationships and ah like and like had to have to get a job and everything. And they're just kindly people.
Speaker: And they're like, oh, yeah, I was a real shit back then. I killed a couple people. by Oh, God. I'm not quite to Macaulay Culkin levels. but in my teens and like early 20s, I was pretty bad, pretty chaotic. Yeah. I just learned to be like ah a kind person, but that doesn't mean that I'm not scary.
Speaker: Well, or intimidating to men. You know, there are some men who might be intimidated by you. Hey, hey buddy. Hey, yes, there's some men who are intimidated by you, pal. Yeah, yeah. that You're roses. You're so intimidating.
Speaker: being condescending.
Speaker: Hey, everybody. Matt Allcamp here. Welcome to Murder, She Wrote.
Speaker: ah You're copying me. Damn it. Man, I knew I would screw that up one day. you see You see, my recording setup is so similar to the way that I do Murder, She Wrote. you. You love me so much. ah This is Save Your Game. ah With me is ah the...
Speaker: Yes. The very spooky and intimidating Pushing Up Roses. Hi. Hi. um Fine. i I accept it.
Speaker: Yeah. I accept it. Yeah, I accept it. That's fine. That's what growing up is. It's accepting the differences between how the world sees us and how we see ourselves. I gotta go get a neck tattoo now. by my badassery. And the neck tattoo should say, well, what, you like...
Speaker: ah Criminal. It's so long. It just goes across my entire neck. It starts at one side of your neck, but then it wraps around little too far. It's lopsided. You can't read it head on. I have to turn to get people to read it. That would be so not intimidating. Like, hang on, let me turn. And then you can read it.
Speaker: I like the idea that it's off-center, too. Like, you like your thought it would fit, and it didn't fit. It didn't fit, guys. And that we couldn't get the stunt salon, and this is this is what it is now. yeah we Yeah, we didn't plan it out. We just started. i was just like, you you were just like, hey, ah you know how to write criminal. Just start. You don't need to plan it. Just start.
Speaker: Just freehand Freehand it. That's what real tattoo artists do. They freehand it. How? How? How are you? Have you been enjoying anything spooky this week? Yes. I think oh both of us have been doing many spooky things. um Yeah.
Speaker: ah Mostly, I think, I don't know how unplanned or planned this was, but we were going to cover one last game today. Yeah. ah But then we both dove headfirst into Tenebrous Somnia. God, we love it so much.
Speaker: So I also, it's not spooky, but I am, i listen, I am making progress in Mystria now. I'm back. i'm but We're back. I'm back to enjoying it.
Speaker: I put a little top hat on my chicken. ah His name is Lil Peepers. This isn't scary at all. You're so right. Yeah. Yeah. yeah you You're hearing it, right? Like you're hearing it. His name is Lil Peepers. He's my chicken. And then I put an egg hat on the other one. And both of my chickens wearing hats were on their little seesaw. And it was so cute. It was so cute.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, that is cute. it's That's the thing about it is it's cute and sweet. It's so cute. Oh my god Anyway. um So I regret, i regret not friending fucking Juniper.
Speaker: Yeah. So there comes a point in field of mystery out where there are two characters that you need to be at eight hearts with to progress. And, Man, if you're not there, it's so frustrating to be like, fuck, it's going to be so long. But yeah but what it the the thing that I liked about that is that that was a goal anyway, right? Like I eventually wanted to get full hearts with everybody. So this just inspired me to spend, i think, literally a whole in-game year
Speaker: gifting people every single day. like yeah I would just, I would just get everybody's gifts. Like I'd probably spend one day a week getting everybody's gifts together. And then the rest of the week, I would just go around giving gifts for three quarters of the day. And then I'd have to go to sleep and do it all over again the next day. I definitely did that with Stardew.
Speaker: um But now I'm like, i i don't know. I already had eight hearts with the guy part of it. And now I need to get eight hearts with fucking Juniper. I had three. Yeah.
Speaker: And like at the time I was I was building up my hearts and going to the mines and finding new things. But now I'm kind of fatigued on that. And I just want her to have the hearts. and I'm still three hearts away. This is taking forever. my God. ah But yeah, I'm I'm eager to, quote, beat this game ah at some point. So, yeah, not spooky. Not spooky. Do you feel like Juniper is pretty spooky? Yeah. We should have played that spooky farming sim. yeah, yeah, yeah. Welcome to Elderfield or whatever. do you feel like we should have played that this month? That was on my radar. I was keeping an eye on it, and then it just kind of creeped up on me a little bit in the end.
Speaker: There's like a murder mystery as part of it, isn't there? Yes. Yeah, there is. Like, it's not just a spooky town. It's also a town where you're – it's also part of the gameplay solving a mystery. i It's like Cabot Cove. It's like Murder, She Wrote. Yeah.
Speaker: um sick You know what? Oh, okay. Here's something that I just discovered today. And we should put a link to this in our show notes, to be honest, because it is so... It's it's such a service.
Speaker: So, there is a script out there that you can download. And... okay but but the the I'll go through the whole process of how to install it. So there's a script out there.
Speaker: It'll be in our show notes. What you can do is if you go into your Steam um store and you right click on a any any game, any you know URL, any link to a game, right?
Speaker: And you click open link in new tab. It does like a pop out in Steam. Okay. Okay. ah and yeah And it is the only the only way in Steam that you can enter... You can type in the address bar. You can enter things in the address bar because you normally can't, right? Right, right, right.
Speaker: If you run this script, if you install this script from the Steam browser in that way, and it's a Chrome-based browser, so you you just you do this the Chrome um version of this script.
Speaker: Whenever you're browsing Steam... If a game has AI in it, like if it has the AI disclosure, so if they don't disclose, you're you're fucked. But um yeah yeah if it has the AI disclosure,
Speaker: it it'll pop up. You'll get a pop up that says, this game has a it it it what it says the AI disclosure as a pop up. And you have to click OK to keep keep looking at the site, which is very useful.
Speaker: I'm sure. I was ready to boycott, ah ah and it' it's I'm still kind of thinking about it, Next Fest, this go around.
Speaker: Okay. This season's Next Fest, just because, like, got the entire thing is AI games. How can this be? I know. It's just. i know sorry i took i'm I'm so upset in hearing that. How can this be? I know. I i had a bit of a dust up with and a a game that uses AI. I'm not going to get into it here. um I talked it out with the person, with the developer, I They seem pretty distressed about the reaction to AI in their game. So I think okay I'm going to leave them alone. But. It's still, I'm not, I'm, number one, I'm not into, but the the thing that i the big problem I had with this person is ah I am very against not disclosing AI. Yes. That's the the worst you can do is because not disclose it. I get that people are going to be mean to you and it's going to be really bad, right? Yeah. ah If you disclose the AI in your game and that,
Speaker: has to hurt your feelings and it has to be distressing but the other option is that people hide the ai and then everybody's suspicious of ai all the time yeah which i can't sustain like i i'm so sadly suspicious of everything i see yes on instagram and Like somebody said I had used AI for one of my like art pieces. I'm like, well, no. And you got understand that it's not their fault, right? They are being inundated with AI all the time and they're being lied to about it. But if we are being inundated with AI and not lied to about it, if all AI has a disclosure.
Speaker: Yes. Then people might stop being quite so mad at small uses of AI, right? And, like, they – because if you don't want it, you just ignore it, right? You just don't buy that game or ah purchase that artwork or subscribe to that YouTube channel or whatever, right? – but If it doesn't bother you, then whatever. It doesn't bother you. I think probably you have a low um ah ah
Speaker: sense of art criticism, right? Sure, yeah. a low what What are you going to say here? Low IQ? A low – let's say a low literary IQ. Maybe that's a good i good good term for it. Or you're just even like – you're not even paying attention because I sometimes have to remind myself that not everybody is like chronically online as as we are. Well – I think that's what I'm saying about literature, right? Not everybody is is dialed in to the point where like yeah if there's bits of your game or your movie or your book that are vapid, a you might not even notice because you're just there for pure on entertainment and maybe you're easily entertained. um Whereas i'm if I don't know AI as in something...
Speaker: I'm going to get a certain way into it and be like, God, there's just nothing. This game isn't saying anything. This game is not making any decisions. This feels so bland. And then if I find out, oh, it's because it's got AI in it and I didn't know, then I'm going to be like, well, i wasted my time. I would have known ahead of time. I don't like that's going to be the case and not spent my time on this. Yeah.
Speaker: Because AI can't express anything because it doesn't have feelings. So their art is worthless. um
Speaker: In my opinion. but No, it is. But if if everybody is honest about it, then people's paranoia will die down.
Speaker: Yeah, I admit i I'm always like kind of wary when I'm on Instagram now and I see like comics that they just have that look to them. yeah but is ah But is that look also an aesthetic that some artists use? Yes. So ah but is that where it's being generated from? I don't know. It's so upsetting.
Speaker: I know. I know. I know. And that's that's why I think it is incumbent on people who use AI to disclose it and own it, right? Don't try to hide it. Own it. And if enough people make good art using AI as a tool rather than as a substitute for talent or whatever, yeah then we'll start to understand, you know, because of people's disclosure, okay, some people
Speaker: cases of AI usage don't ruin the experience. Yes. if If that is true, which I think it probably is, we will we will learn that. But if nobody discloses, then we will all continue to be suspicious of everything that's ever created, and we will all assume that any usage of AI makes garbage art.
Speaker: Right. Correct. So, like... for both people who like, who want to use AI and people who never want to use ai or are embarrassed about using AI, it's like, it's beneficial on both sides, unless you're a scammer trying to make a quick buck, which right the person that I was talking to and that I'm not going to name their game, I think they are the type that they're not trying to scam anybody to make a quick buck. They are making something that feels meaningful to them. Yeah. Um,
Speaker: I would argue it if they're using AI art, it might end up feeling a little hollow when you yeah end up publishing it because people are complimenting things that you didn't have any hand in.
Speaker: Right? That would like upset me. yeah That's just not what art is. It's just not. hot Yeah, exactly. So so whatever. um But hey, they get to make their own piece with that. that's That's not for me to judge. But um But yeah, so so even if that means that in the short term, some people get really mad at your game, it's for the best in the long term. And it's better that people know ahead of time, i don't I'm not going to like this game and I'm not going to download it, than download it.
Speaker: realize it has AI in it and then get super mad at you. Yeah. Yeah. It's better that they ignore you or do one post on your discussion board in steam and then never revisit your thing again. Like that's better.
Speaker: ah Anyway. Yeah. ah If you're going to use the AI, disclose it. And if you don't want to that, then don't use AI. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. If you're embarrassed to use AI, if you're not going to stand by your artistic choices, then then don't make those choices. Yeah. It is optional. You don't have to use AI in your game. It is completely optional. Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah anyway, why did I start yelling about that? I don't have any idea. I forget. Because I'm an artist. Oh. I feel like it's been a while since I've said that. Because the ai AI disclosure tool on Steam. Oh, right. The script.
Speaker: Yeah. So we'll put a link to that in our show notes. um And then if you have that, then you can stop doing things like clicking on that spooky, of yeah the spooky farming sim game and scrolling down to the bottom immediately to see if it's got an AI disclosure. you're You'll just know immediately.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So you've been playing. I mean, I i know what you've been playing, but please tell everybody what you've been playing. Well, I've been playing the same. I've been playing the stuff we're going to talk about here in this show. um I'm there's two games I want to highlight real quick. Neither of them are spooky at all, um but hey they are they are cool. And both of them I've only just begun one.
