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Episode 41 – Wrath of the Gods and Pearlmania500
0 Playsin 7 hours
This week, we’re playing a game that made us so angry, we had to yell about it. And to do this, we brought in the internet’s best angry yeller: Pearlmania500.
Comedian Alex Pearlman hangs out to tell us a bit about politic and then the 1994 “edutainment” game Wrath of the Gods. Matt talks a bit about Loco Motive, Roses talks a bit about Kings Quest 8, and we rank a few adventure games.
Pearlmania500 Linktree:
https://linktr.ee/pearlmania500
Wrath of the Gods:
Email us! [email protected]
Games Mentioned:
- · Stardew Valley
- · Minecraft
- · Skyrim
- · Outer Worlds
- · Vampire Survivors
- · Kings Quest VII
- · Hoyle Card Games
- · Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
- · Oregon Trail
- · Loco Motive
- · Wrath of the Gods
- · Legend of Zelda
- · Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator – Case 1: In Search of the Skunk Ape
- · Tangle Tower
- · Madness of the Architect
- · Lifeless Moon
- · Secret Doctrine
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Intro and Dental Mishaps
00:00:00
Speaker
Well, I can give you a teeth update. Do you have the theme queued up? Uh, I don't, but I'm going to play it somewhere. I'm going to play it right here. Teeth update. Okay. yeah songsplay
00:00:23
Speaker
update. Yeah, so long story short, I bruised one of my teeth.
Teeth Grinding and Gaming Stress
00:00:30
Speaker
You can do that. ah Yeah, no, you can do that. So is it like literally purple? No, it's no, you can't see it. It's like inside. It's like internal.
00:00:44
Speaker
Oh, okay. You can bruise like the nerve endings inside. Okay, good. Well, no, because I had, listen, I don't claim to know what I mean. this means All right. I had root canals. I had two version C root canals. And then I had to have, uh, like restorative work because I have veneers. So I had to have a special thing done. And after that restorative work, my tooth started hurting again and I was freaking out. So I had to go back.
00:01:08
Speaker
And she's like, yeah, you're hitting your tooth on another tooth again. And there's a bruise. Probably. She said a bruise. Probably. I'm like, all right. So I have to get more teeth shaped off. and That's my teeth update. That's your whole teeth. Well, plus she didn't know that you've been playing punch buggy with your teeth. Yeah. we ah Did I tell you, Matt, that like when I play ah games like Stardew Valley and Fields of Mistria, I grind my teeth.
00:01:39
Speaker
I
Guest Introduction and Gaming Talk
00:01:40
Speaker
get so stressed out that I start grinding. And so now I have to wear a mouth guard when I'm playing Stardew Valley. Wait. Hold on. Wait. Hi. Hi, everyone. I'm a guest.
00:01:53
Speaker
I was sitting over here quietly trying to figure out where I was going to merge into this, but now I'm picturing a person whose face I've never seen wearing a mouth guard. What part of Stardew Valley makes you grind your teeth? Is it the RP? Where in it? Is it when you're trying to date everyone in the village or is it are you just terrified you're going to miss the Easter egg drop? What happened? Yeah, how does the Easter egg hunt treat your teeth?
00:02:20
Speaker
Uh, well, first of all, the Easter egg hunt is very stressful. So don't make how dare you poke fun at me. No, I guess it's like when I'm farming and I have to like, or like early on when you don't have all the great tools. So you're doing everything one by one. It gets really tedious. And anytime anything gets tedious, I started grinding because I would think like the cavern would make you do it.
00:02:43
Speaker
But not like your action. So you're playing a cozy game that was designed to calm people down and you're over here like just destroying your teeth. It's a game with no time limits, with no dead ends, with nothing and there's no stakes whatsoever. The
Podcasting and Social Media Presence
00:03:00
Speaker
stakes are high. Every time I played the game, my wife has walked into the room and said, what are you doing? I said, I'm playing Stardew Valley. And she said, are you winning? And I said, babe, there's no way to win. It's just about existing and living in a world where things are nice. If anything, it is a simulator for the perfect world.
00:03:17
Speaker
But it's not perfect. It's not perfect. Exactly. That's the problem. I'm i'm i'm beginning to understand this podcast rapidly.
00:03:28
Speaker
Wait, you haven't even seen my face? I don't know who, i listen, Matt was like, hey, do you wanna come on a podcast? And I was like, yeah, sure. I always say yes to podcasts. Matt, you didn't show our guest who I am? No, there's no point at which we were hanging out and I pulled up a picture of you on my phone. I was like, do you wanna go on a podcast with this?
00:03:53
Speaker
but but no you should show i yeah two no that's i think now I think now that you've told the story about your teeth, listen yeah that he he knows who knows who he's talking to. I have a pretty good idea of like what I can pick when you just have bruised tea first teeth yeah and and the anxiety that won't let you farm.
00:04:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's me. I hope you have, yeah, I hope you- Also, Perlman, it's funny that you called just like a world of self-sustaining, off-the-grid farming, your perfect world, where your whole thing is about ending up in a traditional marriage with two kids in a house. I think listeners need to know, Perlman's a big fan of the return with a V. Oh, is that what I am? I reject modernity?
00:04:45
Speaker
um Listen, I'm gonna tell you right now. Can I tell you when I play Stardew Valley? I always go Mark. I always go Mark. Oh my god. That's right. We're heel turning at the beginning of the episode. I think we gotta start the music
Political Commentary and Viral Moments
00:05:00
Speaker
before we get into a huge argument.
00:05:24
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to Save Your Game. I am your host, Matt Aucamp, and with me, the bruised, the battered, the calcium deficient. oh It's pushing up our houses, everybody. Hey everyone, how's it going? My teeth hurt, but it's okay. This is fine, everything's fine. ah you Have you switched to like the almond milk? Is that what's been going on?
00:05:50
Speaker
I mean, i I never drank dairy milk. Do you not know this about me? I think we have talked about it on the show a little bit. I have switched to almond milk, but also I have amazing teeth.
00:06:01
Speaker
and skin. It's really weird and I don't like it very much. No, thanks for that. I thought you would fight me about it. Instead, you ah one up my yeah you added a compliment on top. Now I'm really uncomfortable with that. Sorry, what I meant to say is that you look like a garbage person. Thank you. fucking Finally, I can be comfortable here.
00:06:24
Speaker
i Okay, everybody, i need I need you all to just get ready because we have got a ah ah whopper of a guest today. This man, I've known him for a very long time, and it is only recently that I discovered that he is a George Soros plant.
00:06:48
Speaker
that has been placed into my life to influence my politics ah for the past two decades. This is my friend, you know him as a TikToker, YouTuber, Instagrammer, ah political commentator. Stardew Valley player, but not the right way. It's a Pearlmania 500, AKA Alex Perlman.
00:07:13
Speaker
That's right, I brought my own air horn, baby. I was about to almost play you off there, Matt. That was too long of an intro. That was a long intro. No, but it was good. Yeah, I mean, I do. I have known you for almost 20 years now. and That's kind of weird.
00:07:24
Speaker
But the it's great to be here. I would like to go ahead and start out by saying that that was a joke at the beginning, everybody. Of course, I represent whatever, and actually never get deep enough into the game for it to matter. I'm an early game player on all of these survival games. I i master, it doesn't matter, Minecraft, ah any of these type of games where you have to craft things and like build up a place, I get into it very early on, and then I stop playing for like a day or two, and when I restart, I'm like, I don't remember how to do anything. So I just restart the game.
00:07:54
Speaker
All of these games, all of it, doesn't matter. Minecraft, it's like, if i i I don't think I've ever made a diamond sword or a diamond pickaxe. I don't think I've ever even gotten a diamond. I just give up. Wow. I've literally never played Minecraft. I have OCD, so I should not play Minecraft, but here I am farming my butt off in Stardew Valley for some reason.
00:08:16
Speaker
they're They're all very, I mean, all the crafting games have a pretty similar gameplay
Gaming Preferences and Nostalgia
00:08:20
Speaker
loop. I just find that I really, really like the early games in a lot of them. And once, like in Minecraft, it's once you get involved with Redstone and I'm like, oh, I'm building like basic physics engines. I'm like, I'm out.
00:08:31
Speaker
but Same thing with Stardew Valley. it was it's For me, like I understand the allure of the role-playing relationship simulator that comes into it. But I'm like, I was told this was a farming game. And they're like, well, go down the mine. I was like, I was told this was a farming game. And I just get really mad at it.
00:08:50
Speaker
And um that's that's kind of how that works for me. See, the farming is like my least favorite thing to do. And that's why I grind my teeth. I know I have to do it to make a little bit of money. But once I don't have to do that anymore, I can fish, I can mine, I can you know flirt with everyone and then marry them separately and then erase their memories and then do it again. That's when I have a good time.
00:09:12
Speaker
I didn't know you could I didn't know there was a memory eraser memory eraser and there's also you could turn your children if you have children somebody you can turn them into doves and they fly away. ah I am. ah It is. There's a lot of disturbing leather levels to Stardew Valley. Yeah. No. we yeah We have to we have to ask him what his who his person is who is love interest is.
00:09:36
Speaker
I don't even know. i never I remember none of their names. Like i'd like legit, like legitly I'm telling you, I get into the game. I think I usually play for like one in-year game and like what one game in a year. And I'm like, okay, cool. I've seen all of the seasonal festivals and I'm just like, I'm good. And cause I have an actual child. So like I should probably pay attention to him. And then my dog, the actual animal that lives in my house, my oversized dog will look at me like, can we go outside? And I'm like, fair.
00:10:07
Speaker
But can you put a hat on your dog? I have tried. Because you can do that in Stardew Valley. You can put hats on your dog. That you buy from a mouse. Yeah, you buy from a mouse. You guys are really selling me on this world. I've got it. So yeah we're going to we're going to be talking about video games. Obviously, that's what this podcast is. But Pearlman, Alex Perlman. Yes. Pearlman 500. Pearlmania 500. You are politics guy.
00:10:35
Speaker
Apparently. And our listeners, they're game boys, right? okay I mean, game boys of all gender. Literally, game boy consoles. It's very game. Gotcha. Gotcha. They all voted because the price of double A batteries has gone up. That's what affected their voice. They all voted for Andrew Yang. OK, got it. thanks guy These
Game Design and Industry Insights
00:11:00
Speaker
guys are so- This is a big AINFT crowd. Got it. Look, i love I love these guys, but these guys are so dumb about politics. They know literally nothing. They don't even know what a politics is. Wait, are you talking about our audience? Our audience is great. I ran into a listener one time and I asked them who president was. They said Zelda. This is but this is a true story. It happened to me at Wawa.
00:11:25
Speaker
oh my god so okay so i guess what i want to say is in the simplest dumbest way possible can you explain to everybody what you do and what Just what politics is. Why is it so hot right now? Okay, I can explain this pretty easily. All right, let me just go ahead and start you off at the beginning, all right? At the beginning, there was nothing. And then stuff happened. I gotta go to the bathroom? and No, so basically, as Matt has known me for 20 years, I've been doing stand up off and on is the best way to describe it.
00:11:58
Speaker
And um about two years ago when the announcement about Roe v. Wade being overturned came out, um I picked up my phone and I opened up TikTok and I started just yelling because it felt good. I was yelling a lot and I was yelling specifically at the Democratic Party of which I am a member.
00:12:16
Speaker
And I was very mad at ah Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer because ah when Roe v. Wade was overturned at the end of a 49 year plan by the Republican party and conservatives and all this other different stuff.
