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Phantasmagoria (w/Grayson)
2 Playsin 8 hours
Ben, Jess, and Grayson discuss the mega budget FMV horror game Phantasmagoria. They were all terrified!
Quest Quest podcast is Ben Vigeant and Jess Morrissette.
Editing by Ben Vigeant
Show art by Kevin "WilcoWeb" Wallace
Watch us on Twitch!
Ben: https://www.twitch.tv/ps_garak
Jess: https://www.twitch.tv/decafjedi
Give us a review, they help people find this show! Unless you hated it, in which case, don't.
Subscribe to Grayson's newsletter: https://www.imightaswellexplainthejoke.com/
Talk with us on Discord!
https://discord.gg/ve9fqjgPp2
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Transcript
Family Jeans and Disney Speculation
00:00:09
Speaker
Family jeans
00:00:23
Speaker
You're going to see it, you know. No, I'm not. No, nobody will claim the rights to this. They've actually, uh, every time it's come up, everybody's like, that's not me.
00:00:34
Speaker
I don't have the rights on that one. George Lucas, silly thing he hasn't ever been willing to sue to protect.
00:00:43
Speaker
This is a Disney song now, if you think about it. Is it a Disney princess? Yes, absolutely.
Podcast Introduction and Guest Appearance
00:01:10
Speaker
Here's the thing. i don't think we can sustain two weeks straight of talking about a mansion full of maniacs. Yeah. Welcome to Quest Quest, the adventure game podcast.
00:01:22
Speaker
ah I'm Ben, or as some call me, Dr. Ben Edison. ah And I'm ah joined here by, who's this?
00:01:39
Speaker
This is Jess. ah Or as some people call me, Tuna Head. And um like i really don't appreciate it either because that seems like an insult. I don't know.
00:01:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it used to call you shit head. Yeah, he's got me shithead. But then Nintendo said you can't do that. And I was like, thank you. Thank you, Reggie, for shutting that down.
00:02:04
Speaker
But yeah, I'm Jess. I'm a decaf Jedi on lots of platforms. And we're joined by very special guest. Bryson, how are you? i'm I'm doing just fine. I've been let out of the Jim Walls episode containment. i could talk I'm allowed to talk about other games now.
Exploring Maniac Mansion
00:02:21
Speaker
His name is Grayson. How are you? Yeah. Yeah. And they call me, what's a, no I forget everybody at Maniac Mansion. um ah They call me Joe Flaherty.
00:02:35
Speaker
I'm one of the non-famous people that's in Maniac Mansion. I'm i'm the guy that plays a little fly. I'm the mailman who drops by during the game periodically, like to deliver you things out to the mailbox. And I'm gone. don't hang out at Maniac Mansion because that place is crazy.
00:02:53
Speaker
I mean, you don't want to be there. And this is a this is a Maniac Mansion podcast, is my understanding. Yeah, we're we're going through every single episode. Every maniac. we're we'rere Yeah, well, OK.
00:03:05
Speaker
This is episode by episode, but we're not even going to do that. We're going to start maniac by maniac. but And then we're, so we're going to do each episode as a profile of the maniac.
00:03:19
Speaker
And then we're going to do one on the mansion itself. sure yeah We're bringing in an architect to talk to us. And that was really exciting. right We're bringing Oh yeah. I am pay. I was going to say Frank, Frank Lloyd Wright, right? Right. Junior.
00:03:33
Speaker
The third. Yeah. who is weirdly a country Western singer. I'm really looking forward to that one. Yeah. We're, we and actually he's going to cover the theme for us. wow Y'all ready for some mansion.
00:03:48
Speaker
Do you think whoever that is, i mean, we we've looked up who that vocalist is, but i remember her name now. Whoever that is, like like, she has, like, a career of some kind. you Do you think ah she's ever done, like, a concert where it's like, okay, well, well, fine, you know what?
00:04:05
Speaker
I'm going to sing the Maniac Mansion theme and everybody, like, just, start like, loses their mind. She's like, like this this is for all my mansion maniacs out there. That's probably what she calls all the fans. yeah Like when I saw ah like many years ago, i would say probably like, I don't know, 18 years ago, I saw They Might Be Giants and they started to ah play ah You're Not the Boss of Me Now, the Malcolm in the Middle theme. And everyone's like, hell yeah.
00:04:34
Speaker
The Malcolm in the Middle theme. They might be giants. It's also the kind of band that might just start playing the maniac mansion theme song. It's true. It's just like, yeah, we've been working this one up. We've got great theremin arrangement of it. We're ready to go. Yeah. thats I would let's love to hear.
00:04:48
Speaker
They might be giants. Take a crack at the maniac mansion theme. who uh grayson what what band would you like to take a a crack at it um yellow goodness uh allman brothers allman brothers original lineup uh sadly will never happen but whatever whatever lineup i've got today I want the Bon Scott ACDC to do.
00:05:13
Speaker
ah me Okay. Okay. Jess, ah what what ah band do you want to cover? maniac Probably Boyce and Hart, Dolan's and Jones, the super group made up of the two writers who wrote most of the monkey songs and the two remaining performers from the monkeys who needed money badly enough to continue performing them.
00:05:33
Speaker
Probably Yeah. You think they'd knock it out of the park? I really do. Yeah. I mean, they've done a TV thing before. I mean, they're going be, I mean, Hey, Hey, we're the monkeys. They wrote that and performed. It's the guys who wrote them and the guys who sang them.
00:05:47
Speaker
You got to know how to write them, know how to sing them. It's a little music humor.
Weather and Music Chats
00:05:55
Speaker
How you Jess? I... Couldn't be better. it's It's fall. It was like 60 degrees here today. I was wearing ah hoodie.
00:06:05
Speaker
Everything is good. How are you? 47 here in the great, it was in, it was like 50 today. And I was, i was wearing, like I was dressed up like it was, it was much colder, which they observed the, the friendly baristas at my, my local coffee shop are like,
00:06:26
Speaker
pretty bundled up today it's like 40 and i was like listen first 40 degree day it feels like it's 20 yeah it's just math and i'll pay you to tell me how i'm dressed actually i do that's what now if i could pay somebody to compliment my outfits i'd take it uh grayson how are you doing today What's the New York weather report? ah I'm doing just fine. It's its kind 50s, 60s today. It's dipping down.
00:06:55
Speaker
Starting to be able to wear hoodies and jackets. Feels nice. Dipping down, dipping dots. Yeah. Ice cream of the future. Weather of the future. yeah and Jess, I think you had the better joke. One point.
00:07:07
Speaker
Wow. Get wrecked. You know, I knew... you were going to be keeping a score, but I didn't realize how bad it would feel to fall behind.
00:07:19
Speaker
The good news is... In the first quarter to fall behind, like that's a deficit. Yeah. I get steepier as these things go on, though. So you're going to catch up. Another band I think that would do a good Maniac Mansion cover, Flaming Lips.
00:07:34
Speaker
yeah oh yeah yeah of course yeah from from 12 different speakers you have to get you have to get like you know 12 different speakers they're all playing a different part of the maniac mansion theme can i change my answer can i change but my answer all right you know i i take all my brothers back i want to hear steely dan's interpretation there you better embracing your late 30s white male destiny I've already had a Steely Dan phase and now now I just like Steely Dan it's normal for me as a middle aged white man to like Steely Dan i't not age anymore I have not had my Steely Dan moment and je steely damn moment my brother the coolest newest music ah okay what are you listening to Jess
00:08:25
Speaker
ah What have I been listening to lately? ah What are you listening to theme?
00:08:34
Speaker
ah Let's see. I really like Doja Cat's new single. It's quite good. It samples the Knight Rider theme. That's a contemporary. for Yeah, I mean, it's right up there. I've been really into that lately. I will say, i' was just looking at what I've added to my Spotify list lately.
00:08:52
Speaker
i mean, I did just put like a Fleetwood Mac song on there. So I'm not... i can't What song did you... do you Everywhere. Yeah, I mean, Fleetwood Mac... also wonderful. They would do a pretty good Maniac Mansion cover, but not like, I'm not dying to hear that. Do do you think, ah here's the thing, I don't want Stevie to sing it, and I love Stevie. No, yeah no, that's wrong. That would be a little too similar.
00:09:15
Speaker
Like, we have to have Lindsay. Yeah, Lindsay, get Lindsay in We have to have Lindsay. We gotta get Lindsay in the booth. Have him sing. Maniac Mansion.
00:09:26
Speaker
Yeah, we gotta get Lindsay to do it. Yeah. Anyway, I was saying my little brother, Mark, he had ah his Steely Dan ah phase and like, maybe does it skip?
00:09:38
Speaker
Oh, does it skip a generation? Oh, yeah. Does it skip a generation? Of siblings? Of siblings? because Yeah, it goes one sibling to the next. Some genetic traits do that within a sibling group. it's They're really, it's a recessive gene. You have to see the punnet square to fully get it.
00:09:55
Speaker
Well, it's interesting that we have, as a humans, we have a steely tan gene, because I wonder when what an evolution that's selected for. Yeah. yeah like it's probably something else it's probably like this is our don't get eaten by a lion gene that also happens to trigger like just now in the modern era we don't have any way to express that so it just comes out as liking still yeah or somewhere on the ancient savannah was a was a kind of proto steely dan performer where where should i start where should i start with steely dan what album asia
00:10:27
Speaker
Asia? Asia. Easy. Done. All right. Let me just log into Tidal, which I use instead of Spotify. Well, you should. Spotify it. I like corporation. Recorded Steely Daniel.
00:10:41
Speaker
I feel like that's where it really did his best. And ah Steely Dan. The listeners are going to be thrilled when they learn whether or not Steely Dan is on Tidal. uh appears that steely dan he is right it's just uh it's just yeah or i maybe so check under dan comma steely ah there we go uh oh this is a this is a this is a tight this is a tight little album yeah seven tracks yeah it's a classic it has it has one of the best album openings uh you can really ask for all right well i
00:11:17
Speaker
I just added it. it's It's now in the... did recently have like a ah moment where I was like, you know what? Bruce Springsteen's pretty good. I and just had one of those. I was just like listening ah to like Born in the USA like on repeat. And I just like, wow, this is a great album.