Speaker: Is a Metroid... Okay, so we've talked about the difference between a Metroidvania and a Metroidbrainia, where a Metroidvania, your progress is gated by abilities that you unlock or items that you unlock, right?
Speaker: Where a Metroidbrainia, your progress is gated by knowledge. So there's this game that just came out called Echo Weaver.
Speaker: that's what's That's... That's both. it is a Platform 2D Metroidvania, side-scrolling Metroidvania, where you use different abilities to pass different ah gates.
Speaker: But almost all of them, all except for one, I think... That you have to find. you you have a little. um You have a little. ah what what do What do you even call this thing? like a Like a boomerang with three points.
Speaker: Oh yeah. one of those That is a thing. like that There's a name for that. And they talk they say the name in the game. But I can't remember it off the top of my head. Anyway. You have to find that.
Speaker: But after you find that. Every other ability. You start the game with. You just don't know how to do them. Okay. And you slowly learn them as you progress. And then you go, oh, I can go back and do that I didn't realize I could do this thing.
Speaker: Because it very cleverly uses abilities that you know about in ways you wouldn't think differently.
Speaker: to use them to do interesting things, kind of the way that ah Animal Well did, but in a bit more of an action, ah traditional Metroidvania style.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. and mean, you say it's not spooky, but I'm like watching the trailer and there's like a bunch of skulls. I mean, the study at least some of the settings are a little spooky. i see it's a I see it's got kind of that like kawaii, that kind of like style. It's not quite anime, but it's got those like visuals that remind me of...
Speaker: Yeah, you're kind of like, you have like ah a companion in your brain that's a pizza cat, which, weird choice. Weird choice. but Oh, pizza cat. But whatever, you know, like, yeah, I mean, it's clearly like some sort of weird future game, and you, I think, are clearly some kind of clone stuck in a time loop, and interestingly,
Speaker: ah You have a health bar, but you also have a a bar that that continuously counts down that you can add to when you defeat enemies and stuff. That is your loop clock. okay and when it runs out, you start back over where you where you began the game.
Speaker: So you are consistently in a time loop. And there are like, pretty early on one of the earliest abilities. If you don't want any spoilers, I'd say jump ahead one minute.
Speaker: I won't be long. um Early on, you ah unlock the ability to end your run early to just like kill this body and start over. um So that if you say meet somebody who just died, you find out you happen and upon a corpse that just died.
Speaker: You... restart your loop right away and use your abilities to rush to that person and you can talk to them before they die listen um things like that it's a really it seems like a really cool game so that's echo weaver um i don't know much about it yet i i'm the only like an hour in but it's really cool nice's Nice, nice.
Speaker: It's cool. But it again, it also looks a little cutesy with the addition of the pizza cat. I know, I know. The other game that I've been playing, and i't yeah I only played about an hour and a half of this.
Speaker: i thought I got a group together, um finally, to play this, you know, hugely popular co-op game by house house the people who created the people who created uh untitled goose game i mean it's it's hugely popular among game video game enthusiasts i think um because it it's something very special uh it's called big walk and
Speaker: it it is It is really interesting. um actually got a bunch of... Some friends of the show and some friends of mine together ah this past Monday night. We all ah had we all joined...
Speaker: the same game. And this is a game, like all I'm going to say about it is this is a game, but this game about exploring and solving puzzles, but it's a game about discovery. Yeah. um and very specifically discovering things together.
Speaker: h um
Speaker: I, I, I, I don't want to say much more than that. It is, Beautiful. It's... So far, I'm so... i'm We're still so close to the beginning.
Speaker: yeah And I'm already like, I fucking love this game. Aww. It is... i Yeah, I wanted to join... i told you to add me to that group, and then I, like, absentmindedly went into the studio yesterday to like, finish a pumpkin. But i plan on doing the next one for sure. Thankfully, I think you can. i think...
Speaker: We are early enough on that I think you can join. But if you had missed, you know, if after the next session, which we're going to play, i think, together once every two weeks. So we'll have an update in a couple episodes. um But ah I think once.
Speaker: I think we are at the point where if we make any more progress. yeah up A person could not join. Oh, interesting. Okay. They could, but it would it wouldn't be as fun for them and it would be less fun for us. um you know like i think I think this is a game, again, really about discovering things together. yeah And I think the the less you do it together...
Speaker: um the and And, you know, I think you can split up and solve puzzles and stuff um in smaller groups. But I think the less you are all logged in into the same game at together at the same time, um the less effective this game is.
Speaker: Yeah. And the the fact that this game relies on proximity chat... is really interesting. And I think it says something. i think this game is speaking about communication in a in a pretty profound way.
Speaker: yeah um they They give you a warning right at the top. Like, do not use, do not do a Discord chat or a phone call or a Zoom chat. Play this game with the proximity chat. Okay. I didn't know that that's, okay, that's so cool, actually. I've never heard that before.
Speaker: you know i think why why it's telling you that is because if at some point you get frustrated and you want to like you lose somebody and you want to know where they are and you get this sense like, oh, this game would be easier if we were just on a call together.
Speaker: Yeah. You were ruining the experience of the game. Right. Yeah, that's not how they want you to. Yeah, that that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. So again, I think this is a game that's about communication in a really significant way. Yeah.
Speaker: And I am, I'm just, I'm, I'm pretty taken with it, even though, again, we are at the very, very beginning. um What a nice way to spend time with your friends. I like that. Oh yeah. And it felt like that too. Right. It felt like, oh man, I am hanging out with these people. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Um, all right All right. what are we here to talk about today? We are here to talk about two spooky horror games. ah Wildly different. Yes. Wildly different games. So ah the first game, I'm sure we'll talk about the first, ah The Doll Shop first.
Speaker: um Which is more of a ah like a visual novel type of a game. Very dark game. a very harrowing undertones. Yeah. I would call it like a, it's almost like a slice of life horror game. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty short.
Speaker: um if think, think Florence, think the game Florence. If um there was a ah horrible child abduction ah in Florence. a Horrible child abduction. Yeah, it's pretty grim. It's it's a grim one. it's it's It's definitely one of those games that is just telling you a story.
Speaker: um you know With minimal action, you're just meant to kind of experience this almost ah almost like you experience a movie, right? Almost like we experience midnight scenes. It's more of a vignette. And then we're talking about Tenebrous Somnia. Holy shit. Which is a survival horror game, which is i very... I love survival horror games because I think they're another genre of adventure game, obviously. With?
Speaker: um yeah with with FMV cinematics yes live actors and it actually is good it's really good holy shit and like the acting is almost done and oh we'll talk about it but it's almost done entirely without words and yes the acting is phenomenal yeah alright let's play just what do you want to play roses The monkeys?
Speaker: i don't think we can. Okay. What's older than the monkeys?
Speaker: I just brain farted there. There's absolutely nothing older than the monkeys. That's as far back as I go. Damn it. Damn it. There's nothing older than the monkeys. Well, the gosh. Well, then I guess there is no public domain music then because the monkeys aren't public domain yet. No, they're not.
Speaker: ah But we can try and scrounge up something. well We'll figure it out. Let's right let's try and play whatever the monkeys were of the 1890s.
Speaker: everybody, welcome back to Save Your Game, I'm Matt Allcamp, I'm a spooky vampire, and with me is an evil mummy, it's a Pushing Up Roses.
Speaker: I think we've established that I'm not evil at all, but I you could be a mummy. a scary so scary so You're a scary Skellington, and I'm a i'm a spooky vampire. You don't have any fangs. I'm a vampire. I'm a vampire. You are very pale, though.
Speaker: And I do drink a lot of blood. Yeah, I noticed that. I was wondering. I was going to ask you about that, but. It's just a quirk. It's just a quirk. It's just a quirk. You know, part of it is when you're a vegetarian, you need to get the protein in the iron somewhere. So they suggest if you're, you know, if you're going to have a vegetarian diet. Maybe try and drink a lot of blood. And the other part of it is just, I like it.
Speaker: i like it. Matt, you're such a quirked up white boy. Brings me power. It brings me powers. little strange. It makes me turn into a bat. Well, that's cute. I like bats. Do you want to be my familiar? No. I'm my own bat. Why would I want to be your familiar? I'm my own bat.
Speaker: I just thought you could use ah like some jobs or something. I don't know. Are you paying me? In something? and pizza? In coffee? Yes.
Speaker: Oh, in blood. I will pay you in blood. Yes. All right. I'm in. ah Easy. We are here to talk about a, a, a a really interesting game by ah Atelier Sento.
Speaker: I don't know that I'm pronouncing that properly. So apologies um if I'm not, ah but it is a, i think two person team. Okay.
Speaker: Who, Put together this. This is actually the game. the What we're playing is a remake of a game from, I think, 2021. Okay. um it was It was put out on itch.io, and then it was ah you know remastered and expanded for Steam. It's called The Doll Shop. um It was just released this month.
Speaker: And like we said earlier, so it's a hand-drawn story about... It's like as a slice of life, very human horror story um where you are playing four days in the life of a doll shop owner in a very small Japanese country town where ah the population is on the decline. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: because of some trauma in the town's past. It's far past and it's recent past. and also ah really rough snowstorms that have kept people out.
Speaker: um And... yeah what... Where do we want to start here? What are your overall thoughts of this game? So...
Speaker: i I don't love this game. Okay. I did like it. i did i do enjoy it i did enjoy it as like a little a little horror vignette, you know, spend like an hour with like a bowl of chili and it's it's it's got that vibe, right? Yes, totally. It's got that vibe for spooky month. The setting is the setting's very harrowing because it's lonely feeling. Yeah.
Speaker: And i I love the redrawn. ah i love the remaster. The art is so good. yeah Yeah. I did watch a playthrough of the the the old one.
Speaker: Okay. Which also looks, in my opinion, it still looks really good. It still has that watercolor look to it. Even their logo, I think, is a person holding like a brush, like a watercolor brush. um So yeah, it looks really, really nice. I like the remaster a whole lot.
Speaker: I do like the story. Yeah. But I wonder if I watch too much true crime, because for me, this stuff you know, I think this is it is a very grim story. And I think it is meant to be that way. But I had a hard time being um like I wasn't affected by it. yeah And I kind of wish I was a little more. affected by it uh there were a few like kind of ah disturbing like dialogues and like disturbing things that are the main character that we're playing that that he says but i i think i want something more from this and i don't know what that is think i'm not sure how i would rewrite it but i think i need something a little more impactful
Speaker: I think I was expecting something a little more from this game too. yeah um So the the the general general story, and I'll try not to spoil anything from the top, but it's it's hard because it is four days in the life of this guy, and the the big twist Happens at the end of day one.
Speaker: And the rest of the story. Is kind of. um there is There is no twist. it is From there on. It's a slice of life. um It is just.
Speaker: From that point forward. it is a, about the character of this man and his relationship to the people in the town. And, um, there's a little bit of a love story, I guess, I guess that is happening. Um, so, so the resolution to that is something that I guess we could spoil. Um, and what happens to him is something we could spoil, but, uh,
Speaker: Ultimately, and there is a twist in one of the the very secret endings, um but it's going to be hard not to at least spoil that first day. So ah the rest of this, is there anything else before we talk about the end of day one that you want to talk about? No, I don't think so. Because I barely think of this as a spoiler. It was shocking. Sure. Sure.