00:12:31
Speaker
And even with a month advance notice that it was going to come from the Supreme Court, I believe the reaction of the Democratic Party was to send out 13 mass text messages asking for $15. I think a bunch of people just suddenly had that visceral memory reopened for them. yeah And I lost my mind about this because we're so I'm sitting there surrounded by my friends and family who are ah you know obviously horrified by this news that was coming through. Their health care is being destroyed. people Friends of mine in the South and across states in the Midwest immediately lost ah health care. People I knew had their lives who were pregnant at the time.
00:13:09
Speaker
um had their lives immediately put at risk, all these different things. And ah the the major political party that is supposed to be against this thing happening was like, give us money and maybe we'll do something about it. And I was like, that's not good enough. So I started yelling and um it became a very big hit.
00:13:24
Speaker
And then ah more people started following me. And then I think I stubbed my toe and I yelled about that. And then more people like that. And then I went to Target and they didn't have plastic bags anymore. And they're like, you can pay a nickel for a bag. And I was like, bags used to be free. What happened to paper? And then but Fox News started playing that. And I was like, don't do that. And then I yelled about Fox News listening to me yelling and how I didn't give them permission. And then more people started listening. And before I knew it. from ah Taco Taco Bell.
00:13:52
Speaker
The Taco Bell video, yeah, I tried to go to a Taco Bell and get a Mexican pizza, but the lobby was closed. It was just the whole thing. That's sad, because I love Mexican pizza. I would be devastated. but and you don't want to the The whole point of the video is you don't want to eat eat and eat it in your car, and because that's that's horrifying. I want to eat Taco Bell in the Taco Bell, because I don't want that taco smell to follow me to Taco Hell, right?
00:14:18
Speaker
Wow. Can I use that
Political Comedy and Gaming Critiques
00:14:20
Speaker
for one of my for my upcoming toilet decals? Listen, you can use whatever you want because the one thing I've learned, and as you know from being on the internet long enough, once you post it, it's no longer your property. No matter how hard you fucking try.
00:14:33
Speaker
not There is a series, listen, and there is, I think there's about eight different people posing as me on Facebook right now, who are doing very well financially. They're doing it great. I have absolutely no control over my Facebook presence. However, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pearlmania 500, all those. I also do a podcast with my wife.
00:14:53
Speaker
ah called Too Many Tabs. And that's one where, if you guys ever do this thing where you're with your partner and one of you just obsesses about something, you just happen to go on Wikipedia or you just like click on an article and then you start following hyperlinks, right? So you start and you're like, oh my God, there's this one character in Fallout 3. And then before you know it, you're like, okay, this is how Genghis Khan defeated the Quasmarian Empire. And you're like, what the fuck? That is what our podcast is.
00:15:20
Speaker
It like starts in one place and you just kind of follow it through. um and And we have a book club and all this other different fun stuff. ah So Too Many Tabs, Pearlmania 500. You can find any of that different stuff. I will tell Matt to link my link tree. Oh yeah, will do. That has everything in it. I'm going to talk to him via text.
00:15:39
Speaker
I'm going to ask you one serious question that you will not have enough time or space ah to answer. And then one question that is clearly coming from me, Matt Aucamp. So the first question is based on what i what you were saying about, um
00:15:59
Speaker
you know, the tech, like, you know, Democrats had 60 years to yeah codify Roe v. Wade in some way. and it culminated in a the inevitable ah downfall and a text for $15, right? What is it about, and this is the only politics question I'll ask, what is it about politicians that the moment they get elected to office, they stop being activists, right? They lose their causes and now and none of their personal money goes towards any causes. None of their personal time goes to their causes. They just focus on this career.
00:16:41
Speaker
So it's ah that they are trying to bank political capital rather than spend it is number one. And number two, it's because if they used to be an activist, everyone they used to yell at is now currently their coworker and they have to eat lunch next to those people and occasionally share a bathroom with them, allegedly. I mean, that's actually, I think I have a button for that.
00:16:59
Speaker
Allegedly. There we go. um That's from a podcast. ah But um that is a big part of it is they you end up, I mean, it's like any company at the end of the day, becoming a politician is getting a job in a company. And that company is either a state level, a local level or becoming a member of the federal government of the United States of America. And one of the couple things can happen there, you can be offered a lot of money from lobbyists.
00:17:25
Speaker
But you also get a given a cushy life by the government itself. And so you end up get with a disconnect between the people who sent you there and the person you were before you get into those seats. And that's that's really the biggest thing is you start looking around. I mean, one thing that happened in this last election, a lot of people on the ground here in Pennsylvania and across the nation felt that the economy has not been doing well for them for quite some time, especially since about 2021 due to inflation for many, many different reasons. On paper, the economy is fine.
00:17:58
Speaker
In DC, they were like, on paper, the economy's fine. And I'm like, well, I can point to all these different things that say the economy isn't. I know all these people who say the economy isn't great. And then they would look at me and go, on paper, the economy's fine. What can we do about it? Now, on the flip side of that, you do then have people who gamify the way we view the world, um specifically Elon Musk on Twitter, but also a litany of people who are being paid literally millions of dollars by billionaires to make sure that we all view things fucking horribly. They but they pumped the gas on a lot of that different stuff.
00:18:28
Speaker
to point out every small little thing that has gone wrong instead of focusing on anything or any idea of what we can move forward. So now we all live in a nightmare hellscape, and we have to go look back at very poor broken adventure games from the early 90s, written about Greek mythology to make ourselves want to rip our bruised teeth out of our fucking head. OK. And that's that's kind of where that goes. Listen, here's my that's I want to point something out. Escape rooms really popped off during the first Trump administration. That was practice.
00:18:58
Speaker
Oh my So here's my second question. yeah Hunter Biden, 2028. What? no No, listen, i i I have actually been a big advocate for Hunter Biden getting a pardon, so I'm actually happy for it. No, I'm happy about i i make it. with yeah listen I think it's the least consequential thing of all time. i'm a so If none of us can be free, at least Hunter can be free.
00:19:28
Speaker
Like to me, Hunter Biden getting a last minute pardon is Free Willy jumping over the wall. But in the back of your mind, you're like, well, he can't survive
Cultural Impact and Gaming Narratives
00:19:40
Speaker
though. Free Willy's been in a tank this whole time. He just knew how to feed himself. And then Hunter Biden's like, I'll never commit crime again. And you're like, oh, buddy. Future president, Hunter. No. Future president, Hunter Biden. Giant Fleet Fox is an Incubus fan. Giant Fleet Fox is an Incubus fan.
00:19:58
Speaker
so ah all right so and It was in the deposition. right so okay that's That's our politics section. everybody ah Everybody wouldn't have answers, and I did. I said you wouldn't have enough time to answer. But she made it work. I think he deserves props for that. Yeah, and that's what my TikToks are about. I take very complicated things and I wrap them up in three minutes. Do you have your applause button? I don't have a pause button, but I do have this button.
00:20:26
Speaker
Roses roses might have an applause button. I have a how about this one? Okay, that's Okay, well, all right, if we're gonna go board for board, let me play you my favorite one ready i i That's right, it's the no Nazi guarantee I like it. That's my friend. And his name was Dusk, who does all of our audio for the Too Many Tabs podcast. We actually had to create a no Nazi guarantee button because when we were talking about history, so many things ended up and like and then the Nazis showed up and be like, fuck. Yeah.
00:21:10
Speaker
And so, yeah, we got we we went on a really big kick about ah the 1880s, 1890s, which actually worked out pretty well for us for a while there, because ah you realize you're just watching kind of like the analog version of the digital hell we're in now, because it's just like billionaires and landlords going crazy. And then they're like, we invented this new thing. What is it? Set information around the world. Wow. And they use it to poison the people's minds. You're like, oh, shit.
00:21:35
Speaker
or they use it to play video games on. So what video games are you into, Alex? Sure. ah So the two I've been playing, i I end up usually finding a game I like and then kind of just sticking with it. So sure I'm one of those guys who does, whenever I'm like, oh my God, I need to stop spending money. My default is just to play Skyrim again.
00:21:57
Speaker
I will always, when you call me a big return guy, which was a very funny joke, a very funny note, but I will return to Skyrim often. I do, and I go to- The return guys really love Skyrim, by the way. They really love Skyrim, but I will go do that. But recently, I mean, I mostly grabbed my Nintendo Switch, because again, we have a baby, so I can't monopolize the TV. That's for Ms. Rachel.
00:22:24
Speaker
and Gracie's Corner and Sesame Street. um So the Switch is perfect. So I was playing The Outer Worlds again for a little bit because I just really loved that studio. But then the the real, the best video game as a new dad with an 11 month old is Vampire Survivors. i oh my god I will just play that. And they just had a new Castlevania DLC that came out that I don't quite understand, but I feel like I'm doing well. Look, I've stopped understanding i stopped understanding Vampire Survivors about ah eight months ago and they have these new DLCs and there's like adventure mode and there's love that i have no idea what's going on and i just I just when I am doing something else like editing audio or ah or or listening to something for school, I will just sit and play Vampire Survivors for one to four hours. but I can tell you my favorite thing to do in Vampire Survivors is to get strong enough that you don't have to touch the game anymore.
00:23:21
Speaker
Yes. That's my absolute favorite thing. Is it looking over, be like, oh, I died? Well, I have six revives now. That's fine. If listeners don't know what vampire survivors is, it's like a, uh, it's almost like a reverse bullet hell game where you are walking around collecting, uh, you're collecting how power to make your stronger while waves and waves of enemies just consistently come towards you. And every time you kill an enemy, they drop a little bit of a experience, which helps you level those weapons up. And sometimes they drop new weapons for you to collect. So, uh, I got, the freelin I got pipelined in the game by YouTube. Uh, I clicked on a click bait title and the guy was like the most addictive video game I've ever played. And I legit was like, oh, how addictive could it be? And then first playing it, and I'm like, well, you went the wrong direction there. it was It was like I fell for one of those bad mobile game ads. You know what I mean? Like, you pulled a wrong stick, and that's why you keep getting covered in lava. Like, that was me screaming. yeah and just someone like And then it was like, yeah, it's like four bucks on Steam. And I was like, four bucks on Steam? That's not that much. now And then but I opened up my Switch, and I guess it had just ported to Switch.
00:24:33
Speaker
And then it was like five dollars. And I was like. I can't believe you were influenced. You fell for an influencer. I was one hundred thousand percent influenced. And any time any time it ah it has DLC, I immediately buy it. But it's been it's just a good game for like it's just such a good mindless game. It's like I have 20 minutes. I have a half hour. I don't want to ah experience America in twenty twenty four. Here's vampire survivors.
00:25:04
Speaker
here's how into Here's how addictive va Vampire Survivors is. i When I started playing it when it first came out, I was just looking for anything to like because it takes so little of your brain to play Vampire Survivors.
00:25:19
Speaker
but it you need to be consistently paying attention to it. So you need something else to do. You need something generally for me to listen to. For some reason I ended up listening to the first four books of the Left Behind series while I was playing Vampire Survivors that I thought I wonder what these are like. And I listened to the first one and I ended up on book four before I was like, I can't do it anymore. what Matt, what I would say is that's a horrible thing to do. And find yourself if you ever find yourself playing a video game, you really don't need the audio. Can I make a suggestion? Yeah, I would be listen to too many tasks.
00:25:58
Speaker
ah wow find wherever you listen to podcasts yeah on youtubebe on youtube on youtube.com slash pro mania 500. Hey, perfect up rose ah the best way to find it is if you just follow me on instagram. All right, hey, hey, listening to this pitch about too many tabs, man. Go to pro mania 500 500.net.