00:11:42
Speaker
like you know I had one of those moments. ah Yeah. so wife This is a great podcast for people to listen to three middle-aged white men talk about how was good Steely and Bruce Springsteen are. Are you going to talk to this Bob Dylan? i and She hates Bruce Springsteen with like a passion. Can't stand Bruce Springsteen.
00:12:01
Speaker
And we were at a, again, if we want to talk like middle-aged black guy music, we were at a Paul McCartney concert at Madison Square Garden few years ago. And for the encore, ah he brought out Bruce Springsteen.
00:12:16
Speaker
And the crowd reacts just like... Take a look, my friend. It's Bruce, everyone. It's me old friend, the boss. um Yeah, he brings out Bruce Springsteen. And my wife looked them and She's so happy when she heard the crowd response.
00:12:29
Speaker
because she misheard what was every single person except her in Madison Square Garden yelling Bruce. And she thought everyone was booing him loudly. She thought the Bruce. Literally Boo-erns. was a literal Boo-erns. And I said, you've just been Boo-erns.
00:12:48
Speaker
yeah Were you saying boo or Boo-ruce? I was just saying, I was saying the Bruce birds are out.
00:12:59
Speaker
What's all right now, Jess, what's your, what's your, what's your McCartney solo album? What is it? You know, ah solo album i mean like i like band on the run with wings but do we count that i mean that's how yeah yeah yeah it's obvious i don't have a good when say solo i mean not to be yeah yeah i don't have a good answer but like i don't have a creative or interesting answer to that i kind of want the hit before it passes i do really want to acknowledge how funny it is to go to a paul mccartney concert where he brings out bruce springsteen and for one person to be don't care for it
00:13:38
Speaker
don't care it was great i mean i just like that she's that dedicated but i hate her that's what i love about her is her capacity did did bruce come out and say hello or did he he sing a song with paul yeah i mean like he kind growled it and uh yeah he did um i saw her standing there with paul that's fun and then he got take of it and i'm guessing it was being recorded for something because they didn't like it and they immediately played it a second time they stopped your wife loved that
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, and I will say, it's a weird energy at a concert when artists like, you just heard the hit, let's hear it again. And like, you know, just go back and do it one more try. It really sucks the energy out a little bit.
00:14:21
Speaker
It's like, but i mean, I will say, I think the night before, you talk about dodging a bullet. The night before, he brought Jimmy Fallon out on stage. No. At Madison Square Garden. No. And I think they did a song. Did Jimmy come out with ah his band?
00:14:37
Speaker
right let's not forget that I remember i there was like a Super Bowl where like they did one of those like you know like counter programming during um yes and so they did weekend update and they did like half a weekend update and then they're like and now Jimmy Fallon's band and I was like I'd rather watch C-SPAN like then Jimmy Fallon's band Now we aren't talking about the roots. We're talking about a band.
00:15:09
Speaker
yeah No, no, no, no, no. Obviously. No, I am not putting down man ro you hate the roots so much. This is a hot. but The roots are good. Don't you dare. No, I'm talking.
00:15:19
Speaker
He won't even say a bad name. just calls him Jimmy Fallon's band. That's how much. Anyway. anyway Well, um this was a ah fascinating conversation, which yeah I'm sure that all of our listeners
Food Stories and Game Preferences
00:15:32
Speaker
loved.
00:15:32
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure they love checking in on every 45 seconds of it to see if it was over yet. ah it's a great It's a great conversation to hit that 30 second fast forward button.
00:15:47
Speaker
And then you just hear like... ah Paul McCartney, Jimmy Fallon, keep going, keep going. leg Hello, fresh. jackie I do want to I feel that we have to hit this.
00:15:59
Speaker
I feel that we have to hit this because I've noticed that at least on our, our discord, which I believe that the link is in, is in the, the difficult to say, difficult to say. Um, but on our discord, people always, the biggest discussion is about the food.
00:16:17
Speaker
and ah sometimes there's a little bit of discussion about like our discussion about the game that we're talking about. Now, granted, there would be more of that discussion if we didn't delete anyone who disagreed with us. like that's true like yeah That's true. We're not seeing the whole discussion.
00:16:34
Speaker
je what did What did you have for dinner? What did you sup upon this night? Ben, i had the finest food known to man. Free sushi.
00:16:46
Speaker
Oh, very nice. What was, what what what ah what was, were we talking about? while we're talking about here is every every week we have a special day, my daughter and I, where she gets home from school and I take her out to a local. She only comes home once a week.
00:17:05
Speaker
She's at school. She's in boarding school. We sent her away. um she She yeah, it it was becoming difficult to live with her. um but uh she when she comes home one day of the week we go out for walk uh food together and uh that's sort and she gets a boba tea and that's her like good job not dropping out of seventh grade uh sort of prize and so we're regular customers so we walk in and this place is getting ready to add walk in we we walk in waka waka as i like to say um
00:17:39
Speaker
We go in, we order our meal, and the owner, who knows us well at this point, ah he he says, we're getting ready to launch a sushi service here. Can I make you guys some rolls?
00:17:51
Speaker
And you tell me if they're any good. And he made us four sushi rolls on the spot and just handed them to us for free. And you know what? They were delicious. and what what what What's in these rolls? What we got?
00:18:04
Speaker
These were basic. And part of that is because we we had B with us. So we had like a ah California roll and a spicy tuna. Kind of what you'd expect there. ah Salmon with cream cheese. And then like a dynamite shrimp tempura shrimp roll. I didn't partake of that one because I'm allergic. But my daughter said quite good.
00:18:29
Speaker
Sounds lovely. Grayson, it was free sushi. It's the best kind of sushi. and I mean, not like sushi you find. Yeah. Free sushi. Yeah. That's like the sushi that they're getting rid of at the end of the day. And they're like, and here, here you go. You could pay for something that's about to be trash.
00:18:44
Speaker
I don't know at the right price. And and i want to behi I've eaten a lot of that sushi. Yeah, mean, would eat what's about to like... It's only giving me the shits once. So, I like the design.
00:18:56
Speaker
Would I eat what was about to become Morimoto's garbage sushi? Absolutely. i Come on. Yeah. Absolutely. ah Grayson, what did you sup upon? I don't have anything nearly as exciting. i'm i'm I'm low on groceries, so I was clearing some stuff out. I had... I'm sad to admit it, I had a bowl of muesli for dinner.
00:19:19
Speaker
Wow. i wondering hand for For breakfast. Yeah, I was unri oftenset i was at the at the bottom of the but of the bag of muesli and I was like, you know what? and I don't want to go grocery shopping until I clear a few random bits of bobs out. So I had breakfast for dinner in that way.
00:19:36
Speaker
But you know what? I like muesli. Yeah. Well, I like muzy. It helped me learn French. Yeah. Je suis en jouffie. um I, you know, since it's starting to get cold, I, i but last last night, i ah made a homemade chimppe chicken and dumpling soup.
00:19:59
Speaker
Oh, very good. Not bad. Delicious. Very good. There's nothing heartier on a cold day. Yeah. And chicken and dumpling soup. yeah Well, you know you know what's what's really hearty?
00:20:15
Speaker
A delicious diet of games. What have you been playing, Chas? What have I been playing? I, as always, I'm going to break the rules of what you been playing in some way.
00:20:30
Speaker
I have been revisiting lately a piece of software from my childhood and I'm trying to think of something fun to do with it. Have either of you ever encountered, this is going to before your
00:20:50
Speaker
The Newsroom, a 1984 newsletter software from Springboard Software. I can't say that I've ever used this software. You may be familiar with the print shop that came out around the same time. I'm familiar with print shop, of course. Oh, print shop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is very much cut from the same cloth.
00:21:09
Speaker
CGA, basic graphics, like a kid's couch. do you make a newsletter? We have some built in clip art. We have some layout options. You put in the headlines and the copy, and then you have options to print it out and stuff.
00:21:22
Speaker
And I was obsessed with this as a kid. It will surprise no one that I ran like a class newsletter for a couple of years straight using this software, printing it out on my dot matrix, and then selling copies of this newsletter for like a quarter to my classmates. It was basically like a page six thing. It was just like gossip about my sixth grade class.
00:21:41
Speaker
But I've been playing with that lately and I keep thinking it's like, man, there's something interesting to do with this on the internet. Like, this would be a fun blog that's just like I've generated news articles in this bad piece of news software.
00:21:57
Speaker
But boy, it takes me back. I've been enjoying playing around with it. It's a fun little GUI that a lot like Crenshaw makes creating fun. Are you, um, so what is, is this, is this in DOS?
00:22:13
Speaker
It's a DOS. Yeah, it's a piece of DOS software. I'm DOS Boxing it. And are you going to, like, attempt to, like, so I don't know, like, someone could probably tell us, but, like, can you set up a printer? Like, can you, like, fool...
00:22:32
Speaker
like the DOSBox like drivers to like output to I mean like printer, modern laser printer, the brother printer that people have a printer have. That's what I have. And my guess is the answer to that is absolutely if you have a PhD in DOSBox. Like, it seems like any time I've ever asked anything about DOSBox, it's like, I need this to support, like, you know, this weird VR headset from 1997. You know, can we do that in DOSBox? like, oh, yeah, absolutely. You just need to go to this fork of the DOSBox program, and that support's built right in.
00:23:09
Speaker
So I'm going to say, absolutely, you can print from DOSBox, but I don't have the faintest clue how to make that happen. Listeners. Have you tried Control-V?
00:23:18
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Have you tried that? yeah Weirdly, though, back then, Grayson, keyboards didn't have P keys. Oh, yeah. I was born in that P boom. It was a Dvorak keyboard that has famously don't have P's on them. That's why...
00:23:39
Speaker
That's why it's the P switch in Mario Brothers. Because that's actually like a celebration of adding P to keyboards. Back then we could only mind our queues.
00:23:54
Speaker
Well, they're still doing that. They're still doing that in the United Kingdom.