Speaker: to see at the end of this at the end of the first day. but um
Speaker: But again, it's ah you're less than a quarter of the way into the game. so and like for me, yeah like you're saying, there's not really a twist. This is more of a a short little horror story. Yes. So it is it is okay if you connect the dots ah beforehand.
Speaker: um Reminds me a little ging of Junji Ito without the... um Without the really bizarre body horror. Right. There's not, I would say there's maybe no body horror in this, except for the implication. Yeah, there's some implied yeah body horror. So, okay. ah This town, the things that it's haunted by are a fire that happened when you were a child that claimed the lives of a family. Yeah.
Speaker: And in the, well, we'll talk about that in a minute. And then the recent kidnapping of a little girl. isn And you are kind of like this antisocial guy. You ah inherited this doll shop from your dad. And most of the time you, so you spend most of the time repairing dolls and spending time with your dolls. And,
Speaker: and Don't really, like, you don't really have relationships with the people in the town. And the game illustrates this very visually by everybody in the town is a silhouette with glowing white eyes.
Speaker: Yes. Except for on day two, I'm skipping over the spoiler at the end of day one. On day two, you do meet a girl who is fully drawn like you.
Speaker: Yes. And you find out she is an old friend that you had when you were a little kid in this town. And she's returned to visit her grandmother. And you have a little love story between the two of you.
Speaker: Yeah. you both have a little crushes on each other and she you're you want her to stay in town and she is actually kind of considering it because she's a little smitten with you um but she lives in the big city and she doesn't know if she wants to go back to this little weird town where things are kind of weird right like weird for sure um do you want to tell them the spoiler at the end of day one You can go ahead You're on a tear.
Speaker: and Okay. Okay. So at the end of day one, after you repair a doll for somebody and you take it to them and then um you eat some... Eat some... ah Ramen. Ramen. Man, I could go for some ramen. Yeah, they... Sounds good. They do delicious looking ramen in this game. What the heck? Why is video game food so delicious looking? know. Sorry, do go on. Okay.
Speaker: So at the end of day one, you go home, you go into the back room of your house where you keep your pinned butterfly collection. got some He's a taxidermist as well, but but specifically with butterflies. I think maybe only butterflies.
Speaker: And you start talking to a little girl who looks identical to the missing girl. she... she doesn't move she doesn't talk and she's dressed up like a doll yeah and i thought for a brief moment i wasn't sure if the game was making me connect that that is the little the kidnapped little girl or if this was a doll that like he infused with something it's not and it's not as complicated as that guys but it's yeah i thought it was just a doll
Speaker: I kept thinking something paranormal was going to happen here. Right. I kept thinking because he yeah he hears he has these headaches and he hears voices from the little girl. Yeah. And she tells him to do things he doesn't want to do. Like the more evil things that he can do in this game.
Speaker: She tells him to do. Yeah. It's very much like um almost like a psycho situation, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um But no, he is, as it turns out, he's the kidnapper, right? um And a psychopath. And a psychopath. And that's, I mean, that's why he can't relate to any of these people. Yeah. And even the woman ah that is in town,
Speaker: that he's seeming to connect to. He can't relate to her either because ultimately, um, what he wants from her is to kidnap her and put her, I guess, kill her and put her corpse in his back room also.
Speaker: Right. As if it were a doll, as if he were making like a doll family, right? Yes. yeah Yes. Um, And through your choices in this game, you make choices. And ah those choices affect your relationships with the town and your relationships with the woman. And those affect the ending of the game. So there's four, I think, four endings to this game.
Speaker: i Yes, I think there are four um And the one is just... ya You... fail to impress the woman and you don't do anything particularly suspicious in town.
Speaker: And so you just continue about your life. Right. With this secret. With this secret. Yeah. Yeah. The next ending is you do shady shit in the town At one point, the little girl asks you to hide the bracelet in somebody's house to, ah which again, is in your head, um to ah frame somebody else for the murder and or to the kidnapping.
Speaker: this says And if you do that, They search your house, you barricade yourself in the locked room, and you burn in that you burn your shop down with the corpse of the little girl and yourself inside.
Speaker: um If you manage to get everybody in the town to trust you,
Speaker: they search your shop, and you don't hide the bracelet.
Speaker: They search your shop, they don't find anything. And I don't know. i I never had... I didn't try the scenario where impress that you regain the trust of the town. You retain the trust of the town, but you don't impress the woman.
Speaker: Right. So I don't know if that's possible, to be honest. I did i did get gain the trust of the woman. Right. Um, which was not great, because that leads to a very sad ending or disturbing ending, unfortunately.
Speaker: But did you get the trust of the town? No, I don't think so. I don't think I did. But then if you didn't burn down the shop, you got the trust of the town. I didn't know I didn't burn down the shop.
Speaker: Okay, then the town did trust you or at least didn't have any reason to suspect you. Wow, even in video games, I'm not scary. no um So, yeah, do you want to tell them that ending?
Speaker: Yeah, the ending i got was um you somehow convince this woman who is who I think at the end. She decides just the town is too weird. There's nothing there for her. And she wants to go back to the big city. But I convinced her to come back to my shop.
Speaker: Oh, also, i want to I want to talk about that very harrowing dialogue text that was like... He was explaining to her how he taxidermies the butterflies. And he explains the process of like, he actually gets them alive.
Speaker: yeah He orders the, and you do not have to do that. By the way, guys, there's very ethical ways of doing taxidermy. But he buys them alive and like lets them flutter around and just kind of die or kills them prematurely. it's hard to tell. Yeah. it It is a little hard to tell, but regardless of that, he, I forgot exactly what the, ah like what the text was, but it was very disturbing. It was a very disturbing thing of like, i get to, like, I get to spend a little bit of time with them and then I get to preserve them. I get to preserve the memories that we had together. Yeah. Yeah. what It's a bug, man. What memories are you having with the bug? yeah And of course that you know ties back into him wanting to kind of recruit, ah you know spend a little bit of time, you know find people alive, right? Spend a little bit of time with them and then preserve them for all time by killing them and keeping them in your shop with your weird butterflies. Which how he feels about dolls too, I think. Correct. Yes. Correct. Yeah.
Speaker: um So ah the ending I got, you actually end up killing the woman. Yeah. ah And then she joins your, quote, family um with a little girl. It's it's yeah. Again, it's ah it's about a psychopath. It's it's a it's a good portrayal, I think, of this character because he.
Speaker: is very charming to this woman, which is kind of true to real life. um And yeah, that, that, that was the the terrible ending I got, but it's not terrible. It's just, it's, it's a horror vignette. So I didn't look at it necessarily a, as a bad ending. I just assume there is no real good ending here because part of the premise is a little girl has been kidnapped and, and killed. ah So there really is no good ending. There is no good ending. Yeah, there's no good ending. ah Did you find any other endings? The closest you get to a good ending is ah
Speaker: he is is that the girl escapes, right? Right. um Is that she's like, you know what? I think this town is weird. I'm going to go home. i Right. And then the the the I mean, this is the older the woman. Sorry, not the girl. The little girl is dead. Yeah.
Speaker: ah Yeah, so then you can, if you play this game, there's ah there's a bunch of optional goals. um You can collect all the posters around town. You can find a specific flower at one point.
Speaker: ah You can get paid for a job. Early on, you do a job and from a woman who's like, hey, we should fuck and get married. and you're like, oh, yeah.
Speaker: And you're like, no. and you can avoid her for the rest of the game or sneak away from her. And then she will threaten. If you if you if you do that, she threatens to out you to the police. She seems to know what you're Oh, she knows your secret. Yeah. um But...
Speaker: Or at least suspects it. And she's like, I can protect you if yeah you marry me. um ah And you can fuck her in the game. And ah it sucks. He feels, he walks away feeling incredibly violated. And um the woman that you're pursuing finds out. And, you know, it's it's just...
Speaker: Not that we care, by the way, about this guy feeling any i mean sort of way. He's still a psychopath. I mean, I think less suffering in the world is always better than more suffering. So I don't i don't want him to be traumatized.
Speaker: I don't want him to ah exist. He's a child abductor and murderer, but and he's planning another murder. ah But...
Speaker: So you can get all these special scenes, these secret scenes, right? um And they're all interesting. They're all just like little bits of extra lore in the town. um And they reveal little quirks of the story that maybe were unexplained.
Speaker: um Like at one point, the You hear that the the woman that you are pursuing, she received a note that made her cry. You find out what that note is. Right. um Things like that.
Speaker: ah You find out people's reactions to you taking down on the posters in the town. Yeah. All all this stuff. Right. So.
Speaker: One of the... So after you unlock all these scenes and all the endings, you get ah different you get a a a final ending, which is... um And you also have to... One of those things you have to watch is the ah abduction of the little girl, which is really rough. Oh, I didn't get i didn't see that. Yeah.
Speaker: Nor do I want to, i think. Yeah, I bet that is really rough. ah you You get basically the fifth day.
Speaker: Where you're walking around the town and the town's even more empty for some reason. And you keep finding wanted posters of yourself everywhere.
Speaker: It appears as if you're hallucinating. um Because you can go back to the shop and And if you go and then you go to the back room and suddenly you're a little kid again and you're a little kid introducing a little girl from your school to your butterfly collection and your dad's dolls.
Speaker: And then your dad gets home and he's like, you know nobody's supposed to be in this room. This is the final spoiler of the game, by the way. So, you know, if everything that you've seen so far, heard so far, is making you want to play the game and unlock all the bonus stuff, then skip to the next, skip to the Tenavish Somnia section. We'll have a timestamp in the show notes. um But your father comes home and he's like, you know you're not supposed to have people in this back room.
Speaker: And you are like, please, father, don't do this. And he's like, get out. And you you also tell the little girl your schoolmate to hide.
Speaker: and he tells you to get out. And then your father's in this back red room with the little girl. And he's like, I know you're there. Come out. And then he asks, so do you take good care of your dolls? Yeah.
Speaker: And then it cuts to hours later where you are sitting outside of the room freaking out. And then your father comes out. And the little girl is
Speaker: dead in that same way. Done up like a doll. And he hands you a gasoline can. And he's like, we're going to take care of this. m and So now you know.
Speaker: It is implied you are like this because your father was the person who not only murdered the little girl years and years ago, but burnt the house down.
Speaker: The thing that that so when okay backing up a little bit when you're on a date with the woman. She says. You know, when they found this house burnt down, they found secrets inside that the family had done horrible things, um meaning they had killed their own daughter and then burned the house down to cover it up. Well, apparently, no, it was your dad who killed the little girl, brought her back home and then burnt the house down.
Speaker: Got it. With the rest of the family inside. Got it. So it just gets more horrifying. um Yeah, it just gets super horror. Now, you might be asking yourself, if if you're listening to this, what what is there to like about this game?
Speaker: um And I think there's a couple things. First of all, it's very well written. um It's very...
Speaker: it manages to make itself compelling and the characters, the characters compelling and you kind of want to see what becomes of them as you're playing through. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: They all feel very real, like fully realized. And it really is like a nice little, just like movie, like a horror movie, or I guess maybe even, Maybe closer to a thriller. ah They hold hands, obviously, but yeah it is it is just a... I don't want to say cozy, because like yeah it's not cozy, but but you can sit down with it in an evening and enjoy just a little a little horror story, you know?
