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Conquests of Camelot
0 Playsin 8 hours
Ben & Jess discuss Conquests of Camelot and ask: are vibes enough to carry a game, despite numerous design flaws?
Quest Quest podcast is Ben Vigeant and Jess Morrissette.
Editing by Ben Vigeant
Show art by Kevin "WilcoWeb" Wallace
Watch us on Twitch!
Ben: https://www.twitch.tv/ps_garak
Jess: https://www.twitch.tv/decafjedi
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Talk with us on Discord!
https://discord.gg/ve9fqjgPp2
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Transcript
Humorous Banter and British Stereotypes
00:00:31
Speaker
It's Quest Quest. The adventure game podcast. All right. Now I want to before we get to anything. so So, Jess was having a little fun. He was having a little laugh as they say and merry old England.
00:00:44
Speaker
um and i'm in an arf are we like everyone stopped listening over there that's yeah you're you're you're costing us our beloved our beloved listeners across the pond um they're driving around their lorries right now and just uh just turned off the uh bing bang box in their car that plays this our demographic is entirely lorry drivers um yes but So Jess, while the theme was playing, you pulled out like a, uh, an omnibus, like large hardcover of John Steinbeck.
00:01:22
Speaker
Yeah. The collected word that I like to read. And you know, when I read, I read the classics. Uh-huh. What, why do you have a large collection of ah giant John Steinbeck?
00:01:33
Speaker
Like right, you know, right next to your your computer.
Literary and Pop Culture Chat
00:01:37
Speaker
author of uh the the red pony and uh grapes of wrath yeah i'm looking at grapes of wrath right now it is uh right here it's just talking about grapes it's just like these grapes are delicious what kind are they and someone's like are these uh are these uh like concord grapes and like no these are the grapes of wrath that scene is where i was open to you know I've only ever read The Red Pony of John Steinbeck.
00:02:08
Speaker
Did he write the short story The Pearl? is dviter ram Isn't The Pearl... Isn't that... um What's his name? Oh, now I'm revealing that I don't read a lot of great American literature.
00:02:22
Speaker
Oh no. no. No, it is Steinbeck. i ha Yeah, there you go. There's my 10th grade education paying off. ah No, I mean, the answer that is, ah it's my wife's book and she really enjoys Steinbeck. And I think she just left it on my desk. So I thought would- Yeah, she's, well, you know, she's a Steinbecker, and also she enjoys the tennis of Boris Becker and the Ted Danson sitcom Becker. So, I mean, she's just sort of, and the musician Beck.
00:02:56
Speaker
um Yeah. And probably another Beck thing that i can't think of at this moment. Now, it's her favorite part of a bird, the Beck.
00:03:06
Speaker
Ayla Beck. Ayla Tet. Now watch this. um I'm going bring things back old school. Oh, old school.
Twitch Streaming Plans
00:03:15
Speaker
You can find me on Twitch. It's PS underscore Garrick.
00:03:19
Speaker
Oh, ah yeah. Is that do you stream video games there? Yeah. Adventure games. Yeah. Adventure games on Tuesdays. Yeah. I I'm Decaf Jedha on Twitch. I'm currently taking a little break from streaming. I'll be back soon. He'll be back soon.
00:03:35
Speaker
I'm on a fact finding trip. Yeah. You're, you're, uh, have you found any facts? Uh, yeah. You know, it turns out there was, and get this Ben, an eighth King's quest game. Uh, I've been digging through the archives and, uh, you know, um it's, uh, it's a little known fact, but there is one after the one with, uh, Rosella and Valenice it's called mask of eternity. And it sounds like it's quite interesting. It finally brings some action to the series.
King's Quest Game Series Discussion
00:04:05
Speaker
Well, that was my main complaint ah of King's Quest 1 through 7 was not enough action. Yeah. That and hating the royal family of Daventry. You're like, why do I have to play as a king or a member of a king's family in every single one of these games?
00:04:22
Speaker
It's why you love the first half of King's Quest 3 so much because like, finally, I get a break. I'm free. just some kid living with ah with a wizard. An evil wizard. Yeah. An evil wizard. Now. I hate that wizard.
Sushi Adventures and Allergies
00:04:35
Speaker
man uh now uh jess now's the time when we talk about we've had interesting dinners or or anything recently have have you been point of accusing finger then indulged in the ultimate luxury today okay I snuck away between classes. I have a brief window ah between ah my classes, an hour and a half, right around lunchtime. i want I have one of those short hour and a half lunch breaks. Interesting.
00:05:14
Speaker
I got in my car and I drove to the decent sushi place and I had sushi lunch. and Just like on a whim. I decided you had a sushi lunch from the decent sushi place. Not the good sushi place. That's like another 10 minutes away. Okay.
00:05:31
Speaker
But from the decent sushi place. Now what's your, what's your, Because I have like a sushi place order.
00:05:42
Speaker
Like I have an order of operations when I go to a sushi place. What what what what do you get? You see, I am really limited. And this lunch. So you're not going to go. have shellfish allergy, which really throws me off. So I mean, like right away your average sushi place, I am just like limited off the bat. I'm getting a lot tuna and salmon probably just by default. Yeah.
00:06:05
Speaker
So that's a real bummer. I love shellfish, but about 15 years ago, I developed a horrible allergy to it. You can have ah ah eel, right? Yes, definitely eel. And weirdly, this place was out of eel today. Like normally an eel roll. Like what I want to order is a nice dragon roll. Like I want eel, I want eel sauce, and I want avocado. That's like mine my go-to sushi. Unagi roll. Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:30
Speaker
Yeah, a little bit of that action. So what instead I had today was just some, had a Philly roll. I had some of the salmon with cream cheese, which, you know, it's all right. It's, mean. Philly roll perfectly good.
00:06:42
Speaker
That's fine. It's fine. And then I had a spicy tuna roll. I did get. So you you got two rolls. Got two rolls and. a whole bunch of seaweed salad because I like head the squeakiness of seaweed salad. I like, I like a food that squeaks when I eat it. Have you been, have you had a cheese cruise?
00:07:02
Speaker
is that Yes, same thing. Squeaky food. Yeah, all up in my biz. I like a food that squeaks on my teeth. Like weirdly, i don't want to think too much about this, but I don't know if you've ever enjoyed at, do you guys have McDonald's in Chicago? and No, we we've we don't have McDonald's. with did We have the headquarters of McDonald's downtown, but actually no McDonald's.
00:07:30
Speaker
Wow, that's a real crock.
00:07:40
Speaker
Sorry, Ben. I'm sorry. But for some reason, i find the McGriddle breakfast sandwich to also have a disturbingly squeaky quality to it that I would rather not think too much about. yeah you don't want to think about where those squeaks come from. I can't tell if the squeak is coming from the strange pancake bun or if the squeak is coming from the egg product that's on it. I hesitate to call it egg.
00:08:08
Speaker
Yeah. It's reconstituted in some way, i suspect. But there's a protein gelatin. Yeah. That's white and yellow. Yes. That is a disturbing squeak. But, oh, man, the squeak of some of that seaweed salad, that's what I'm looking for.
00:08:22
Speaker
When i when i do a sushi order, I typically also do two rolls and a miso soup. and And my general order of operations is I get one of like the stupid rolls from a place where you know like they'll have their list.
00:08:42
Speaker
And it's just like every fucking fish with 5 million different types of sauce Yeah. I get one of those. And then I get like, you know, like a California roll or whatever, you know, yeah like my, I, get, because you know what?
00:09:02
Speaker
I'm, I'm in Chicago. This is not, I'm not, appre I'm not appreciating the, uh, the, the quality of the tuna fish straight out of the lake. Yeah. Like, yeah, no, this is, i mean, I'm in West Virginia. Yeah. this If it's out of the Ohio river, I'm a dead man before midnight. You know, it's it's game over. But yeah, I mean, one of my favorites is, have you ever messed with the Oshinko roll, which is going to be like the Japanese pickle roll? It's just like refreshing. Quite lovely. We also have a place here in town that does...
00:09:38
Speaker
does an odd combination. I can't imagine this is authentic in any way, but they do an avocado and peanut roll, which peanut is surprisingly lovely in a sushi roll. You wouldn't expect it to be, but if you're into the vegetarian rolls, those are great options. I do enjoy a vegetarian roll.
00:09:56
Speaker
Like, I like to order the crazy-ass roll, too. It's like, I like the one that takes, like, four lines to list all the ingredients. Yeah. And then also they deep-fry it for some reason. And it's never as good as the simple roll. The deep frying, unfortunately, is always, like... It ruins it. always ah It always makes me feel sick. Like, that... no, it's terrible. That is...