00:24:02
Speaker
That was a great joke. That was a really good joke. Everybody, two good jokes, one point each. Thanks for big laugh. Yeah, insert that. People are still laughing at that great joke.
00:24:16
Speaker
yo Yeah, let's give e let's get the audience a second. Yeah, just to pass that round. They're damming their eyes with... 30 seconds of radio silence, go.
00:24:35
Speaker
All right. I knew you'd break first. I knew it. Grayson would have lasted three hours. Grayson, what have you been playing? ah So i I don't want to say the name because I started a game today and it it threw a puzzle at me so aggravating I immediately quit.
00:24:52
Speaker
I... i Got a humble bundle of games read for me. And I was like, oh, you know what? I should start one of these. So why don't I do that? And within 10 minutes, it threw a fucking rotating tile puzzle at me. It was a pretty hard one, too. like It was a complicated rotating tile puzzle in like a point and click adventure game.
00:25:13
Speaker
And I immediately was just like, I tried it thinking, like surely this is not this complicated as like essentially the first puzzle of the game. in like a narrative, like not, not like a puzzle forward sort of like puzzle agent or something or like a whatever. Uh, and I was, and then I, I tried it for a minute or two.
00:25:34
Speaker
and was like, this is, you've lost me immediately. This is all, all strikes. fuck sound I bounced. I bounced so hard. And because it's a handle humble bundle game, I was like, well, I got a few others.
00:25:47
Speaker
but So I was going to have an answer for you tonight, but unfortunately I was thwarted by a rotating tile puzzles. And you will not disclose the name of this game. No, I don't want to be mean, because I think it's a game that other people have fondness for.
00:26:04
Speaker
and I bet it's great. It's Myst, yeah. You know, I decided I'd give Myst a shot, but there is Riven, the sequel to Myst. Maybe I'll just skip ahead. And there's Pissed.
00:26:17
Speaker
Oh. There is Pissed. Great game. great start Sierra Myst. Refreshing. That's true. But not by Sierra Online, weirdly.
00:26:27
Speaker
No. So I've been playing Slay the Spire again. Wow. The first one? Is the second one out? The second one's not out yet.
00:26:39
Speaker
Slay the the roguelike card game computers. And it's because...
00:26:52
Speaker
i've been I've been writing a lot of public transit recently, and i'm I've burnt myself out on Bellatro, which, like, that's on phones, and you can just keep playing and playing and playing and playing it. I probably have, between, like, it on my PC and on my phone, like, hundreds of hours And like, it just has gotten to the point where I'm like, i just I just can't do this anymore. It's upsetting. It's upsetting to even look at. Yeah.
00:27:23
Speaker
And and I love Bola Trail um and I'm sure I'll come back one day. But I was just like, well, I need something else that will scratch that itch in that same way.
00:27:35
Speaker
I was like, well, there's always good old reliable Slay of the Spire. The the I mean, it's not the first But it's like, it's the first of that particular type of card game, right?
00:27:49
Speaker
Grayson, I'm looking you. Jess, at Yeah, is Grayson, yeah, don't ask me. I couldn't tell you. I think, it's safe to say it's one of the first that really blew up, right? So I think, I don't know if it's literally ah first.
00:28:02
Speaker
Like this this card combat game where you're like a deck builder. Like it certainly, it also, like it kicked off the trend.
00:28:13
Speaker
Like it might not be the first. It was so big. the model, yeah. Yeah. And like, you know, you, it's one of those early like roguelikes, which give you that map that all the roguelikes have.
00:28:29
Speaker
Yeah. Like, and you know what? I tried my, Grayson, did you play Slay the Spire? Did you get into that? I have, I have not played a ton of time anymore though. Okay.
00:28:40
Speaker
Here's the thing about Slay the Spire and me. I'm not very good at it. I never have been. Like I've beaten it at like the at like the lowest difficulty with like one character once and that's it. I've never, I'm not, I don't know what the strategies are and I'll never figure them out and no one's ever gonna tell me and I don't want know.
00:29:02
Speaker
The end. There you have it.
00:29:07
Speaker
ah We have a couple comments. Oh. a couple comment oh I got comments on Spotify.
00:29:20
Speaker
can have comments on Spotify. These are all from RVD. Ellie UN RV.
00:29:32
Speaker
Deloon. I'm going read a couple them. I'm all in for ah the last best maniac mansion podcast. I'm going read couple of them.
00:29:45
Speaker
I assume, yeah. I'm assuming all listeners share that sentiment. Yeah. And then on Hugo's House of Warriors, this takes me back, I think, the third game may be one of the first games we finished at home without a walkthrough.
00:30:01
Speaker
then, did you know there was a sequel to the trilogy called Nightmare 3D, which was an FPS in the style of the Wolfenstein games? Yes.
00:30:10
Speaker
Yeah. I didn't know that. You don't think fondly of that one, I wonder. Like, I know it exists, but I've never known anyone who played it or anything else. It just seems like something I'm aware of it. And then I just see like a couple of screenshots that go like, yeah, there were a lot of those.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah, I've just merged it with like the Super Noah's Ark in my head. so I'm just going to assume they're the same game. Yeah. Anyway, a couple other comments on that. let's stop at those two.
00:30:36
Speaker
stop at those two. Because we got business.
00:30:43
Speaker
Now, Grayson, that's just a soundboard. That's terrifying. That's a real, that has to be a real, a real wolf. That's a real witch. That's a real witch. I would know it anywhere. very digitized audience of some sort.
00:31:01
Speaker
come on.
00:31:08
Speaker
That's right. We're closing out. or month of spooky games. You know, last week, of course, we talked about one of the scariest games of all time, Maniac Mansion.
00:31:19
Speaker
A horror game by anyone's definition. um And ah tonight we're we're we're talking about a ah different um game about a a mansion ah with one maniac in it.
00:31:35
Speaker
Well, possibly two. Kind of self-replicating maniac. Yeah. one One maniac of two minds.
00:31:46
Speaker
There's like an evil demon who's possessed of spoilers. ah i mean, is that a spoiler? Like, all right. Number one.
00:31:58
Speaker
I we're, we're, we're going to talk about all parts of a phantasmagoria, the game we're going to talk about. Uh, so if, if, if that, if that seems like something you would be concerned about getting spoilers about, and I want to be clear here, you shouldn't be, um, don't, don't be worried about being spoiled about phantasmagoria.
00:32:19
Speaker
And content warning in general, this game has some mature themes and and bits like that I should throw in there as well. um ah but ah But yeah, we're going to talk about every piece of the Phantasmagoria episode.
00:32:32
Speaker
think but Yes, we were talking about the terrifying FMV adventure game ah developed by a Roberta Williams, Phantasmagoria, 1995. She nailed this one so hard, she chose to never make an original adventure game again.
00:32:51
Speaker
Yeah, I guess so. Was this last adventure game? Mask of Eternity would have come after that, but that's not... Exactly an adventure game. And then Colossal Cave is just like...
00:33:09
Speaker
it is it's a it's an adaptation yeah and it's it's not fairly faithful yeah it's a not quite a one-to-one but it's pretty close so yeah this is in many ways for her swan song as a uh as a creator of uh of original adventure game ip and i'm sure that's how she thought of it at the time this is a way that she thought that this would be the last thing I think it's, it's interesting that that it winds up being like her last, like, you know, it would, you know, a couple of things. Let's say at least at Sierra, let's say at least at Sierra. And then like Colossal Cave has some very cute yeah and interesting and personalized touches. Yeah. too That's right. She's definitely the first stamp on that game. Yeah. Yeah.
00:33:52
Speaker
I really enjoyed when I played Colossal Cave, much to my surprise, honestly. i thought it was pretty neat. um But, you know, she made Phantasmagoria and she wept for there were no more worlds left to conquer. It's funny to me that it it's... it it is is her swan song in that way because it was like a big game or sierra was a big company at the time um but this was a big release highly marketed like big like big marketing push and roberta was the face of that marketing put like it was like it was like a marketing focused on this obviously she was a famous designer at the time and it was this big marketing push based on like
00:34:32
Speaker
a narrative game and like kind of branching into some, obviously FMV was big at the time and branching into something a little bit more mass market, despite the, the, the kind of rated M nature of it.
00:34:43
Speaker
um But that for that to be like the big marketing behind it. And then she's like, okay, I'm done is, is a very interesting sort of, I don't think, I don't think that she was like, okay, I'm done. I think.
00:34:54
Speaker
Well, yeah yeah, yes. But I think that new corporate overlords. Yes. As a company. invited her to be done. They have been made done. The death of the the genre as a viable commercial medium towards the end of the 90s made that decision for her. Go ahead, Jess.
00:35:17
Speaker
oh okay I was going to say, you know I think this element is interesting because Sierra definitely worked hard in interviews and advertisements everywhere else to play up this idea of Look, the woman who created King's Quest, who created Mixed Up Mother Goose, she's doing something controversial and edgy and violent and scary now.
00:35:41
Speaker
And they really wanted to court the controversy of this. There's no question. That's how Sierra wanted you. It's like they were really trying to like lean into that cognitive dissonance of why Roberta Williams was making what was supposed to be the most terrifying yeah Stephen King-esque piece of gaming fiction ever created.
00:36:02
Speaker
I read one in one piece of news coverage that hit those points, but then I think also, maybe also worried that it was like hitting that point too hard.
00:36:13
Speaker
the The article also went out of its way to mention like Roberta Williams, mother of two. Like, you know, it really wanted to highlight that like, I guess that despite the controversy of it, yeah they still wanted you to buy it, right? So, you know, it was like, be scared, but not too scared. Please buy this.
00:36:33
Speaker
I think there's a lot of mom coding around Roberta Williams is sort of public persona already. Some of which I think probably came from her and Sierra and some which is just imposed upon her by being a woman who's prominent in the industry at a time when that wasn't nearly as common. I think that that this was sort of this, this mom element was such a part of her identity already. And yeah, I liked that this, you their approach is like, let's just subvert that.
00:37:01
Speaker
Let's just really mess with that idea. It's, it's kind of bold. Yeah. I think a lot of people would be like, I can't afford to risk my reputation as this wholesome game developer. And she really wanted to break out of that cage.
