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Episode 37 – Q & A: Josh Cleveland Edition
1.6k Plays28 days ago
This episode was recorded on November 5th… Yeah.
There’s a manic, ignoring-the-news energy to this episode where we take your listener questions! We also talk about Joe Richardson’s new game Death of the Reprobate and talk to our guest expert Joshua Cleveland of Adventure Game Hotspot about the requirements for “adventure game” status.
Visit www.adventuregamehotspot.com
Email us! [email protected]
Games Mentioned:
- Death of the Reprobate
- Eyeland
- Blackwell series
- Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
- Eagle Eye Mysteries
- Eagle Eye Mysteries in London
- Math Blaster
- Grim Fandango
- Dagger of Amon Ra
- Return of the Obra Dinn
- The Room VR
- Mechanica Museum
- The Adventures of Fatman
- The Excavation of Hobb’s Barrow
- The Plague Doctor of Wippra
- Mystery House
- Kings Quest I
- Doom
- Duke Nukem
- Wolfenstein 3D
- Uncharted series
- Legend of Zelda
- Portal
- L.A. Noire
- Deponia series
- Root Bear
- Stardew Valley
- Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
- The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo
- The Darkside Detective
- Lydia
- Isles of Sea and Sky
- Box Boy
- Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure
- Tactical Breach Wizards
- Silent Hill 2 remake
- Cat Café Manager
- Koala Lumpur: Journey to the Edge
- The Demon’s Forge
- Normality
- Muppet Treasure Island
- Discworld Noir
- The Hex
- Inscryption
- Pony Island
- Heroine's Quest
- Quest for Infamy
- A Tale of Two Kingdoms
- Murders on the Yangtze River
- Ripper
- Panic in the Park
- Blasphemous
- Toejam & Earl - Back in the Groove
- Gobliiins
- The Prophecy (aka Ween: The Prophecy)
- Capsule Silence XXIV
- Bad Day on the Midway
- Ghost Trick
- The Dark Eye - Chains of Satinav
- The Dark Eye - Memoria
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Context
00:00:10
Speaker
Sorry, we're going to we're going to no, you weren't going to say. OK, yeah, sorry, sorry. No, I. you No, no, no, go on, go on.
00:00:24
Speaker
I don't know. It's nothing. OK. It's a it's November 5th. It is that just so everybody has some context.
00:00:45
Speaker
Um, I'll start the music. Okay.
Podcast Introduction: 'Save Your Game'
00:01:07
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to save your game. I, as always, am pushing up roses. This is my very special semi-depressed, uh, co-host Matt Aucamp. Hey Matt. Hey, are you going to leave all our false starts in? No. Why? yeah thank you mean and I think we need to know where we're at. This is where we're at. Okay.
Discussion on Drinking Habits
00:01:30
Speaker
Uh, I've already started drinking at 6 PM.
00:01:34
Speaker
Wow, that's not too bad. that's how It could be, like I'd be a little more concerned if you're like, hey, it's 11 a.m. and I'm having to check and coke. I'll be like, what? Here's the, say okay, Rose says, I am drinking. my My friend of mine, good friend, went to Mexico. just She just got back. And um like a week ago, she gave me a thing. There's like six of them and they're in these plastic bottles.
00:02:01
Speaker
They don't have ingredients on them. They are called creme de tequila. That sounds disgusting. The creme tequila, the creme de tequila. No, no. They taste like bad Irish cream. like No, wait, is that what you're drinking? No, I'm drinking a beer, but I have these. So I'm drinking one as we speak right now. so like ah tastes Imagine Irish cream, but like,
00:02:31
Speaker
with, okay, Irish cream, but with one of those coffee, um like hard candies dissolved into it. Actually, that doesn't sound too bad. It doesn't taste like coffee coffee. It tastes like fake coffee. And then, like an added, like, I don't know, like pond water after taste. Okay, you've ruined it. You almost had me on board, because I like coffee flavors. I like coffee hard candy.
00:02:59
Speaker
and it stings like tequila. So like your first taste is like, okay. And then within a second, you're like, oh, I don't know. And then two seconds later, you're like, okay, that was bad. ah So I'm gonna drink this whole thing right now.
Election Anxiety and Listener Context
00:03:15
Speaker
Ew.
00:03:16
Speaker
refresh my election map, and we'll be ready to go and talk about fucking adventure games. Adventure games! I mean, I'm ready to disassociate into another dimension. People listen... I'm so pissed, Roses. Okay. People listening to this already fucking know, you know? Yeah. We don't. They've known for a week.
00:03:41
Speaker
Yeah, we just have to sit here and record with anxiety. And they're they're laughing at us, or ah they are not listening to this because they're dead. Oh, god.
00:03:54
Speaker
ah ah We are here to, in the case of everything has gone sour, to cheer everyone up with our anger. Sour like a creme de tequila. Ew. I don't like it.
Recent Gaming Experiences
00:04:12
Speaker
So what have you been playing lately? So I got deathly ill this week.
00:04:20
Speaker
um But despite so I couldn't play a lot, because I couldn't sit at my desktop. But I did manage to play and finish. Oh, am I allowed to say this? Yeah, I am. I am. It's OK. Sorry. You are absolutely. It is out now.