00:10:18
Speaker
Like that's something where as red blooded American, I'm like, of course, deep frying a sushi roll sounds delightful.
00:10:28
Speaker
And then I have it and I don't even have the i I eat it and I'm like, that was good. Oh, no, I feel sick later. Like I have it. And then immediately I'm like, yeah like, there's the problem. I feel sick.
00:10:41
Speaker
If at that point I've paid like $14.99 for the specialty roll, that first bite I feel like, oh, this is a mistake. Oh, you got to eat all it. I got to eat the roll. It's also sushi. It's not going in the fridge. That's right. Yeah, especially a deep fried one. It is every second you wait. a variety of reasons, it's just not going to be good.
00:11:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's getting worse by the second. Yeah, you've got to power through it at that point. Otherwise, you're just like leaving money on the table. There's no choice. You have to take this roll that you regret that you over you could have gotten two simpler rolls for the same price that would have been more enjoyable. But now you're stuck eating this expensive sushi roll that's deep fried and has four kinds of mayonnaise on it.
00:11:24
Speaker
And you're just stuck. Yeah, that's a terrible situation. you just stuck Ben, if you had anything good to eat lately?
Culinary Experiments and Critiques
00:11:32
Speaker
I made last night i homemade like a chicken sausage patties. Oh. and ah i I made those ah and um and roasted up some...
00:11:51
Speaker
uh broccoli rob and then uh tossed all of that in uh fettuccine oh and it was it was pretty good but i am going to say so the the the chicken sausage was essentially like just taking ground chicken and then adding a bunch of like fat and flavor and stuff because like ground chicken is very lean and flaky and kind of flavorless.
00:12:22
Speaker
And so, this recipe called for adding ricotta, uh, as, as one of the you know ingredients to kind of give it body and flavor, um, and a little fat.
00:12:33
Speaker
And the, uh, my grocery store is one of those places where they'll also like it's a independent grocery store and they'll make a lot of their own stuff. And,
00:12:47
Speaker
they're about Their batting average on make their own stuff is pretty high, but they've had misses. like Their guacamole is exceptional.
00:12:58
Speaker
Really? I'm sorry to say. I've seldom encountered a prepared guacamole I cared for. But I'm sorry to say, this ricotta, no good.
00:13:09
Speaker
More like Renata. Yeah. It had a little... like What a crock. ah Ah, pun not intended. um So it ah it had kind of the flavor of like a little bit of a medicine-y aftertaste. Oh, no.
00:13:34
Speaker
Like probably because I've made ricotta because ricotta is a very easy cheese to make. You can make ricotta at home. it's It's fun and easy. Anyone can do it.
00:13:45
Speaker
um And so whatever acid they added to it to make the curds, like, whatever whatever it was, i just didn't like the flavor of.
00:13:59
Speaker
ah But, you know, I made those sausages, and i just had leftovers. It all tasted better today. so That's the best time ever. I also went off road and added a half tablespoon of ah I'm going to mispronounce this. Apologies to everyone.
00:14:16
Speaker
Gochujang. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Good call. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was just like. I was just like, this this this this this bunch of shit I'm adding to this ah chicken, i need to I need to give it a little a little something extra. i was feeling I was feeling the need, especially because I had had a taste of the ricotta, and I was like, I don't like this ricotta, but it's too late.
00:14:42
Speaker
I'm down this road. um And so it's like, I'm going to add some gochujang. I have to change the subject. Why? I need
Muppet Show Special Review
00:14:53
Speaker
to know.
00:14:53
Speaker
h What Muppet are you and what Muppet do you wish you were?
00:15:03
Speaker
music I don't have all night, Jess. I i don't know the answer. This is a leading question, which implies to me that you want me to ask you this. Is that correct? No, I want to talk about the new Muppet show. I see. Yeah, that's this why. plus I watched it last night as well.
00:15:22
Speaker
Okay, well, first I need to know what Muppet you are and what Muppet you wish you were. hey I don't have a... Who is... Let's see...
00:15:34
Speaker
Which Muppet am I and which which do I wish I was? Well, I wish I was Rolf. You know, Rolf is objectively the best Muppet. Because you dude to hang out with Rolf Rolf has such a ah fine energy.
00:15:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Rolf, of all the of all the Muppets... he He's the one where you you look at you know um look at him and go, like you know he's going to help you move.
00:16:05
Speaker
Rolf is on the short list of Muppets who I feel like would make my anxiety levels go down if I were hanging with him. I think most other Muppets I'm going to become more anxious around.
00:16:17
Speaker
feel... i feel and Speaking of anxiety, I feel Kermity just as a like kind of outspoken person that man like has managed shows that's very anxiety-driven.
00:16:32
Speaker
Okay. So you actually have like hands-on experience Kermiting. I have hands-on Kermit experience. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. i mean i've I mean, think I aspire to be Fozzy.
00:16:48
Speaker
You aspire to be Fozzie. I don't think I'm quite there. u huh I think I'm probably Scooter. I think I'm Scooter.
00:16:59
Speaker
Well, you see, Kirby and Scooter work yeah very closely together. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I think we are hand in hand, but clearly you're running the show. know So you watched it last night as well. yeah assume I watched it tonight. Just before we... Just watched it. So you' watch your're you're this ra you're champing at the bit.
00:17:19
Speaker
Let's be champion at the bit. Yeah. ah you You really want to talk about the ah Muppet Show special that just dropped on Disney Plus with ah special guest Sabrina Carpenter.
00:17:32
Speaker
Yes. ah So what do you think? Oh, um you know, I'll go. um What I really appreciate about it. was that it didn't try to be anything other than the Muppet show. There wasn't, I mean, the Muppet show is already meta in the way it always was, but they didn't add the additional layer of meta too thickly. Like there wasn't too much of a ah look at us. We're doing the Muppet show, wink, wink, nod, nod.
00:18:02
Speaker
They were kind of just doing the Muppet show, which I really appreciate about. And I think Sabrina Carpenter was, Yeah, an ideal pick to launch this. If you want to get eyeballs on it, someone who has a sense of humor about themselves knows how to act along. I mean, the secret to acting alongside the Muppets is acting like they are human actors.
00:18:23
Speaker
And the people who get that do well. And the people who treat them like I'm acting beside a puppet are the ones that don't work with the Muppets. And she clearly was like in the world of Muppets as she as she interacted with them, which is is key. so I thought it was, it was pretty good. It was pretty good is exactly. I was like in, in the, the annals of Muppet show history, like let's say, because I think this is like their attempt to pilot it. Correct. yeah Like that' that's what people are saying is that they, this, if this does well, we'll get like a show.
00:19:04
Speaker
Yeah. Is that this feels to me like a of the, all the seasons of the Muppet show, there are like, you know, there's the Mark Hamill one, which is like, you know, people put up at the top. Right. Yeah. And like Steve Martin, like, you know, like episodes where they're like, Oh wow. Like the, v this is yeah top shelf.
00:19:31
Speaker
And so, I wouldn't put this anywhere near those. I would say this is like one of those kind of like, I had a perfect, I like, because they're kind of boring and, or you know, just kind of met episodes of the Muppet show. This was like just a solid double.
00:19:48
Speaker
I would say in, in baseball parlance, like it made me laugh. Like it had a couple good jokes. I thought the, like, uh, I thought the puppets looked great. Uh, I thought that the, um,
00:20:01
Speaker
Like, uh, I thought the, the music segments, uh, were, were great. The little sketches and it was also how they filmed the Muppets. I thought it looked quite good. Like I felt like it felt like the Muppet show, but certainly there was a little bit more of an interest, maybe an interesting cinematography than you would have gotten from the, uh, from the original Muppet show. They tried to hit some interesting camera angles here and there, move yeah the camera a few times.
00:20:26
Speaker
Yeah, it was, ah you know, it was a real, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. yeah They didn't try, like, to your point, they didn't try to get too clever with it. They didn't, like, it it was corny. It was for kids, like, very clearly for kids.
00:20:45
Speaker
um but like to be enjoyed by families it was family entertainment uh done very well do you think this will find an audience do you think it'll work or are people just done with the Muppets are kids not going come back if this if if this is if this doesn't do it then then I then you know hang hang up hang up Kermit Wow. You heard here first in a museum. If this is rip like that way boy because what what else could they do?