00:26:18
Speaker
Which is a direct link to my patreon and you can get ad-free content there. You don't like ads You don't have to hear them go to pro mania 500 net and then you know what this podcast is brought to you by the don believe me dot com slash prolineia i i and what's happening here Hey pushing up roses, what are you been playing lately?
00:26:43
Speaker
I don't want to say, because Matt's going to make fun of me. I want to hear it. I want to know. Matt, Matt, if you talk, I'm going to hit you with an air horn. It's going to hurt. I want to hear. I want to hear. I want to hear. I've been replaying King's Quest 7. See, I know he would laugh at me. Hit him with the air horn. OK. Thank you. What is King's Quest 7?
00:27:07
Speaker
King's Quest VII is ah the last classic of the King's Quest in the franchise. It pivoted a lot ah because the previous games were more in pixelated style. This is more of a 3D, cartoony style. It's very hated, to be honest.
00:27:27
Speaker
But I love it, I love it. you play ah You play two female protagonists, which I think is great. ah The artwork in the background is beautiful. And it's just very nostalgic for me, Matt. It's the first game I bought with my own money. King's Quest VII.
00:27:44
Speaker
I like King's Quest. I don't want to come across as some sort of King's Quest seven hater. You reserve that for King's Quest five, don't you? Yes, I do. What was that? i said i'm I'm a real big King's Quest three guy. That's my favorite King's Quest, but I have a feeling that you have not played. Yeah, he's lying. You don't know what King's Quest is. kings guy I just pulled it up, and there was a moment here where I'm looking at this art. I'm like, is this just Jafar gender bent?
00:28:12
Speaker
It's just gender bent Jafar fighting Anastasia from the movie Anastasia. It's yeah, I mean, it is very. No, it doesn't. It has a very nice Disney. Very. young blue is the Very Don Bluth. Very Disney. ah This was this was like the direction that Sierra thought they were going to go. um And they did this. They did the realm online. I think those were and they did Torrance Passage. Yeah. And none of those sold very well. So that's kind of a card game. They pivoted to 3D. Did Sierra have a card game? Yes, they had a. like fole Hoyles.
00:28:51
Speaker
Yes, that's what I had. Yeah, at leisure suit it was like leisure suit Larry and King Graham. Yeah. Yeah. No, I remember. Yeah. I remember the Hoyle's casino. I think it was somewhere. Yeah. yeah right Yeah. We had that because we had we were a Mac family growing up. So anything Mac like would end up because there was so few games for Mac. That was the thing at the time. Yeah. Yeah, especially in like yeah in like that, like mid 90s. So it was like we'd go to the computer store. And like, we did I think it was it was an office max comp you serve, I think was one of them. And we'd go there. And I just remember being like, my dad would usually let us get one. But it was like out of you had a choice of five. And then we would always look over at like the windows. And that's the bus section and be like, put over there with their fucking Wolfenstein.
00:29:41
Speaker
You know, like all I would look over there. You have to have a PC. yeah You had if you wanted to be a gamer, you had to have a PC in the 90s. They were having the time. They're like, what were you even playing? Eventually, eventually I could get like Dark Forces, but it was a lot of the game that I'm here to talk to you about, which we're never getting to. ah Because yeah, yeah, yeah. But ah there was snap But there was actually, it's it's funny, because looking back at this, a like it was a lot of, like my mom was a teacher, and a lot of it was like educational ed games. I love I love edutainment games, yep. There was a bunch of games like How to Type. I remember there's this one that was this really weird green. I want us to say like he was like a booger guy. I don't remember the name of it. A booger guy? Yeah, it actually uses- A booger guy. A booger man?
00:30:31
Speaker
No, it's like he's saying it's such entertainment though it's not but it's an edgeogger man it's not entertainment it's a game that's supposed to teach you like how to use a computer. And so it's very like Nickelodeon coded. And it was like, this is how like, yeah but like, instead of like closing a window, instead of just making a closed noise, it like made a fart noise. You know what I mean? Like it was like that type of thing. But legit, my mom did not know how to use a computer. We use that. My sister and I use that game as children to teach my mom how to use a Mac.
00:31:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And it was she was like, Oh, it was great. She was like, and she always talks about it. She's like, you and your sister were so calm. Like we're now we're not like now when she's like, how do I not get scammed on the internet? We're like, I don't know die. Oh, god. But instead, like back then we were very calm children. We're like, Oh, no, it makes sense that you don't know how to use a mouse.
00:31:18
Speaker
Oh, if you if you had a Mac, did you and you liked edutainment? Did you play any of the Carmen Sandiego games? Did you grow up? Oh, yeah, yeah, we had those. I'm just trying to think of the ones off the top of my head that like Oregon Trail. We've all played Oregon Trail, right? Yeah, Oregon Trail. There was all those different and my school had all Macs.
00:31:35
Speaker
So it was like you had the the school like, this school out here was all very Mac heavy. And then it was like, once I had like sixth, seventh grade, my dad's office, his company switched to PC. yeah So then his work computer became PC and then at school, everything became PC. And I remember being pissed about it. And then one day one of my buddies was like, I finally got like my own PC and he was like, okay, cool. This is how you like do all the fun stuff. And I was like, okay, fine, whatever.
00:32:03
Speaker
what Well, Matt, what game are you playing? Yeah, Matt hasn't. Matt hasn't told us what game he's been playing. Oh, yeah, there. There you share share there's it go. And as I said, last episode, I've been playing some of these. I've been trying to get in games to kind of.
00:32:17
Speaker
that that people have been talking about is like some of the top games of 2024, at least in the adventure game world. So actually I've been playing locomotive. You have? Oh my God, I haven't started it yet. i' said Do you like it? Tell me everything. It's really good. you know it it has um It's very, very early LucasArts. Alex Roman, did you ever play any of the LucasArts games like Day of the Tentacle or Monkey Island or? I think I played like Monkey Island like briefly. like There was a couple of those type of games. Again, like I think they had them at the computer lab like at school. like I didn't have them at home. Right.
00:32:52
Speaker
um so this this game is clearly inspired by those, and of course we talk about a lot of point and clicks, but this game, more than any game we've ever talked about, has that LucasArts flair to it. um It's got these silly, cute animations, it's got ah funny slapsticky jokes constantly, ah and ah really ah big,
00:33:18
Speaker
ah cartoony sort of characters. And ah it's it's good. i I hear that you eventually branch into multiple characters. I'm still only playing the lawyer, Arthur A. Ackerman.
00:33:31
Speaker
um It's a lot of, it's a lot of fun. It's just, I don't know that I can describe it besides it's got rid ridiculous point and click puzzles um where you are combining the most absurd things in your inventory to make odd devices. I have not found it hard yet, but I have heard other reports of people talking about it being very, that sort of LucasArts out of the box thinking. Yeah, so this is this is like a LucasArts game meets ah Murder on the Orient Express.
00:34:02
Speaker
heck yeah got is There is a murder on a train and you are trying to solve it ah but mostly you're just like stealing old ladies hearing horns and and favorite you know combining random ingredients to create a poisonous drink so that you can understand what another drunk person is saying. it's Like that level of logic. Yeah.
00:34:22
Speaker
You know, Matt, that that's like my kind of game. I love that kind of shit. That's more logical. I do like this stuff. But roses, would your teeth survive?
00:34:33
Speaker
I don't. Maybe not. i and stra that Like from here on out, I need to have a have a ah tooth crown scale. Like this day there's been a burger. There's been a I the stakes are high. There's been a burger. Yeah. And I got to steal some old ladies hearing horn that is teeth grinding at like an eight out of 10.
00:34:53
Speaker
Wow. And you have to decide. The game at some point makes you decide whether you side with the the boy who ah loves building bridges or the identical boy who loves building tunnels. And that's like really I know it's heavy. It's heavy, man. So that's what I've been playing is locomotives. oh I can't wait. I'm so why didn't you tell me? I'm so excited.
00:35:16
Speaker
and I did just tell you. Matt, i I do want to cut you off real fast just because I pulled it up on Switch. It's not Locomotive. It is Locomotive. Locomotive, yes. What have I been saying? It's two separate words. You've been saying Locomotive. Oh, okay. I guess in a train. It's a pun. Yeah, it's separate words because it's a crazy thing. It's a crazy train is what you're saying. No, no, it's nothing. I'm saying that the the choices that are being made and the reason for those choices themselves are insane. You see, because it's the word loco, which is the Spanish word for insanity and then motive. Oh, it's like murder. So you know what I want to talk about? Sure.
00:36:01
Speaker
I wanna talk about a ah insane game from 1994, distributed by Maxis. I love the pivot. I love that I corrected you and you pivoted. Yeah, it's like, you know what? and now and now that And now you know exactly what it's like to be a politician because I see all of them do this in one. It is an edutainment game that we will get really deep into after a short, no, it's not, after a short break.
00:36:29
Speaker
So, uh, roses, can you play crazy trainer Reno and, uh, we'll come back and talk about wrath of the gods.
00:36:52
Speaker
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Save Your Game. I'm pushing up roses. With me is my co-host. I don't have an adjective for Matt today. My very good jumper, ah a special boy. Incredibly strong. Rambling man. Incredibly fast. A little anxious, to be honest with you. Matt off camp. Hey, Matt.
00:37:15
Speaker
Well, you know, every hero has to have his one tragic flaw. Of course, joining us today, our special guest, Pearlmania 500. Would you like to be called Alex or Pearl or Pearlmania?
00:37:29
Speaker
I don't go by Pearl for one reason, which is that there is a conservative female influencer who also has red hair. I know exactly who you're talking about. And there's been times where people have been talking about me or to me on the internet and people have thought that they were addressing her. Ooh, that's not good. And then I've shown up and been like, hey, this isn't about me. Fuck off. No, you're talking about just pearly things. The biggest grifter pick me girl on the planet. I yelled at her once on Twitter because she said that
00:38:18
Speaker
She made the bold claim that ah women with tattoos are ugly and sluts. Yeah. And I am fully tattooed. And I was like, yeah no, absolutely. But I mean, yes, to sluts. Yes. But not to bad person.
00:38:35
Speaker
Yes, I can't stand her. She is. She definitely falls on that type of level of grifter. Yeah, um or just infuriating. I can't even and I have a hard time watching docs about her because I get infuriated at the footage. but I did not know about this person until now. Yeah. Oh.
00:38:54
Speaker
She is just for attention. That's the thing is she's the type where she makes she makes content for people to get angry at and engage with rage. And as you guys know, from being on the internet for long enough algorithms can't tell the difference between good and bad engagement, which is why I like to be on blue sky ah using Pearlmania 500 dot blue sky dot. If I don't like your content, I will block you.
00:39:19
Speaker
Very good. Very good segue. I appreciate that. I think that is how we use blue sky, right? yeah All the other all the other sites fell apart because of engagement bait and trolls just block everything.
00:39:33
Speaker
I'm a very big, when you asked actually earlier in the previous segment, you asked what my favorite game is. For me, honestly, right now it has just been Blue Sky. I knew I have been having a really, really good time on Blue Sky to the point where I've been making less TikTok and Instagram content because I've just been having such a good time on Blue Sky. And I'm like- Are you following me on Blue Sky?