00:04:35
Speaker
right Okay, so I had gotten a steam key for Death of the Reprobate, um one of the Joe Richardson games. He just see offered it to me unprovoked. I'm like, thank you. and so During like a moment where I was feeling semi-human, I just booted it up and I played the whole thing. It was around two and a half hours. so Yeah, that's that's what I played. That's what I played this week. I started and finished a death of the reprobate rep reprobate. Oh my why are his titles insane? I'm sorry. I can never remember them. And yeah, I enjoyed it. um It was a little little brow for me personally.
00:05:16
Speaker
That doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the humor, I i do. There's definitely funny things in that game. And it and man, it's like a feat of, it's like a masterpiece of art, honestly. it It looks so cool. Yeah, so I also played Death of the Reprobate this week. um I think it's really good.
00:05:39
Speaker
I think, I mean, I haven't finished it yet. okay Well, that's, you can finish the game at any point that you want. I don't think we should talk too much about, but maybe we can talk about it a little bit more on a future episode, but um you can finish the game whenever you want. And hi you just get, I guess the bad ending, but,
00:06:06
Speaker
ah And the ending is wild. I told you, I'm like, dude, it goes off. The ending is so crazy. But I immediately reloaded my save. And when I'm trying to get through it, there's so many fun. Here's my advice for people playing this game. Try everything.
00:06:29
Speaker
because he has thought of everything and it's all so fucking funny. There's a point where, I'll just say this, there's a point where Ophelia is laying in the pond just staring up at the sky, like the painting of Ophelia. yeah because painting yeah What he does with these games is ah he just takes Renaissance paintings and Byzantine paintings and classic paintings.
00:06:51
Speaker
um I'm sure there are other eras in there, but that's the bulk of it, most mostly Renaissance. And but it basically clips out little pieces of them. And then every scene is like a collage and it looked they look so good. I don't know how he does it so well. He like animates them yeah and and he mixes them together where sometimes you wouldn't even Because in in every game, there's also a gallery where you can go look at the original paintings that he used, all of them. Yeah. And sometimes you'll see like a landscape and a house that's there in the game is not there in the original painting. You're like, holy shit, like it looks so good, so seamless in what he did. And sometimes it looks so not seamless, so just like jammed in there. And that's also very funny.
00:07:43
Speaker
It is fun. Honestly, I didn't think I would like it at first because I'm like, how am I going to get a cozy feeling out of this? But I did. I did end up like, oh, this is the world that I'm in. Yeah. And these are the characters that I'm around ah for better or worse. So there's a there's a scene. So just to illustrate, there's a scene where you were laying next to Ophelia and this has nothing to do with the game. This has nothing to do with solving a puzzle.
Humor and Creativity in Gaming
00:08:10
Speaker
but you're carrying a giant marrow, not like bone marrow, but like but like a type of squash. yeah And yeah if you use marrow with Ophelia,
00:08:22
Speaker
Your dude just places it on her belly and she sinks under the water and she's gone. And there's no reason for it. And she's just gone for the rest of the game. ah You can also just like, I've discovered about seven people so far that if you use the hand, because it's got like a ah a verb wheel where if you click on anything, you get a hand, you get an eye and you get a mouth.
00:08:52
Speaker
um And usually that's like talk to interact with and look at. But sometimes it's other things. ah Like sometimes you spit randomly on something sometimes you will spit on so many things I spit on so many people honestly, and a lot of people if you use the hand.
00:09:12
Speaker
He'll just slap them. Yeah. um No reason. And oftentimes it doesn't really affect the game. And they're just like, hey, like, why'd you do that? Or it just gives them the the double middle finger that they do in England. The like, yeah the the the the V, whatever the fuck that is. Yeah. Yeah. The backwards P sign basically. Is it fuck you twice? Is that what it's supposed to mean?
00:09:36
Speaker
actually No, because I've never used it for anything. It's oh a guy did it to me when I was trying to drive a rental car through Scotland.
00:09:47
Speaker
And a guy gave me the double middle finger, the double finger, I guess because I was driving shitty because I was in fucking Scotland and I didn't know how to fucking drive in Scotland.
00:09:58
Speaker
so
00:10:01
Speaker
But it actually kind of felt cool to rather than get the finger to get the double. The double, yeah. Felt like I was really part of the culture. Wow. but yeah Again, so I just say try everything because there's so many funny things he puts in there ah Roses you told me about something really funny. I didn't realize what what did i well we got but i say At any point if you right-click, oh, yeah, he just does a little backflip
00:10:32
Speaker
Yes, yeah, he just does a little flippy. I did that on like every screen. For no reason, he just does a little black fill backflip. And there's just so much stuff like that in the game that is... I agree with you, a lot of it's really lowbrow and I'm not a huge fan of that kind of just like crude lowbrow humor. Yeah. But there's enough in these games that's just so absurd. Yeah. And so like,
00:11:01
Speaker
bald-faced, absurd. like He'll do something absolutely bizarre, and the character will just have a straight face, and everybody will react to it very straight. leave And it always makes me laugh.
00:11:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely and I can also tell that this is just like a game made from pure like passion and desire to just make just whatever he wants. He's that it's clear to me that the dev is doing this because he loves it and not to get, you know, validation from people who play it. It feels like a little playground like it's like when you when you are looking at a work where it just feels like it was a playground for the creator.