00:21:13
Speaker
They've they've tried like modernite like, you know, they did like the an office riff but just jason on the Muppets. They've they've done like ah yeah they they they did to relaunch era movies. Could we try it with a different member of the freaks and geeks cast? Like we've seen what Jason Siegel can do. And now he's seen what Seth Rogen can do. Yeah. they get Like busy Phillips's Muppets.
00:21:43
Speaker
Yeah. Actually we are getting that, aren't we? Is she on? No, wait, she's not on the miss piggy project. No, that's a cool school. That's right. Yeah. Um, Yeah, no, we are going to work through everybody. i i think I like Seth Rogen's take on the Muppets more than Jason Segel's, which I thought was kind of boring. And for some reason, they must have lost the Walter Muppet. Must have been lost somewhere because he doesn't show up at all. He actually died. Yeah.
00:22:10
Speaker
Yeah, they they yeah he's just yeah he was he was shot. It was pretty tragic. He was dumped in an unmarked grave. Now, speaking of unmarked graves, what have you been playing?
Gaming Nostalgia and Board Games
00:22:24
Speaker
Wow. Ben, have been looking for a nice slow burn game to suck up a little bit of my free time. And I returned to a game that I played a couple years ago and kind of drifted away from. I've been playing a little bit more of Marvel's Midnight Suns again. Oh, good game. It's a very good game. I started over fresh, so I'm only a few hours back into it.
00:22:52
Speaker
And man, what a delightful game. If listeners don't know this one, it, gosh, probably came out now, what, like six years ago? It's been out for a little while.
00:23:05
Speaker
But this is basically the Marvel Comics XCOM game. Yeah, four four years ago, 2022. Yeah.
00:23:16
Speaker
And was immediately available on sale for $7.99 at every store. i think this is a game that had a rocky road after it came out. It's a shame.
00:23:27
Speaker
If I don recall correctly, it came out around the same time as, what's the popular Marvel card game thing you were playing? Oh, Snap. Marvel Snap? Yeah, let's see here. Marvel Snap release date.
00:23:42
Speaker
Marvel Snap came out October 18th, 2022. Midnight Suns came out December 1st, 2022. Oof. And Marvel Snap was big. I think it's still fairly big. I think it's still going, still writing events. It still has a pretty big user base.
00:23:58
Speaker
But this one is, i think what surprised me about when played it then and what continues to surprise me about as I returned to it is, i know what you have sort the, x um you know, strategic combat element to it with lots of fun Marvel characters, including some that are a little bit off the beaten path. do You have some obvious ones, like, of course, you've got Spider-Man and Wolverine around, but you have a few more obscure characters. You have...
00:24:24
Speaker
Nico Minoru from The Runaways. You have Magic, who I guess is a little bit more mainstream, thinks Marvel rivals these days. You have a fair number of supernatural style characters to tie into the storyline here.
00:24:39
Speaker
But the storylines, what's really impressive, is there is so much game here. In addition to all the XCOM segments, Just the amount of storytelling, all with like really terrific voice acting from a lot of the actors who performed as these characters in other games and animated projects as well.
00:24:54
Speaker
Just a ah lot to sink yourself into. I don't know how many total hours this thing would be to work through the campaign, but it feels like, you know, as far as I got the first time I played it, it felt like I was just barely getting started like 10 hours in.
00:25:10
Speaker
Yeah, you didn't get that Yeah, exactly. you know And to be honest, i didn't get that far. Yeah, and there's a lot to love about mean, it almost started to feel overwhelming. I started to realize like, oh gosh, there's almost too much game here, which very quickly makes me drift away from games. I get intimidated easily, but I've been playing Midnight Suns. You know what?
00:25:28
Speaker
It has been something good. I like a slightly more strategic game occasionally when just want to like... really occupies much of my thought process to distract myself from other things. And Midnight Suns has been doing a nice job of that. So that, Ben, is what I've been playing. have you been playing?
00:25:49
Speaker
Well, Jess, I'm gonna return to something that we've, you know, ah a well What Have You Been Playing lately, which is I have another board game.
00:26:08
Speaker
hey This is our pal Tabletop Ben checking in It's Tabletop Ben here. And
00:26:17
Speaker
I've been playing, so, as mentioned, my board game night is back alive after over 10 years. I've had a consistent.
00:26:31
Speaker
And as I said, I think when I was discussing this, my friend said to me, like, I'll see you next Wednesday. Like, we're we're we're in it now, where it's an assumption is being burnt in.
00:26:45
Speaker
which is incredible. And so we're working through uh, uh, uh, campaigns of Slay the Spire, which I talked about last week. And with that, we play one act a night and Slay the Spire, uh, can be up to three acts if you don't die before it, which we, we've died twice on act two.
00:27:08
Speaker
But, uh, usually that takes about, like 45 minutes.
00:27:15
Speaker
And so we have a little bit time afterwards and we have like energy afterwards, but not for a whole other act.
00:27:26
Speaker
45 minutes to an hour, let's say. And so the other like our like, you know, kind of like, let's play a quick game is this board game called Can't Stop.
00:27:41
Speaker
you ever heard of this board game, Can't Stop? No. Handstop, it's been around for decades. It's not a new game.
00:27:52
Speaker
But it's not one I had heard of. Like a friend of mine introduced me to it some years ago. And it's one that I've been successful at getting a lot of people into, including my entire family. My entire family now plays. Like I brought it to family vacation.
00:28:13
Speaker
and every like And now like my brother's family like owns a copy and they play it all the time. And like so on and so forth. Can't Stop is a very simple dice game where you are kind of... It's a a press your luck game.
00:28:33
Speaker
where you roll four dice and you have a big board that's shaped like a stop sign. And
00:28:48
Speaker
each turn you have, you have three little runners that you can advance up one number that is the sum of two dice rolls. So from two to 12, essentially.
00:29:04
Speaker
And in the game, you can stop and save your progress, or you can keep rolling. But the second you have a roll that none of your three runners are like, if if I have on the board four, seven and 10, and I roll all four dice and I cannot add together a combination,
00:29:34
Speaker
of two dice to that, then I lose all my progress. And so the game is how far can you press
00:29:45
Speaker
without completely washing away all of your progress? If you stop, you save all your progress and it's locked in. It's like pressure luck. It's exactly like pressure luck. It is. That's all it is. It is just great press your luck game.
00:30:03
Speaker
No whammies. Stop on.
00:30:08
Speaker
Yeah, no. Yeah, it's an awesome game. I highly recommend it to to everyone. ah A game of Can't Stop is is very fast. And then, like, you can get so fucking mad.
00:30:19
Speaker
I was looking at box art for this on boardgamegeek.com. Do you happen to have the, like, goofy mountain climber version? No, I don't have the mountain climber version.
00:30:31
Speaker
I will say i love that the design, like, don't know if you've seen the mountain c climber version. I have. I have seen that one. Yeah, but the combination of, like, what is some, like, goofy cartoony art,
00:30:45
Speaker
along with the designer's name, which is Sid Saxon. Yeah. Good name. But it also makes that feel like it's a parody name of like a real like a real designer whose last name is probably Jackson.
00:30:58
Speaker
ah Like it gives it's giving mad Magazine parody of a real board game with that cover art. So shout out to the cover artist. ah Rethink that one.
00:31:11
Speaker
We've received an email. Just now? Ding. Ding. You have an electronic message, as AOL used to say. i Famously. So this is the the title. This is from our friend Quill.
Terry Pratchett's Humorous Legacy
00:31:26
Speaker
And the title is Some Reminiscence of... Terry Pratchett. Hello, Ben and Jess. I listened to the latest episode as of late January about the Discworld video game and it brought back many memories, mostly of the Discworld novels, which I was exposed to in the 90s when they already ah blew up in Israel.
00:31:46
Speaker
The English reading market there was much closer to the UK than the US at times. My small Anglophone crew in high school was all over it at any rate.
00:31:58
Speaker
Sometimes when you're reading this for the first time, you start to put emphasis on something then realize, at any rate, any rate, sorry. At any rate. I think the first I read in English and really enjoyed was the same as Jess's, strangely enough, Feet of Clay.
00:32:19
Speaker
Wow. probably would have wanted to start with an earlier one, but at the relevant age, I was limited to what happened to be available at the local public library, whose foreign language section had a few gaps.
00:32:31
Speaker
I think the actual first one I read was the color of magic, but in Hebrew translation, whatever project got already got right there and all the puns never made it through the language barrier.
00:32:43
Speaker
This is, that was something I was wondering
00:32:48
Speaker
Like Discworld books are heavy. Yes. And really live in the choice of language and phrasing and everything. I think it it would have to be you translate the spirit of these jokes in a lot cases more so than the literal translation, you know?