00:39:54
Speaker
Are you on Blue Sky? Yes, I am. Well, then what is your handle on Blue Sky? And you can find me at PushingRoses.BlueSky.com or whatever the fuck that is. Blue Sky Social. All right, I'm gonna find you right now. Blue Sky Social, yeah. All right, this is how we do it. Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff on there. There's a complaint about Netflix. Oh, good stuff. There's some art. Alex, I don't know if you knew this. I don't know if Matt told you this, but I'm an artist.
00:40:23
Speaker
uh roses do you want to tell people what wrath of the gods is no but i will here's the thing about that game uh so a little known fact about me is that i love fmb games always have i you know i grew up on adventure games and i grew up with computers especially when personal computers were becoming more home friendly. People were having them in their houses. And I know that sounds wild if you're of a younger generation, but there was a time when computers were for work only and people didn't really have them in their homes. And but maybe you had them in your family room. Yeah. Yeah. The family computer. What a strange concept. yeah Horrible. Can you even imagine? I'm not sharing my computer with anyone. yeah There's weird stuff on it. now Now I'm a YouTuber. There's a lot of weird stuff on my computer just saying, and
00:41:15
Speaker
But anyway, 1990 mid 1990s, right? I'm very into adventure games at that point in time. But also a lot of live acted FMV games came out and I just thought that was a really interesting way. What does FMV mean?
00:41:30
Speaker
It means full motion, full motion video. Okay. And it doesn't have to be live acted to be full motion video. Uh, dragon's lair is a full motion video. It means that there are pre-rendered and pre-rendered, uh, animations, pre-rendered backgrounds, pre-rendered animations that happen in this. oh So like, like cells, it's like they did digital cells, like in cartoons.
00:41:50
Speaker
Right, but yes, and and generally when somebody like kind of colloquially says ah FMV, they are talking about live acted, but yeah because we talk about so much of this here, we make the distinction.
00:42:05
Speaker
I always like to because I'm a woman on the internet and people don't correct me no matter what I say, even if I'm correct. so Well, I asked what FMV was just because i'm I'm stupid, but also I've been calling it Mortal Kombat graphics because to me, a picture of a guy doing a stuff that has been manipulated to me, that's just Mortal Kombat, the original was the first one I saw do that. I know they weren't the first, but that was the first popular game to hit like my my street, my course. Sure, yeah. yeah yeah Yeah. And I, I really liked that when it went into adventure games. I thought there was so many possibilities. It was exciting to me, I guess, to see live acted only for all of my excitement to be quashed by that acting and your quality. And can you believe it led to this? Yeah, I just can't believe it. Uh, so about math the game yeah. Wrath of the gods. Wrath of the games. is the yeah Yeah, you're right. So wrath of the gods falls into that.
00:43:02
Speaker
ah point to click adventure FMV game is from 1994. It looks like not a real game. If you look at like the cover, or if you go to play it, because for some reason, the dev, I guess wants people to play this game, it's available in browser, I think it's available on like in an app.
00:43:20
Speaker
I played it on my iPad. I laid in bed like a boomer and I played it on my iPad and yeah. I don't know who clearly this person, the person who made this game still has a real connection to it because they've posted the full game on, you can just go to wrathgame.com and play the full game and it's on the app stores for free. It's just out there. I have the guidebook open.
00:43:50
Speaker
Yeah, because I because this is the one thing that I do love when this game first came out out in 1994. We had no idea of how to like beat it. Yeah, there's so many times where you're like, what fucking logic? Where do I have to go? All these different things. And so in this time, I like I got to a certain point, I was like, wait, how do I get around? I was like, fuck this. Google it. I should walk through. And I was like, no way is the guidebook for free on the Web site of the game. And they're like, ah absolutely, it is. Yeah, this is the entire script.
00:44:21
Speaker
And it says about this guidebook, on the following pages, you will find a version of the shooting script that was used to create Wrath of the Gods wow to make the characters of Greek mythology come alive. Co-designer Jeff Kretcher, videotaped costume actors on an empty stage, and digitally composited in backgrounds from photographs taken in Greece. Oh, they are from, well, that's interesting. You know what? At the time, there were good reviews about the game.
00:44:46
Speaker
I'm glad that those are actually photos of Grease because anytime you look at anything in any background in the game, it just says, it looks like Grease. Yes, oh my god. ah Yeah, because there's like what, the five actions you have at the bottom, yeah which are walk, grab, look, talk, and then pouch.
00:45:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. We all love to pouch. yeah Yeah. There's a lot of pouch inventory. And then there's actually a drop down, a little drop down menu below that where you can do, uh, mass information map. And there's also Oracle if you want hints, because it does tell you like, are you a real humor? Yeah. You can't get the full, can't get the full points if you get hints. So yeah. Which who gives a shit. yeah Do not matter, they just do not. the The beginning of this game also, it doesn't tell you what to do at all. It just says, welcome to the hero's path.
00:45:42
Speaker
They're like, you're you were probably abandoned by, you know, they they show you the story of a baby being abandoned by his grandfather, which is based on like a lot of Greek stuff. And then you're raised by a centaur. And they show none of that. Yeah. they But by raised, he you're a baby and then you're a full man. And the centaur goes, welcome to the hero's path and then walks away. And you're like, yeah. Yes, you have no he doesn't in any way. So I went back and played after I beat this game, I went back just to watch the beginning.
00:46:12
Speaker
And that he does say, find your parents and and prove your worth, right? But that means now nothing to you. Yeah, it means absolutely nothing to you when you start this game.
00:46:24
Speaker
It's like a lot of things in this game. He can show us anything from being raised. he He finds us as a baby. that the yeah It sounds like he's looking at cornflakes. No, they couldn't afford an eight-year-old. um not yeah i think that was yeah No, I think that was like someone who worked at the developer. oh yeah That was their baby.
00:46:42
Speaker
I feel like, cause also when you look at a lot of the actors throughout this, some of them are clearly actors, like the merchant lady. I think she is an actual paid actress somewhere in LA, right? Like the snake oil salesman lady. Yeah, the snake oil lady. I think she's an actual actress. I think she's a community theater. I think she might've been, I never looked her up, but she has she has the presence of that. However, when you go to but you when you go to the afterlife and you meet ah Jason and Perseus,
00:47:12
Speaker
Those are just programmers guys. They're They're just gone just who's the who's the beefiest guys we have in our programming department. But also, but also they're clear. They're they have the builds of programmers. There are you guys. There's like won the one guy who shows up who's like, I'm a Hercules. I didn't expect to see me here. I was like, OK, they went to Gold's gym and they like, hey, man, you want to be in a video game? He's like, I don't know. It's like, we'll pay you in weed. And then he went. I mean, again,
00:47:42
Speaker
Allegedly. I don't know if that's true. But that feels like like looking through this thing, like the most important thing it feels like to the creator of this game was he really wanted to tell stories about Greek myths. Yeah. And especially about very rare Greek myths that most people don't fucking know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ah That you really need to get, like, be pretty fucking deep into. Like, canyons, yeah.
00:48:07
Speaker
Yeah, you. Yeah, I just there's two overarching things I want to say about this game is number one. Roses, when I told you what game we were playing, you were like, oh, I read on the Internet. It's an edutainment game. And I want to say.
00:48:24
Speaker
It is an edutainment game in the exact way that this intro is an intro. If you already know these stories, if you already know the great grief myths, you can go, oh, okay, I'm supposed to use the Mirror Shield on Medusa. Oh, I'm supposed to use the pipes on Argos, etc et cetera, et cetera.
00:48:43
Speaker
if you already know the myth and it's the same thing with the intro if you already know the myth of Heracles not Hercules who you meet in the game who's the only Roman figure you meet in the game everyone else is Greek but for some reason we meet Hercules anyway if you know the myth of Heracles You know what the intro of this game is, and if you don't, you have no fucking clue. Well, I want to cut you off real quick yeah because you're actually wrong because what you just described was the origin of Theseus. Oh, boy.
00:49:15
Speaker
not Heracles. Well, no, the my father. OK, go ahead. did The centaur thing that you're talking about. Well, a couple of people were raised by centaurs like ah like ah Achilles was trained by centaur, too. But no, I just mean.
00:49:32
Speaker
That's not true. I mean, my son is supposed to overtake me, so I'm leaving him in the wilderness is a Heracles story. It's also it also the exact no, but it being a grandfather who's doing it is actually the story of Romulus and Remus.
00:49:49
Speaker
And so if you know every Greek myth ever, then you know what the adrenaline is. So here's how I ended up with this game in my life. You want to know how I ended up with it? My mom is literally a Latin teacher. I was going to say, I feel like I watched a couple walkthroughs to see what other people were doing in this game. And the comments were like, yeah, I had this as a kid. It came with this pack that it was like an educational thing. We had this on a school computer. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:50:18
Speaker
my mom My mom was a Latin teacher and I think she saw, in my there was a long time there before people with ah marble statues and their Twitter handles decided to make Rome their whole thing. It was very difficult, especially in the 90s and the early 2000s to find stuff that was really like had a Roman theme to it or had a classical theme to it. So my mom had this penchant for like, if we were out anywhere and it was like, hey, that thing has a column on it, she'd just buy it.
00:50:45
Speaker
So like this game ended up in our house, because my mom, we were like looking at video games. My mom was like, oh my god, it's an ancient Greek video game? This is my whole shit. And I was like, oh, it's a video game. Let me play. And no no one in my family had a good time. I want to let you know. I know that you guys, ah we we can talk about some of the the pitfalls about this game. And the first the absolute first thing, it's using the stone with the stick to pick up the boulder. ah Yeah.
00:51:14
Speaker
just to get the sword. yep And here's the thing. I remember I have a very deep memory. I think I was in fifth grade when we figured out that we needed that fucking rock to use the lever to lift the boulder. Right. I remembered that.
00:51:29
Speaker
i this I'm 40 now. I was 10 then. 30 years later, I'm laying here, and I'm like, how the fuck do I lift this boulder? Maybe I don't need it. Maybe I have to come back to it later. I get halfway across the map, and they're like, you need a sword, buddy. I'm like, what? And fine, that's where I look to walk. Actually, that sword is extremely important.
00:51:47
Speaker
It's the whole story is that damn sword. It's hidden to the right. I also like the way the map, like it doesn't lead you anywhere. It's just open maps everywhere. And there's no fast travel. So yeah yeah and advice a giver to imagine like so many spots to go with no fast travel. And the map does not correlate with the directions you are moving.
00:52:12
Speaker
No, not at all. Sometimes if you go to the left, you end up going north. And sometimes if you go to the east, to the right, you end up going west. It doesn't make any fucking sense. It makes people camera gone mad. Yeah. And look, so the other thing I wanted to say is, okay, so yeah, it's edutainment under that very specific circumstance. Second of all, it feels like uh somebody was asked to do like a school project to explain their knowledge of greek myths and it just went wildly out of control every every actor seems to be like uh like now they're all adults but they are acting like
00:52:55
Speaker
the people in your, you know, high school history class when they were asked to make a ah film about Greek mythology. And one yeah, that's I feel like so many people in this are not actually actors. I feel like they're either people that the that the video game creator knew people who worked at the studio. yeah And then again, like there's certain people where you're like, okay, they at least feel like they're doing a something. But then a bunch of other ones I'm like like, I think the lady who played Hera, I think she was actually an actress. I think the lady who plays the mom, I think she's actually she might actually be an actress. And then like I think the queen that poisons you, who poisoned me three times because I kept putting them off.