Creative Freedom in Game Development
00:11:51
Speaker
I feel the same way about like, this is a weird comparison, but I feel the same way about like the Wheel of Time books. They just feel like a playground for Robert Jordan, right? Like he just had a bunch of toys in a toy that he made and he was just like moving them around like like color forms, which is a reference that
00:12:13
Speaker
only people over the age of 30 will understand. I feel like in that way, like just being reminded of like like putting like toys almost on like a board. Yeah. That's exactly what Joe was doing. Yes. Like he was playing his own little game. And this is fun for him. yeah Like I remember being a kid and getting a bunch of cereal boxes and cutting out all the mascots and stuff. Oh, like
00:12:42
Speaker
it It was never as fun as I wanted it to be, but like trying at least to play with them like toys. um But it feels like that's what he's doing with Renaissance and Byzantine and classic paintings. He's just cutting pieces out and playing with them like little toys with color forms. I'm making reference to color forms twice. And again, most of our audience is gonna Google color forms. And I don't even know if you googling color forms will bring up color forms.
00:13:08
Speaker
It does not. Well, no, it does. Oh, it does. It does. It does. It does. It does. But it would still take a lot of research to understand what you're looking at. A new color forms on Amazon for twenty seven dollars and ninety cents. Oh, shit. You can. I just want to put that out there. They still make color forms. There's bluey color forms. There's bluey, definitely bluey. How? And there's they do board games of color forms now. You can play Monopoly with color forms. Oh, well.
00:13:39
Speaker
Definitely gotta to do that. yeah go Guys, ah so that's our recommendation this week, go get Monopoly Color Forms, that's our game. $7.90 probably. We're a part of the Venture Game Hotspot Network, check us out on YouTube. No, um Roses? Yes. I'm gonna need you to do me a favor. Okay. And play yeah know the...
00:14:04
Speaker
The spooky theme? No. Playdate with Matt theme. Theme B? Theme B. Here we go.
00:14:20
Speaker
Playdate with Matt. Hey, everybody. It's Playdate with Matt. It's a segment in the podcast, Save Your Game, hosted by me, Matt Aucamp. And it's where I talk about games that I played on my little Playdate by a cool little device by the company Panic.
00:14:44
Speaker
um I played a game that was very interesting on a play date. Okay. Positive interesting or negative interesting? Positive interesting. It was a game called I Land.
Innovative Game Mechanics
00:14:59
Speaker
Okay. And I Land, it's another one of these um what passes for a point and click, I guess, on a play date, right? Where you can't point and you can't click.
00:15:11
Speaker
um but you have like a 2D character that walks around and basically you interrupt or interact with objects by like walking into them or by walking up to them and pressing a button, right? Because you only have the two buttons and your crank and a D-pad. So you're just this little blob and you're trapped on a little island and scattered around the island are like thoughts right, and you walk up to them and walk into them and you get like a little caption of of whatever your character's thinking when he's standing in that place or when they're standing in that place. um And it was that was cute and it was very like wistful. This guy's trapped on this island and he's kind of thinking about what it would be like to leave it, but he's like also kind of satisfied with where he's at, um curious about leaving.
00:16:08
Speaker
And he goes to sleep and he enters this weird dream land where you're just, you're on this like little adventure that is, It's like a really well structured linear almost point and click, right? Where you always know where you have to go next. There's always some hint as to like, oh, check out the top right corner of the map. And you go there and a lot of these places are are structured like a series of rooms that each have a specific type of puzzle. For example, like there's one where um it's a room with a bunch of gaps.
00:16:47
Speaker
and you walk over to the gap and there's like little machines that fire you across the gap. And so you have to kind of look at the room and figure out which gaps, like how do you get to this one corner where there's a button, right?
00:17:03
Speaker
And so like some gaps you have to shoot across and sometimes you don't shoot across the gap, you just let yourself fall to the platform below, right? So it's like a kind of a little logic puzzle, a little spatial logic puzzle. And there's a lot of stuff like that or like there's a gravity one where there's like a room with a bunch of ladders. And as you, when you walk into an arrow, it switches gravity to that direction. okay And so you have to kind of like look at the room and be like, okay,
00:17:30
Speaker
which arrows should I walk into to get to the switch at the end? I would be so bad at that. Oh my god, I would be freaking out. like And so you're doing almost like a series of fetch quests that are a little bit gated by these spatial reasoning logic puzzles. And the game is really thoughtful. Everywhere you go, it it kind of knows what you're thinking and what you're curious about. And there's something there to tell you. And there's also, it it also like the humor and the,
00:18:04
Speaker
The humor and the wistfulness almost reminds me kind of of like ah ah an adventure time light. Oh, that's nice. it's got It's got a similar sort of vibe and... I don't know. It was really it was really cute. It was really fun. I liked it a
Listener Questions on Adventure Games
00:18:22
Speaker
lot. It's called Island Island. You get it on. You can I think I don't know if you can buy it through the um play date through the play date like catalog. I think you have to get it through each dot IO and so no I think you can. I have it up on my desktop, but I'm on play dot date game. Oh, so you can get it on the catalog. OK, cool. um I side loaded it on, but maybe
00:18:47
Speaker
that maybe it was up on itch.io and then later added to the catalog. And so if you get the itch.io version, you still have to side load it. I don't know. But that's all I played on the Playdate this week. um ah You guys might notice there hasn't been a lot of Playdates with Matt.
00:19:04
Speaker
recently, and I'll talk about that a little more in our Q and&A segment. So if you want to get us out of this, we'll ah we'll talk about what the rest of the episode is. Get us out of this. Get us out of this. Give me out! Give me out!
00:19:26
Speaker
I always do a little dance when that theme is going. That's a good little theme. So what are you doing? So what are we doing today? Today, we are answering burning hot juicy questions about adventure games. They burnt the mailbag up.