00:33:07
Speaker
Yeah. Like, you know, I read... you ever read Stanislav Lem? You know, I mean, I seriously read Stanback.
00:33:17
Speaker
Which... Oh, okay. Uh... So the Siberiad, which is a series of short stories about robots, believe that is a translation. I believe that he was Polish and it was translated from Polish.
00:33:35
Speaker
And those like the Siberiad is full of wordplay and puns and like rhymes and stuff. If recall correctly, it's been a minute since I read it. um And I remember reading and being like, howd how do you translate this?
00:33:51
Speaker
I don't know. Anyway, I guess, I guess they fucked it up. The Hebrew version of it though. Oh, well for, for Terry Pratchett back to the email. Similarly to Ben. I also remember small gods very fondly. I do think that's one I have somewhere in a parent's house, although it's not with me.
00:34:08
Speaker
I still find myself saying first there was the word and the word was, Hey, you randomly. been more than a decade since I've read Pratchett, probably ending with either of The Truth, send-up of journalism, that's a good one, Thief of Time, a scathing critique of bureaucracy.
00:34:26
Speaker
Felt that his lawyer was getting too involved for my taste. In terms of games, I actually played Discworld 2 first. Got stuck a bit after the Overworld opened up.
00:34:36
Speaker
I don't think either you or I have played Discworld 2. No, it's on my list forever. Yeah, we should, yeah. I can't imagine i would have made it even that far with the first one. I have to register my difference of tastes with Jess. I enjoyed Simon the Sorcerer 1 than...
00:34:52
Speaker
then I think I would have enjoyed Discworld 1, and I still recommend 2, as more a non-walkthrough requiring iteration of a similar concept. Like with literature, I was possibly simply exposed to more British humor on TV growing up, so I guess it speaks to me more.
00:35:06
Speaker
Blackadder, including the first season, I enjoyed that one quite a bit. Mighty Pythons, Flying Circus, Are You Being Served, etc. Finally, heartily agree that the space quests in Space Quest 4 don't really feel like space quests that would actually happen unless Al Lowe happened to take over the franchise.
00:35:23
Speaker
Keep on quest questing, Quill. Thank you very much. I, you know, the the most interesting thing, like, I do really think about, like, translating with puns and wordplay and and stuff like that. Like, i have a copy...
00:35:43
Speaker
of uh i think it was like the brother yeah i have a copy of the brothers karamazov uh which at the time that I purchased it, it was like a recent translation and they were like, there's a forward and they go, it's like, you know, this is using like, this is actually, here's why this translation is much better because it it captures the intention.
00:36:08
Speaker
I've, you know, i only speak one fucking language. I don't like, and so I really, i really wonder like, ah it's just something really interesting to me. and I wonder like,
00:36:21
Speaker
You know, a lot of like I just played ah ah Foolish Mortals, good game. And i think they just added a ah ah language
Localization Challenges in Adventure Games
00:36:33
Speaker
to it. I know it had, i think, German ah in it. And I think they might have just added a language. Let me take a look because I remember like finishing the game and then a day later ah ah getting an update.
00:36:47
Speaker
Yeah, they just added a Russian translation. Oh, nice. And so I wonder, like, and that that game has puns and silly stuff. And so I wonder, like, how do you do that, you know, like for an adventure game? So if you're someone listening that has ever worked on a localization or has any thoughts on that, you know, let us know. QuestQuestPodcast at gmail.com.
00:37:14
Speaker
But now let's let's get to the the subject at hand, but in ah and a nice, cozy, easy way by playing a little bit of The Price is Right.
The Cost of Nostalgia: Conquest of Camelot Prices
00:37:25
Speaker
a Ease me in.
00:37:29
Speaker
you know, this this tune kind of sounds similar to our corrections tune, I think. But anyway. we aren't going to make any more mistakes, so we can repurpose this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. All right.
00:37:41
Speaker
So i have i have two. We're going to do this quickly because- Okay, okay. i have I have two here. It's it's two different copies of Conquest of Camelot.
00:37:55
Speaker
And so here we go. The title is Conquest of Camelot Search for the Grail Sierra three and a half and five and a quarter disc.
00:38:07
Speaker
1989 PC game. So this is the PC. There's some very handsome photos here. It does not look like it's been sat on. Okay. Which is pretty good. It looks like...
00:38:23
Speaker
So these are NSO they're not sat on. Yeah. NSO. One of ah the five and a quarters does look a little bent. Holy shit.
00:38:35
Speaker
five and a quarter. Yes. Yes. I have this. I have this game and it is like that box is packed to the brim. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so the, the photo here and I'm looking at the the description and it just kind of describes the game. so it's not looking at the the photo here.
00:39:00
Speaker
also, by the way, it says brand new, but you see everything that's in the box. So it's not brand new. Yeah, it's not sealed. Get this shit right. But it looks like it has the the manual, the ah ah and it also looks like we have a hit book with the Sierra Adventure Window.
00:39:22
Speaker
Oh.
00:39:32
Speaker
I would bid on this copy. I'm going guess that the going rate on this is going to be $67.95. is $55.40. Oh, which me to think. sixty seven dollars and ninety five cents
00:39:48
Speaker
was it is fifty five forty oh which you lead me to think that Conquest of Camelot might be affordable.
00:40:02
Speaker
It is. I will say of Sierra games. Weirdly, the SCI Zero games seem to be in a lot cases, some of the more affordable. Like you can get Codename Iceman for next nothing. That's crazy. You get Conquest Camelot and Colonel's Bequest for less than you would think.
00:40:22
Speaker
They seem to run less than the early games and also less than the big box 256 color ones. So that doesn't shock me. This one does run cheaper, but I was thinking with the Adventure Game Window and Hitbook, it might drive it up a little bit more. What's my second item? The second one is the same thing for the Tandy.
00:40:40
Speaker
It says, uh, PC, IBM, Tandy, MS-DOS. So I guess it's probably the same version. yeah There shouldn't be a special Tandy version of it. Okay. So what's the condition we're looking at here? It says good, but I'm going note that it just shows the box, which looks fine. Like the the box looks good.
00:41:03
Speaker
Um, and four desks.
00:41:07
Speaker
No manual. Ooh, are we talking three and a half or five and a quarter? So, um, I, I, I, let me read the item description from the seller because I think this will help.
00:41:23
Speaker
This IBM Tandy MS-DOS game titled Conquest of Camelot is a must-have for any vintage video game collector. The game boasts an exciting array of action and adventure with a focus on boxing.
00:41:35
Speaker
Sierra published this game, which is compatible with PC platforms. The game comes in a big box and although it is untested, it is sure to bring back nostalgic memories of the of the golden age of video gaming.
00:41:48
Speaker
This item falls under the video games and consoles category and is a great addition to any collection. Now, when you say it focuses on boxing, yeah like when you boxed that boar at one point or the black knight, like...
00:42:05
Speaker
I revisited this game earlier today. don't remember any boxing. i mean, they maybe that's in a path that I have taken. There's that scene right at the beginning when you're still at King Arthur's college before he goes out to search for the Holy Grail and you box with the boxing instructor there before you embark on your big quest. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. right. How much are you going to bid on on this? $34.95.
00:42:34
Speaker
Once again, $27.95.
00:42:38
Speaker
Man, yeah, this game is very affordable. Gang, if you want your own copy of Conquest of Camelot, there's no better place to start your King's Quest. I'm sorry, your Sierra Online. I was to say King's Quest 4 is also usually very cheap. Your Sierra Online big box collection. You go out there and you get it.
00:42:54
Speaker
I mean, I was tempted to buy this, but if it doesn't have the manual, I don't want it because... The manual is arguably the best part yeah of this game. Like, yeah, if it doesn't, holy shit.
00:43:07
Speaker
Uh, uh, King's quest for, ah for, for 30 bucks. Yeah. I mean, you can just, yeah, you can drop that easy. I mean, that's like a sushi lunch. Yeah.
Conquest of Camelot: A Flawed Gem
00:43:18
Speaker
That's like a sushi lunch.
00:43:20
Speaker
true you oh man um sushi all right anyway today we are talking about uh the uh adventure game conquests of camelot quest for grail um christy marks first of two games we already spoke about the the second one um ah For Sierra, Christy Marks, as we discussed in that episode, she ah had a pretty interesting career up to that point.