00:53:39
Speaker
They can't be in like, oh, click this, click the royal symbol. And it's like, and i look and they're like, they're like, it's on the sword. And I'm like, well how do I look at the sword? You can't look at the sword. You just have to remember. Yeah. But then we're reading the guide. The guide literally is like, look at the sword again. I'm like, So I just had to go, I had to die three times because then I keep the long banner. Didn't you get the hint about like IO being an important right iport thing? found it You have to do it twice. You have to remember IO twice too. Clicking it. I was just clicking.
00:54:10
Speaker
And it was just, and then, and then when I was like, here's the sword, he's like, Oh my God, you're my son. I mean, this is a sign. It's like, Oh, then I'm also supposed to give him a ring. Like, how would I know that? That was most of me. Most of me playing this game was when I'd go to the guide and go, Oh, okay. You need to get the rock from the avalanche to be able to lift the boulder, to be able to get the sword, to be able to show your grandfather who then asks you for the ring. How the fuck would I know that? That was the most of this game. And can I tell you, yeah this game is the reason, man.
00:54:37
Speaker
that when you told me that you do an adventure game podcast, I said, I fucking hate adventure games. This game actually turned me off from the entire genre. Anytime I would walk by and I saw the user interface, the HUD, that would show look, walk, or interface, like Myst, Riven, I never played any of them because I had this game and I hated it so much, I assumed all other games in the adventure game genre were this. This is certainly an anomaly of ah of a ah the bad game. So just to just as just to give the listeners a couple like a little bit of context. So ah first of all, ah there was an evening where me and Alex and and a friend of ours were drinking whiskey around a fire. And ah we were talking about my podcast, and that exact conversation sorry who came up. Sorry, whose podcast?
00:55:37
Speaker
who's Who's podcast, man? Who's podcast? Why don't you tell me who's podcast it is? Roses wasn't there at the time. Oh, I see. So if I'm not there, I don't exist. so well Thanks for everybody for tuning into Patriarchy dot.net. so Wonderful podcast brought to you by Turning Point USA. So Alex was like, alex was like why don't you have me on your podcast? You don't play adventure games. And he was like, I did when I was a kid. I played this one. and it was about Greek mythology and I was like you we will find out what that game is and we will play it we will have you on the show and man I cannot believe what that led to right like that is that that is like
00:56:21
Speaker
this awful, awful moment in history that led us down the path to this. So you are, why this game is so bad, right? is The acting's bad, whatever. It's bad in every FMV game. The puzzles are bad. yeah Before you say it's bad, I want to preface this by saying this game actually got very good reviews and I want you yes to keep that in mind. um It got reviews of really high quality graphics,
00:56:49
Speaker
ah One person said like the acting was good. They're incorrect. Why? ah Computer gaming world said it was hours and hours of enjoyment. It was similar to Ray Harryhausen's work, which some of it is some of it. There is there is some parts where ah my favorite. is like yeah Real quick, the Ray Harryhausen part, because for for the listeners who don't know, that is the guy who did the stop motion for like King Kong and all those different stuff.
00:57:15
Speaker
All right. Am I right, roses? Yeah, he is a kink. I know him more for his Greek mythology stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He did this. He did the skeleton soldiers and Jason the Argonaut. Yes. Yes. And yeah the arnauts i clash. Yeah. Flash of the Titans, maybe. I think he did that, too. But for me, can I tell you my absolute favorite monster to the whole time is we didn't know the Titans, ah the one that is clearly a puppet. It's clearly a hand. The annoying dragon. Yes. The annoying dragon you have to shoot because unbelievable that puzzle, by the way.
00:57:43
Speaker
Because he's bothering Atlas. He's just obnoxious. but It's it's so incredible because you're like, oh, my God. And there's this fucking annoying dragon and it just turns and it's just like it's it's somehow seven steps below. Try off the insult comic dog. And then you have to go through this whole rigmarole to get.
00:58:05
Speaker
yeah to get a bow and arrow and then and shoot him and then you have to shoot him. wa i high i take you' not can know this thing you okay yeah what he he yells all sorts it like you couldn't hit the pohenon if you were three feet old yeah and he's got that kind of accent right yup and he this guy so you can shoot him ah You could shoot him a thousand fucking times, but if you have not gone and gotten longbow training from the centaur, and this is this is a thing that that drives me crazy, and I think it's emblematic of this game.
00:58:40
Speaker
um You go to see Atlas and he's like, if you can get this dragon to leave me alone, I will give you a golden apple. And earlier, and what depending on the your sequence, right you have ran into your centaur friend and he has said, I will give you more training if you get me a golden apple. And so you might make that connection. Like, okay, he'll train me on the bow.
00:59:05
Speaker
And I think even if you fail at hitting the dragon with your bow, ah Atlas says something like, oh, you need more trading with the centaur. So you go to the centaur and he needs a golden apple, but in order to get the golden apple, you have to shoot the dragon.
00:59:22
Speaker
Yeah. But in order to hit the, dragon so you can't, you can hit the dragon as many times as you want and you can't kill the dragon until you get the training. So I hit the dragon like 20 times and he wasn't dying. And I was like, what the fuck? So I look up the walkthrough. There's a second golden apple. Yeah, there's a second. That's right. There's a second. And and that was, so so this was the one time where I actually like nailed it because if you go from Atlas and I was like, all right, he's like says that whole thing. And I'm like, okay, the guy's on the other side of a wall. So I clearly need a bow and arrow. I know where to get the bow and arrow because I got the club first.
00:59:54
Speaker
OK, from the ladies with the one eye that they just do it again. Yeah, with this is a by the way, listeners, this is a puzzle that is also in King's Quest four. If you just take the eye from the face, take it, which is yeah. with that Is that for is that King's Quest four? Is it two? I think it's a direct no, but I think it's a direct Perseus. Yes, it's the story of Perseus is where it happens. But it all yeah, but I think in one of the King's quests. No, but I think it also I think that's exactly what he does in Clash of Titans.
01:00:25
Speaker
Oh, OK. It's in the 70s. I think he actually just catches like they're tossing the eyeball back and forth and just catches it. He's like, yeah, that's in the that's in the myth of Perseus. And so, yeah, that's what he's saying. But then it made it to Clash of Titans. And so they're referencing the Clash tides of Titans just snapping, snatching it in this way. Sure. But for me, I was like, I did the club first because I was like, I knew from looking at the guy, that there was a club thing coming up. It was like the next ah because the way the guy to set up is also odd.
01:00:55
Speaker
ah the one especially that's on thewrathgame.com is because it's set up via slide because each area you walk into, it is its own page and it's its own slide instead of telling you a ah progression that makes sense. right So it doesn't give you a walk through that makes sense. It goes, all right, if you're here and you go then you you go to the next room, this has happened. But however, you need to have already done this, but that is actually seven pages from now.
01:01:22
Speaker
And you're like, what, how, fuck, what? yeah So it's like a choose your own adventure, but every adventure ends up with Donald Trump as president. so i I used a different walkthrough because of that. I was so fucking annoyed. There is, you can find a- No, but the second golden apple, I actually just went back a different direction because I didn't want, I was like, you know what? Let me just walk through. yeah When I got to the crossroad, I'm like, I'm just going to go this other way just to go see what's over there because maybe I don't need to be doing this yet.
01:01:49
Speaker
And then I walked up, I just saw an apple in a tree and I clicked on it. It was just Dionysus shows up with a full- Worst prediction ever, by the way. What is that? And he has an applause break and there's like background music. Nobody else has any of this. He blows up a mountain. And you just out of nowhere, he's just like, I'm Dionysus and I'm a 70s game show host. Like what the fuck is happening right now? Yeah, what the fuck was that?
01:02:13
Speaker
But again, I will say in 1994, like this was groundbreaking. Like this was actually crazy. Cause I remember there being another game we got around the same time and it was not really a game. It was actually like a simulator and it was like a garden designer.
01:02:28
Speaker
that you could use basically like photoshopped images of like rocks and different types of plants to like design a garden and it was similar to this in that you were taking digital photos and then manipulating them. So like with this you can see like oh they cut out like a rock or like they cut out like this ramp for the stone and then they put that up against a wall I could see like the hours and hours that took. Today you're like, wow, that sucks. Three buttons on AI and it's done and it still sucks. But like to make each of these scenes probably took them like days. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing with like any art, right? Is that you can put a lot of effort.
01:03:14
Speaker
into something and you can acknowledge that. Like I'm playing through this game. I'm like, OK, this is a lot of characters. It's a lot of screens. um And it it got good reviews at the time because it did feel innovative to people. It's just that there are decisions that like I would have made like the acting is not good, for example. It's just not beautiful backgrounds, though, yeah and a lot of beef, cakey men. Yeah, it's also trying to have this very particular sense of humor.
01:03:43
Speaker
ah like the like let me Let me put this out there. It's a little bit of a spoiler, but I don't care because it's Wrath of the Gods. The very final thing you hear in this game is the main character saying, I'd like to thank all the little people who made this possible. I'm like- The only time you hear that man's voice and it was fucking so shocking, it's like, that's your voice?
01:04:07
Speaker
That's your voice. That's the very last thing you hear. in Excuse me, sir. That's your voice. It's just trying to have this weird Obviously it's a game about Greek mythology, but it's also trying to have this modern sense of, it's almost trying to be anachronistic and use that as humor. You know what I mean? Like I'm not supposed to be here. It was a joke at the market where there is an iron. There's like a modern 90s iron for a shirt. Yeah. And like you go, you can click on it. He's like, that's not for sale. We haven't invented electricity yet. right You're like, yeah. Okay. Okay. You showed it to me. What is,
01:04:47
Speaker
What am I supposed to feel here? Am I supposed to feel stupid? What is the joke here? Yeah, and there's there's there's a few things like that. like right like To me, the biggest thing was the the logical jumps. It did of like how to solve a puzzle. And to me, the other big part of it ah was that the it's It's clear that part of it is like designer ah versus like a game designer versus like having someone actually play the game to say whether or not they like it. And because they probably never put it in front of like a wider audience, besides just the people who are play testing or the ones who are also making it, they never had anyone be like, hey, maybe like,
01:05:33
Speaker
Lean in a little bit that you need to make a um a lever with a rock yeah Because like literally give us a stick and then snap it in half and that's not like yeah That's not obvious to me It wasn't obvious to me when I was 10 and it wasn't obvious to me 30 years later when I was 40 That the rock that I was supposed to notice on the ground that blends in with every other. Yeah That is like, even when they remastered it, they didn't make it a little bit more gray. You know what I mean? Like they didn't make it pop anymore. there's ah That's the thing that Jack Allen talks about in ah Adventure Games. He's the editor of AdventureGameHotspot.com. And he talks about how more adventure games need more play testing.
01:06:16
Speaker
right And that's what this game, that's what you're talking about. This game needed more play testing. It needed somebody to be like, it sucks to have to sit through the same animation, the same video seven times because you can't shoot the dragon right. And it sucks to walk through and watch him slowly walk through 19 screens to get between the warehouse and the temple.
01:06:42
Speaker
Yeah, and then also, well, that's actually one thing that's interesting is, again, you're playing a re-release of this game. Yeah. Right? um This is something, this is a thing that's in the guidebook. ah We've added some of the background information that is available in the info during gameplay. Like the actual, you were supposed to go into the, almost in every screen, you're supposed to go into the info, read the myth this screen is based on. No way!
01:07:09
Speaker
and then figure it out. However, that doesn't work if some of the stuff you need is 19 screens away in an area you may not have even gone to yet. I fucking had no idea that was even in the game. Yeah, if you go if you go look at the info button on some of these screens. because It shows, yeah. Well, you know the one the one screen that really gets me is the dragon teeth soldiers in the field.