00:37:12
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, I get it, you know, it like, You know, the Laura Bow games were more like they they weren't for kids.
00:37:27
Speaker
They weren't like they weren't not for kids like they were PG, let's say. and they And so, like, it's not that she was completely absent, like, but, you know, she was synonymous with King's Quest, which is like this fairytale adventure in the last installment, which came out a year before, was, like, developed to look like a Disney cartoon.
00:37:56
Speaker
Like, was specifically, like, leaning into... ah Like this is this is ah like a living cartoon like and in the same way that Phantasmagoria, which is using like the same iteration of the SEI engine.
00:38:15
Speaker
um Is it's like you're in like you're in ah a horror movie that looks like a real movie. so also, it's from that that period where we're just starting to see the beginning of what...
00:38:32
Speaker
why we would see a lot more of like, you know, kind of famously in and like the, uh, the star Wars prequels of it's just like, we don't need sets anymore.
00:38:49
Speaker
We could do everything with computers in a blue, so like in the case of phantasmagoria, it's obviously a blue screen because you can tell because of the, you know, like the, the, the haloing.
00:39:04
Speaker
Like it is, it's part of that early generation of it's like, You know, we could put these actors in the the middle of the Sahara Desert or the surface of the moon or on top of the Eiffel Tower.
00:39:19
Speaker
And actually, they're just in this one loud echoey room. if you would never, ever know. That only ceases to echo when it takes a short pause to hiss. Um...
00:39:36
Speaker
um Yeah, I mean, it's it's a it's also, like, I mean, you know, she, like, as as kind of, like, the the foremost...
00:39:50
Speaker
a designer at Sierra, like she always got like the first bite of the apple yeah new technology. And that was for for good and ill because it's like you have like King's Quest V and that's the first one to the full point, and like total point and click it ah interface.
00:40:09
Speaker
And the first one with the full voice, like, I mean, you know, discounting. I know that, like, I think um Mother Goose had voices first. Maybe the point click, I forget.
00:40:22
Speaker
um But, like, the first full adventure with that. And it's like King's Quest V has, like, a bunch of, like, it has actors who are obviously people around the office. And like the interface isn't fully baked yet.
00:40:35
Speaker
um Like there's there's some kind of, you know, weird weird stuff in it. um But like she she like the the King's Quest or her games tended to be the first that would get um like the really sexy, exciting technology.
00:40:52
Speaker
And like Phantasmagoria is, you know, they bought and made like a film studio to make FMV games with.
00:41:05
Speaker
Yeah, which contributes this huge budget. Like, I think it was like 1.5 million of what turned out to be like a 4.5 million budget on this game, which at the time...
00:41:16
Speaker
was a staggering number ah to attach to an adventure game. But this thing sold like crazy. I mean, it was, you know, it was a best-selling game in the United States. I think I read that it grossed somewhere like in the neighborhood of 12 million. So I think it like made its budget back a few times over. Yeah, I mean, Sierra was such a large, like such a successful company at that time. And right, like the price tag of this is so big, but like,
00:41:45
Speaker
like If you didn't know what actually happened to Sierra, you might be like, oh, they they went bankrupt because they like overspent on big vanity projects like this. It's like, no, Fantasmic Gloria was like a slice a small slice of its revenue and then was very successful. right so it's but But it was also still...
00:42:03
Speaker
very like for the time it was like holy shit that's a lot of money yeah it is interesting you know they basically use this giant studio they build for only a small handful of games before the oakhurst production facility gets shut down know they'd already relocated corporate to bellevue washington by this point and the i mean you can already see the leap ahead by the time they do Gabriel Knight 2, was that the next year? 94? that right?
00:42:31
Speaker
I mean, Gabriel Knight 2 is... i mean gabriel knight too is just in terms of figuring out how to make a full motion video game look halfway decent is such a leap beyond phantasmagoria already. And then what they filmed little bit of one of the police quest squat squat games. That's different. A squat game is very different.
00:42:52
Speaker
Uh, the police quest scat games, uh, that they, uh, they did one of those in there. Uh, but, uh, yeah, otherwise this thing barely got used after they invested so heavily.
00:43:03
Speaker
Well, yeah. So they have, SWAT, Gabriel Knight 2, Phantasmagoria 2. Yeah. And then I'm sure they there had to be like they did.
00:43:16
Speaker
This is... It was like that Urban Runner game. As a point of order, Phantasmagoria came out August 95. Gabriel Knight 2 came out December 95. But Phantasmagoria 2 or Phantasmagoria 1 was supposed to come out like the previous year. It was just delayed a lot. But I think your point, though, is still well taken, Jess, that like clearly...
00:43:38
Speaker
Gabriel Knight 2 was like, that we've we've done some work on Phantasmagoria, let's take those lessons to Gabriel Knight 2. Especially a lot what Ben was talking about with all the virtual sets and everything. They learned it's like, nah, actually props and some things still have a place.
00:43:55
Speaker
So, like the, and like the, like Phantasmagoria sold like gangbusters and then Beast Within, which came out half a year later,
00:44:06
Speaker
did not um um Like this is, this is a ah quote, like I'm just pulling from um digital antiquarian CR programmer, ah ah Greg Tomko Pavia expressed the collective confusion in a contemporary online interview.
00:44:24
Speaker
His Frankless Frankness presumably wouldn't have endeared it to his managers. I must say I'm surprised phantasmagoria has done so well. Presently, we've sold over 700,000 copies, more than any other Sierra game.
00:44:40
Speaker
I can't account for it. In my opinion, Phantasmagoria has suffered from weak writing, acting, and direction. I don't understand why Gabriel Knight 2, to my mind, superior in every detail, isn't doing nearly so well.
00:44:55
Speaker
What do I know? i just write code. That is beautiful. But yeah, that's the perfect tag on it, too. I mean, it's fascinating to think like this sold more copies than King's Quest V. This sold more copies than King's Quest VI. Really?
00:45:13
Speaker
i mean, it says it's the best selling Sierra game up to that point in history and that quote. And that seems to be what like other sources online suggest as well. But didn't King's quest games sell like individual games sell over a million. I'm I, I wonder if he meant like in the recent past or something, maybe somebody that's like yeah yeah numbers or something like that. A thousand is a huge number for that time. Like, like we all were i missed, obviously the bit, one of the big,
00:45:40
Speaker
kind of things everyone remembers on Myst is that it sold really, really well. like it was a huge phenomenon. And like, it took a couple of years for Myst to sell a million copies, right? So like 700,000 copies of of a game at that time was like, that that's obviously by like 2025 standards. That's, you know, you're going to shut that studio down and lay off all the staff.
00:45:58
Speaker
But like, at the time, that that's an enormous success for a PC game. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, and this is a game that, I mean, it's banned in Australia. So, okay. I mean, you're losing all those down under purchases too.
00:46:12
Speaker
Yeah. Like imagine, imagine if it was able to be sold in Australia, Australia, it probably would have been the best selling video game of all time. Yeah. If I were to like phone up my local Australian GameStop,
00:46:28
Speaker
and say i agree you know i don't know anyone that works at one uh because uh the the people i like that i keep in touch with the international game stops i don't know how to do and a good enough australian accent oh so you're saying nar to this thing ah okay got it um but I mean what Grayson what is the plot of this ding dang game yeah Grayson it's funny because I think I mean correct me if I'm wrong have you been paying attention I think the plot is like relatively you could summarize it pretty quickly but let me know if I'm missing any important details which is essentially that and these are very funny mid-90s jobs for ah protagonist town a have a successful novelist and he's only written one book
00:47:20
Speaker
And her photographer husband by an enormous mansion in grounds and somewhere in New England. Yeah. Like it's, it's, it's like, it's a fictional, forget if they say specifically, but it's like Massachusetts or Maine or somewhere around there. It's it's a, it's a obvious nod to kind of the Stephen King, New England area. They're there by this enormous mansion near, I'm assuming fictional town of Nipple Womset.
00:47:45
Speaker
Um, They noticed some spooky things around the mansion. ah They barely did not realize how spooky a mansion they bought. It's like this enormous sprawling mansion with like tricks and traps and secret rooms and all this sort of stuff.
00:47:59
Speaker
um And they're you're constantly discovering new rooms in the mansion. um But eventually they learn. Seriously. More and more, like just every chapter you find a new secret room.
00:48:11
Speaker
ah They learn eventually that the mansion used to be owned by Carno, the Magnificent, um a stage musician ah who had five wives and murdered all of them and then haunted the mansion.
00:48:24
Speaker
um And eventually ah he his spirit. ah Haunts your husband, driving him insane, and eventually you you summon Carno's, you learn, you at the town, you learn about Carno and the history of the house.
00:48:38
Speaker
You summon Carno and defeat him and ah abruptly walk away from the mansion. Hold on, you defeat, well, the the evil being that possessed Carno.
00:48:51
Speaker
Yes. because Because within the fiction of the game, what it is ah is that Carnot, like, he went to France and then he came back changed.
00:49:02
Speaker
Yeah, that'll happen. yeah know i like yeah Yeah, the French disease. Carnot is not, is is ah there's some demon greater than Carnot who occupies Carnot's Which seems silly from, like, an elegant storytelling like standpoint. The idea that you would have, like, a possessed guy possessing a guy.
00:49:21
Speaker
So um ten john yeah, wait a minute. Hold on. Yeah. she it It's very much about Carno and that like Carno is somehow but guy man like when you spoilers again, the spoiler, like when you finally kill your your evil like your husband who has like just totally been you know like supremely ruined by this evil demon then just a big cgi demon starts chasing after you
00:49:54
Speaker
And so wait, then why was this about Carno? Hold on. wouldn't even start thinking about that. Like, do you need the demon? Can you just say like Carno made some sort of like, he's a magician. He did evil magic. Yeah, that's right. And that made him evil. and that's how he survived it after death to possess your husband, to have him be a victim of a demon and then your husband be a victim of the victim of a demon. It's the kind of move that would make sense if this were an action game and there needed to be a big final boss.