00:43:55
Speaker
Gem the Holograms. One of my absolute favorite things from my childhood, a show that I watched religiously, i just loved it. um Couldn't get enough Jim and the Holograms. Would occasionally go to my neighbor Jana's house where she had all of the Jim and Hologram dolls and we would play Jim and the Hologram dolls together as a child. It was good times. Yeah. Who didn't love Jim and the Holograms?
00:44:25
Speaker
um Ben, that was probably like for you growing up, like me watching a Betty Boop cartoon. like You're just like, what is this? Like, why are they just bobbing around in time with some music? I didn't even ever watch a jam. I don't even know if that was in...
00:44:42
Speaker
Like, I mean, it must've been in rerun somewhere, but I, I was, it may have been one those. It just disappeared as soon as was caught. We aired our last episode and someone just started throwing tapes in a garbage can. you know I was only aware of he man because my, my older brother's toys were still around, but like I wasn't, I also, and I might've talked about this.
00:45:08
Speaker
I had a allergy. to like, um, like as a, as a kid cartoons that weren't funny.
00:45:23
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I was just very strongly of the opinion as a kid that like cartoons were meant to be funny.
00:45:34
Speaker
And when like the real or the new adventures of Johnny quest would come on or, you know, something else that was a a little more dramatic i I would just kind of be like, this is boring and it doesn't have any jokes.
00:45:54
Speaker
I watched a couple episodes of X-Men. That was the only one that like kind of had my my interest. Yeah, gotcha. I mean, yeah, mean, Jim, the holograms, i mean, they own an orphanage. So like right away, that's kind of a bummer. Who owns an orphanage?
00:46:09
Speaker
Well, do you think they just like spring up? yeah I mean, and you know, they're probably getting, here's the thing. They assume that they're run by like nonprofits. and I'm assuming they're getting a ton of money from the state. Like I'm guessing that, yeah, I think they're probably like, you know, cutting a big check for every orphan they bring in there to kind of, you know, dubiously watch when they aren't touring the world with their latest album. Is that the...
00:46:31
Speaker
Is that really the plot? of Gem and the Holograms? da This rock band, like this hair metal 80s girl group runs an orphanage? Yeah, it's called Starlight Manor.
00:46:44
Speaker
Okay. Which wouldn't that be a great name for an orphanage? um Or an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. um But yeah, they they run an orphanage. um Jerrica Benton is the is the head of this. She is also secretly living a double Hannah Montana style life as Jim.
00:47:07
Speaker
She uses a holographic computer that her father built, an artificial intelligence named Synergy, who when she touches her magic earrings, it turns her into Jim.
00:47:19
Speaker
And then she performs with her band, but she runs their nonprofit in her day-to-day life, which is an orphanage. And they're occasionally like one of the girls at the orphanage is doing drugs, very special episodes kind of things too. So, you know, you get fun stuff like that.
00:47:36
Speaker
um It's really mature storytelling, Ben. That's what I'm trying to say. And Christy Marks, but will say i am the one nerd who, when I read an interaction magazine that Christy Marks was going to be doing games with Sierra, I was just like, I love her work on Jim because I'm the kind of nerd who watched cartoons as a kid and paid attention to the credits. the like I was like, need to know who's writing this, this pablum.
00:48:03
Speaker
Yeah. now um yeah i so revisiting so i've i've i've uh played and uh beaten conquest of camelot i i got to it much like this podcast i got to it much later after having played longbow which i think is a marvelous game yes so here's Here's my main... Here's here's what i I think is the main question of Conquest of Camelot.
00:48:39
Speaker
I think this is the key here, which is, and is a vibe enough to float a game if the game itself isn't very good?
00:48:52
Speaker
I want to say my response to this, because this is almost exactly what I have written down. My answer to it is for me.
00:49:03
Speaker
Yes. I think this is one of the most mid Sierra adventures in the catalog. Not a lot to it.
00:49:14
Speaker
And I absolutely adore it. Not a lot to it. yeah it It is all vibes. I mean, so much of it is copy protection, essentially where you're just like referencing the manual to get details necessary. Solving.
00:49:29
Speaker
flower riddles where you have to look up Yeah. And then you're solving riddle riddles at one point. that That was another one of my notes was that this is one of my my notes revisiting the game today was ah so there's there's a part of the the game where ah you you have to solve multiple riddles to ah get through this magical barrier like each of these stones making a magical barrier. To get your donkey
00:50:02
Speaker
um and they're just normal riddles they're just straight up riddles and i was just like this is from a period of games mostly the very end of that period where you just have a riddle in a game yeah and let me tell you ben I don't know if we talked about this ah way back when we talked about adventure game puzzles. I mean, Longbow also has riddles in it, too. Yeah. Anyway. i
00:50:35
Speaker
love a riddle in adventure game. I think I just like riddles. You love a riddle. I love a riddle. You're a riddle lover. I'm a riddle lover. um As far as I'm concerned, you can riddle my games with them.
00:50:48
Speaker
ah Just chock-a-block with riddles. ah i And I shouldn't, this should be the kind of thing i don't like about adventure games. I feel like, because I think at some level it's kind of lazy design. I mean, it's not, yeah, I don't, I don't care for riddles.
00:51:07
Speaker
I love it. And I don't know why it is. i think because for a kid, I wouldn't say I was good at riddles, but I was better than the average idiot child. And I think riddles always made me feel smart, especially the kind riddles you'd stick in like a Sierra game.
00:51:22
Speaker
And I think I just liked that. It's like, I can read that riddle and guess the answer to it correctly. i must be a genius. And I think that feeling as a child was something I held close to my heart. And maybe it's carried over to adulthood where my riddling skills are even less impressive than they would have been in like a 10 year old child.
00:51:41
Speaker
Well, that's that's the thrill of playing an adventure game is is solving that puzzle. Yes. and And being like, I'm the smartest person that's ever lived. Yes.
00:51:52
Speaker
I came up with a completely unique solution to this so this problem that has, you know, designed with one solution. Yeah. I don't know. But yeah, for me, this is the big question. Like, I think you're right. I think this is a game that in a lot of way coasts on vibes. There aren't a lot of traditional...
00:52:12
Speaker
like adventure game inventory driven sorts of puzzles. There's so they're so horrible arcade sequence. Yeah. So to, to march through the demerits of this game, which also just, if you haven't played it, uh, is like, this is, uh, your, your King Arthur and a horrible, uh, you know, plague has struck the realm ah and ah you sent out three of your best knights to go investigate, and they haven't returned.
00:52:46
Speaker
You're getting cucked hardcore. Well, I mean, what's really fun about that... about the about the getting cucked by your most handsome and charming knight is that that is just a thing that the game has and like keeps returning to and then has it like does nothing with.
00:53:10
Speaker
Which is like it's but because i believe ah that that's just part of the legend. right? Yes. Is that that she was very much in love with Lancelot.
00:53:23
Speaker
um uh and like and so and so i mean that's part of it is that the the the game's like yeah this is just part of the story she just isn't into you but she's your wife yeah what are you gonna do ah yeah like but the game brings it up constantly which is really funny ah if only you had fair guinevere's heart but you don't you don't yeah and that's like sorry my lord yeah um and So, you know, you you endeavor to find your knights and then ah ultimately go find the Grail off in the Middle East.
00:54:01
Speaker
i And anyway, but ah going back to the things that this game has, which would be considered design sins,
00:54:14
Speaker
uh the uh there's awful arcade sequences not fun no uh no no riddles amaze constant copy protection stuff and kind of a lack of except for the bizarre sequence and by bizarre i mean b-a-z-a-r wait nice yeah that's close enough how how bizarre like the song but uh chopping that bizarre I think I misspelled how embarrassing anyway oh man with that that sequence there's like a a sequence about like two thirds through the game or so
00:54:54
Speaker
where you're like kind of trading inventory items between merchants at the bazaar. um And ah like that, like I remember playing that for the first time and being like, oh this kind of feels kind of normal adventure gamey.
00:55:14
Speaker
And so it has all this this stuff, this maze and riddles and ah arcade sequences. um Dead end soft blocks. um It has you a walking dead puzzle at the end where you've been bitten by a plague rat. And if you can't finish the game quickly enough, it's just game over. The timer isn't visible. You don't know this. Yeah.
00:55:37
Speaker
I mean, it's got it kind of does everything wrong in adventure game from this era. Might be expected to do. And yet. And yet. I love this game. The... So...
00:55:51
Speaker
so So yeah, the the the question is then, is like, so this game kind of fails at a lot of the measures by which I would say, is something a good adventure game?