00:19:45
Speaker
And we don't have a mailbag anymore. They're all on the floor and stuff. It's actually kind of a thing. Yeah, they burn it up. And now I know I need we need to go buy a new mailbag because you guys your questions were too hot. We can't even answer some of these without like an NC 17 rating. Yeah. Yeah. And one of them burned some of them burnt through the floor. Gross. Another another in the basement. And we don't but we don't we don't go to the basement.
00:20:14
Speaker
Actually, my neighbors are in the basement, so thanks a lot, guys. Thanks. Thanks. And we also were go to have a special guest with us today. ah Yeah, we're going to be bringing on a special guest expert, which ah you guys are going to know who the special guest is, because it'll be in the title of the episode. But we're not going to say it. We're going to pretend like that's not true. He's pulling a roses and pretending like everything is secret. Like, you can't get out of that.
00:20:44
Speaker
So ah but why don't we go, we're gonna go answer some listener questions on the other side of cranky.
00:20:56
Speaker
bat I'm bad at, I need to write these ahead of time.
00:21:16
Speaker
Hey everyone and welcome back to save your game. I hope you had a good break. I'm pushing up roses. This is my co-host Matt Aucamp. Hey Matt. Oh god. We're doomed. We're doomed. Matt's doing great. You know what would cheer you up, Matt?
00:21:35
Speaker
uh the cold no whatever you're gonna say is no everlasting grave okay no i i was gonna say answering some some viewer questions oh yeah i'd love that yeah uh we haven't done a q and&a in a hot minute and we've got some great questions so i think we should answer them so i'm gonna start with a question from dean Dean wants to know if there is anywhere public our list of games are, if they wanna revisit like a specific game discussion. And we provide lists like in our in our show notes. yeah Yeah, but it's not searchable. So they wanna know if there's anywhere where there's a searchable one. Oh yeah, that's tough. Yeah, every time, yeah, every gay in case you're a listener and you don't know, if you haven't looked at the show notes, every
00:22:26
Speaker
All of our show notes contain a list of every game we discussed, oftentimes even if we just mention it for like a second. But we don't have a searchable list. Unfortunately, you know, we both have...
00:22:41
Speaker
ah a lot of other stuff going on and like jobs. And I have like a full-time shitty job and stuff. So um like that seems like it would take a long time to compile. Maybe it wouldn't. yeah And I don't know how to make like those like little wikis that people make. But if right any of our listeners wanted to, we'd be eternally grateful. We would thank you ah on the show. um But you know,
00:23:10
Speaker
only if you're passionate enough that it'd be fun for you to do.
Educational Games for Kids
00:23:14
Speaker
All right, um moving on, this listener, Mariana, from Uruguay. yeah Wow, cool. Very cool. Ask us a very specific ah question. After playing the Blackwell games, have you ever read Joe Gould's secret? It's an amazing and very short book. I have not, I don't know about this. I don't either, yeah.
00:23:39
Speaker
Joe Gould's Secret is a book by Joseph Mitchell in 1965. I actually don't know the connection. is there i see that It's in Greenwich Village, this is in New York, and the ghost that follows you around in Blackwell is Joey. But I don't know if, maybe I'm just not remembering,
00:24:05
Speaker
but I don't know the connection. Yeah, I don't i don't either. Hey, Mariana, write us back and explain yourself. Explain yourself. Explain what the connection is between Joe Gould's secret and Blackwell. Yeah, I'm curious now. Maybe we're just forgetting. Maybe if we replayed, we'd be like, oh, but it'd be easier if you just wrote us and taught us.
00:24:29
Speaker
um weird like Okay, so this question is from wondering about wishbone in New Mexico yeah i More people write in with pen names pseudonyms, there please do okay. Yeah, please do ah but but i Your regular name if you want to hear us say it but like like we'll read both Okay go They want to know what we believe makes a good educational adventure game for kids. And I'm just going to answer this very quickly because I have a very strong belief ah because this is my experience growing up. The only thing that held my attention educational games were if it was
00:25:09
Speaker
ah intertwined with a mystery. So Carmen San Diego, yeah eagle eye mysteries, the original eagle eye mysteries had a lot of educational things. So did I mean, eagle eye mysteries in London, too, both had some edutainment. Also, I do recall having a good time with like math blaster and like number muncher.
00:25:31
Speaker
I don't really know what made them good other than I was young enough to be amused by literally anything. Right. um Again, this is a big topic. But what I'll say is it's that I think the same thing about all children's media. Don't talk down to them. Right. Yeah. ah Kids aren't There's things that'll put off kids, right? like You don't wanna discourage them or frustrate them. But kids don't mind a challenge. They don't mind like encountering words that they don't know. they They respond to a complex story. like Don't talk down to kids. Kids want to experience art in the same way adults do. And, you know, that's, that's
00:26:20
Speaker
That is my big overarching, and we should maybe do an episode about this at some point, but like yeah my big overarching kind of answer to this question is just don't talk down to them. Yeah, and add mystery for me. And add mystery. All right, Brian asks, this is 100% for roses. ah Brian doesn't say this, but if you could make Grim Fandango 2, when and where would you say it?
Adventure Game Settings
00:26:48
Speaker
Said it.