00:50:25
Speaker
like ah the end of Like how at the end of Bioshock one, yes the guy you've been talking to you just becomes like the Hulk. um But in this game, it's an adventure game and it's a scary. It's like so like, you know, I mean, that's the decision they made, obviously, creatively. But I did have that thought where I'm like, does this game need like a big action?
00:50:44
Speaker
ending sequence it felt a little uh out of place maybe with the it's a demon hat on a demon hat it is it is i will say this it it is it's a big swing right it's like it's not the kind of game that like kind of come like kind of sputters out at the end because they run out of money it's like the whole ending sequence is like a whole thing i'm i got the sense with the final chapter that they didn't quite know what to do Because the game kind of has like kind of a measured pace of two.
00:51:21
Speaker
And then like, and then it just becomes this like intense chase, which has multiple routes for the very first time in the game. There's multiple routes and in in things you could do alternative options and stuff like that.
00:51:40
Speaker
And there also start to be bugs and other like weird stuff. It also like, I think in the chapter immediately before like dedicates, like there's a lengthy lore dump, like to kind of just set up the ending.
00:51:56
Speaker
We are skipping ahead a little bit. ah So I wasn't asking you, Ben, because you're're you're saying that you mentioned the beginning is more measured. And i just played this as well, obviously.
00:52:07
Speaker
ah question I wanted to ask you too. is do you think it's a good horror game and its best moments? Like, do you think it's a, it's like when the game starts and you're just wandering around a big spooky mansion, are you, are you having fun with that?
00:52:22
Speaker
I'm having fun. i had fun. yeah, I'll say this right now. I had a lot of fun playing the game. I, I, I really enjoyed the time that I spent with it. I really enjoyed watching all the, the, the video. And like, I thought all of the performances were entertaining.
00:52:40
Speaker
Uh, but I'm not going to say that it was good. i didn't think that the acting was good. i did enjoy myself.
00:52:51
Speaker
And I mean, and this isn't even to put down the actors because like some of the actors have like completely, ah ridiculous, um, like have just completely ridiculous,
00:53:03
Speaker
uh uh roles and writing like yeah such as the uh completely like uh terror like the the the character of the developmentally disabled uh uh large man that lives on the grounds uh of the mansion with his mother um Like, you know, there's no way that you could really like, you know, play that. save that. You're going to act your way out of that one. You can't, you know, like, you can't get out of that one.
00:53:34
Speaker
um And, but also like, i you know, it's, it's very like, you know i was talking about the the blue screen stuff earlier. Like, you know, ah the, the woman who plays Adrian has to do so much acting like completely by herself reacting to like a blue box or like a blue stick or just a blue wall and probably like somebody off you know off screen being like okay now you're looking in a mirror now you're seeing something terrifying and back to what
00:54:09
Speaker
Yeah. And like, you know, now that that is, you know, that is something that there is in like, you know, film acting and a but at the same time, it's like, you know, performers, ah like if you're a film actor, you probably have some amount of training in that type of thing. And that was, you know, pretty novel.
00:54:35
Speaker
at that at that moment um and and so ah to return to your question which was it's like is this like a like what is this like a good and horror game It's a, it's an entertaining game. It's an ah entertaining, like B movie game.
00:54:55
Speaker
And, I think what actually makes it work so well for me is, ah that it does feel quite sincere in its intention to tell you a serious adult, scary story.
00:55:10
Speaker
ah and, uh,
00:55:13
Speaker
I think it sincerely fails at that. ah But because it's so sincere in its intentions and that it tries so hard, like it it is extremely entertaining.
00:55:25
Speaker
like yeah Like if I can piggyback on that, because I think that's a really good point. This idea that it has sincere intentions and then just isn't able to fully follow through on what those intentions are.
00:55:36
Speaker
i think for me, the promise of Phantasmagoria works best in the early parts of the game. Like, I think as you're exploring and you walk into a nursery and see like a crying baby, you know, ectoplasm cloud floating over a crib or whatever,
00:55:58
Speaker
that sort of creepiness, like before the game starts putting all its cards on the table, before you get to Carno and demons and big chases, I feel like weirdly it does the opposite of what a horror movie should do. I feel like the tension...
00:56:13
Speaker
and creepiness is at its highest as you're getting sort of the lay of the land of what this what this game is going to be all about. And the more it reveals to you, i feel like the less scary it gets in a way. gets gorier.
00:56:29
Speaker
But I feel like, yeah, I mean, it's the scariest when you have no idea what it's going to throw at you. Because I didn't play this game until just a few years ago ah for the first time. I didn't play it. qui I owned it when it came out and it wouldn't run on my system. And I was like, well, I'll never play Phantasmagoria. That's $80, $19, $95 I just threw in the trash. That's right. That's right.
00:56:52
Speaker
But yeah, I think for me, the the the more of itself that reveals, I feel like the less effective it is. The best scenes to me are the first time you're wandering through that mansion, you have no idea. am I about to be jump scared? Am I about to see something creepy? Is something super trippy about it? Because this game occasionally sort of almost like,
00:57:12
Speaker
leans into psychedelic horror on a few scenes, like the bed scene with the hands coming out and stuff. That's, I think when it's most fun, by the time you get to the end and the chase and all that sort of stuff, when it thinks it's at its most dramatic and scary, that's when I'm kind of like checked out of it already.
00:57:29
Speaker
It is. And I think fair to say, it's not, Some of the violence is like very genuinely shocking. There's some pretty upsetting violence in this. Yeah. um you know There's an assault. There's a sexual assault in that. Even, yeah, even like, you know, ah separate from that, there's a lot of just like physical, ah's like the Karno's killings of his various wives are like, some of the gore is really intense.
00:57:54
Speaker
Very Lynchian. But I would say, yeah. Yeah. i would say But I would say it's like no one would call this game particularly frightening, right? No. It does, but I do think it it it has moments of kind of effective mood where you're like, you know, the house is kind of weird looking and it it does become bizarrely elaborate, the things you just kind of stumble on in there.
00:58:18
Speaker
um there are kind of things that there are scenes like uh you just stumble on like a dungeon cell next to the wine cellars downstairs where you're like yeah is that particularly scary no is it kind of is it establishing a sort of mood that is like you know i'm not laughing about that you know it's ah it's a weird looking upsetting scene so i think it's I think it's, that yeah, the wandering around parts are are definitely where the game is is at its best, I think. here's a Here's a question. This is probably a question that's actually been answered.
00:58:52
Speaker
um
00:58:55
Speaker
But, like, so, is, like, it's it's a very puzzle-like game. um And it has the hints.
00:59:06
Speaker
Right there, there's a ah skull. um I am the hint keeper. You're literally one click away at any point. You could just make a skull tell you what to do next.
00:59:17
Speaker
It doesn't even like penalize you for it. Like it's like Torrin's passage ah has this, the same ah thing. It has a little hit button, but it like, you know, it, it kind of is like, do you really want that? Like you lose, i think you lose points.
00:59:36
Speaker
You also, I think, ah can set it that you only get a hint after like certain time interval interval like phantasmagoria doesn't bother with any of that who is torrent's passage to judge me
00:59:52
Speaker
um i'm now looking at a thing that says phantasmagoria phantasmagoria still stands as the best-selling game ever released by an independent sierra fact checking myself wow all right well uh but anyway um Yeah, like... There's no yeah there's no even like, are you sure? it's all It's just like immediately you click that, here's the thing to do.
01:00:16
Speaker
And a lot of... like a lot of the, the, the game is just kind of like walking from one room into the next room and finding, I think you honestly kind of need the little hint keeper because, ah sometimes it's just like, it it's this massive mansion. And then there's a whole like little town you explore.
01:00:40
Speaker
and then sometimes it's just like, Oh, you need to like go in this room and look at this thing because something's changed between chapters three and four. And like, so the challenge, like the the, the puzzle is it's like, Oh, you didn't go in this room and look at the mirror.
01:00:58
Speaker
And it's not exactly fast to get around in this game. Uh, just because of the full motion video nature of it. I mean, it takes a while to exit a scene and,
01:01:09
Speaker
you know, get ready to interact with the next scene and things like that. So if you have to go do that thing we've all done at adventure games where it's like, well, time to go to every single location in the game until I find out which one has changed.
01:01:22
Speaker
It's time consuming here. And the Hint Keeper, if nothing else, yeah, had just points you toward where you need to be next, which makes the game a lot less frustrating. that i think it's I think that's even the... I would say that's even the intended way to play the game, where it's like... it's There's only a couple of like what you'd call like a traditional adventure game puzzles in the game.
01:01:43
Speaker
um where you like combine items and do little things and you know you know figure out a little elaborate puzzle um and yeah the the game is so it dwells in scenes so much and like never lets you like zip around in the video game way it's always like okay she stands up from a chair and walks over here like there's a there's a fast forward button but um you do have to kind of get from place to place and and yeah i think the game is designed so that like when you're ready to move on just like the the hint skull is always right there and it's always one click what if she had a skateboard yeah that'd be cool yeah she was like a regular wall-e beamish um yeah
01:02:25
Speaker
so here's he's called wallaby beamish that's also banned there um yeah just i want you to know jess pretty pretty like with an obvious physical urgency leaned into his microphone to say that but and i it was a intrusive thought that if i didn't get out i wouldn't sleep to that i just i just wake up screaming in the middle of the night that here
01:02:54
Speaker
but here here's a question that i was kind of wondering and i started to say this earlier is do you think that there are ah is a version of like an early draft of Phantasmagoria that has a lot more puzzles in it.
01:03:09
Speaker
And then they were like, no, you know what? Let's not do that. You know, as I understand it at this time, a big part of what Sierra was was trying to do, like at a corporate level was this idea of we want to make blockbuster games. We don't want niche games, you know, like we don't want, you know, a game I dearly love, Freddy Farkas. We don't want something that's going to sell a few copies to some diehard adventure game nerds.
01:03:34
Speaker
We want massive entertainment projects. And I think that. cutting back on the difficulty level, cutting back on some of the frustrating aspects, maybe the adventure genre was part of that pivot. I think you see a little bit of it in King's Quest 7, which I think ramps down some of the difficulty of previous King's Quests a bit.