00:56:07
Speaker
Is this a game that I would recommend to someone? This is a great adventure game. It fails by all of those. What it has instead... which makes it something of interest and uh worth like checking out is that it has spectacular art um by uh peter ledger um who christy marx's husband i believe yeah um and uh it's uh sci zero as as mentioned earlier but it
00:56:45
Speaker
And I mean, honestly, I love the art in all of those games. I do too. There's not ugly SCI Zero game. Yeah. This one might, like, I think I've even said this. This one might be the best one. This one might be the best one. But this one is something about the very limited palette of those 16 colors really brought out a lot of incredible creativity, especially from yeah the Sierra artists' And I really like on this one how you get things like the the like medieval screen borders that surround most. I mean, it really sets it apart from the other Sierra games that you have. Like, you know, just cool UI effects like that that kind of frame each of the screens. Yeah, everything is framed.
00:57:35
Speaker
There's a lot of... great art around lighting scenes and characters. Like at the beginning, you go to the treasury and there's this inexplicably shirtless man standing the the treasury to give you your your gold, silver, and copper.
00:57:58
Speaker
And like he's very dramatic. I mean, he's shirtless because there's a huge fire in there, which is lighting him in a very dramatic way. yeah And like in the intro cut scene, there's this, ah you see Merlin, I believe for the first time and his face is lit up in this green, strange green way. he looks so unworldly and strange.
00:58:24
Speaker
So the art is spectacular all the way through the whole game from, yeah from when you start in Camelot to when you fight the Saracen, the end. um then ah it the the writing, why you bring a Christy Marks in, somebody with all this television experience, ah is excellent.
00:58:48
Speaker
Yes. The game has this wonderful narrative device, which is that it is narrated, um like the the premise is that Merlin won't be with you, but he'll be watching you and narrating and providing advice. And so all of the descriptions you type like, you know, look, you know, look forest are written as if Merlin is explaining that to you, which gives all of the descriptions a and all of the bits of narration,
00:59:27
Speaker
this really lovely kind of point of view and character. It avoids the look at tree. It's a tall tree yeah kind of problem in that everything is peppered with a little bit more flavor. Like Merlin throws in a lot of Lord's into his into his description and again clearly this is a ah writer doing her thing and i think that is you know incredibly evident i mean this is doing a lot of the heavy lifting of what makes this game which again has a lot of uh a lot stuff that doesn't go around the design side of things that holds it together in uh in a remarkably charming way the
01:00:10
Speaker
um There was a thing that I caught this time revisiting it, which ah I forgot about, which is that when you talk to people, they have like the little SEI Zero dialogue boxes.
01:00:26
Speaker
When you talk to Merlin, all of the responses are in the description boxes. which I was like, how clever. Yeah. It's nice. It's, it's something that feels very like in the way that so much of the adventure game side of the, because know, my guests and I have no idea, i don't know.
01:00:52
Speaker
Christy Marks, I know you're, you're still around. If you're interested in doing podcasts, our door is open. loved Oh, we'd love to. I would, and I would kill for an interview with Christy Marks. Just tell me who. I would, yeah, please, please get in touch.
01:01:06
Speaker
Um, uh, I, I'm going to assume just kind of based off of my knowledge and maybe this is in, uh, one of the, like the Sierra history books, um,
01:01:19
Speaker
given my understanding of how the designers at Sierra were, were kind of put to, to stuff. I get the sense that she was just tossed into the deep end and just told like, all right, make a game.
01:01:35
Speaker
You're yeah like, and, and probably also with, ah a like a level of excitement because she came from like this show business background which I know that Ken Williams oh yeah was was quite enamored of um and and so all of like all of the the the game part isn't great but the like all of the story part is And all of the writing, like all of the stuff that someone of her level of experience has is excellent.
01:02:15
Speaker
yeah And yeah there's certainly no shortcuts taken on like both the quality of the writing. And also it's very clear that this is something that she has a lot of passion about.
01:02:27
Speaker
Right. And I mean, you see that also much like Conquest of the Longbow. You know, we talked about sort of the the level of historical research that was put into Longbow. You see it in the game itself. You see it in the documentation that comes along with the game. Like, she clearly wanted to take this seriously. I remember one of the things that charmed me most about the game the first time I played it was...
01:02:52
Speaker
so the choice is to use non-standard spelling for the names of a lot of the characters like yeah like launch a lot in gwen yeah qui havevi yeah and yeah and like even spelling words like magic with a k oh yeah color spell like the the in the british way yeah all those sorts of little details And the fact that you're having this narrated to you by Merlin and that it's presenting something that to, especially a kid feels certainly more historically informed than the average game. played this as a kid?
01:03:26
Speaker
I played this contemporaneously. I probably played beat it right around the time it came out. Yes, I did. You beat this game. I beat this game. through sheer brute force of things wrong. No hints, just, just powered right through this baby. Um, and I was, I wanted to against stress. I was very good through at the riddles, but you should have seen me.
01:03:46
Speaker
People would gather around my computer be like, look at the riddle master go. Um, but, I think that choice to have Merlin narrate does a really lovely job of making the game quite immersive in a way too. And it's fully realized world, you know, in ah in a genre, I think sometimes that maybe struggles a bit with immersion. you It feels like you're sort of watching, it can be very easy in an adventure game to feel like you're watching something play out on your screen that you're not part of. I feel like this game does a nice job for a third person adventure of really kind of pulling you into this world.
01:04:22
Speaker
So, you know, I think a thing that I think about with, like, adventure games, and this is kind of... Because I think i I'm still kind of stuck on this initial question of it's like, is a vibe enough?
01:04:39
Speaker
And i think it also kind of asks the question, you know, that we've been talking about, like, since the very start of this podcast, which is...
01:04:51
Speaker
You know, why are you, what are you getting out of these games? that Like, what why are you still playing this this dead genre that doesn't exist anymore and no one makes new games for?
01:05:04
Speaker
it was killed right after Grand Pandego. Yeah. um And, you know, there's there's a lot of reasons why people play adventure games.
01:05:19
Speaker
We're in it for the money. um Yeah, and we're in it for the money. And let me tell you, the podcast money is great. And the ladies. um And and so
01:05:33
Speaker
if you're, because, you know, there there are adventure game players who who are playing specifically just for, like, the thrill of, like, you know, taking apart a puzzle.
01:05:48
Speaker
stuff like that, like complicated puzzles and stuff like that. There, you know and there's, there's, or, you know, interacting with characters or like,
01:05:59
Speaker
and And sometimes it's frustrating because also, and and I'm sure, you know, like it's just frustrating to me having, you know, discussions or posting on a forum or whatever.
01:06:12
Speaker
But have to assume that like, ah you know, our ah friends that we've had on this podcast who are game designers ah ah might feel this frustration.
01:06:25
Speaker
is that people feel very particular about what their vision of an adventure game is. you're going around starting fights on Reddit lately or about this sort of stuff. Like you're just like out there, just getting up in people's grill, telling them how to enjoy adventure games. Um, and i'm not even going to dignify that with an answer. Um, and,
01:06:53
Speaker
i but Like, I, I think that people, you know, especially because, you know, you you might not be familiar with this, Jess, but I've been on some of the darker corners of the internet. And I can tell you that there are some people, you know, a lot of people on the internet are very nice.
01:07:13
Speaker
There are some people that ah even when it comes to adventure games will adhere to ah ah ah one very doctrinaire opinion that only exists for them and ah react extremely hostile to anyone or anything or that that challenges that view.
01:07:36
Speaker
These are gamers you're talking about? yeah Jess, I know. Jess, this might be shocking to you because... Like, i know that... I only see the best in people. I mean, first of all.
01:07:49
Speaker
That's me. I'm a real scooter. Yeah, you're a real scooter. But unfortunately, I'm i'm ah i'm i'm Kermit, and i I see things as they are. And... Kermit, the realist, and Scooter, the idealist.
01:08:05
Speaker
And... But, so... You know, one of the things that I love playing ah adventure games for and something that gives me a lot of joy when I play an adventure game is kind of existing, like having this chance to be and explore in this other world.
01:08:31
Speaker
And that other world can be like, you know, it could be a auto fiction version of New York city in 2003 or an auto erotic fiction of, of, ah of, uh, of, uh, Phobos in the far future.
01:08:50
Speaker
That's right. But, a or or, but like, or or it could be camp, like, ah you know, Camelot. And in in this, so, like, you know, I'm not going to say that I didn't, I don't get, you know, joy from playing this game.