01:07:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. i look I looked that up after the game. It's the... ah Yeah, you throw the stone at him. The Spar Toy, the Spar Toy Soldiers. Yeah, yeah. i don't You don't need to knock them out. I don't think so, right? They just not let you buy. you don't i don't There's a lot of stuff in this game that I found out later you don't need to do.
01:07:57
Speaker
Yeah, but I mean, there's just so many parts of this game where you're like, did I even need to do that? Is that even necessary to get to the final thing? And again, there's no, um you know, people always point to ah the the first Legend of Zelda game, take this, you know, it's dangerous out there. And then it just kind of drops you into a world. But like, there is a logic to it that is well done that kind of points you around how to get a crowd around that giant map.
01:08:26
Speaker
Yeah, that does not exist in Wrath of the Gods at all now to the point where like, when I discovered that the map actually had four chambers to it, I was like, and then on top of that, too, like stuff can be said to you that cannot be replayed.
01:08:44
Speaker
that is very important that you might just miss. And you're like, wait, and there's no like adventure log to go back to. There's no way to really follow through. Now, again, this was at a time when like this game would have been $55 in 1994, which would be worth a lot more money today. And so we would have- They expected you to play it a bunch of times. Like this, I could see enjoying this game if it was my only game and I played it for years.
01:09:10
Speaker
I will say that like scrolling through, because I got about halfway through the game. And then I was like, I did this before I i feel like I had taught, I've experienced enough of it that I can talk about on the podcast. But like scrolling through like I remember actually getting pretty near the end. Yeah. um um I don't know if necessarily we ever actually beat it.
01:09:29
Speaker
Uh, but I remember like getting past Argus and like, you know, trying to do all this different stuff. And my mom explaining to me the Greek myths attached to them. So for me, like it did have a good learning experience with that because I'd be like, how would I get past Argus? And she's like, you have to play pants, flute or whatever, and like put them asleep or however, blah, blah, blah. Right.
Game Mechanics and Critiques
01:09:47
Speaker
I will say this about the edutainment aspect of it.
01:09:51
Speaker
It's not necessarily directly educating you, but I can see this game, kind of like your experience as a younger person, maybe being curious about it, maybe this sparks your curiosity of an entire genre. you know it sparked my curiosity It sparked my curiosity the way a Simpsons reference to a book sparks my curiosity. right Like when you're watching The Simpsons and they make a joke about Moby Dick and you're like, what's Moby Dick? And now the thing is, is back then you would have read in 1994, you would just read Moby Dick. yeah Today I type in what's Moby Dick. I read the Wikipedia summary that has been AI generated at the top of Google. So now nobody gets into any fun and it's wrong. And then I go the rest of my life believing that Moby Dick is some guy's fat cock.
01:10:37
Speaker
who is well rosess so this is you stepped away from the You stepped away from the recording for a second and i yeah Alex pointed me to something that I had no idea about and I wonder if you did. Did you know that every single screen, and now I'm clicking through and doing it, every single screen,
01:10:59
Speaker
has an info button that tells you the myth that is associated with this area or character or puzzle. I think i yeah i did i i know didn't know that the entire time, but apparently that is how you solve most of these puzzles. Yeah, but that's the problem with these kind of games is you go through it not knowing that.
01:11:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And again, there's nothing in the game that like grabs you. No. I look a lot, because somebody a long time ago talked about how the first level of Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers, is like the perfect tutorial level. Yes. And they do, there's like the joke one about how like today would be like, hit A to jump, yeah hold down B to run. like it just You just have to do it. And like because there's only two buttons and an arrow, like that is kind of how that works.
01:11:48
Speaker
but um This game just needed that. It needed to have something that kind of like, not really held your hand, but at least kind of like points you in a direction. yeah And that was the reason why I was like, when I, I, I recommended it to Matt for me to be on the pod. I was like, maybe you guys will have a better time because you have experience in this genre. that note yeah I mad at the puzzles like, like Matt is, and maybe you as well, because I grew up on,
01:12:18
Speaker
non logical puzzles. As i've yeah I've said many times on this podcast, Matt prefers like the mist type of game. See, like we let we have an overlap, right? But in terms of very illogical puzzles, like did I figure out the stone and the left the lay little stick and lever? Yeah, I did. Because I grew up on puzzles that did all these wild things. King's Quest did a lot of strange puzzles. So I guess my brain is broken. And now wired incorrectly.
01:12:46
Speaker
Thanks to Sierra games. This did feel a lot like a King's Quest game. I do want to talk. There's a couple of things. per moment I know you need to get out of here. So there's a couple of things that I want to talk about. One is just a note that I have written. And I don't know if you guys clock this, but there's a lot of shirtless beef cake, you guys with big muscles and hairy naked chests. There's, yeah however, one female character in the game.
01:13:12
Speaker
who clearly was asked to show more skin, said no, and they airbrushed the space between one of her garments of clothing with flesh color. and there good Did you guys see Ariadne? Did you guys meet her?
01:13:29
Speaker
She's on the Isle of, I guess, Crete. It's when you're ah in the, when you're about to face the- I did, yeah. I did meet her. If you, I don't know if you noticed, her entire, she's wearing like a deep V. Her entire chest is airbrushed. Oh, I didn't notice. So it looks like she's wearing no clothes under it, and it's clearly just airbrushed. Yeah, Photoshop. The thing that I noticed like really hard is because I played a lot of live acted games. ah This reminded me of like the cheapest version of Phantasmagoria that you can get. there's even similar There's even a couple similar puzzles, which is neither here nor there. But I noticed that sometimes the bodies don't move with the face, almost as though the faces or the heads
01:14:17
Speaker
were like composited on top of these still bodies. And that's why you'll notice that people, when they're talking, when characters are talking to you, they're not moving their head around a lot. They're pretty much staring straight at you. Yeah. I don't know what happened there. It just looks so bad. There's like four or five of those in the game. And every single time, it is uncanny valley, like terrifying. It's weird. Yeah. There's two pieces of dialogue that drove me insane.
01:14:46
Speaker
Number one was when you get kicked to the River Styx by the guy on the cliff. Did you guys know that? He just yells, wash my feet. Wash my feet. But you just start doing it. You do it. Yeah, why? There's no on his feet. There's no get the bucket. There's nothing else. You just start watching his feet. And then I was like, I guess this is just who I am now. This is who my character is. And then he just boots you off a cliff. Yeah.
01:15:14
Speaker
And then the second thing is then when you're down there, finally, I i like, I needed the coin and I go find the coin from the, I guess I steal it from a ghost. You steal it, yeah. Yeah, it falls out of her mouth and she can't pick it back up, so you go get it. And you walk it over and give it to carry on the boat man. And ah i didn't I just tried to give it to him and he- Oh my God. He uses coins, but then he has this completely different voice and he's just like, well, that's not how we do with things here. And it's like, what? But like that, he either is like a shade that is like, ugh,
01:15:42
Speaker
Or he is like an old British butler. And then once you give it to him, he is then like just death himself because he pulls his hood back and he has a skull. He has a skull head. Yeah. What the fuck is going here? There are a few lines in this game like you're talking about where it's clear that these were part of the remake, where a line was put in later because nobody could get the puzzle.
01:16:06
Speaker
um The one that I noticed the most was at the very end, you don't have to do the final confrontation. And she says in her voice, she's like, you you are a hero, but there's one more trial you have to face. And then in a totally different voice, she's like, but no one will blame you if you don't, I will give you the key to go to the end of the game now.
01:16:30
Speaker
And I think, yeah. But okay, so there's two things I want to do. Perman, I know you need to go. So here's yeah two things I want to do. One is I want to ask both of you, who is your least favorite actor in this whole game? My least? Let me. The one you hate the most.
01:16:49
Speaker
i I really hated Hermes. because and it's not his fault it's not his fault it's the because you crawl up you know you crawl up Mount Olympus to steal his sandals yeah and he's asleep and I was like oh there's the sandals and I just clicked and then he you immediately might the character immediately bumps his knee And I'm like, I guess I was supposed to walk forward, walk down first and then walk over and then click. So I walked down and then I clicked and then on the sandal and then he just bumps his knee again. I'm like, wait, I was like, is this the equivalent of like crouch? Is this the equivalent? Is this this? This is a sweet puzzle. And then but every time I did it, he would pop up and be like, not not on my watch or whatever it is, he says.
01:17:37
Speaker
And it drove me insane. And also like he has a really bad wig on, and it's just like terrible. I would say him. And then also that one the the queen who keeps poisoning you. Because why? She just doesn't like me. Death to the imposter. Doesn't explain in any way why she hates you. Yeah, she does not believe you at all. This is Hermey's line. He just goes, go away, kid. You bother me. Great. ah Rose's least favorite actor. I think I would have to. This is, yeah.
01:18:07
Speaker
but The main dad guy, the grandpa, the dad, whoever you want to call him, the one in the terrible wig, he's on the he's on the cover art. He does weird things with his mouth when he acts and he talks and I don't like it, okay?
01:18:24
Speaker
um Yeah, I think Miley's favorite is the fucking guy with the torch who helps you through the gloom and and then helps you fight the Hydra. The Hydra, the guy who's like, okay, we gotta do this before I chicken out. We gotta do this before I chicken out. Do you need a little help over there? That is so much of a fucking community a community theater actor.
01:18:50
Speaker
He's yeah, he may want to hear a funny story about that. Beat up a nerd. Yeah. So I remember my dad playing that part when I was a kid and my dad just kept lopping off Hydra heads and did not know to walk back and then call to the guy.
Personal Gaming Stories and Recommendations
01:19:08
Speaker
Because if you walk to the guy and then try to talk to him, he won't talk to you.
01:19:15
Speaker
if you walk back across the gloom and like way little islands and go back to him and it doesn't tell you to call to him from the other side only after you just cut off a head. Because the only way to activate him is he comes there, you go across slowly, ever so slowly, you walk in, the Hydra comes out, you're supposed to lop off one, at least one head. And then come back and then call to him. yeah That is the order to unlock him.
01:19:42
Speaker
My dad, I swear to God, I think he spent hours just like loping off Hydra heads. I think he went because there's a whole side part where you get like firewood. He thought you had to do your own fucking torch. Oh, no. Like, I mean, again, because the logic of this game is so broken and like I understand yeah what Rose is saying. That was I remember that.
01:20:04
Speaker
There's two moments in my life I remember my dad giving up on puzzles. One was this exact moment with Hermes and the other is in Zelda A Link to the Past when you have to go to get into the thief's lair in the dark realm or whatever, the mirror universe. You have to go to the other one and then blow up a wall and then go back. this is He didn't know like he actually called in the Nintendo power.
01:20:29
Speaker
because he was stuck for so long. Yeah. He was like, fuck it. This is why I make this is worth a whole paycheck. Yeah. Yeah. you know And we listened to the person like open the binder. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like we heard them open. I'd be like, all right, so you have to go against this wall over here and then put thing in the dark world. My dad was like, how the fuck would I know that? And like slam the receiver now. That's so good.
01:20:52
Speaker
All right. So there's one last segment I want to do before we say goodbye to you, Pearlman. And but first, do you have any last observations that you just need to get out about this game? ah Yeah, this ruined my holiday. You ruined my Thanksgiving. You're welcome. And I never want to play this game again.
01:21:12
Speaker
um I will say that I am glad to have gone back to it because, like I said, this this game is so terrible. yeah It's so bad at so many levels that it actually made me want to play a good adventure game. So if you have a good adventure game, I know you mentioned Grim Fandango or another one. If you do have one that um that you think is a good, again, more passive because I have an infant that just went to sleep in the next room, so I'm trying to keep it down, but more of a good ah passive one that is probably on the switch. um Point me in that direction. and I would love to check it out and then maybe come back and talk to you guys about it.