Speaker: yes it is... It is... it is That juxtaposition of really relaxing and serene and cozy because you're you're spending most of the time just walking around this beautiful setting with this beautiful art. And it's very quiet. Like this is a more like subdued a storytelling, right? Yes. Like I said, it's going to be completely the opposite of, you know, Tenebrous Somnia. This has a very like low key aspect to it, even though it's horror, you know, it's still...
Speaker: It's like calm horror, you know? Yes. And it really leans into like the relaxing nature of it. There there are several scenes where you can let you can take a bath in the bathhouse. You can go look out over two different vistas at different points. And it just pans across these scenes and plays nice music. Yeah.
Speaker: Another
Speaker: interesting part of this game is restoring the dolls. It's actually kind of fun. Yeah. I wish that we had gotten... That part cozy. I wish we had gotten more of that.
Speaker: Yeah. um My biggest... criticism of this game is that trying to unlock all these endings is horribly repetitive and yeah yeah you have to just watch the same scenes and same lines of dialogue over and over again and you can't skip them and you can't change the walking speed unless do you know what i did what so I used the steam cheat engine to speed up the game oh lord okay okay
Speaker: So, and then I would slow it down when I saw a scene that was new. So there was, when I was playing it the very first time, my first run through, there was some glitch and the game started moving at about double speed.
Speaker: hu Okay. I don't know why. was very strange. And I... so i closed the game and reopened it. And I was like, no, I want to play this game at the at the pace that they intended. yeah and then when I was playing it the second time, I was like, man, how do I make that glitch happen again? And then I realized, oh, I have Steam cheat engine from, ah I don't know, playing some game with cheat with a cheat, like changing my stats in a game a long time ago. And i was like, oh
Speaker: what if I just use Steam's cheat engine to just make the game run at 10 times speed? And then I was just running all around the town super fast. That's amazing. Nice job.
Speaker: Yeah. That's honestly why like i like, again, i liked this game, but because I didn't love it, I didn't really seek out the other the other endings like you did. And I didn't think to speed up my game.
Speaker: um But yeah maybe, maybe in the future, I'll i'll give it a replay. Yeah, I think what would be better than what I did is
Speaker: play this game ah over the course of a couple weeks and play it play it in one sitting each time and try to get a different ending each time.
Speaker: Yeah. Like set aside an hour. It's about an hour long game, maybe a tiny little bit longer than an hour. Set aside an hour, one night a week. For all of a month, right?
Speaker: And play this game. Or, you know, set aside one night one night a day for a week and play this game and see if you can get all the endings. I think that would be the better way to play it. Sure. With some space in between playthroughs. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. Once I get some space from it, I'll seek out the other endings. Yeah. Yeah. So what else do you want to say about the doll shop?
Speaker: I don't know if I have much more to say. Like I said, I i i like this game. I didn't love this game. But I do enjoy it. I enjoy it the same way, i guess, what would be comparable for me is like watching an hour-long horror episode of something. um That's kind of what I equate it to I think that's really fair. i Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: i think I think I'm the same. I think I liked but not loved it. um I think I liked it more than you. i I think it sounds like you did yeah. um But... Yeah, it's... It's just a... I think it's a really well-told short story.
Speaker: And... um Yeah, I think it's really well... I think it's just really, really well done. And I think more than anything, I got to the end of this game. And I think what I told you is this game is fascinating.
Speaker: Yeah. um And I still stand by that. I think this is an incredibly interesting game. it ist It is interesting. And it's a bit unique, honestly, in terms of, again, this kind of like calm horror, you know? Right. Because I think when we think about horror in video games...
Speaker: Obviously we think about maybe the HP Lovecraft to storytelling, which can be very heroine, but I think there is always some like level of action in a horror game. That's been my experience with, with like horror games. um Right.
Speaker: Even, even midnight scenes was not as calm as this game seemed to be, you know? Right. Right. And yeah. And When I told you it was fascinating, I thought there was something paranormal going on still. I really thought there was too, but yeah. I'm still slightly disappointed that there wasn't.
Speaker: but hey But it would be so cliche, though. I can kind of understand why they're not going to do like a paranormal thing. It would be very cliche. um Exceptionally cliche in kind of the ah the Japanese horror genre.
Speaker: So maybe they wanted to just stay away from that. I was just so impressed by the writing. I was like, they're doing something that I don't know yet. Right. Like they've got a secret that I can't even think of. I thought there was something like really clever happening that I wasn't even like, they were way ahead of me, but and they were ahead of me in the sense of they had a clarity of vision that I was,
Speaker: you know, maybe assuming Maybe I was trying to cheapen a little bit. so Yeah, yeah. I got you. But – Anyway, really good game. i think also the uniqueness is not helped by the fact that we played an even more unique game yeah right afterwards. That's true. Yeah. Almost immediately dove into another horror game.
Speaker: I think if this had been the only game we played this week, it might be one of those ones that after discussing it, me and you were like, actually, this game was way better than we even thought. Yeah. But, uh,
Speaker: But there's just this other game that is so deeply unique and interesting. it is very unique. Honestly, I've been waiting for a game like this.
Speaker: ah yeah I was so stoked when the trailers came came out And then I kind of lost track of it a little bit. As you do, there's a lot of media out there. I can't like be on top of every single thing all the time. But then it came back, it released, and i was excited all over again.
Speaker: And yeah, i've I've been waiting for somebody to implement live action, like live actors in a game that works.
Speaker: And there's a reason why it works and why other live acted games historically have not worked. I can't wait to get into it with you. So let's play some old ass music. Yeah.
Speaker: The older the better. Okay. And then we'll come back and we'll talk about Tenebrous Somnia.
Speaker: everyone, welcome back to Save Your Game. a am the very scary and intimidating... m Pushing up roses. With me is Matt. Hi.
Speaker: I'm... Boo! Scared you. Scared you. Spoopy. don't know how you feel, but I'm stoked about this game.
Speaker: Very, very stoked. Yes, i I loved this game. Why? Yeah. Yes. Okay. So some... The only like background I think we should give is it is by Andres Borke.
Speaker: I'm probably, again, pronouncing that wrong. And Cybot Studios, published by New Blood Interactive. It just came out this month. um It is... but Very much like Clock Tower with FMV. like the the The short pitch is it's Clock Tower with FMV cinematics. and and that And I'm fine with that being the short pitch. But I will say by the end of this game, i'm I haven't quite beaten it, but I am at the end of the game.
Speaker: it doesn't to me, it does. it no longer resembles clock tower. Having, having loved clock tower for the super Famicom, um, So I don't want to do it at disservice by just continually ah comparing it to Clocktower because I do think it's way more than that. However, when you start this game, it will feel reminiscent of Clocktower, even some of the sound effects, the the portrait of your character.
Speaker: um And it is survival horror as well. um So there are some action parts. I would say the biggest difference between that and clock towers. If you recall in clock tower, I don't think we're beating anybody up.
Speaker: I don't think there's really. There's no combat. yeah There's no combat really. It's, it's survival in the way that you're being chased by a monster and then you have to hide in something. Like you have to think quickly. You're not the character in clock tower is not particularly violent. Right. um as in And in this game, you're not hiding behind stuff. You're just kind of you're either if you want, just running past all these things that are chasing you or you can ah beat them, beat them up or shoot them if you have a gun. So a little resident evil-y there.
Speaker: Resident evil-y. That's a word. So. yeah So why don't you tell them? Why don't you give them the. ah
Speaker: ah the the the premise of this game how does this game start so once again we have an adventure game that puts you outside of the belt ah building why are we always starting outside of a fucking building so we find ourselves our name is julia that's the character we're playing and we find ourselves outside of our ex-boyfriend's apartment building and For some reason, you know, even though we've broken up, Julia has been having nightmares ah pertaining to her ex. And she becomes ah distressed and worried.
Speaker: um And for some reason, she doesn't remember why she has them, but she still has an apartment key to their to their apartment that they had shared. um before that you know before they broke up and she moved out. So that's where we start the game. We go into the apartment building and we are going to check on Ivan, our ex-boyfriend. And of course, once you get into the apartment, you realize that something is amiss. um It looks like some magic was happening in this yeah this place. And Ivan is nowhere to be found. Yeah.
Speaker: We do, however, eventually find a room that is filled with this like waxy red substance. It looked like a spell had gone wrong in, in one of his rooms. And, you know, while, while we're kind of discovering that the game is also giving us some backstory. So we learned that Julia and Ivan are both film lovers. They love film. They went to film school. Ivan wanted to be a filmmaker. They worked on a movie together called Devorah.
Speaker: Whereas he wrote and acted in it and she acted in it. um and yeah that's that's there's all kinds of things in the apartment that allude to them both being and like majorly into film and uh the film devora becomes uh quite an important part the film they worked on is a very important part of this game um so that's that's how you start the game ah it ah Would you say the pacing's pretty quickly? Like it throws you in fairly quickly into kind of a like a survival horror thing?
Speaker: oh Oh, yeah. so Yeah, I thought it moved pretty quickly. So, yeah, as you start interacting with this stuff, you kind of suddenly find yourself in this other...
Speaker: realm Right. And yeah like this, this kind of like, seems like an alternate universe almost version of the apartment that you just, of his apartment that you were just in, what used to be the apartment you guys shared. And ah you if you, when you go walk towards the door to leave,
Speaker: That's kind of your first jump scare. Yes, yes. it pops open and out of the darkness is... And this, I think, to me, this was the scariest moment of the whole game. this is Oh, there was another there was another part that got me so mad. Oh, my God. but I want to say that...
Speaker: We had talked about kind of the horror elements to this. ah If you watch the trailer, it does look scary. Like the the live acted parts, they do look very frightening. They use a lot of practical effects. But I think we can probably both agree that even though the acting is phenomenal and the effects are phenomenal, it is on the campy side. I don't think I was ever like horrified.
Speaker: And maybe that's a good thing for some of the players out there who don't who maybe don't like to be just scared all the time. um And I think that you also get you like like so many survival horror, you get used to the monsters, too. Yes. But we are shown the monsters and and the actors ah and what they look like through these live acted.
Speaker: cut scenes and what's it's what's really great about that is you don't play the video game with the live action and that's why it works the live acted scenes are cinematic they're only to to strengthen the story and the characters and the world but you're not playing in live action which um I was a little surprised by ah because most of the FMV games I've played have yeah been like that. They've been pre-rendered backgrounds, right? And your character is an actor and they're just kind of loafing around the screen and it looks terrible. Phantasmagoria comes to mind.
Speaker: But they used this to to really tell the story And also, you know what's really great, Matt? What's that? So the actress, they have an actress playing the the protagonist. When we go back into the pixel world, which is the gameplay, you're always going to be playing the game in the pixelated version.
Speaker: Now I see Julia as that person. It's really effective. Yeah, it like fills in the pixels in your mind yeah and you can see her. Yeah, so Julia's played by an actress named Clara Kovachik.
Speaker: And she's fucking fantastic. It's so good. It's so good. Everyone is so good in these live acted scenes. I would say this is an Argentine Argentinian game. It is. Yes. And ah so the way they get around the ah language barrier here for the localization is that there's no dialogue in the FMV scenes.
Speaker: there's right own a There's a couple so moments where, so there's a lot of Latin in this game. And so there's a couple moments where the person will speak Latin.
Speaker: Yeah. In the cup in the cut scene, I think maybe just like one or two. I think like even one time, honestly. Yeah. A couple moments, I would say, if I'm remembering correctly, a couple moments in one ah extended cutscene. Oh, yes. I actually watched that cutscene because I watched that ending because I knew I wasn't going to go back and do it.