01:03:55
Speaker
And I think you definitely see it here. It wouldn't surprise me if you're exactly right, that there wasn't a version of this because Roberto was working on this forever. I mean, it was being hyped like back in 91, I think, where they were starting to talk about she's Yeah, she was taught it was originally have to scary tales was the name that this was oh I didn't know this.
01:04:14
Speaker
Yeah, and in interviews with Roberta for years and years, she'd been talking about like, the next thing I would do basically from the time I think she finished King's Quest six, um maybe even before King's Quest six. I'm not sure she from for years talking about this idea of the next game is gonna this horror game.
01:04:29
Speaker
And it's gonna like redefine everything everybody thinks about me. It's gonna be scary tales. It's interesting because I think you know you have to imagine that in the course, especially over a long development period, um obviously once you... Because it's an FMV game, once you get to like the production of it and the filming, it's like you're youre you're doing what you storyboarded, right? You just you don't have... it's It's not the kind of game where you can kind of like iterate, right?
01:04:53
Speaker
um But you have to imagine... especially with someone like Roberta who has designed a bunch of traditional adventure games. I bet there's a bunch of like, just, just random documents and design drafts that are like, I wouldn't be surprised if if she played around with that. And she was like, Oh, but what if you had to do this and this, instead of just walking to that room? It's it's, I just say that just because it's like, it's such a big empty house with a lot of rooms that like, maybe they have like one thing in them.
01:05:24
Speaker
You know, like maybe one or two things happen in some of the rooms. Like there's like a little gazebo. Does something ever happen in that gazebo? Like there's a huge backyard. Like it just feels to me wandering around the grounds of the Phantasmagoria house that...
01:05:46
Speaker
like you know you could put at least 20 sliding tile puzzles there why not and why wouldn't you maybe a chess board with a haunted uh chess piece on it or something like that yeah it just really feels like you know just uh uh just looking at all of it is that it's just like it just constantly and maybe this is just me maybe maybe it this it was it was never meant Um, like it was never meant to, to have that. It just like, I look at this big empty house, uh, and I'm just like, it just feels like there, there should be more puzzles on there, but maybe that's a me thing.
01:06:28
Speaker
Okay, me ask you this, Ben. I just looked this up on Wikipedia, and who knows if this is believable or not. Wikipedia claims that Roberta Williams began pitching the idea of a horror movie and developing various drafts of it eight years before Phantasmagoria was released. The Phantasmagoria Wikipedia page is featured article, qua has the gold star on it.
01:06:51
Speaker
So well at some point... At some point, it was given a thorough review and all the references and whatnot were checked for, you know. We've got our Wikipedia guy here. So I'm going to trust that.
01:07:03
Speaker
But that would put it back eight years before. 87? 87? she's doing this like, She's thinking about doing some sort of horror game after King's Quest three. Is that right in the timeline?
01:07:17
Speaker
Like she's already kicking it around. um And like, I think by 91, she was talking about it openly in, in interviews and things. So she is like, there's a long tail on this. I want to make a horror I mean, calm shot. She made it and it sold really well. real Yeah, that's right. I mean, yeah. And I suspect she didn't particularly care about the reviews as she dove into her money bin and began swimming around.
01:07:43
Speaker
Oh, or yachting around. Take that, Roberta. i I mean, that's a slam. I suspect, I mean, my my sense is that Roberta hasn't particularly cared what anyone else thinks about her games her entire career. she I thoroughly believe that more so than the average game designer, Roberta Williams makes games for herself. She makes games she wants to make, seems to be what comes out in interviews that I've, I've seen with her. And I suspect she, but she probably couldn't have cared less that some people questioned how, how effective of a horror game this was, or that Australia as an entire country said no to it.
01:08:24
Speaker
ah Yeah. I don't think she's too worried about that. Yeah. yeah Yeah. And they still can't play it to this day. but we You can, which is, it's strange. Cause you can play Phantasmagoria 2 down there.
01:08:36
Speaker
so Well, they love flush puzzles. Now, ah ah
01:08:45
Speaker
I'm sorry. Thank you. want to i think one of the other things that really love about Phantasmagoria that like, so Grayson and and a bunch of our friends are are scholars of of bad films.
01:09:05
Speaker
ah We've been watching ah for for years now together, like, bad movies and, and you know... And and we've... And cult movies. and Yeah.
01:09:17
Speaker
and And we've watched, like, some stuff that... like almost no one else has watched other than the people that have made it. Would you agree with that, Grayson? Like we' we've got yeah yeah popular bad movies or stuff that like has even been covered on like your like obscure bad movie YouTube.
01:09:37
Speaker
Like we've seen some, some real obscure garbage trash. Like and this truly, truly don't even mean to not even a humble brag. We've, we've, we've,
01:09:50
Speaker
delve too deeply and too greedily and too deeply at times yeah couple of trash boys grayson has like grayson has set it up uh that letterbox can have a movie so we can make an entry of it yeah i've i've i've updated the database that letterbox pulls from because we've watched movies that that were not on that database yet We don't consider this a movie officially. Yeah. so i yeah And so Phantasmagoria has a lot of really wonderful like earmarks of bad movie directing.
01:10:33
Speaker
I'm glad you brought this up because a thing that I think is sometimes hard to communicate because I think we would all say like the acting in this is not very good, right? It's bad. It's what it is. um and And people at the time yeah At least some critics thought the acting was bad.
01:10:48
Speaker
right this is This is not something that like, oh, for the time it was good and now we've seen better games. Yeah, B-movie is kind of a kind way to discuss this, right? But it's not that we played or enjoyed this game ironically.
01:11:03
Speaker
there's like a it's it's There's a separate lane it goes into. Oh, I had great fun. Yeah, like, and like yeah so I think, right, there's a separate lane that this kind of production goes into where the the enjoyment of it is still sincere.
01:11:17
Speaker
It's not, we're not, you know, but I mean, there are things that we'll make, you know, we will make fun of stuff like this for, but it's it's from a place of fondness. And we we still think the people behind the game are achieving something deliberately, right? They're they're they're putting out something that's like a genuine creative work.
01:11:40
Speaker
i'm I'm looking up ah third ah the director of this game. tell me Martin Scorsese. ah This gentleman, Peter Maris.
01:11:53
Speaker
i Oh, Niles' wife's brother. Yeah. but Yeah, because her name is Maris Maris. um ah it's her It's like Mario. Same thing. It's just letter off.
01:12:05
Speaker
And like his first movie... uh is uh delirium 1979 was one of the infamous video nasties oh uh according to wikipedia um he uh directed grayson we might have to put yeah this guy has got to go on your your radar We're going to investigate. I'm surprised. I honestly, I'm embarrassed. I didn't look this guy up before.
01:12:33
Speaker
Um, because looking at his, this filmography, this is clearly they, now I don't know if they picked this guy because he was a B movie director and they wanted that aesthetic or if they just pick somebody they could afford who was available.
01:12:45
Speaker
Um, but i think it's that uh but in any case right this guy lends a pretty uh clearly right lends that kind of b movie feeling think one of my favorite b movie ah touches on it is like this is a thing i know what gonna say i think yeah no i think you know is um like there's There's a thing in a lot of B-movies where, like, the the camera spends so much time on, like, really, like, pointless things that we don't need to spend any time with.
01:13:26
Speaker
uh like for example like entering and exiting scenes yes like adrian walking like into a car the car like the lights turning on in the car the car like slowly pulling out of the scene do i know how she got home if i don't see that this this is a free i so once you learn about this you will never stop noticing it if you're ever watching ah a b movie or kind of just a bad movie Pay attention to how often you watch cars entering and exiting parking lots and parking spaces.
01:13:59
Speaker
ah ah It's a lot. it's a lot one of my One of my favorite episodes of Mystery Science Theater, ah like they they light up a movie ah for that specifically, referring to Hobgoblins.
01:14:14
Speaker
which just has so many cars pulling out and parking scenes. If you're on location, you want to get every bit of footage you can. Yeah. Well, it's funny because in a B movie, one of the reasons they do this because they have to hit that feature length 80 minute mark or whatever.
01:14:34
Speaker
But in a video game, that's like, eight, six to eight hours of play, it just becomes this strange sort of sort of pacing where they're they're not trying to hit a there's not ah a time they need to hit so they can distribute a film.
01:14:49
Speaker
It's just like, why are we watching Adrian sit down in a chair for the 10th time and fuss with her hair? It's a very, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's with her hair so much. It's a very, and this is, this is what I mean. We're like, this is something we like, I like the game in a very sincere way, but this is a thing in the game that I will make fun of because it's a very silly creative choice.
01:15:14
Speaker
I mean, this isn't a terribly long game. Would it be better if it were half as long? as most games would be. Yes. Yes. That's the answer to every game. Oh, Ben. No, Ben is not sure. Ben is not sure.
01:15:27
Speaker
i I loved. Half is a lot. Actually. I'll say that. I half is a lot. I 25%. Honestly, I had so much fun with every moment of the game until the end, which I didn't have fun doing, which is a bunch of like, you quick time events. And bafflingly an intensely sierra puzzle like where uh you like you can find yourself in like a situation at the end of the game where like the demon's right behind you and you don't have like this one thing that you needed to get like a bunch of screens that you can't go back to a ago
01:16:13
Speaker
and the And the game skips. um Like, you can only find this one thing. It's like if you're scouring, like, the hot spots, it's in a non-obvious secret compartment of a room.
01:16:31
Speaker
And you have to walk through multiple, like, other screens to get into this, like, hidden crypt that has, like, a rosary in it. And there's no circumstance where you would have found it other than just like kind of absentmindedly clicking around.
01:16:48
Speaker
Well, this this this kind of ties into something, I think, creatively that these and we talked about this when we were streaming it, because this was kind of a ah signature of games at this time where they're so enchanted with the sort of syno cinematic presentation that you'll walk into a room and the camera is always located in some bizarre dramatic angle.