01:21:51
Speaker
um That's awesome. yeah um All right, so I do want to, before we lose you, I do want to do a segment that... ah Is he going to die? A classic segment yeah yeah yeah yeah a classic segment from this podcast ah that is always relevant in adventure games and none more relevant than this one. It is called What Do My Pants Way?
01:22:15
Speaker
Oh my God, we're bringing it back. We need a theme for that, Matt. We're bringing back what, yeah, we need a theme. I've never made a theme if listeners wanna make a theme for what do my pants weigh. So this is a game in which you don't have pants. You just, you don't wear pants. You're wearing a fucking toga. I do not know where you keep your inventory, but you get so much of it.
01:22:39
Speaker
So much of it. Oh, yeah. Oh, gotcha. You have a big old rock in there somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. So you have a you have if you don't break the first stick, you actually have two sticks. You get two sticks. You can get a sledgehammer. You can get a sword. You get a sword. You get a long iron sword. It looks really heavy staff. So and you get a human head. Well, a Medusa head. But How much does a Medusa headway though? You get a bundle of firewood that first, I don't even, you don't even use that as far as I can tell. Wait, did you say we get a bundle of sticks? Yeah, we get a bundle of sticks. Okay. ah So what do you guys think? So what, you could talk about as much as you want. What do you think?
01:23:27
Speaker
The point in the game where you have the most inventory, which is just before the end, how much do this unnamed protagonist's pants weigh? Well, the one thing I will say is I do remember going to the end of the game, because I remember as a kid, the creation bull jumping. Because my mom actually did the whole thing about how that that's actually a real thing that we know from the paintings found in Mykonos.
01:23:52
Speaker
yeah And then how that that being like how you defeat the final boss and me being like, this is the stupidest shit in the world. There's a pastiche of one of those paintings in the game. Yes, 100%. That's the edgy part of the tainment. But thinking back, because there's a crown, there's a tiara, I will say, are we doing kilograms or pounds? I have both here, so either one works. I'm going to go with 127 pounds. Ooh. Ooh, OK, roses, what do you have?
01:24:24
Speaker
There's just so much like iron in our, in our inventory. We have a sledgehammer, we have that weird sword. It's a huge rock. A lump of lead. There's a lump of lead. A golden two golden apples? Well, I guess we give them away technically, but. Yeah, I only put one in here because you only have one at a time, but yeah. I'm going to say. You have fours, a staff, a few axes, two battle axes. Listen, I was going to say 300 pounds because of the axes.
01:24:53
Speaker
Okay, so, Rose- I might have overshot it. Rose, you went a little high, Pearlman, you went a little low. ah at At your most, your heaviest carry in this game, you are carrying 261.75 pounds. Holy shit!
01:25:12
Speaker
Wow, is this using ah is this using like ah Dungeon Dragon's 5E, like Backpack Elder? No, this is using just like Google. So like that like at one point you're carrying a vat of elixir. and Yeah, the vat. So yeah you're basically carrying a a small wooden keg. which as you know And a keg of whiskey is, what, 100 pounds.
01:25:34
Speaker
So I was like, well, this is about a fourth of that, so 25 pounds. So that's the heaviest thing you're carrying. Golden Fleece is about 20 pounds. Firewood's about 20 pounds. Your Mirror Shield is 12 pounds. Medusa's head is 11 pounds. You have 261 pounds at one point. And you're not, again, you're not even wearing pants. I do not know where you're keeping this.
01:25:57
Speaker
So can I tell you one thing about the not wearing pants part? Because I noticed it when I was playing the game when you climb up. ro I was looking, I kept looking. I'm like, am I looking at this man's asshole right now? oh god i me up me And then you you scurry down it backwards. And I was like, ah it the angle is so it's such an odd angle to pick. They decided to put him there. Yeah. And like.
01:26:25
Speaker
The pixels don't really line up really well. I'm like, they could have had him go up the side of the mountain. We could have looked at his profile, but instead they were like desperate. Like, no, we need to show his back and we need to show the fact that he is is all legs. He doesn't really click in your head when you're watching it, watching him walk through each scene until he's climbing up Olympus. And you're like, this is wild. Like right here. begin yeah That's all, that's all crack.
01:26:55
Speaker
And yeah like know and and if if you're wondering, Matt, that's where he stored the Battle X. Oh, okay. You just got to zoom in, enhance, enhance, enhance.
Promotions and Upcoming Content
01:27:06
Speaker
not right well Pearlmania 500, thank you so much for being on Save Your Game and talking about this horrible, horrible game with us. Thank you for sharing a piece of your childhood with us so we could all Listen. Love childhood nostalgia. It's childhood trauma, actually. But I'm really glad to have been here with all of you guys. And for anyone else who wants to follow up and maybe hear me yap or just hear me and my wife talk about all sorts of fun stuff, check us out Too Many Tabs podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts, or on YouTube, YouTube dot.com slash Pearlmania 500.
01:27:37
Speaker
Just type Pearlmania 500 controversy into anything. Oh, God. ah Thank you so much for being on. brilliant You know, it's fun yeah yeah just to just to mess with SEO on that. I have multiple episodes of shows good like named after whatever conspiracy they say. Just so I'll be the top result first. That's fucking crazy. And i'm just like I was like, you know what? Fuck you. I'll SEO the shit out of you. I am Pearlmania 500 controversy. Yeah. yeah ah Well, thank you so much. And, uh, Roses, do you want to stick around and do our ranking segment? Uh, yeah, I was going to head out. No. I'll do it. I'll do it by myself. No, of course. I'll stick around and I'll rank adventure games with you, Matt.
01:28:28
Speaker
All right, Pearlman, Alex Pearlman, thank you so much for being on the show. We will talk to you sometime soon. All right, thank you so much. And just real quick, I just want to say. Shadow Daddy rockin' her world. Her world. Her world. I don't know what that is. I did a little dance there, though. I can't see it, but I did it.
01:28:49
Speaker
All right, well, we are going to do a quick wrap up of this episode and then we're going to do our favorite thing ever. We're going to rank some adventure games, whether we've played them or not. but I can't fucking wait. yeah I can't wait. Just could you wait a couple more seconds? No, I can't wait. Well, you have to. no ill all right youre right i there's I literally have no choice.
01:29:12
Speaker
yeah you You have to, or I will bump you from this recording. ah We would just like to say that we're part of the Adventure Game Hotspot Network. Please go check the ah check out our colleagues over there. A lot of Adventure Game reviews. um We love them so much. And in fact, a couple of our guests were, ah ah we who do we have? We had Paul and we had Josh.
01:29:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. To both. forgives hotpot network And so go check us, check them out and Matt, cause he is a writer over there. And also if you want to rant at us, rave at us, give us suggestions, tell me that my teeth are doing great. That would be great. You can email us at Matt and roses at gmail.com. That would be great. Or you can find us on Instagram at save your game podcast. I fucking forgot for like a second. ah Yeah, we we love we love Instagram. I'm very active on Instagram because I don't know if you knew this, but no, what are you going to say? I have no idea I am.
01:30:19
Speaker
an artist and so I. yeah The thing about you being an artist that's so great ah is that ah the holidays are coming up and people are gonna need to buy gifts for their loved ones and where better than.
01:30:34
Speaker
ah what better than an artist that you already know and you're already a fan of, and you can you can introduce, there's nothing better than getting a gift where somebody's like, I didn't know about this, and this gift is literally introducing me to it. So i be ah so check out ah Pushing Up Roses and her her all her work and her stores. Yeah, yeah, check out my arts. I'm gonna be having a drop soon as the kids call them, an art drop. That's that's right, right? I don't know, but yeah.
01:31:06
Speaker
To me, a drop is in ah old MMORPGs when somebody would be like cleaning out there. They'd be like, oh, my rare gear, I'm dropping it so that you guys can, and then people would just run around the screen trying to pick up everything they could. Well, that's what I'm going to do. Meet me out in Chicago. I'm going to drop a bunch of art on the ground. That's my drop. And then it's first come, first serve. You just, I don't know, throw money at me.
01:31:31
Speaker
ah So the other thing, i before we ah go to the ranking segment, I wanna talk about is ah the next month. um So this is our last full episode for the year. You guys are going to be getting, I don't know if you'll be getting a half episode or not. You will be getting a Christmas special. At some point, it'll be extra long. So you pretty much get about the the same amount of time this month that you would otherwise. Exactly, so shut your gobs, quit complaining, it's Christmas. Stop complaining, they're always complaining at me, Roses. I'm sorry, it's probably mostly me.
01:32:10
Speaker
You're always complaining at me, Ross. So you will be getting a yeah a really cool um ah Christmas episode that I'm really excited for you guys to hear. And you might be getting a half episode in there or not. I'm not sure, it depends on scheduling. But regardless, besides that ah Christmas episode,
01:32:35
Speaker
i don't think I think maybe what the second week of January about, somewhere around there, is when you guys will be getting the next regular episode. What if we just don't come back?
01:32:48
Speaker
that would be, oh man, it'd be one of those, it'd be like a spooky mystery that the internet would be thinking about forever. What ever happened to- And yet I'm still on YouTube, I'm still on Instagram. And we just pretend like we're like, what are you talking about when people- Clearly haven't gone anywhere. When people ask us about it, we're like, I don't know, what do you mean? Save your game? What the fuck? We act like we don't know each other. um Matt, who?
01:33:14
Speaker
um No, you so, ah and I think when we come back, ah the thing that we have talked about is that we will be coming back with a ah best games of 2024. Yeah, I'm excited for that. Me too. I love ranking things. So much fun. So stick around, ah be so be patient with us and we will be we be, we'll be back at you and enjoy your December everybody. Yay!
01:33:43
Speaker
yeah
01:33:45
Speaker
Am I supposed to play music now? Yeah, play it. Play the music. Play Alex Pearl Marino.
01:34:20
Speaker
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to save your game. It's me, your favorite artist, your favorite tooth updater, pushing up roses with my co-host Matt Aucamp. Hey, Matt. Hey, it's me, your favorite Tubi.
01:34:34
Speaker
a video game reviewer, but your favorite ah and favorite ah ah political candidate. Vote for me, for Solicitor General.
01:34:45
Speaker
ah I'm part of the League Party. Oh, good, great. I'm glad that's coming back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what they stand for. I just like the name. Yeah, it's just real real catchy. Are you ready to ah rank some adventure games, whether we've played them or not? I would love to. Here's what I need you to do. Rose says, I need you to give me one number out of 10. Eight.
01:35:18
Speaker
Do you like how I said that with zest and confidence? I love that you said eight because I'm looking at it now. I'm looking at the five games in eight, and it's very fun. Okay, so so our first game is number 735. Oh, boy.
01:35:37
Speaker
is number 735 from 2004 from Grundislav Games. Again? Again? It is Ben Jordan Paranormal Investigator case one in search of a scum cape!
01:35:56
Speaker
I mean, you know where this has to go, right? ah Right ah above and or below case seven, the Cardinal Fence. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK. Because this is the first case, right? You said case one, right? This is case one, yeah. I'm just going to go ahead and on a whim, I'm going to assume that it got better in time. but i Maybe. a so but I'll say this. It is the only one I played. I have not played all the benchmark games. I've played the first. That's the only one. I think I've played the first three.