Speaker: Interesting. I watched one ending that I plan on never getting for myself and it was like amazing by the way. I know which ending you're talking about and in that ending, the ending that you're talking about, they actually what they actually do speak um spanish Correct.
Speaker: Yes. and And then a little bit of English, too, because the there's a male character in there that speaks English as well. Yes. um And that and that is the campiest it it had gotten in the game was this alternate ending scene. um Man, that alternate endings. I mean.
Speaker: Damn. ah So wait which which one is that? i'm i'm talking I'm talking about the the the Catholic ending. oh that Okay. Yes. Absolutely unhinged. I think there's also, i think one of the endings that you will get, I think you're going to get two endings if I had to guess. And I think, i probably three now that I'm thinking about it. Oh, because you know that I know that there is, that i tried to get a different ending, but it won't, I guess it won't let me. You tried to get like a joke ending. i tried, yeah. It doesn't let you do that until you've gotten both of the, uh,
Speaker: the good ending and the bad ending of game. I'm glad you told me that because I, so since I already tried it, you would never have tried it again. i wouldn't have tried it again. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. So, all right.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Gosh, where ah where were we in the in the description of the the story? So I was just talking about how, or you were saying that now we are in this kind of other dimension. And from what I from what i kind of took away from it, and I think what the game explains too, is that ah You're in this apartment building. It has a few floors to it. And each floor seems to be different memories that Ivan had. We are also kind of told this story that Ivan was never over us.
Speaker: Like, it really drills it into your head. Ivan was not over us. He was obsessed with us. And that's why the apartment was all destroyed. That's why ah when you...
Speaker: but That's why he did these like weird occult rituals. It was to try and get you back. um There was also, correct me if I'm wrong. There was a, there was like a part where Ivan was like, oh, I needed a spell to like, I wanted to, this this is erasing my memories. That's what this spell was for, to erase memories. ah But now it went wrong and I need your help and and I'm in big trouble. It was very eternal sunshine to me. And I felt like that's the story Julia was given.
Speaker: And you can probably assume that that's not how... That's not the real story. That's not the truth of of what happened. So... So, all right. So, yeah, you you're making your way through all these memories. And what you're finding out is that she left him because of a bunch of... a series of incidents that made her sort of fall out of love with him. And, um he you know, he just...
Speaker: Basically, he they they worked on, they went to film school together. She wasn't all that good at screenwriting. He wasn't, he was very excellent at screenwriting. And sort him.
Speaker: sort of helped him develop his short film. um They kind of made it together. Then it premiered. Then Hollywood offered him, like an agent offered him the chance to turn this short film into a feature length throughou throughout film.
Speaker: But... Then he took a meeting and it went poorly and this broke him and he had become angry and withdrawn. Aggressive. Yeah. And shitty. And so she fell out of love with him and she left him.
Speaker: um And she was she was all there was also a few points where she's like, ah he never really had time for me. His world was, you know, was film, essentially. And I feel like I didn't have, ah you know, a place in that world with him. You know what? to You know how you were asking me early on, like what was tipping me off to something's wrong here?
Speaker: It's a very specific thing that Julia Julia said that you had kind of reiterated. hmm. There was a moment where she's like looking at something in his apartment. Maybe it's trophies or maybe it was maybe it was the film she was rewatching. But she said like, ah I was never really good at this. And that pinged something in my brain.
Speaker: That this yeah could like very slight implication that she's being down on herself for the sake of this guy And I hope that's a toxic relationship. i hoped when I said that that pinged something in the listener's brain, too. Yeah. yeah well We will come back around to that.
Speaker: Yeah. But yeah, she's kind of being down on herself. a bit And it's you'll notice you'll start to notice with Julia that she's acting kind of strange. Like, clearly, they you know her and Ivan broke up.
Speaker: But she is, quote, missing him. She's starting to miss him as yeah she's going. Because as she's seeing all these memories, um i actually thought this was kind of understandable. As she's seeing all the memories that they had together, she's like, she She kind of starts by going like, you know, look, I know why we broke up, but it is sad and I am sad about it. And then it started to turn into, you know, I i miss him and man, i you know, i almost like she doesn't not quite to the point of saying this, but almost implying that.
Speaker: Like, I wish this could have gone better. i wish this could have turned out differently. and even yeah Even the name of kind of the the world that we are now in is called Desiderium, which literally means like a longing, a grief for something you no longer have. I thought that was really... um really ah relevant. And we're missing. She's feeling that, right? She's feeling this very human feeling of kind of ah grief, maybe some, maybe some missing and and yearning.
Speaker: And by focusing on her, I think actually we're missing a big part of what what, a big part of the story, which is that she finds out pretty quickly that he has sort of been, he was he was sort of duped by these so spirit these occult beings or whatever. Right. um They were like, hey, we can help you get over her.
Speaker: And... He actually got sucked into this whole Dissiderium. and one of the And these monsters, they use human flesh to make themselves real. And their ultimate goal is immortality. There's a lot of alchemy references. We'll get into like the lore in a little while. um but So you decide to continue through this whole...
Speaker: horrific world and fight these monsters and whatever, because you're like, look, for whatever I feel about this guy, whatever, you know, whatever went wrong between me and him, know,
Speaker: he doesn't deserve to be taken by monsters, tortured and have his flesh ripped off ah to make more monsters and then killed. So right if I can save him, I will save him. um right Where i there's a point where I realized that something was wrong with her, that she might not,
Speaker: be all the all there. um And that's that's towards the end of this this story where You know, at some point, I'm jumping ahead. So maybe maybe we'll get to that when we get to it. But at some point, she offers to sacrifice herself for him. And that's when I started to be like, wait, why?
Speaker: Yeah. Like, I get trying to save your ex. But when it comes down to one of you has to die, you or your ex? I mean... it maybe maybe if you're a good enough person you would choose you but probably not after you just went through all this horrifying terrifying harrowing stuff you'd probably just be like I don't know i just want to go home I just want to get home and I want to like right like like I want none of this I don't know what he's gotten himself into but I want none of that you know and like maybe you'd regret it right maybe you'd be like oh man I was selfish and I got a person killed
Speaker: Yeah. But in the moment, I think 90% of us would be like, I don't look, I just want to go home. i just want to get home right now. Yeah. Um, but so, uh, so yeah, before we move on, I want to say, since we said all that, the, the mechanic of this game, the goal of this game is kind of like regaining our memories because they seem to have been altered in, in this world. Um,
Speaker: do Do we want to give kind – do we want to give a major spoiler? um i think not. Let's talk about the lore, and then we'll go into a spoiler section, and then we'll talk about – the only spoiler I'll give is this game. And I gave – I told this to you because I think it is important when you think a game is ending – and it turns out you're only halfway through, it can be really exhausting, and you can sure it can make you want to give up on a game. But I never got that. I'm curious as to where where did you think the game was going to end? And maybe because you told me that, I, like, subconsciously, I just, you know. ah Where did you think it was going to end? There's a very contained world. Like you said, there's three floors, and all of them seem to have, like, one large ah
Speaker: thing that you need to solve like are they're not not what all of them there's a series of doors that need to be opened and it's like a cascading series of not but not puzzle puzzles but not puzzles like you don't need to figure anything out but puzzles in the sense that you these puzzles though can i just say i liked this design they're pretty much They're pretty much fetch quests, which is when where when you find what you you know exactly what you need, usually.
Speaker: And when you find the thing that you need, you know you know you have it. And then you just got to go back. In that way, it kind of is very Clocktower-esque, right? Because you are doing fetch quests, you do have an inventory, um and you are unlocking doors in kind of this large building. So in that way, i do think it is very that that mechanic is very Clocktower. So it can lead you to believe that after you solve these floors and after you get all the doors open and after you see what's behind all of them, the game is going to be over. your and And when you do that, you have a boss fight that has been brewing for a while.
Speaker: And that is bigger than any of the previous boss fights you've had.
Speaker: That is not the end of the game. That is the halfway point. Okay. i so't I don't know if what you said influenced me or not, but I didn't... i i don't I don't know. I never got the sense that the game was over because there was no closure on the story yeah Well, you... ah Man, all right. that It'll take spoilers to talk about that. So, sure um also let's talk about the... Also, the name Devorah.
Speaker: Do you know what that means? ah Devotion? It does not. It's actually Hebrew for B. So B-E-E is in a bug, ah which I just thought was kind of cool because Devorah is a character in Mortal Kombat. She is a bug lady. I also wonder if it's a play on the word devour.
Speaker: What do you think? Oh, yeah, probably. Probably devour. i was thinking devotion, but probably devour. um So here's here's what we'll do. We'll talk about the lore.
Speaker: And our general, how we feel about the game, and then we will jump into a spoiler section. Sounds good. So, yeah, this game is really tied to the concepts of alchemy. um A lot of it is about um using certain stones with certain symbols on them to um open open doors. or They look like runes, almost, like symbols on the the doors and stuff.
Speaker: or concocting, um you know, potions. Or like spells. a few things have like spell on them. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, to to make progress.
Speaker: um And all of that is centered. And at one point you have to craft kind of a weapon. And all of that is centered around these alchemical, ancient alchemical concepts. um Do you want to talk about like the the the the premise of the monsters and the the villains here you know i fucking don't know what's going on okay okay so we are in um how do i refer to this world the world of of desiderium it's let's say it's a it's an alternate world that is reminiscent of the world that you are living in except that there are these beings in this world called reluctant reluctant reluctant
Speaker: And there are ah some variations of these kind of red ah shadowy things. And also there are monsters as well who are actively trying to kill you, which is part of the, you know, that that's the survival horror mechanic there.
Speaker: So... It's going to be hard for me to say more without spoiling something. I don't quite spoil it yet. I think explain it as if you didn't play the second half. Yeah. Yeah. Prior to the second half, these were just beings in this world that decided to...
Speaker: engage in an alchemy to be like in this world. um And it it seems like the Relicta have, including Julia and Ivan, have different reasons for maybe wanting to join this weird cult, you know? It's a quest for immortality, basically. That's it? it It's yeah just being a more... Well, that's not worth it. but i I took away something different from it.
Speaker: Immortality is sort of the...
Speaker: it's It's sort of the ultimate goal of alchemy, right? Sure. But I think the Relicta... In addition, it's the oldest story we have is about a person seeking immortality, right? Sure. Yeah. But ah but for like maybe even more specifically, what I took from it was the Relicta, they are simply parts of who you are, right?
Speaker: And, but and and yeah okay, how do I explain this? so i think that's like, because I think that's like, that's like the um these this that's a sacrifice. I mean, that' I'm saying this two episodes in a row, but it's it's literally the Faustian bargain, right? You are sacrificing something of yourself right to ah to to to seek out immortality. Right.
Speaker: ah But Ivan has a very ah very intense motive. So, for yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, again, in this first half, like, Ivan is trying to... Ivan is trying to forget you, and he has been sort of duped by these these greater relicta.
Speaker: they're They're using him, and they're tearing apart his body to... um to to to to
Speaker: ah well yeah seek to like sustain to sustain their yeah immortal forms right yes and ah and so yeah and the are The lower relicta are a little bit more mindless, and they are just seeking flesh. And so they see you, and they see a a real person in their world, and they just charge you. They just charge at you. yeah that's like That's like why. And the monsters are wild. There's a woman with ah two faces connected with a mouth, like an upside-down face and yeah yeah and ah and a right-side-up face. And she is...