01:17:10
Speaker
Yes. I think if if people haven't played Phantasmagoria, Resident Evil is the other like really popular example of this, right? When you walk into a room and it has, and the camera will be in some bizarre high or low angle and like your character entered from the right and is now in the bottom left. And so to but to Ben's point,
01:17:32
Speaker
it's some of the rooms and items you have to locate are truly like it's, it could be so hard to even see what directions you can move. Cause all the angles are so dramatically chosen and cinematically chosen rather than like giving you a clear sense of what exits there even are in a room.
01:17:51
Speaker
Yeah, because when you shoot something like this just dead on, it's going to feel dead on the screen. It's just, I mean, you need those angles, especially the game like this that's moving slow for a lot of its runtime.
01:18:03
Speaker
Yeah, you've got to have something to keep it feeling alive, but it does add, like, I suspect an unintended level of complication sometimes to just even navigating your way around finding a hidden passage, all that sort of stuff.
01:18:18
Speaker
Yeah, but but to go back to the, like, i i just really enjoyed, like, when the game was just very slow and it's just like you are essentially ferrying from one room to the next until, like, a new ah video, like, ah you know, you get the little treat of a new, um like, video playing.
01:18:43
Speaker
Don needs some drain cleaner. You gotta get downtown. Yeah. And like, you just go there and like, I don't know. I just had, it was, it was a lot of fun. And it again, as I said, it was, i had a ah great amount of fun just because of the, ah like these um very entertaining performances. Like this woman who runs an antique store yeah who has like stand out this very vibe.
01:19:13
Speaker
like community theater ah level ah performance. um The like there's this lecherous like the guy who sold you the house is like this lecherous realtor and it's just like that's just that's just his thing. Like he's just a really horny man with but all screenshots from one of the leisure suits, leisure suits, Larry, his wall. marlonla He's, there's like a scene where you can walk in on him as he's doing like this bizarre, like seduction as if it's like written by aliens that don't know how like human mating rituals work.
01:19:59
Speaker
Like it's, I was just having great fun with it um and living in... Like, I love, ah like, the the pre-rendered 1995 3D, like, where everything... Like, all of the the things that aren't a house all look, like, in that, like...
01:20:22
Speaker
washed out limited color, ah like, you know, geometric shape stuff. And then the interior of the house looks like it's designed with ah Sierra software's like architecture ah ah program, like these very boxy walls and stuff like that. yeah it it was out It was pointed out during when we were playing that like a lot of the interior design architecture of it Doesn't quite, if you look at a chair, you're like, that's not a real chair.
01:20:55
Speaker
And not not just because it's obviously these like low poly old models, but just like the way it's designed is odd. The way the house is laid out is ah ah odd. um Yeah, but it's like, it's it's such a a ah mark of when it was made.
01:21:09
Speaker
I think Ben, though, I think you're really right. I think it's boring to dunk on this game for the ways it doesn't fully succeed. I think that's like the most boring take you can have on Phantasmagoria. Honestly, think kind of the most boring take you can have on a Roberta Williams game.
01:21:29
Speaker
in general. I think that, I think that sincerity you talked about there before, which don't know. I feel like this is how we defend Jim Wall's games too. That you it's like there, there is clearly, yeah know, Roberta Williams wants to accomplish something with this game. And I feel like she probably succeeded by her own terms.
01:21:49
Speaker
And yeah, it's hard to, hard to hold that against it. Yeah. This, this is night and day from a ah Jim Wall's experience, right? where Right. You would say it. Roberta is so much closer to a conventional success as ah as a fun horror game than, yeah. How would a Jim Walls version of Phantasmagoria unfold? Grayson, you're a resident Jim Walls expert here. Like, what does that look like if they've been like, you know what, Roberta, we need you to work on King's Quest VIII. We're really going to, like, make Mask of Eternity a huge success.
01:22:20
Speaker
We're going to give this project over to old Jim. Old Jimmy Walls. What's funny is if you... This game, in a lot of ways, this is a Jim Walls game, because you walk slowly around a featureless locale, picking up mundane items.
01:22:33
Speaker
Eventually, you just have to get a book, and then you win. Like, it's got a lot of... i And if you were able to look at that book, it would simply say, it's a book. yeah Yeah. You're essentially tracking down a rule book for Demon. So I think that's very Jim Wallsian.
01:22:49
Speaker
ah But... No, I think the Jim Wall's version of this would... ah I mean, i think the Jim Wall's signature is a much heavier sense of moral perspective.
01:23:02
Speaker
Yes. um Whereas this game, if anything, has, i think it's kind of true to the genre in that it's, it kind of ends in just an upsetting way. Like, it's just like, that sucked.
01:23:14
Speaker
like It's actually very funny how, how ah like it like, it just like, yeah, this was mentioned earlier. The ending is Adrian just kind of walking out of the house, looking shocked.
01:23:28
Speaker
Sometimes it bees like that. And the game i'm right the game is obviously, you know, intending to be upsetting and shocking and gory and all those things. And like the the premise is unpleasant. The theme is unpleasant ah in ah in a ah on purpose horror way, you know, ah whereas right, Jim Walls and ah would would want you to learn something.
01:23:52
Speaker
however i think also in the Jim Walls. Yeah. In the Jim Walls version, I think also Adrian would constantly be commenting on how much this is like The Shining. yeah it was I would, I will say if I could go back at time and just make gym walls, watch the shining and then make a horror game, i would do that over any other historical change. I would, I would do that before writing any historical wrongs.
01:24:17
Speaker
I would just do that.
01:24:20
Speaker
Yeah.
Jim Wall's Playful Pitch and FMV Reflections
01:24:21
Speaker
Well, Jim, don't leave Sierra for tsunami. Yeah. It's going under. hey naer is soon hey Stay at Sierra.
01:24:31
Speaker
Complete Police Quest 3. baner And then go to it and then go to Ken and say, I've got a great idea. the Jim Wall's Phantasmagoria.
01:24:45
Speaker
Wallsmagoria. Yeah, Wallsmagoria. and And Ken's like, alright, that's great, but what is it? It's like, well, it's the same thing as Phantasmagoria. like Like Puzzle of Flesh.
01:24:56
Speaker
that That's a whole different story. This is just the same story, except what if I did it?
01:25:04
Speaker
and came would be like i love those police quest games. Give it to me. yeah Give it to me. You won me over right away. ah All right. Well, any, any, any, any other final thoughts on, on Phantasmagoria?
01:25:20
Speaker
Have either of you played the sequel? No. Have you? No, I haven't. I'm a little afraid of it. I nearly streamed it this month, but then I read about it on Wikipedia and there were enough ah mature themes that I had no idea how tastefully it would engage with them that I chickened out. It was the true horror.
01:25:42
Speaker
It wasn't the horror of flesh puzzles. it was the horror of potentially streaming something problematic and having to react to that in real time to a couple of dozen people. I don't know if it's, I mean, i haven't played it, so I don't know. I don't know if it's like problematic in as much as it is like, it has more like actual mature themes.
01:26:05
Speaker
And yeah, I think it has real mature themes. And my fear is it handles them, you know, in a nineties way. for Like Nani's language and things. It's real israel ah landmine of a decade. Yeah, yeah that's right.
01:26:20
Speaker
You know, and that that's why now I've based my persona entirely off of comedy of the early aughts, which has absolutely no problems at all. That's fine. You can't steer you wrong there. If if ah Owen Wilson is making a face on the cover, i'm watching like on the cover of the DVD, I am watching it.
01:26:41
Speaker
ah Wow. Unrated cut, even better. yeah Yeah. If, yeah, if, if it's a DVD cover yeah that has ah a woman, uh, like making a come hither look as she's starting to unzip her top, it says unrated. ah you know, I'm, I'm pulling that DVD off the shelf.
01:27:04
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I don't know. Like it is,
01:27:10
Speaker
I think it is it's really interesting to me to play a game that has undoubtedly a really high budget that looks really cheap today.
01:27:25
Speaker
Because you you play it and you see the, like the blue screen haloing and you really notice like the poor acting And like, you know, all the, like the graphic style is a ah style that has really aged poorly.
01:27:43
Speaker
But I look at that. And then I also remember that like, if I saw it in 1995, I would have been spellbound. I would have been like, this looks incredible. It's funny. Cause it really is right on the edge of, of when that stuff was still spelled. Like,
01:28:00
Speaker
Cause we played on stream Amazon guardians of Eden, which was like a 92 game. Like that was like a floppy disk game, but it was still like, it had like digitized voices. oh that was that That was a CD. We were playing the CD version. um but But yeah, but in any case that was 92 people were enchanted by that game, which is way uglier.
01:28:19
Speaker
And then obviously we had stuff like um wing commander and um the Mormon FMV game. I'm blanking on it. ex murphy Tex Murphy.
01:28:30
Speaker
And then Phantasmagoria was supposed to come out in 94. And it it's right on the, it's like it's kind of tipping over into when the FMV stuff started to look a little less enchanting and so and like like, wow, that's new and cool.
01:28:45
Speaker
and And more just like, oh, now it's starting to feel a little bit like, ah even even contemporary reviewers were like, yeah, this acting's not so good.
01:28:57
Speaker
it It, like, but it's it's just so fascinating because, like, I look at I see all the money being spent at the time. it like, it it was still kind of impressive, but now I look at it and, like, it only looks cheap to me.
01:29:14
Speaker
But, like, there's there's a, it's also, i mean, it's just interesting to me when I play an adventure game that has, like, an obviously huge budget. Toonstruck was similar. it has ah it's in ah It's in that Toonstruck to some degree. Yeah, I mean, Toonstruck, I think, is like, when you think of like big budget spend that is visible on screen at every moment and ultimately isn't quite paying off, I feel like. I mean, tune if Toonstruck didn't have the budget, there's nothing there to care about.
01:29:44
Speaker
So it needs that, right? I mean, otherwise it's completely forgettable. but that's a great voice cast. That's about that. Yeah, that's right. I mean, exactly. The money is all, it looks really good. it does. It looks great.