00:26:49
Speaker
so I don't think I would do a direct sequel from the end of Grim Fandango one. I think that sets a weird expectation. and I was actually really happy with how the game button so I would rather do I would rather see a prequel of Grim Fandango like finally we know how Manny Calavera got his job at doing what was it called the Department of Death, right? Because he clearly did something. And anybody who works there clearly did something that's keeping them there from moving on. So I would love to see more of that we can use a lot of characters that were already in grim. And yeah, I'm happy with how Grim Fandango ended. I like the mystery of it. I would rather have a prequel if they did a Grim Fandango to personally.
00:27:39
Speaker
Interesting, i I think it'd be kind of cool to see somebody trying to come back, trying to make the reverse journey. oh yeah Like trying to come back, maybe like trying to get back to the land of the living. I know there's so many stories that are that have that.
00:27:53
Speaker
Yeah. But you could explore other aspects of all the different locations in the Land of the Dead and explore them from a very different angle and with a very different like conflict. So just a new a new protagonist. Yeah. um Trying to go, again, the opposite direction. That'd be cool. Would be interesting. Okay, do you wanna read this question by Sophie?
00:28:17
Speaker
yes uh so sophie asks oh i see there's one for me and there's one for both okay if you play broken short sword shadow of the templars please play the original or reforged when it comes out as the director's cut has a slider box Too late. Too late. Too late. Oh, so warning. Too late. Yeah, too late. Too late. You're a little too late, Sophie.
00:28:41
Speaker
yeah And yeah, I was angry. We did complain about that. And we did complain about it. Oh, yeah. I hate slider. I don't even get me started. Don't even get me started on slider puzzles. I'm going to have an aneurysm. OK.
00:28:57
Speaker
for both of us, ah which setting would you like to see in adventure games? So one of the reasons they like dagger is because it is set in a museum. And I think that is a great question. And it really makes sense if you liked that in dagger because dagger is a closed circle, Agatha Christie ask murder mystery. Those are my favorite. I love closed circle tropes. And yes, I love the museum as well. So I think kind of piggybacking off of that,
00:29:26
Speaker
I wouldn't mind revisiting a ship, but not like not Titanic adventure at a time, because we all know what's going to happen there. And definitely not like leisure suit Larry. I would almost like I want, I want Dagger of Amun-Ra on a ship. Oh, I have a really cool game for you. You do?
00:29:48
Speaker
It's called Return of the Obra Dinn. I can't even believe that I walked into that somehow. I'd escape it.
00:29:59
Speaker
ah But yeah, that's that's one setting I really, really like. I like closed circles, so i like I like settings where you are stuck here now. And I know that's harder to do in modern storytelling, but some of my favorites are haunted houses. I like me i like museums a lot. Actually, I wish there were more museum settings. I like ship settings a lot. Yeah, I like i actually really like kind of ah simple maps like that.
00:30:26
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think in a museum where you really get to explore and solve puzzles with and be become get like intimate with the exhibits. Yeah. more Like that would be that would be very cool. I feel like that was. Yeah. Underdone in. Yes. yeahgger um Yes, and it and you know, obviously resources were limited for dagger. um But like, think about if we did it now, you know, if we made a museum setting, we could make it I mean, museums are huge. um I live in Chicago, I live in Chicago, where there's a lot of museums and I could just man. Oh, man, like a murder mystery adventure game in the shut aquarium. Come on now. Come on. There's some cool. um Yeah, there's some cool like the room, like ah settings in i ah
00:31:15
Speaker
So like the room VR has a cool museum section and Mechanica Museum ah has a cool museum kind of setting, but yeah. So I would love to see an adventure game that takes place in kind of like a superhero world.
00:31:36
Speaker
Okay, okay. Like, and not, maybe, well, it'd be interesting to play as a superhero. Like, I can't think of a non-action game with a superhero. Maybe I get, there's those Fat the ah fat Man games, but those weren't amazing. Adventures of Fat Man. But I think I think it'd be cool. Yeah, like ah adventure games in a superhero world. Like I remember this is one of like Ron Gilbert's rules about how like how to make adventure games not suck. Right. Is put them in a setting where like people want to be anyway. Yes. Right. Don't just like tell them you want to be here because I made my game here. Like like put it in a place where people already are interested. Yeah. um
00:32:24
Speaker
Although, to completely break that rule, I know it just said what I said, but to completely break that rule, I would actually love to see more quiet, bucolic English countryside games like- Ooh, I love that. Like- Like Hobbs Barrow. Hobbs Barrow, or- Yeah.
00:32:45
Speaker
even like medieval era Europe games, like ah not not necessarily knights and chivalry, but like dealing with citizenry and yeah you know, plagues and the religious turmoil. And like, I would love to see that more kind of like, um ah The Plague Doctor of Whippra, but like not a one hour long game, but like like a full game with a like more deeply explored. Nice. All right, our next question ah is unsigned. It says, hello, Matt and Roses. Hi. Hey. They say they've been playing a lot of Hitman, and notice that it's not strictly an adventure game, but there's a lot of similarities with point and click.
Defining Adventure Games
00:33:35
Speaker
like
00:33:35
Speaker
puzzle solving and, and um you know, it gives some examples. And since Portal is our highest ranked title on the best adventure games of all time list, they were wondering how loose or rigid the definition is for what can count as an adventure game. Oh, I'm very loose.
00:34:00
Speaker
All right. I'm sure if you'll leave in the podcast or not. Yeah. That's a difficult question. It actually is. I'm not being. yeah see How do you define an adventure game? Like we have talked about this a bunch. There is one dude who I know who has a great like metric for what counts as an adventure game.