Speaker: terrifying then there's just kind of like a real rotund man who's covered in puke and he pukes on you and he's got it knows offended he barfed on me yeah and the barf hurts you and then when you see if you hit him enough he ah he's like like it explodes he like explodes a little bit and that'll hurt you and if he and when you kill him he also explodes and that hurts you got some real bloating flatulence problems. Yeah, this guy's got – yeah, this guy, hey, this monster, he's got frigging problems. Specifically this monster has some problems. We need to rid him. Somebody should sit this guy down and talk to him.
Speaker: And there's also Candlehead, who's a personal favorite. God. So he's one of the greater relicta. So the greater relicta are your boss fights. And there is – yeah, tell them about Candlehead.
Speaker: Oh, the boss fights. Yes. Candlehead we find in in in this world, in what looks to be, you know, our old apartment. um he Why does he... Why did we get into a fight? I don't quite... Oh, I i kind of... Same reason. is that he's should Well, we find out at the end why. Right, like right. But the way you understand it at this point is because they're trying to stop you from saving Ivan.
Speaker: Ivan. Right. So, you yes, you do get into a boss fight with, I think that's the first boss fight, is Candlehead. He has a name. i am calling him Candlehead. Yeah, it's better. but Candlehead's better name.
Speaker: And I did – I've got to say I did like this first boss fight. I like how it concluded. it concluded with a ah really cool live acted cut scene. Yeah. Let's talk about this boss fight. This boss fight rules. it This boss fight is ah you –
Speaker: ah this boss fight is he is only You were only able to attack him in the dark. He's only what is yes he's only visible in the dark. yeah And what is cool about that is you have to what in a brilliant thing for a horror game to do you have to make it ah darker i know could try to survive out loud too as as i was being yeah told how to by another character we mean he was kind of telling me what to do about candlehead he's like you got to be in complete darkness and out loud i was playing it with someone else i'm like of course it is they're They're just making it scarier. They're making you do horror things in the dark, knowing that that's very frightening. So smart, right? Like the way the way to survive is to make things scarier. That's yeah so cool. And yeah so he lights candles.
Speaker: You got to blow these candles out. Right. And then you can attack him. Yeah. I had such a fun time with that initial boss fight. Yeah. I think that's when I texted him like, hey, this is fun. Yeah. Honestly, like the actiony, some of, it let me just say this, some of the actiony parts are ah legitimately very fun. Yeah.
Speaker: And then the other boss fights are just so, this game, guys, is hard. It's hard. Yep. It is hard. um and I was getting a little impatient. i don't I don't want you guys, I don't want people to be like, oh, skill issue. I beat this game fully.
Speaker: I got all the endings. And then I got the achievement where I beat the game with the wrench, which is the first wrench which is the first weapon that you get. It's the weakest weapon in the game. So yeah I feel absolutely entitled.
Speaker: As a person who legitimately mastered this game, i can say, this game's fucking hard. This a hard game. It's hard. i You know what? I like using the wrench because it's the quickest. It's it's really yeah fast. So there are a few bosses that I opted to use the wrench for. um But yeah, some of these boss fights are really hard. ah You got them more than I did because I have a little bit of a click-happy problem.
Speaker: ah i don't know why I don't know why I do this, but if I get overwhelmed, I just start clicking wildly and you cannot do that. like you got to have patience You have to have patience. You have to look for um you know patterns and what the boss fight is doing. But it is hard. It's still hard. Even if you get the pattern, I was still dying. Also, this kind of ties into my biggest struggle with the game were the controls. And I know you played on a Steam Deck. I played keyboard and mouse.
Speaker: I had to tape down my shift key. Because I couldn't use the WASD for directional and put my pink pinky on the shift to run. It was too painful for my hand. And also using the mouse for the action. So when you use mouse keyboard, the mouse is swinging your wrench or ah or using your gun and then WASD to walk and then shift to run. And I was fucking up. So did I tape down my shift key? Yes, I did. That helped a ton. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I played on the Steam Deck. the it was The controls were really... And later I played on my computer with a controller. And the controls were really intuitive and I liked them a lot. it just It was hurting my hand and I was just fucking up. But as long as she was already running, it was fine. And I was just like, they should have just made her always run. There's never there's never a reason for us to be just walking at a snail's pace. Well, I guess if you, yeah, maybe if you if you're always running, then you might accidentally run into something, right? I guess, but like, I just don't feel that way. I feel like in Clocktower, that's also part of it. You can run or you can walk very slowly, but walking slowly helps you regain um
Speaker: like your stress levels. Whereas in this game, walking doesn't really do anything. So I, yeah. So I kind of wish that you were just, that was normal that you were just always running. running Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. I, yeah, this game, the puzzles, I think pretty easy knowing where you have to go next. Usually except for maybe like one or once or twice.
Speaker: it I found very easy. um The combat, the boss fights, I found very difficult. Yeah, very difficult. And especially there's some where you have to face face just like a bunch of really easy monsters that are just charging you nonstop. yeah And those monsters, they're so relentless that it's it it's rough. and i did get an achievement for the first...
Speaker: For the first part of those monsters, I didn't get touched like at all. hit yeah yeah I was like, oh, go me. And then there there's another section where you have to protect something from those monsters. And that damns so hard incredibly hard. It starts out like, okay, I can do this. And then you have to do it a few times. And by the end, these monsters are just...
Speaker: Yeah, they're tough. They're very tough. I would even i would even say that that might be... i might even call that slightly poor design. It's so difficult. yeah Yeah, and like I said, I was also struggling with the keyboard mouse.
Speaker: um That, I think, made it harder. I'll have to plug in a controller to see yeah maybe I do better with the controller, but it was pretty tough on the keyboard mouse combo. Yeah.
Speaker: So, I think... let's So, how did you...
Speaker: So anyway, both of us loved this game. I think it's pretty clear to say we are really into this game. yeah We highly recommend it. um If it seems intriguing to you at all, go play it. It it is worth your time. um All that said, I think it is probably time to get into spoilers. What do you think? Yeah, I think I have to because a lot of the things I want to talk about, like some of the other Relictus stuff, I'm like, no, we can't say that quite yet.
Speaker: um So um we will have a timestamp in the show notes um and you can just hop to that if you want to just skip to the end of the podcast or we can just say goodbye to you now. um Thanks for listening. um And we'll see you at the after so after spooky month in November. um Make sure to come to our Save Your Game Live in- Yeah, come visit us. yeah Tell me how scary I am. um at the At Adventure X. So now we're we're going to be in spoiler territory now. why don't you tell us about after you fight the woman who has seduced- I'll set it up. After you fight the woman who has seduced Ivan-
Speaker: um and defeat her. And you're working with a relicta at that point. A guy who's like, who's like i am sick of the relicta. I think what they're doing is immoral. He's kind of guiding us in in a way. yeah I'm on your side and I will help you defeat them. And e he you know, he you and he together defeat Vitria. Yeah.
Speaker: And who they call a witch, by the way, again, kind of going back to that alchemy. Yes. They do refer to her very directly as a witch. Yes. um So you defeat Vitria.
Speaker: Really hard fight. Really cool fight. There's a point where you're fighting her in a mirror. Yes. And everything's reversed. Fucking really, really smart. um And then.
Speaker: What happens? Well, my intuition as a woman was right. Ivan's a piece of shit. ah Basically, what really happened is we were tricked into going to his apartment because he is obsessed with us. That is true. And he... won Go ahead.
Speaker: Sorry, i was just gonna say, even before that, what happens directly? directly? Yeah, like, how was he tricking us? not Not like the mechanism by which he did it, but what was like... like Ivan wasn't in danger. That's what I mean to say. Yes, Ivan was never, never in danger. Never That was all set up. That was all set up by him and Vitria. ah He met Vitria at a bar. He probably drunkenly started talking about Julia.
Speaker: um She needs human flesh to join this kind of this other world. So they devised a plan yeah to get you to go to his apartment and they kind of trap you.
Speaker: in this world via a spell, you know, via alchemy, via alchemedia these spells. um Yeah, because Ivan, i guess, wants you back.
Speaker: Yeah, he wants you back at all costs. He's obsessed. Yeah, he's crazy. He wants you back at all costs, including at the cost of your real self. Right. um He is willing to take a part of you out of you and live with that forever. Yes, the part, the human, I found this very real and very human, but the human part of Julia that still cared for Ivan, he wanted to extract that. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: and then And just live with her as relictus forever. Which is like, what the fuck is wrong with you, bro? Yeah. And and yeah, they do a really good job...
Speaker: portraying Ivan as just this kind of horrific character honestly I just want to briefly tell everyone what their movie was about ah the movie Devorah that they had worked on ah in this film this is her boyfriend at the time by the way it's kind of a zombie film it's a horror zombie film that they made The zombie part is the is a reveal at the end yeah of the movie. Yeah.
Speaker: But they literally... um He made his girlfriend, Julia, us, sit ah put her head through a table so she looked decapitated, so it looks like only her head is there. And there's this scene where these characters have clearly eaten her, have clearly eaten her body.
Speaker: And I'm like, what in the whole grain red flag is this? Like, there's no way... That I would ever do that for significant other. That feels insane. And so what's really great, I think, about this storytelling is where as we're in this world, we are desperately desperately trying to get our memories back, right? And we slowly do get our memories back and we realize why we're not exactly with Ivan anymore. And, you know, you know He was manipulative even before this. Yes, he was manipulative before. was abusive. He threatened to kill himself if you left him. And this was after he got rejected. if youre in a
Speaker: If you're in a relationship where somebody threatens to kill themselves, if you leave them, leave them that moment, that minute, yeah that day, that second. Yes, that that was very disturbing. Again, the way he the way they shot them filming her um and the conditions that she was kind of filming it. And and again, just even the and just even the premise of like eating your girlfriend.
Speaker: Well, so the the the the here's what the movie was about. they're they're sitting to They're sitting down to a fancy meal with a bunch of people. And then when the food gets to gets dropped off at the table, all the fancy people start digging into the meal. Devouring it. Absolutely crazily. And then ah you and then And then the girl runs away and the guy chases her.
Speaker: And it's like, ah i can but regardless, I don't remember the details of how it gets from here to there. But ultimately, um it ends in her killing herself, him sitting back down at the table and then devouring the meat. And then it cuts to the real world.
Speaker: This was all in black and white. Now it cuts to the color world. um and he... realizes he has been bit by a zombie. And this entire thing was the way that the hunger for human flesh in the zombie world had in his zombie brain had manifested. um Like this is the zombie hallucination he was having that was going to cause him to eat human flesh. And he tries to kill himself, can't.
Speaker: And then of course, then he turns into a cannibal. um Really interesting. I think interesting horror premise, a really very interesting way to do a zombie movie, right? Like, barr and really leans into the metaphor of it all. um But very disturbing to, to cast your girlfriend who doesn't yeah to cast yourself and your girlfriend and your girlfriend who specifically told you, I don't want to do this. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker: Which i think is the bigger thing. Like if she was passionate about it too, um, Yeah, of course, right? Like, sometimes you do uncomfortable shit for your art. Yeah. Perfectly normal. Perfectly fine. um But that she said that he said, you should do this part, and she said, i don't want to, and he made her, is...