01:29:55
Speaker
Yeah. It's dripping with charm because of that. But also, yeah, you can just tell it's like, oh man, they spent some cash on this thing. This didn't come cheap. Yeah. I was wondering, and yeah, Ben, we can't really like talk about a full motion video game here on quest quest, the adventure game podcast without mentioning immortality.
01:30:13
Speaker
I would love to know what a budget for like, a modern, very ambitious FMV looks like. In a world of digital cameras and production, how much of that are you able to save back? I can't, I was just Googling and can't find ah good sense of what this might cost today, but I'd love to know how it stacks up.
01:30:38
Speaker
Yeah, all the special effects and like, you don't have to build a, you don't have to build a studio, like, you know, all the special effects are great. essentially dirt cheap now right you know and you gotta figure they probably wasted a ton of time filming and editing and everything else simply because they didn't know what they were doing yet making these sorts i mean i bet that there was a lot of wasteful production that went into a game like phantasmagoria where you were busy learning the ropes of it did they even film it on like they did they film it on film or was it digital that's a great question
01:31:12
Speaker
No idea. I mean, you can't really tell also because it's like, commpressed like so I have to assume they shot it on some sort like, like video or something they shot on a Game Boy camera. Yeah. like Like, because the thing is, is that, I mean, maybe they shot it on, like it just, it it would be weird. I would guess, I don't know.
01:31:34
Speaker
it would be weird. I guess to shoot it on film because, um like it's going to be compressed down and then like, you know, interlaced and all that. So it's like, there might be differences in how like it would like display color and light, but you know, it's already going to be like run through like a whole thing.
01:32:06
Speaker
i think... I think Tex Murphy was shot on some kind of video. I was reading because i I don't know if this is stalled out or not. I know at one point they were working on a remaster of Pandora directive. I'm not sure if that is still a going concern or not, but like one of the big things was, is that they have the original tapes and they like found like whatever,
01:32:35
Speaker
like player to make it play. And I think that was like a specific type of studio video, like not yeah like the tapes that you would put into a VCR, but like a, like a studio quality video.
01:32:49
Speaker
um And so again, I'm not involved in like film production, so I don't know, but I would like, it would be It would be pretty wildly expensive for them to shoot this on, like, film. Yeah.
01:33:04
Speaker
Yeah. And to what end? Again, but it's going to be displayed on a 640x480 monitor with hand lines and stuff. Right.
01:33:15
Speaker
Yeah. Like, you you know, you're you don't have to worry about, like... Yeah, you don't have to worry about this being in, like, the highest possible fidelity because this is going to be switched down onto, what, eight?
01:33:29
Speaker
like Seven? Like, a shitload of discs. Shitload of discs. All right. Well...
Humor in October and New Blog Introduction
01:33:38
Speaker
We did it. we We made it through the scariest month of the year. And I'm not talking about April when taxes are due.
01:33:45
Speaker
Bone chilling.
01:34:02
Speaker
bone chilling um but ah But thank you so much. Thank you, Grayson. What do you have to plug? I have something to plug, shockingly. We are out of time, folks. Thank you so much.
01:34:15
Speaker
That's a Ben joke and you know it. i No, I'm ah starting ah blog. What?
01:34:26
Speaker
A blog? Yes, I'm back in time. I'm starting a blog. um It's called I might as well explain the joke. go You can go to I might as well explain the joke dot com. It's a blog where I talk about a very um ah ah joke in American history that was very popular, ah kind of in the zeitgeist. And I kind of ah talk about where it came from and what I think about it.
01:34:48
Speaker
I love that title. That's a really good title. that's early because i hadn't heard the title until just now. I stole it from... i was watching So, part of the appeal of this project is to get to watch old Johnny Carson episodes and monologues perfect to see what was in the in the news, so to speak.
01:35:02
Speaker
And there's a ah like a lot of late-night monologues. A lot of the jokes are not great. ah They just, you know... How dare you put down the great Johnny Carson... But there was a great where he told some joke.
01:35:14
Speaker
i don't remember the King of Late Night. He told some joke and like, it's one of those examples where you could tell he's given it his all, but like he's humoring some writer who just couldn't put out a good joke that day.
01:35:24
Speaker
um So he told the joke, no one laughed. And then he just kind of shuffled around and said, well, I might as well explain the joke. And then he explained what the crunch line was supposed to be. Yeah.
01:35:35
Speaker
That sounds fascinating. And for our younger viewers, basically what Grayson's going to be doing here, it's like a vlog, except it will be in written form. Yeah, so no one will look at it. it it yeah Yeah, it's like what you're listening to now, which is a podcast, except that instead of ah it being like three guys rambling and occasionally speaking over each other,
01:35:59
Speaker
uh it is one person writing unless it's one of the the best types of posts on a blog which is of course when it's a transcript uh from a podcast yeah yeah yeah yeah those are the best i get so mad when i get tricked get so bad when i get tricked into opening one of those i'm like oh no get out of here it's it's very upsetting because yeah yeah like sometimes there will be like a really interesting headline like oh i would be interested in learning about that and then like you see in bold like the name of the ah author and then colon then like and you're like oh fuck off it used to be it used to be people would just post fucking slack transcripts as an article that even worse even worse
01:36:43
Speaker
Even worse. Even worse. Like the Weird Al album. but I might as well explain the joke.com. It'll be up. Wow, you.com'd it?.com'd it. dot comed it What platform are you using? I might as well explain the joke.com.
01:37:00
Speaker
that is it'ss Right now, Ben is just going to see a template. It says coming soon. Yes. It's powered by Ghost. It is powered by Ghost. Oh.
01:37:12
Speaker
oh ah One last hurrah for a spooky month. It's powered by Ghost.
01:37:22
Speaker
all right. Well, Grayson, I'm excited for this brand new Grayson project. This sounds i am too awesome. this This sounds really good. and you know what I'm going to As Grayson writes these essays, yeah I am then going to go and update Wikipedia using Grayson as a defensive source. I'm not a reliable source.
01:37:39
Speaker
You have a.com. They don't just give those out to anybody. Grayson, have you already started to work on or can I pitch? ah the joke of like Elvis showing up everywhere has this then I'll give this away for free that is the first post yeah it is the first post it it'll go it's gonna update first Monday of every month so ah the first one will be on November 3rd the first one is in fact about Elvis is alive jokes that's perfect that's perfect
01:38:13
Speaker
yeah then everyone also yeah Yeah. Also, everyone should check out Ben's website. Can I
01:38:24
Speaker
ah but i've got well I've got, I've got, I've got, uh, three written and ready to go. ah they're all, I think they're all quite interesting. Uh, and on a long list of, uh, of, of ideas.
01:38:36
Speaker
Um, how many of these are going up a day? At the current rate, ah the first one will go up on a Monday. That's one at that on that day. It will be one a day and then a month will pass and there'll be a second one.
01:38:49
Speaker
Oh, so like it says here on the event, punctuated first Wednesday of every month. I need to update. Now you're saying it's ah the the first Monday. don't think it's fired for that. one hey Hey, hey, hey, hey, Grayson. Yeah, what's up?
01:39:03
Speaker
I hate Mondays. Could that be one? and Yeah, that could be one. Yeah, he said that's a short one. Can you put it set up on canipitchthejoke.com? ah Yeah, go you so yeah, first of all, go to my man, Ben.
01:39:16
Speaker
He handles the joke pitches. Yeah, I'll just submit that to the guest book on canipitchthejoke.com. Yeah, and and when you go there, make sure to note um that the visitor count ticks up by one.
01:39:29
Speaker
Yeah, there should be a visitor count graphic on canipitchthejoke.com. Where's the guest book? I'm looking at the page right now, and i don't see a guest book brought to you by BraveNet. um That'll be up. ah That should be up by the when I launch as well as the V Bulletin forum.
01:39:44
Speaker
ah I've got a ground level. I'm on this page. yeah And there isn't like a little thing that follows my mouse around. Oh, that's still in the works. ah But there should be there should be a little... um the The theater masks should follow your mouse around.
01:40:04
Speaker
Oh, cool. Good. The smiling and and frowning one. Will, is this optimized for Internet Explorer? If you are browsing at less than 800 600, you have problems.
01:40:15
Speaker
you will have problems ah okay grayson um what do you have a like a page on this which has like a bunch of like you know really good wave files yes i will have a soundboard page but a soundboard page that is the three or four simpsons clips i've managed to collect um it'll have dough Oh, that's going to big one.
01:40:42
Speaker
It'll have a Marge ah ah ah expressing disapproval. Yeah, it's not like I can't do it.
01:40:53
Speaker
Can we get a computers can do that? Can we get that? So I really like that one is like a a Windows alert. ah Sure. need a couple new sounds to customize. Like when I click on start or when I minimize something. yeah yeah yeah you know like can i have like i'm I'm on the outlook for i give you some new waves. I've got dough. I've got Marge disapproval. I've got donuts.
01:41:19
Speaker
That's a famous one. That's a good one. ah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. but This sounds like a great website. It feels like you're checking off all the boxes. You'll have everything you need from a website in one website.
01:41:31
Speaker
Finally, the one-stop shop. I have finally perfected the website is what I'm saying. All right.
Podcast Engagement and Humor
01:41:38
Speaker
Well, shoot us an email at QuestQuestPod. QuestQuestPodcast? Yeah.
01:41:46
Speaker
QuestQuestPodcast at gmail.com. Or even go to QuestQuestPod. Just see what they say. Yeah. You know, what does that person have to say? Yeah, they do all VR game reviews to an episode.
01:42:02
Speaker
so QuestQuestPodcast at gmail.com. Rate and review. goods the ah Five stars gets you a pat on the back. Five stars go right in the toilet.
01:42:13
Speaker
Don't rate it lower than five. In fact, if you rate it one, just save yourself the time. Don't do anything. Yeah. ah And join us next week when ah Grayson explains the joke.............
01:42:40
Speaker
Chasing me out, taking chances we ever know The highs we won't know you'll take on And right before our eyes will find Just make you so long in me
01:43:03
Speaker
I'm just going to read out my credit card number now for the no listeners left.
01:43:30
Speaker
the nolist left right, goodbye, everybody.