00:34:25
Speaker
So I'm gonna like give him a little, I'm gonna call him up right now. Yeah, could you call him on your phone? Yeah, roses, do you wanna explain to the people his Bona Fides, and then when I get him up on the phone, we're like. We do this via the phone. Yeah, we do, we record via the phone. We record via the phone, so I'm gonna conference call him in. Okay. And do you wanna give the Bona Fides, and then when he gets in, we'll we'll say his name.
00:34:55
Speaker
So joining us today is Josh Cleveland from Adventure Game Hotspot, and he is the creator slash owner of Adventure Game Hotspot. He also put together the Adventure Game Fanfare, which was a convention for all things adventure games and adventure game devs and fans. He has a podcast that you know revolves around adventure games.
00:35:19
Speaker
And he is an enthusiast, ah much like us. We all love adventure games here. So what better person do you have on our podcast than Josh? ah Matt, have you have you contacted Josh? Have you made contact? He's picked up the phone, it seems like, but he hasn't said a word yet. Joshua Cleveland, are you there? I'm just going to ruin your bit.
00:35:42
Speaker
like i'm gonna Just ruin it. You can edit this out if you want it. bits Bits gone, but when when when roses said I'm very loose, like, I'm sorry, I couldn't like. i Lost it. for laughing So if you heard a ghost in the room or wasn't the ghost, it was it was actually was actually me. Yeah. We record on four dimensional on a four dimensional phone. So sometimes so sometimes we can comment on stuff that was said before we were ever on the call.
00:36:10
Speaker
Actually, that was all just added in post to add to you know to everything. oh Okay, so yeah, so the the question, a good question as to what an adventure game really is. i So I think we can just go back with the with the tribunal. Yeah. We need the story because, you know,
00:36:33
Speaker
stories rocks exploration and puzzles you got to have a puzzle in there and hold on let me turn my phone on silent because you know because we're out we're doing it via phone because we're there we're on it because we're here
00:36:53
Speaker
ah so ah So yeah, you have to have those those three elements. And obviously when when a adventure games started, you know, back in in the wee years before before we were born, it was it was text a adventures, text only.
00:37:09
Speaker
And then as technology started to grow, you added some some pictures, some colors, you know, VGA, sound, all of this. So you end up having the point and click. You had all of these beautiful little things that were added to. So obviously what an adventure is, in my opinion, is that it started to expand.
00:37:32
Speaker
And so nowadays, with technology continuing to expand, I do believe that there are some action ah style games that that I do consider to be an adventure game. As long as they have those three pillars, the the story,
00:37:52
Speaker
the puzzle and the exploration. I do i yeah have a little bit of ah an added a question for Josh, because i do I do agree about story, but I also think that when we went from text-based to adding imagery, like let's say Mystery House, even King's Quest I, there was really no grand story there. So I guess how it was more like, it was really more exploration to me. So like how much is the story involved? And can it be can the story just be an idea? You know what I mean? So the idea of King's Quest is the king has died, you are the next king in line, go solve all these things. Is that a good enough idea to count as like a grand adventure game story?
00:38:36
Speaker
Well, I think it has to be a ah primary aspect, especially now that we can tell a complete story. yeah your Your options were limited back in back then. You can't have a 10 page you know prologue in a game that explains where you're at. It would be absolutely 10 pages of text, which would be a big problem, yeah.
00:38:59
Speaker
Yeah. And in fact, like ah one of the things that I absolutely need for it to be, ah like I said, story has to be key. I mean, you've got you can have action in the game, in my opinion, but as long as it's not the primary ah focus, I like forget, for instance, you don't want to have like Doomguy, you know, trying to save off hell type of story or Duke Nukem trying to, you know, shoot pig cop story while searching for sex. or or or something like that. So yeah, action is can be part of it with the primary as long as the others are are the primary objective.
00:39:36
Speaker
Yeah, something maybe like the Zelda games because they're, to me, like the Zelda games do have a lot of action, but really what's, I don't play the Zelda games for action. I play it for this vibe of grand, grand adventure. You know, it's almost like, it's almost like a vibe for me. Like if I'm getting that vibe. Okay. Josh, do you remember home of the underdogs? I, I'm sorry to all the viewers who have heard me talk about this for every single time.
00:40:06
Speaker
This is gonna turn into a King's Quest 5 cheese puzzle thing. Okay, now go ahead. ah So on Home of the Underdogs, i've I've mentioned this before, they used to have categories of games where you could choose which category you wanted. And one of the categories, and and Matt already knows this, was called Grand Adventure. And I really like clung on to that as a descriptor for adventure games. Like, do I feel like I am on a grand adventure? And even with like the limited story of King's Quest, I did, I did feel like I was on a grand adventure. Whereas in Doom, I just feel angry.
00:40:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah yeah i by definition, there is a story there, but that's so far down the line of importance, you know? yeah When the chapter is called Knee Deep in the Dead, you know, I don't think that's an adventure. I do think, so, okay, so first of all, I do think King's Quest has a story. I think you just gotta have to go back into the history of storytelling to find it, right? Because if you if you read like old, um Okay, even if you read like... Old myths, old... Old... pieces of literature like, I don't know, Beowulf or Gilgamesh or whatever. There would be themes running throughout it, but a lot of it would just be a guy going out and doing a series of stuff. And it's not like those those things were tied to each other. They're just kind of fucking random. You know what I mean? I guess that and that in itself tells the story, right? So yeah in King's Quest, if we're in the fisherman's house or whatever, that's telling part of the story.