Speaker: Which we know before we know he's evil, right? ah yeah We know that. right And and she's like i am she's like laughing about it, kind of. And she's like she's like, you know, it's still awkward to see myself on scene. But, you know, he was right. It turned out really well. So I guess I i guess i did a good job. um yeah And, you know, you're a little uncomfortable there. But she is trying to set you the best.
Speaker: player at ease about it. oh Like, yeah, oh and I didn't want to do it, but yeah. like But you you realize she's she like there' the attempt the intent there was to set you at ease, right? Yeah. um But yeah, then later, as she's her real memories are coming out, she's remembering that like yeah she this was a horrible experience, and he spent the whole... like you see...
Speaker: the the The behind the scenes footage. Behind the scenes, which he was like, no one was there filming this. How did they get this? um You see it and he's been ignoring her during the whole shoot. He's making making her film for like five hours and blaming her ability to not sit still. And I...
Speaker: And she's being like attacked by flies? Yeah, she's being like... Because they used... you know In some horror, you can use real like animal parts, and they did. i used real intestines. Pig intestines or something. So she was being swarmed with flies and...
Speaker: And they're just showing her in these behind the scenes just looking absolutely deflated. And there's also a memory that was blocked that we unblock later, which describes ah this wasn't even his idea.
Speaker: He stole this idea from a friend named Andre. and they got into a big fight and never spoke again. Yeah. And her. She helped. He put down her screenwriting abilities. yeah She helped him write this fucking short film.
Speaker: Yeah. And then didn't credit anybody. um So he was always kind of a a crap, a toxic person, let's say. Yes. But then after he got rejected, he became aggressive. And that's where this game, I think, gets really, it gets dark, but also...
Speaker: clear It becomes like clear kind of who Julia is and what we're doing here. Yeah. ah Yeah. And who Ivan really is and why Ivan would be the sort of person who would consider who would who would be so angry when somebody leaves him that he and then consider himself entitled to yeah her soul. It's the same as he's he's a person who considers her himself entitled to her body at one point. Yes. Yes.
Speaker: there's a there's a very eerie memory that she keeps being uncomfortable with and she describes it as the night that she decides to leave him because she doesn't love him anymore right um and he doesn't know and she thinks of it as sad like oh it's sad we were on this vacation together and he didn't know I wanted to leave him so that's why this night makes me sad is because he is because i was keeping a secret he didn't know and I said yeah um But later in the real memory, we find out
Speaker: she was more forceful with him about the fact that she didn't want to be there and she wasn't into him anymore. right And he was like, you have to come to bed. and she was like, no. And then she talks about how forceful and strong he was. Yeah, like where did he get the strength from? yeah the way that he insisted. And then it cuts to a FMV scene of her watch her seeing those red wax figures.
Speaker: Did we talk about those? Or did we talk about that off air? I mentioned the red wax in the beginning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're in this world, the Diffiderium?
Speaker: Desiderium.
Speaker: just start shaking and trembling and crying yeah um and then she becomes filled with resolve Interestingly, that's also the moment where you develop the weapon that allows you to defeat the relicta.
Speaker: Right. um But when it's exposed to the moonlight that's in the room, really, really powerful stuff. Yeah, yeah. um Really, and one of the most emotionally powerful scenes in the whole game as it as it reveals her um ah like her biggest, um her her sort of weakest point in her life, she gains the strongest weapon she's ever had in her life. It's it's almost like confronting the worst thing in her past allows her to gain the strength to overcome her trauma and her future. But...
Speaker: This game is not what it seems, is it? No. I think that's kind of what i I was so enthralled with is that, and that's why I kind of get away from, yeah, it looks like Clocktower. There's a little bit of Clocktower to it, but by the end, and what we're talking about, these more powerful moments, it barely resembles Clocktower. It's actually like really powerful and you feel for Julia and you want kind of you want justice you know to some degree. And yeah, it's it's not what it seems. it's Even the trailers for this game, you know they they definitely show the right things, right? They show the candlehead guy, they show all these monsters the pixel art. looks cheap. But that's because that's because Julia and Ivan are obsessed with cheesy horror. yeah So that's the trappings of this game.
Speaker: and yeah And instead, this game is just a ah brilliant piece of work. And so ah even, okay, Ivan turning aggressive and getting worse when he's rejected by Hollywood is, um i think I think, a statement about...
Speaker: ah um
Speaker: Oh, fuck. About ah
Speaker: the patriarchy, right? Because Hollywood is patriarchal and these are patriarchal ideas. And I mean, if you don't realize this, folks, men are victims of the patriarchy.
Speaker: Men. Sorry, go on. Sorry. Well, that sort of attitude is part of what makes men victims of the patriarchy. I hate all men.
Speaker: You need to read some bell hooks, I think. i I'm being a brat. I know, I know, I know, I know. You're not serious and everyone knows you. Yeah, I hope everyone home knows you're not serious. Not all men or what the fuck ever, but I have but i am a big, ah staunch, angry feminist, and um I've had similar ah experiences to what what Julia had. ah And even just being like a woman existing online has shown me that men can be... yeah fucking terrible but yeah do I agree that our current ah the current behavior of men is systemic and has yeah been yeah of course of course I do yeah and it's it's systemic in that the way that like men again men are victims of it too and even the perpetrators of it are are often victims of it right like they don't they don't kind of it's hard to realize what you're doing when you're in it because you've been a victim of it your whole life and it's it's it's um
Speaker: I think this might be apocryphal, but it's lobsters in the it's lobsters lobsters in the bucket, right? um you Everybody's trying to escape, so they pull each other down. um Yeah, i think I think at least, though, that we're we're at a point where we have so much more information and like education on feminism and and systemic problems in the patriarchy that that I often do get a little impatient with men who are still not fucking listening.
Speaker: That's just me. But again, men aren't the only – so I know – again, i know you're you're you're you're making a point by being um exaggerating exaggerating, right? But men aren't the only perpetrators of patriarchy and that is a big – that's a – but – But I am more afraid of men than I am That is true. Of course. true That is the truth. I think that is, and I think that's fair. And I think this, this is, and it is a male Hollywood executive that does this to Ivan who um brings him in, like manipulates him into thinking that they're going to make this film then, and then,
Speaker: doesn't And then ah there's like an implication, right? am Am I remembering correctly? There's an implication that they are going to make a similar movie. Like they are stealing his idea in a sense. There is. Yes. There's the implication that. Yeah. And so they are doing to him what he's been doing to Julia this whole time.
Speaker: yeah And it drives him crazy to be a victim of the exact systemic. Yeah. ah ah ah crimes that he himself is perpetrating.
Speaker: He can't stand to be used in the way that he's using others. yeah Right? And instead of learning from It's cycle of right? Yes! The continuation, the cycle just keeps going. Instead of learning from it, being like, oh man, like that... that I hate to reference this, but...
Speaker: Hey, it's it's we got to admit family guy had some had a couple funny jokes. that Family guy had some fun. I'm fine with saying I'm not a big family guy fan, but do I laugh at some family guy? Yeah, I can't sit through an episode of family guy, but there are jokes that will stick in my head forever. Like the guy who the guy with the knife.
Speaker: he's like ah He's like in jail and he gets bored and he stabs himself with the knife and he's like, is that what I've been doing to people all this time? i deserve to be in here. Right? ah You know, i've Ivan got stabbed with his own knife and rather than going, oh, is that what I've been doing? yeah He instead,
Speaker: yeah ah furthers this cycle of abuse by by intensifying his abuse of Julia. Right. Right. um And considering her part of this world that's like abandoned him and treated him poorly because she left him and she had the ah audacity to make a decision about her own life and leave the fucking guy. Yeah. um And and honestly, i think we could we could be more sympathetic to that if there was not that implication of sexual assault. You know, I agree. That's pretty much not true.
Speaker: redeemable you know he's actively trying to kill her he's actively trying to kill her in this game he's actively trying to steal her soul and kill her body so they can be to together how romantic now our souls can be together in this fucking awful alternate reality you asked me a question via text is to examine whether or not this is revenge feminism yeah and i i think the reason why I would say it's probably not doesn't fit, at least doesn't fit neatly in that box. I think there is some of that, but it doesn't fit neatly in that box is number number one, because there is some sympathy for Ivan.
Speaker: There is some. Yes, that's true. um They make it very clear. He doesn't want her to suffer. They make it very clear. He's very, he's, he's having second thoughts throughout the entire game. They make it clear that, and ah ultimately,
Speaker: The second thoughts don't amount to much. He right is an evil piece of shit up till his very last moments. um In fact, I want to talk about his last moments. Can I? Yes, absolutely. Even though you haven't gotten here?
Speaker: Oh, i that's right. I haven't. Oh, no. Can I spoil what sets apart the two endings? Yeah, go ahead. The choice you have to make. You know, spoilers don't really bother me. I'm going to finish this game ah no matter what. So, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker: So the with the thing that sets apart the two endings, and i won't i won't say what the endings are, but the thing that sets them apart, besides one being bad and one being good. Right. You get a bad ending if once you get the purified knife that can kill relictus, if you go around killing all the relictus...
Speaker: You get the bad ending. Oh, good, because I had, like, no plan. I'm trying to not kill things. You are pursuing, because you're pursuing vengeance, right? Right. And so you are corrupting your own soul or whatever.
Speaker: I don't believe in souls, but whatever. Like, I guess this game does, right? um If you, it's it's really cool. Once you have that weapon,
Speaker: I hate to spoil this for you, but I think I have to for this thing. The relicta back off from you. They are scared of you. If if you once you're if you're holding the knife, when you walk past a relicta, it throws its hands up and backs away from you.
Speaker: Okay, so they know what that is. Yes, and they are terrified of you. Okay. And you can chase them down and kill them. And when you kill a relicta, by the way, is the only time that in in in this world, in any of these processes, you can be fully and truly dead, is if your relicta gets killed and there's only this one way to do it. Yeah. um So if you kill the relicta, you...
Speaker: face Ivan as the main boss and you get the bad ending. Okay. And I won't tell you how that shakes out. If you. oh I have theories.
Speaker: If you kill, if you don't kill any Relicta, you face the part of your soul that he stole as the, as the main boss. Okay.
Speaker: And I won't tell you how it works out. Okay. But one of these, and and I'm sure you can guess which, is a very good ending. And it's very heartwarming and very sweet and just wow. Wow. Like, wow. It is about, ah it is ah almost a 20-minute ending cutscene and I was wrapped with attention. Oh, good. I'm so glad. If you...
Speaker: get the bad ending, it's really, it's like it's like one of those final girl endings, yeah right? You are left, you've lost a piece of yourself, everything everything has fallen apart because of what you've been through, and you're covered in blood, right? Like, it's it is the it is the final girl ending, and it feels bad. um Yeah.
Speaker: Jeez, man.
Speaker: This game is so special. It is special. Yeah, it rocks. I feel like I've wanted a game like this for for a little while, you know?
Speaker: I almost want to do like a step-by-step deep dive into this game because there's a lot we haven't talked about. like the and maybe we should do like a video or something. I don't know. Whatever. I'm not going to. Let's not. That's not, uh, uh, I, I,
Speaker: there's so much that's symbolic here not only of real life problems and real life issues like again like the the hollywood being a part of the hollywood represent ah being analogous to a manipulative a manipulative relationship the way that patriarchy works on a personal scale as well as a large scale um not only that there are metaphors in carl jung's analysis of alchemy as a ah psychological as psychological symbolism right and he uh also he had um like our chat he's the one who had like our shadow selves and stuff like that so that that very much kind of fits into this uh into all this Yeah, that you're making me smile so big. know what's up. not I'm not saying you didn't. I'm saying, like, man, yes, you've you've nailed it. Like, that is exactly it. And I'm glad we're on the same page here because i know what's up the this game is about Jungian psychology and the way that magic and myths and alchemy and dreams...