01:09:15
Speaker
you know, I can't say I don't have fun playing it, not playing it the way that it was designed and intended, which is like, I play this with a walkthrough and I couldn't imagine not playing it with a walkthrough. Yeah. I mean, if encountered this today, yeah, this would be a tough one to try to power through.
01:09:33
Speaker
i mean, again, as we've talked about a million times, I probably played this when I was 13 years old. I had all the time in the world. yeah I could afford to go halfway through the game and realize that, you know, I didn't get the right denomination of coins at the beginning of it and have to backtrack or something like that. You know, I mean, that was just like, great. I get more excuse to get my money's worth out of this game. Yeah. ah That's just value added every time I have to backtrack several hours. Well, and and what's funny is, is it's like, you know today,
01:10:07
Speaker
You know, you can go on to like, GOG. and there's a huge adventure game sell underway as we, uh, as we record this. Yeah. Massive.
01:10:18
Speaker
Massive. Well, I don't believe that it's on sale right now. Well, that's the one that isn't. But you can purchase this game on GOG for six bucks, American.
01:10:29
Speaker
And so, like, you know maybe if if i if I purchased this at release and was just like, you know, frustrated by that, like, you know, by the the problems of this game, that might be one thing.
01:10:44
Speaker
But... ah to buy this game that has like wonderful writing and aesthetics and fun music. Oh.
01:10:56
Speaker
For six bucks? Who isn't going to do that? Like, come on. Come on. This is a thing I like about the the game also is that it has like these tunes that are very like, you know, kind of chill.
01:11:12
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. The game is a vibe. I think that is that is its secret. And like the vibe is is everywhere, like wandering through the medieval forest of Britain.
01:11:27
Speaker
The scenes near the frozen lake, the lake you have to cross by like casting a spell and following a little cloud of rose petals as they move their way across this dangerous frozen lake.
01:11:39
Speaker
I mean, that was amazing stuff for me as a kid. And then, know, again, the game throws in its share of, I mean, we've mentioned before, the arcade sequences are just Just terrible.
01:11:54
Speaker
mean, what all do we have? We have boar fighting. You're on horseback, and you have to spear some boars that charge at you. Very difficult get the timing. It doesn't feel completely consistent.
01:12:05
Speaker
Like, the timing of exactly when you thrust your spear. That one's aggravating. It usually takes me a good, like, ten tries to get through the boar scene.
01:12:16
Speaker
The jousting with the black knight? Yuck. Oh, you have to think about moving your lance and your shield. So you're trying to play offense and defense at the same time with two different hands and it barely works and it doesn't feel like There's a real rhyme or reason to it that the feedback that you're receiving as you do it doesn't really tell you what you need to do to improve it.
01:12:43
Speaker
What else do you have? You have the sword fight with the Saracen. Terrible, terrible. It's like it's like a worse version of the Quest for Glory to combat.
01:12:55
Speaker
interface yeah i feel like what what are there other arcade sequences that i'm forgetting in here i think that's all i think those yeah i think that's them and yeah none of them work none of them enrich the game but you get past them and there's some you know there's some good stuff waiting around the corner it's it for me it's easily for but forgiven even though these things nowadays drive me crazy when i go back to replay this game.
01:13:27
Speaker
Yeah. There's also one of my favorite moments in the game, which when, uh, you, so you book passage on the ship and you become friends with all the sailors and get, uh, way too drunk.
01:13:47
Speaker
And Merlin has to wake you up the next morning. Like you get dialogue boxes, Arthur, Arthur, wake up, wake up. And then there's a very, you don't see Arthur, you just see the ship and in the dock.
01:14:01
Speaker
And there's a very slow motion rising up of Arthur's head. it's a very funny joke. And then it punctuates it with, you indulge too heavily in foreign wine.
01:14:22
Speaker
Is there very much British wine? um I mean, probably there had to be at the time, right? They weren't trading a lot. Can you grow grapes there?
01:14:35
Speaker
don't know. all that I don't know. Let me check. I have a reference manual on this very topic. Oh yeah. Right here at hand. Let's see if the grapes of breath has anything to say. Pigs up here said Pa. You can't spill a pig and scald yourself like you can hot water.
01:14:48
Speaker
Water about ready? Just about says Ma. All right Noah. You and Tom and Al come along. I'll carry the lot. We'll slaughter down there and bring them up here. there there is There is wine. There's a whole Wikipedia page.
01:15:02
Speaker
wine from then line Wine from the United Kingdom. there you go. I mean, there's wine in West Virginia, but you don't want to drink it. yeah
01:15:17
Speaker
ah We're going to get such a nasty gram from the Professional Vintors Association of the United Kingdom.
01:15:29
Speaker
They've been on our ass since we started this podcast. Most is English sparkling wine. Fancy a wine, do you? Yeah. It's like, no. Like, the the United Kingdom, this is Wikipedia, is a major consumer of wine, although a minor grower and producer.
01:15:47
Speaker
You know, i say that about myself as well. yeah Now, I've made i'm a few batches of garlic wine. I'm more of a consumer and kind of a minor grower ah One time I left some Welch's grape juice out for too long. and Maybe i produced a tiny bit of wine from that before I finally found the glass and and went and emptied it out. But yeah, otherwise I'm mostly I'm on more of the demand side of that curve.
01:16:21
Speaker
Wine production in the United Kingdom has historically been perceived as less than ideal due to the cool climate. But warmer summers and grapes adapted to these conditions have played a role in increasing investment in the sale of wines.
01:16:34
Speaker
So, Jess, you were saying to me that you didn't like climate change, but check this out. Now we can get more wine from Britain. Yeah, and I always think if I could just get more food and beverages from Britain.
01:16:49
Speaker
right. No, that's a mean. There's a lot of very good food. I'm not, I'm not going to go down. I saw someone became the main fucking character of of blue sky for everyone. was like, Oh, making fun of British food. Come on.
01:17:00
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that's a lazy joke. That's a lazy joke. That's a lazy joke. That's a lazy joke. That's a lazy joke. I love fish and chips. Are you kidding? Yeah. I had ah i had laie a trainer at the gym, and she was she was from the United Kingdom, moved here.
01:17:17
Speaker
And she, like i yeah Chicago has a couple like kind of British style pubs. Yeah. get Like fish and chips and shepherd's pie. well Yes. Shepherd's pie, which is really great because it gets ah such as, is as it is now, unbelievably, unpleasantly cold. And that is very good. Like, you know, you get, you get a stick to your ribs. Yeah. Yeah.
01:17:45
Speaker
Um, and I was like, and, and, and I said, what do you miss from the UK living, you know, having lived here for, for a little while. And she's like, I miss fish and chips. And I was like, have you had the fish and chips from like here? They're pretty good. Have you had them from here? They're pretty good. And she's like,
01:18:03
Speaker
They're not fish and chips like from home. And I get it. ah But so you know what? a Podcast trip.
01:18:13
Speaker
we need ah We need a ah fish and chips correspondent. We do need a fish and chips correspondent. i have some I have some possibilities on that. wellll We'll drop a list. We'll drop a list. It's over. Now that now that Francisco has has retired.
01:18:30
Speaker
you know Why did he retire? Because he he it because he be but he gave a sky brush.
01:18:39
Speaker
What are we going to with that? I don't know. um But, ah but yeah, we do have, we do have a ah food opening. It's called my mouth.
01:18:49
Speaker
um darl You know, Ben, I've heard that yeah this is just to be completely serious. yeah I heard that you have started kind of a unique diet. Now, you haven't gone through all the like, I i know that like a lot of people are doing paleo or keto or things like this right now. And I get like the low carb move.
01:19:14
Speaker
I think like maximizing protein or anything like that. You got to think about your macros. yeah know But I mean, a lot of it's about just creating that calorie deficit if you're trying to lose weight or creating like the protein surplus that you need to build muscle and stuff like that. You know so you do what what type of diet I'm on? because Well, you were telling me it's like right? Yeah, pescatarian. Like and the omega fives or sixes or whatever. Yeah, absolutely. i I myself, I'm on a, like, i you know, you could really call it a seafood diet.
01:19:46
Speaker
Really? Yeah. What's that like? Well, if I see food, eat it
01:19:56
Speaker
Thank you, Ben, for knowing exactly where I wanted to go with that.
01:20:08
Speaker
Oh man, that's what 66 episodes of podcasting gets you is that kind of of perfect comedic connection. That's what it's all about here Quest Quest. Well, and you know, I think something you and I have in common is ah ah to me, the build up to a ah joke.
01:20:28
Speaker
It's considerably more interesting than the joke itself. Yeah, yeah. That's why i'm ah more of a major consumer and a minor grower.