00:41:52
Speaker
The story is Guy goes out and is a hero. And like being a hero just means doing a bunch of stuff and sticking to a code of ethics while he does it, right? yeah And ah I think that is present in King's Quest, even though it's not, it doesn't like, you couldn't make a movie or a TV show out of the original King's Quest.
Storytelling in Classic Games
00:42:15
Speaker
But you could stick it into a um book of ethics.
00:42:23
Speaker
Uh, you know, medieval chivalry, chivalry tales, and it wouldn't feel too out of place. Kind of going back to the original like Tex adventures that we were talking about earlier, it you remember you're under the the constraints of early days. There wasn't a lot of opportunities to really tell the story or to give you much of a story. And there's hardly anything going on.
00:42:49
Speaker
in in King's Quest, like at all. The precedent had been set, and they pretty much just kept it going throughout the rest of the line. We are going to be telling ah and an overall broad adventurous story while mixing in a bunch of, hey, wink, wink, you already know these fairy tales with it. Yeah. Yeah. So. I also want to, you also said something interesting about like the main focus, right? So, you know, doom. Or let's say, ah Wolfenstein.
00:43:25
Speaker
3D, the classic. Love that game. It does have puzzles, right? It does have exploration and it has about as much story as King's Quest 1, right? But the focus is the shooting people, right? The focus isn't any of those three things.
00:43:50
Speaker
And so is that how when you pick what's going to be on the adventure game hotspot and what what what makes it, what doesn't, do you have like a, what do you what do you do to draw the line?
Evolution of Adventure Games
00:44:06
Speaker
Okay, and this is this is a rarely really, really difficult, difficult question because as you probably know, well, I know you know Matt because you're right. Adventure game fans are,
00:44:20
Speaker
straight up, they will fight you, they will punch you right in the throat if you add anything outside of point and click. They will push your chin up and karate chop you like right and they will bully you like if you do. So it is very, very difficult to ah to cater to Well, first of all, I love those type of adventures best myself However, we also don't want the industry to die. We don't want the genre ah to die There's a reason why i I do not monetize the website or the YouTube channels or anything like that It's because like I want to bring Attention to it and I want to keep it going and so we do have to add a little life and breathe life so long as it's on the the
00:45:08
Speaker
As long as it has those those three we don't want to alienate the core the core fans or to kind of take away any authority that we have we don't want to clout chase or anything like that so we try to avoid anything that's just legitimately come on. If you say come on, it's not going to be on there. Okay. All right. So so it's almost more like you just feel it. You just know. Yeah. Oh yeah. there are There are definitely some purists out there in in the adventure game community that that only will play a certain
00:45:45
Speaker
And you know Josh is bringing up point and click specifically. I would even say that's more of a UI, right? like That's more of a structure. So it's actually quite surprising to me that people would only want to focus on that and not other UIs in adventure games. I would. and I'll say this. ah This is an interesting interesting thing. I think Roses, me and you would talk about Zelda on this show. We would talk about, say, an Uncharted game on the show. Like, those are not off limits if one of us were to play one or if me and you were to be discussing one and be both interested in playing one for an episode. I assume we'll have a Zelda episode at some point. ah But I'll say this, they're not on our ranking every adventure game of all time right list of potentials.
00:46:37
Speaker
You're wrong. They're just they're just not there. Uncharted 4 had better be on there. ah you know But do you know why? It's because i' not in a venture I pulled them from the database of ah your your your editor, the editor of your website, Jack Allen's old website, adventuregamers.com.
00:47:00
Speaker
I pulled the entire, that that and that's where the list comes from. It is like a man-generated, like man-made generated, like foremost user. Over decades, yeah.
00:47:13
Speaker
yeah um and ah They were a little more strict about action adventure games. So I, you know, I might at some point want to go through and add in some of the adventure leaning action adventure games yeah to that list. So they might come up randomly as we go through and rank every adventure game ever made. I think there's like merit. Go ahead. Go on. No, go ahead.
00:47:37
Speaker
I was going to say, you got to remember, too, that adventure gamers, that list that was that was made, it it it all started so many years ago. like There are so many more sub-genres of adventure. And like like I mentioned earlier, ah when it comes to King's Quest, a precedent had been set. yeah And so it just continued continued to follow follow that precedent.
00:48:02
Speaker
and And Jack and I, we when when we decided to put the websites together, we made a ah long and hard decision as to, we talked for a long time to figure out how exactly we we want to approach that. And we both agreed that that type of narrow minded thinking, and I don't mean that in any like derogatory way, but but i that could have ah an effect on killing the industry yeah in the long run. And towards the end of of Adventure Gamer's heyday, I guess you could say, um Jack being the editor, decided to go away from all that. And we mentioned Portal. you know Portal is is heavily, you mentioned Portal,
00:48:49
Speaker
heavily on like our adventure game radar, LA Noire. Those are our- Oh, I love I love LA Noire. Yeah. I have personally reviewed ah action, like ah puzzle platformers for Jack at both websites. Mm-hmm.
00:49:10
Speaker
And I think there is merit to saying like, and don't get me wrong. We're answering this question because obviously genres matter, categorization matters, you know, those things matter. But when I was doing more gaming and I was getting, uh, you know, hate for veering from some, some different sorts of adventure games, like I was veering into quote walking simulators, which by the way, Matt and I have said, we use that lovingly. We like walking Sims. We consider them adventure games.