01:36:25
Speaker
um All right, well, I'm going to say it probably improved. So if we put it right below Jordan K7, it's so funny because okay occasionally on Instagram, right people will we will post these lists and people who do not know the podcast will comment on it. like Clearly, they don't know the podcast will comment on it. Somebody was just like, ah why is Portal on there? And other other people being like,
01:36:54
Speaker
Like, where's Monkey Island? And it's like, ah you clearly, you don't listen. But now, people are gonna see Ben Jordan, case one and case seven, and no other Ben Jordan games, and just have no idea whatsoever. All right. I love it. Okay, so that's, yeah, that's our new number 34. All right. nice This one, i I love it when games that we've talked about on the show come up. This is number 2278 from 2019.
01:37:24
Speaker
by SFB Games. It is Tangle Power. Oh, amazing. Amazing. Okay. Okay. So right away, it's going to go higher up. Oh, very high. Yeah. It's going to go out of the mediocre block. Gosh. Oh my gosh. I think it goes above Fran Bow. I think it goes above Fran Bow. I think it goes above Cat Lady. I do too. I agree with you. I do think it goes above Cat Lady.
01:37:52
Speaker
I so, OK, ah personally, I would put a below chance of Cenar. Here's our top four now portal portal to the last door season one chance of Cenar. And actually, in my mind, Tangle Tower goes right at number five. But I don't know what you think. I haven't played chance of Cenar. It's not my type of game, though. So my instinct is to put it above that. But You feel very passionate about it. You played both games. We can put it in number five. That's. Yeah, I was about ready to to to throw down with me. I was. No, I was ready to concede. But too late. Too late. It goes at number five. Our new number five Tangled Tower by SFB Games. That's a really happy with that. That was a really good game. It was like a really good. Solid mystery and like a super fun idea. I can't wait their next game. What was it? The Mermaid. Yeah. Yeah. The next detective grimoire game. Yeah. Yeah. The next detective grimoire game was the Mermaid Mask.
01:39:01
Speaker
and that should be coming out hopefully next year. Great. And I am super stoked for it. Absolutely. Okay, so this next one, oh, weird. ah It's from 2018. Weird. By Podunk Studios with a Z. ah It is 75% off on the ah video game platform Steam. It is called Madness of the Architect.
01:39:31
Speaker
I like the name. It is 14 reviews on Steam, mostly negative. Okay, wait a minute. This does not look good at all. Here's one of the positive reviews, all right? So it's mostly negative. Out of 14 reviews, 11 are negative. And one one of them ah by Steam user Shogun says, this is the worst game I've ever played, 11 out of 10.
01:40:00
Speaker
OK, OK, I see. They gave it a positive review. So that's obviously. This has to go in the in the lows. It's got to go in the lows. I'm looking at it. It just doesn't it doesn't have anything innovative to it. No font like it looks like. um ah It looks like a. yeah yeah You have a flashlight and you're walking around a big bad 3D environment and there is ah words written on the floor in red chiller font. Hey, you know the name of the font. Nice job. Yeah. Yeah. yeah um I don't. it It looks pretty bad, pretty bad. It's got to go low.
01:40:53
Speaker
but it's gotta go ah above ah whatever that fucking game was. Something on the lost. Yeah. Absolutely. That has to always be the last one. I don't think anything. Okay. So this game sucks, but it doesn't, when I'm looking at it, it doesn't make me feel so like nauseous, like weird, truth is stranger than fiction does. Okay. So my,
01:41:17
Speaker
My pitch would be it goes third to last.
01:41:23
Speaker
I like it. Yeah. It looks like not last. It's fine. Oh my God. So I'm looking at the. yeah Looking at the end, I had just been letting the trailer play in the background and I hadn't been looking at it and I cut back.
01:41:36
Speaker
And it is, there's a, the end of the trailer is just like, there's a big room with repeating ah gradient architecture, like a texture. what And just, there's just words written all over the walls. And it's like, that's the thing, that's the gameplay. So. Yeah, I'm happy where it is. It's labeled strategy. I'm sorry.
01:42:02
Speaker
And it says here, nominate your favorites for the Steam Awards. So let's nominate this guy. Yeah, we gotta nominate. All right, that's Madness of the Architect at number 76. That's too bad. I like that title. We still don't have a LucasArts game on here, but we have Madness of the Architect on here. That's wild. How are we? Oh, I can't wait to get to see LucasArts. So this next game, 3,055 from 2023.
01:42:29
Speaker
it is a ah the sci-fi game called Lifeless Moon. I know you aren't in love with sci-fi. Okay. Okay. I'm looking at it.
01:42:46
Speaker
um Looks like sort of like an over the shoulder and sometimes first person looks like an exploration game where you're exploring some sort of weird trippy version of Earth. It's got very positive reviews. On on steam Steam. Now we can't only go by Steam every time. I know, I know.
01:43:10
Speaker
ah but yeah it it looks like, okay, so you're on like a big desert with just like chunks of earth. um like Like weird, like, do you know what I mean? Do you know what I'm saying? There's like there's like buildings just floating in the air yeah and there's like a,
01:43:31
Speaker
There's like a like a like a Japanese sort of shrine. Yeah. I'm having trouble figuring out what the hell. Tears of the heaven where there are things like floating in the air, trees and buildings.
01:43:47
Speaker
um Apparently, this is certainly more action to me. It is adventure, but it looks way more action for me to to like it. It looks like there's some there's some. puzzles there's some technology-based puzzles, and it looks like you carry a notebook where you where the story unravels.
01:44:06
Speaker
it's got On Metacritic, it's got like a 64 out of eight critical reviews. Adventure Game Hotspot, our site. gave it a 70 out of 100. Casey Parkinson reviewed it. ah here's Here's the hot take. Toning down the puzzles this time around wasn't the best idea, but otherwise Lifeless Moon delivers more of what made its predecessor enjoyable for the most part, gorgeously presenting its well-told story of a scientific experiment gone wrong in the peril and premise of the unknown.
01:44:37
Speaker
The pros are an intriguing plot, reminator reminiscent of the Golden Age of Science fiction, environments are varied and gorgeous, soundtrack is enjoyably cinematic, and the cons or puzzles are far too easy and reliance on writings to tell the story can be confusing at times. Now that at times is ah and so clearly a Jack Allen edit. If you look at any adventure gamer game hotspot reviews, you see at ti at times. Jack is like, hey, can you just ah add, yeah, just add that. He's like, is it always that way? or And then you add then you change the language to say at times, and he's like, perfect. but No, no, it's perfect.
01:45:21
Speaker
ah So apparently this is a sequel to Lifeless Planet. And Planet has a ah hammer and sickle. ok So there's something Soviet to it. ah You get to a planet and... So because it is very positive, yeah because there has been some pretty good marks on it, I guess it would go above the the mediocre block, but lower.
01:45:50
Speaker
ah Yeah, I think, well, our mediocre block has already been kind of chopped up. I think it goes below Ben Jordan. I think it goes below ah below Baker Street breakouts. Yes, yeah. Maybe above missing since January. Here's what I say. so um Also, the other thing, and and I know we've been talking a lot about Lifeless Moon, and I apologize, but I noticed that The publisher is Serenity Forge. And the developer. Oh, the developer is what I meant, yeah. Yeah, it's both. It's both the developer and the publisher. And they did Half Past Fate. And they also did... ah What else did I see that rules? um Oh, they did Doki Doki Literature Club. Oh, they published it. Yeah, they published Doki Doki. And To the Moon, they did Slay the Princess. Like, that's...
01:46:49
Speaker
That's a pretty good, okay, but anyway. um so ah to to do i My thought was it would go ah above missing since January.
01:47:03
Speaker
I gotta look that up again, missing since January. We're getting into this like, yeah, it's so hard to remember what any of these are. If we look up all of them, if we look up everything. It's hard, yeah. Yeah, it's gonna be too, so like, or maybe- I agree with you though. Okay, and then above that is Mazovian Adventure, which I don't remember anything about, but I'm also not gonna remember anything about Lifeless Moon.
01:47:31
Speaker
might remember thing. I might remember thing about lifeless moon because it's got it's got a vibe. You know what I mean? It's got a little bit. I put it above the Soviet adventure because that's yeah, that's that weird like homemade game that somebody made for their kids, I think. So then there's the pony to pony a doomsday.
01:47:52
Speaker
I would put it above a Deponia game per se. Okay, all right. Well, I wouldn't put it above all the Deponia game. Okay, then there's, and you know what? Deponia Doomsday, hold on. Let me make an ah argument. So, okay. Deponia was a ah bad series, but Deponia Doomsday was their fourth game after they were not going to make any more games. They made a fourth game, and the fourth game was pretty much ah about how you shouldn't make sequels just because people ask for them. It will always be unfulfilling. And I think there was something, even though there's a lot that I hate about the Deponia games, there's some there's a lot about Deponia Doomsday that I think thematically is interesting. a That's why I would, because if if we're looking at Lifeless Moon for around this area,
01:48:42
Speaker
I would put it maybe below Toponia Doomsday, even though it might be part of a better series, I think Toponia Doomsday is an interesting game saying interesting things. Yeah, you're right. i Yes, I will concede to that actually. Okay, all right, let's leave it there. Let's leave it at, so ah just Lifeless Moon is at number 48.
Controversies and Investigations
01:49:06
Speaker
Next, okay, so fifth game, last game is a number 1,864.
01:49:12
Speaker
from Gennady Guryanov in 2017. It is called Secret Doctrine. Secret Doctrine. It has been removed from Steam. Oh, well then how am I supposed to, why was it removed? Do we have a reason? um But doesn't the, ah I mean, the dev has to. The dev of this game is Guryanov Ganydi, a known Russian fraudulent scammer who got kicked off steam before and snuck back under a different alias.
01:49:52
Speaker
ah Wow. Oh man. A secret doctor does a zero and a one on Metacritic and then a 10, which is clearly somebody just being a shithead. ah Wow. That is so wild. Okay. That's interesting though. Like if we were to put this on the list, would it go below? I mean the plagiarized game, it has to be last, right? Does this go below that for being in that same like scam Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, we've got a scammy game and then ah yeah, and then like a stole but I don't I think because it's stolen. Well, yeah, but did this guy steal shit? I don't know. I can't see any claims that they stole shit. But in what what other ways is i here now can we tie it for now? Look up this guy will look up the scam and I will report back on whether it is worse than the plagiarized game. How about that?
01:50:47
Speaker
I love it. Okay. All right. So, uh, our number 72, we'll do two 79s or you know what? Why don't we skip 79 and do two 80s? So it's like they are, they are removed from the list. Yeah. They're basically below the list. Um, yeah and i i will and limbo of the lost 10 years apart. I will do some field research and we're going to figure this out.
01:51:16
Speaker
Uh, I'm going to make a note on our spreadsheet. I'm not, we're not going to forget this. Okay. Roses. Yes. Roses.
01:51:30
Speaker
report on controversy. I come back with a full report. And you're like, hey, we have to delete the episode. This guy kills people who criticize this game. Oh, God. That'd be terrible. ah All right. Well, that is our ranking segment. It's a very weird one. That was a weird one. Maybe our weirdest one yet. and but Hey, we got a ah new Ben Jordan on the list and tank of power. I like that. And another weird controversial game that we got to look up. I can't believe we have two of these on the list. I love it. I love that we're bringing attention to it so people can look it up. So people can game developers. Stop it. Stop that. Stop that. Stop it. Don't they know that?
01:52:29
Speaker
podcast is art? You'd think at least somebody would have told them that artists suffer. I agree.