Speaker: are all interpretable. Sure. And I don't know how, say you know you know, there a lot of debate amongst folklorists and anthropologists and psychologists about the efficacy of these things. Sure. But as far as art goes, fucking chef's kiss, right? it it Right, exactly. Jungian analysis is a perfect way to communicate shit in art.
Speaker: Yeah. um And people, i mean, but none of us really like, you know, Freud. He did have some good um ideas. I'm not sure they were executed the the right way, but he, but there were some good ideas there, but regardless of whether you liked him or not, or disagree with him or not, We do use his analyses in art, in video games. We use the id and the ego and we we use in dreams, right? And subconscious.
Speaker: ah We use those things all the time in art. um Really... fuck what What else do you need to say about this game? I'm sure there's still more. I'm sure there is. I'm sure I could dig for more. but like i And i also want to just reiterate again, i really liked this puzzle design.
Speaker: There was something that got that really captured me that made me want to keep playing. It it feels... more unique as just an example of kind of the unique mechanic here there is a point where so you can't save your game at any point there are save points that you can that you run into every now and then and you only get three save slots so normally that would piss me off however i don't know i thought it worked here but there is a mechanic in this game that forces you to take away some of the save spots
Speaker: And I thought, that what an interesting mechanic. So it's making me play in the dark to make it scarier, right? And now it's taking away my safe one. my safe My safe places are making me take them away. but and yet I loved, I really like these puzzles. I thought they worked so well. And I got, quote, stuck once but never had to use a walkthrough. i was pretty solid on puzzles.
Speaker: on knowing what to do. And that just feels good, man, in a video game. And granted, fetch quests and inventory object, those are kind of my jam. that's That's kind of what I enjoy the most. But I felt so fulfilled when I got some of these items or I found a rune or I found a key. like It's ah very fulfilling to me. The only thing I had to go to a guide for was to figure out how to get the alternate endings.
Speaker: Oh, okay. Not the two main endings. i Got you. Yeah. The the other two. these special There's two special endings. Once you get the endings, you can. yeah And one of them is just a special boss fight.
Speaker: One of them is crazy. but That unlocks a secret weapon that you so now, anytime you start the game again, you start the game with this special weapon. um It really funny. really cool. um That's when it gets especially campy, you know? Yes. Yeah. It all kind of it veers. It kind of strays a little bit. but i'm with it There are so many cool moments in this game. There's a moment where you have to fight.
Speaker: monsters on a TV screen. They're not in the room with you. You have to look at a TV screen where the monsters are attacking you and figure out where they are in a room. the room That reminds me of the the Vitria where we talked about you're kind of looking at a mirror and in in reverse almost. and And I can... I've read some of the reviews on this and some of them are not recommended because of those boss fights. ah Some people just found them a little too...
Speaker: You know, they're already hard. They're hard. now Yeah, they're already difficult. Now I'm doing things in like reverse. like I think this game, to be honest, if i'm if I'm being really honest, I think this game needs a difficulty meter where you have more health or something um or you do more damage. I think this game needs some accessibility options. i mean i'm sure like even You know what I would be pretty okay with is, like let's say I'm stuck on a boss and I'm and i'm five times in. there I think there have been some games that have been like, hey, you've tried this five times. you want to skip it? like yeah
Speaker: ah There are games like that, right? I'm not losing my mind. There's like something that does that, right? Yeah, but i think I think the experience of how a boss works is so...
Speaker: yeah i like i think it's I think it's so important. to like They tell stories through the boss fights, which is so impressive. and Again, that there's the final boss fights of these games.
Speaker: There is FMV. I know you haven't seen them yet, and I'm sorry, but there's FMV running behind you as you fight the bosses in pixel art. Yeah, art that's cool. And I've never seen anything like that on my computer screen, you know? yeah Like, I've never seen something. I've never seen...
Speaker: a visual equivalent to this. Yeah. I've never seen live acted stuff be so great. So beautiful and well acted and well, and amazingly directed the director of photography in this game. i hope they walked away with a great paycheck. This, yeah, these scenes are beautiful.
Speaker: m Fuck man. This game. i didn't, I expected this game to be a funny thing we kind of half talked about in this episode. Yeah.
Speaker: I did not expect it to jump up to like my, one of my top five games of the year. Yeah. Same, same. It's up there. um Even though I think, I think I have more criticisms than you about it. There's part of me that, that definitely nitpicks. Like I want to know,
Speaker: specifically who Vitria is and who s Sangui is, who's another character. I don't think we mentioned his name. um I want to know like where they're from and like why. like why yeah i have way too many questions. I think that's a different story, though, right? like I think all you need to know is that they are...
Speaker: part of this ecosystem of occult practitioners who are who have been around for a long time and have these specific goals. I think I just get a little weary on...
Speaker: Games that have like a lot of magic and a lot of lore. yeah And we've talked about this before where it's like so much that we don't, I don't even know what I'm looking at anymore. There's just, there's too much to digest and it starts to get really pretentious. But I think at least for this game, I'm able to suspend my disbelief and you're right. I don't really need to know, you know, what Vitria's backstory it truly is or how the spells work. Um,
Speaker: And and and ah my other major... And this complaint you share, the backtracking is needless. It is so bad. it is so bad. It's like Clocktower, guys. Like, if you play Clocktower, there's so much backtracking, and that is true in this game. The backtracking is so intense. It's intense. could have put... They could have they could have put...
Speaker: Some of these things closer together. They could have been... like Why couldn't you finish a a floor and then move to the next floor? You know what I mean why Why do they have to have... Why is every key to every door two to three floors away?
Speaker: Yeah. um It just seems like...
Speaker: I don't know. i i Maybe they clearly loved Clock Tower. So maybe they were just like. It's it's that that part of it is very reminiscent of like original survival horror, Alone in the Dark, ah Clock Tower.
Speaker: So, and I thought about that too. I'm just like, why can't we just have it a little bit more linear where I'm on the third floor, I complete everything I need up there, and then I go to the second one. But I also understand wanting it to feel very open wanting to feel like you can freely run around the building. The problem with that is that you're just backtracking so much. Right. And I wonder if they wanted to do something so open-to-one.
Speaker: they probably could have included more reasons for it to be open, right? More alternate paths or, and I know they wanted, I know it's a really tight experience, so alternate paths might be hard, but like, yeah I don't know, more rewards for the backtracking, right? like Sure.
Speaker: Like maybe some more healing potion or more ammo. Right, where you're like glad you're backtracked. Like something has changed besides there's just another guy here. Like if something had changed every time you had you revisited a floor, that would have been that would have been enough for me to not even mention the backtracking. You know what i mean?
Speaker: I can't believe you beat this with a wrench. I... i I need proof. Like I said, neighbor boy, I need proof that you beat this with a wrench. Look at my achievements. Um, fine like I said, ah I, I don't, I don't, I don't exactly know exactly. I don't know how, I don't know why. I mean, I'm not bad at video games, right? I'm pretty good at video games, but really good at video games. Yeah. Um, but I think, uh,
Speaker: Somehow, i I mastered this video game. I think just because I loved it so much, right? That makes sense. I mean, i i kind of mastered Cuphead by the end. Yeah, yeah, same. And I did the Pacifist run. Because you didn't want to... I never... did i finish... No, yeah, I finished the Pacifist run, but I didn't finish the no-hit run. That's where I so that's where i stopped. um But, yeah, Cuphead A world you want to be in.
Speaker: And so trying the same thing over and over and over doesn't feel bad because you're happy to be there. And I think maybe it's the same thing here. Like, ah i there was never a point where I was getting frustrated that i with the game.
Speaker: No, that's not true. When all the little guys were trying to destroy my... Oh, yes. Sulfur form. God. I'm... that Oh, no. I did. ah That is the time that I got frustrated with the game. And I was like, why is it like this? Yeah, I was super frustrated. I was actually very frustrated with the Vitria boss fight until I really... Actually, until I taped down my shift key. Yeah. That was better. I thought the Vitria boss fight... I i was
Speaker: smitten with it just because oh good I'm glad you like weigh it so much and when I played it a second time when I played it with just the wrench it ended up being way easier than the first time I played it um okay but anyway regardless This game is great. We both highly recommend it.
Speaker: Go play fucking, even even if we've spoiled it for you, it's worth it. Go play Tenebris Somnia. It is worth your time. It is really one of the special games of the year. it is It's a game that is unlike anything.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. How do you, I have a, ah maybe a rhetorical question, but how do you, ah how do you get the same level of success after making such a great i know game? You know, like I think about where can you, where do you go from here? Where do you go from here? You've already made like a magnum opus. Where do you, now what do go? I think, I think you either move to a different medium or you i thought you were going to say move to a different state. Yeah, move away. You can run away from your problems. That's fine. I think either move to a different medium or you ah try something like try a completely different experiment that that's nothing like this one. Or yeah sometimes what people do and this isn't a bad strategy ah is just make a sequel.
Speaker: Yeah, that's not a bad. Where you do the same kind of thing. um Like like you like you you were saying you have more questions about this world. I do. Yeah. So a a is ah prequel, for example, where you see how Vitria and what's his name came to be would be interesting. Sangui.
Speaker: Sangui. Sangui. All right. Guys. Oh, I guess we're going to be, guess, you know, cosplaying from this game for our panel. I'm going to be Candlehead and you can be Julia. I'll be Julia.
Speaker: I just wear a sweater and a hat. And hat. And purple shoes, which i already have. Hey, everybody, thanks for joining us for another spooky month this year. this was can't believe it's over. This was fun.
Speaker: um I'm sad. There's 10 more days for us. We've still got 10 more days of spooky month. No, I'm sad now. Okay. um no Okay. like we know like Like we've said before, November's a big month for video games, and I think you all know what we're talking about, and you can bet...
Speaker: Save Your Game has something really special prepared too so special guys to celebrate the biggest month in gaming. It's definitely not a dumb idea. It's definitely really good. It's the biggest month in gaming, and we are going to celebrate it just like everyone else is celebrating it so Make sure you come back next episode. we've got We've got some fun shit ahead. And make sure you come visit us in... ah It'll ah eventually be on the feed, but come visit us and see us live at Adventure X on November 7th. Yes, in London. when the when Big Ben reads Oh, my God. And... ah
Speaker: 5.30? 5.30 then? oi! Isn't it 5.30? Oi, it's 5.30, innit? I'm going to talk that way the entire time. Oi, it's 5.30.
Speaker: Mate. Save your game. Have you seen it's 5.30 then? um We've just alienated all our British listeners and no one's going to come to the show. Yeah, no one's going to come to this fucking panel. Thank you so much for listening. You can check out all our shit at Save Your Game Podcast on Instagram. You can email us, mattandroses at gmail.com. You can join our Discord server. We love talking to you guys.
Speaker: um And we will have, again, we'll have a link to that AI detector for Steam in the show notes. Now,
Speaker: All that said, there's one last thing we need to tell you to wrap up spooky month.
Speaker: Is that horrifying as it may be? Podcasts. Well, it is art. And art is suffer.
Speaker: Spooky suffer. Spooky suffering. Really scary.