01:20:45
Speaker
Oh my God. Oh man. What game were we talking about? can ah Oh man. You remember, uh, Ali Faker who ran the Camelot in a quest for glory too.
01:21:01
Speaker
Just getting that now. Oh, really? Yeah, pretty good. It's a pretty good bit. It's a pretty good joke. you know You know, it is interesting that in this period, Sierra went to like in Codename Iceman, sort of a contemporary version of the Middle East.
01:21:20
Speaker
In Quest for Glory 2, highly fictionalized, mythologized version of the Middle East. And in this game, a historical version of the Middle East.
01:21:32
Speaker
And, you know, of the three, i think Codename Iceman might be the worst. yeah Well, you know, but when when bright yellow is one of the main colors of your palette, you're thinking, how can I work a desert in here?
01:21:49
Speaker
How can I fit in an arid environment? Yes. And in Code Name Iceman, it feels like, how can I fit in an arid environment and knock out the last third of this game in one afternoon? if I'm making these, yeah.
01:22:04
Speaker
I think when we talked about Codename Iceman, I made the arguments like that palette just makes the back end of that game so ugly. But then you're very correct to say, well, that is the palette of a large chunk of Quest for Glory 2 and the back half of Conquest of Camelot. And they look pretty good.
01:22:26
Speaker
Yeah. Do you, all right. Do we have anything putting blast code name ice, man. Yeah. Do we have anything else to say about a conquest of Camelot? You know, I do think, I mean, you came in with the same question I came in with, which was,
01:22:42
Speaker
You know, can a game that, and I mean, maybe mid is giving it too much credit. Again, I think if a modern player approached this game, it would be everything that they think is wrong with old adventure games, or maybe especially everything is's wrong with Sierra adventure games.
01:22:59
Speaker
but I really feel like it manages to transcend that. I feel like it is strictly a vibes-based game. And, you know maybe in some ways, I think Longbow is the better game of the two, but the vibes are even more immaculate there. I mean, it's still running on its own fair share of vibes to make up for some of the fiddly design choices that are present in Longbow. I mean, we talked about Longbow and had nothing but praise to heap on it, and rightfully so. I think it is a a sierra masterpiece in a lot of ways and you can find a lot of that same dna uh in this one so so jess i was paying attention to a lot of that but i just saw something very funny um in this wikipedia article
01:23:45
Speaker
would you like me to read this sure i'd love to now
01:23:53
Speaker
okay this is fra um This is from the Wikipedia article, Wine from the United Kingdom under the heading... interested in the conquest Camelot. one Okay, hit me. Under the heading, 21st century.
01:24:07
Speaker
However, English vineyards share European weather patterns, so... 2006 was bumper 2007 saw grapes, low 2008 was very poor. both 2009 and 2010 were good years. 2011 was average. 2012, dreadful. And 2013, good.
01:24:20
Speaker
but both two thousand and nine and twenty ten were good years twenty eleven was average twenty twelve dreadful and twenty thirteen good
01:24:33
Speaker
That feels very judgy. i it feel it's a very It's a very strange passage from wikipedia Yeah. Well, let me tell you what Wikipedia has to say about West Virginia wine. Yeah, let's see. Let's see.
01:24:52
Speaker
Nicknamed the Mountain State, West Virginia has the topography, which is an important factor to wine region terroir, taking advantage of the prevailing winds. You didn't sound that constant in your pronunciation of terroir.
01:25:06
Speaker
I don't know that word. It's a like the ground, I believe. like ah And the general topography. That's topography twice in one sentence. Vineyards planted along the mountains benefit from constant winds. They're funneled through the valleys, constant winds, drying the canopy and reducing the risk of fungal vine diseases. So that's one of the things that I have.
01:25:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's really the selling point of West Virginia wines is minimal fungal vine diseases. You're trying to do I know you're trying to do a norm at me.
01:25:40
Speaker
didn't mean to do a norm. You were trying to do a norm. I did very much do a norm. I normed that so hard. Yeah. Now, now looking back, Oh, we've mostly focused on French hybrid and native Vitas labrusca. We have our own native grape here.
01:25:55
Speaker
Wow. wow Wow. if Somebody has become a brand, a big fan of West Virginia wine right tonight. You know, Ben, i don't know if I've ever completed a glass of wine. What?
01:26:09
Speaker
i don't think i have. What? Yeah, I don't think I've ever finished a glass of wine. What? I drink it by the bottle. No, actually, I just don't, I don't care for wine.
01:26:21
Speaker
I mean, I've, I've had a glass. I've finished champagne before. I'll drink a sparkling wine. Uh, but, uh, yeah, don't, you know most of the, wait wait wait, wait, wait, you know, like some interesting champagne facts. Well, no, most of the wines of the United Kingdom of sparkling. So perhaps you would enjoy them. So they're actually literally champagne. they Just,
01:26:40
Speaker
Well, I've got a couple of years that I would recommend. and a couple hours i As my internet sommelier, what would you suggest? Well, if you're if you're thinking of British wines, I'm going to say right or United Kingdom wines.
01:26:54
Speaker
wouldn't get the 2008. 2009, 2010, good year.
01:26:59
Speaker
oh nine twenty ten good year for What was the difference that like really so like, is was it the terroir?
Wine Woes from 2012
01:27:06
Speaker
Yeah, it was the terroir for sure. um That remains the same. 2011, that's average. So you could you could get it.
01:27:14
Speaker
But I'm warning you right now, stay away from the 2012 wines. I mean, they're dreadful. Dreadful?
01:27:25
Speaker
Dreadful. Dreadful? Dreadful wines. So dreadful, you wouldn't even pay a penny for these dreadfuls. right well, so this has been our discussion of Conquest Camelot, game that takes you from the but the court of King Arthur all the way through the the the forests and also the ice, like an iced over pond. You meet an ice maiden, go to the markets of Gaza.
01:27:57
Speaker
you you You go into catacombs. You do it all. You drink from the Holy grail, just like Henry Jones senior. Yeah.
01:28:08
Speaker
So you, you, you, you get it all. You get it all. Uh,
Holy Grail Debate
01:28:15
Speaker
it's, uh, you know, so and do you think you would be worthy of the grail? Yes, of course.
01:28:20
Speaker
I think so too. I think of the two of us, you would be most likely to get the grail, but I'm sorry. What scooter get. No, just no. and Scooter's back at court.
01:28:33
Speaker
Yeah. He's like keeping things tidy. All right. Well, folks, this has been another successful episode of ah Quest Quest, the adventure
Call to Action: Podcast Reviews
01:28:45
Speaker
game podcast. You can send us an email at quest quest podcast at gmail.com.
01:28:51
Speaker
Please rate review five stars. We, I mean, We really do appreciate it. We're trying to get our numbers up. Our producer is telling us that if our numbers don't come up, the next episode could be our final one. Yeah.
01:29:06
Speaker
And i don't really know what that means because like our costs are minimal and like Ben and i are doing this for free. yeah I don't like why you would cancel it. Like I think the quality is what it's ever been.
01:29:19
Speaker
It's not getting worse. It's not getting better. It's just a nice storyline. Yeah. And so yeah, like give us the reviews. Give us the reviews. Join us. Who are you not to review us next week when we discuss us Space Quest 4.
Space Quest 4's Monolith Burger Sequence Critique
01:29:51
Speaker
All right. So when you get a job at Monolith Burger. Yes. Okay. Yeah. What do you think of that bed sequence when you're making the burgers? Because I don't like it.
01:30:03
Speaker
You know, i think there's a part of me that likes the concept behind it. Like, I like i feel like, to me, it's very... love Lucy-coated. ah You know, like, conveyor belt out of control. how do you keep up with it?
01:30:19
Speaker
It suffers from the clunkiness of yeah any SCI arcade sequence of, like, it just doesn't move the ingredients around as smoothly as I would like it to.
01:30:31
Speaker
I think my problem with it is that it doesn't feel like there's very much variation. Like it never, it just feels like you're, I mean, it's not even that feels.
01:30:42
Speaker
It is exactly that you're just doing the same action again and again and again until you have enough money. And like, you know, if you're making like an arcade sequence of any kind,
01:30:54
Speaker
you have to You have to vary it up. Even in the original Astro Chicken, they moved the platform around a little bit. Like, there's nothing.
01:31:05
Speaker
Right? Do they not? Do they not move the the platform around? does know I don't think they... I think it's constant. I mean... Okay. Honestly, Ben... They don't understand arcade design.
01:31:18
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, what a crock.