00:49:40
Speaker
I like the term. I think it's funny and yeah I think it's funny and it's not derogatory. I don't care what anybody says. yeah I think people try to make it like insulting, but then we kind of like usurped it. But they're like, we love these. Yeah. There were people like genuinely angry that they would be categorized as an adventure game. And at one point I said in one of my videos, I'm like, look, categorization does matter, but how much does it matter? Because if you're an adventure gamer, like an old school point and click,
00:50:13
Speaker
Mm-hmm. This is the same audience that's playing Walking Simulator. It is the same audience, man. And I get it because you might be, you're a, fan like, if you're a fan of one of these, it this, like, maybe dying.
Categorizing and Finding Games
00:50:29
Speaker
ah Well, it's not dying, but at one point it was, and you're, the point and click genre really, the point and click sub-genre of Adventure Game really kind of fell.
00:50:41
Speaker
out of favor for a while. and um And so if you're a fan and you just want more games like that and then you look in any, you know, if you look in the Steam library or the Nintendo Switch ah store and you're clicking on adventure, all you see is action adventures. So I get being a fan and wanting to have a stricter definition just so you can find more of what you like, but also like,
00:51:10
Speaker
You'll probably like some of these other games if you check them out. They have all the same stuff. No, that is my point. Yeah, yeah. It's like, no, no, no. If you like adventure games, you're probably playing these games too. They they hold hands. And if you're not, you should try. Yeah.
00:51:26
Speaker
Well, and when they hear people like like you, Roses, you know you you kind of had the you were the torchbearer in many ways when it comes to ah the ah platform in adventure games. And they could possibly feel that you not covering the games that they are so nostalgic and passionate for could have been indirectly doing damage to what they love.
00:51:52
Speaker
It's not a reasonable take, it's one that I get all of the time. like ah Legitimately, and this is something that that Jack and I just talked about on on ah ah one of our our shows, ah weekend I get bullied. ah like I wasn't necessarily bullied in school, I kept a low profile. I get bullied by adventure gamers, people who are very proud to be open and, ah you know, ah flexible when it comes to, you know, who they, all rights, yada, yada. But I get bullied because i I promote other types of games. Yeah. However, and when it comes down to it,
00:52:40
Speaker
If you look at what a lot of these popular games from the late 90s, if there are any adventure game publishers, developers, or anything that were there in the 90s during the golden era, what kind of games are they making right now?
00:52:57
Speaker
It's not us that are doing, we're just reporting and covering the games that as they evolve. Because almost all of those games, sometime to the detriment, sometime to the the benefit, they understand that they have to change.
00:53:13
Speaker
because We as a society have changed. We've been programmed to need things immediately. We're programmed to get something to move around. We're not tethered you know to ah to a setting or something, and we're just not patient anymore. So if those of us who were back then, what happens when we pass away?
00:53:42
Speaker
you know, if we just keep doing like, are the kids aren't necessarily going to to jump into them. Like I look at the numbers every single day. And I know what's popular. I know what's what's not popular. I know the demographics. And proof is in the pudding, essentially.
00:54:03
Speaker
Well, I think that's a really, I think we have very comprehensively answered that question. Hey, Josh. Yes, I love Broken Sword. That's my favorite adventure game of all time. Okay, I'm glad we got that out of the way. Okay, that's all we wanted to ask. Josh, do you want to stick around and answer some other listener questions with us? Yeah, why not? Sure. Okay, hell yeah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah.
Favorite 'A-hole' Protagonists
00:54:30
Speaker
Let's move on to a question from Philip Q. He says, laughing point-and-click protagonists tend to have the ends justify the means attitude to solving their problems. Do you have it any favorite examples of protagonists being complete a-holes?
00:54:48
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Their example is in Excavation of Hobbs Borough, when you break into a lighthouse and stop it from rotating and dangering the entire coast so that you can bounce a light via a mirror onto a cave wall a couple of kilometers. Listen, we needed to do that puzzle to win the game. The stakes were high. you guys So what are your guys' favorite ah assholes and point and click adventure games?
00:55:16
Speaker
Oh, can I jump on this grenade first? Yeah, go right ahead. Yeah. First of all, Rufus from the Deponia series, ethnic guy. Yeah. But first of all, ah he sells ah ah someone into slavery. Yes. So and that's that's not good. And this this person that he sells into slavery is of African descent. One of only three in the entire series. Oh, my God. And he sells it to someone who ah a character who is making um gorilla.
00:55:51
Speaker
type of effects. I want to see that guy. yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There are that is to progress. You have to make you an asshole there and and And this is the thing about the pony. Right. All right. I'm going to go off. I don't think we've talked about it on the show, but this is the thing about the pony. A lot of people will go. OK. Well, Rufus isn't supposed to be likable. He's supposed to be an asshole. And so like if you think he's a jerk,
00:56:16
Speaker
That's the point of the game. But no, I think the fucking creators are assholes, right? Because there's three black characters in Deponia, right? One of which you fucking Rufus will not accept the fact that this character is not a monkey. Holy shit. other Another of which you sell into slavery. Mm-hmm.
00:56:42
Speaker
The third which is third of which is like a major character. And I guess there's a few more because you meet his family at some point, but ah the that's the that third character is a perfectly fine portrayal. But like that is not just Rufus being an asshole, which he is. That is the creators of the game.
00:57:08
Speaker
thinking, only thinking of making a character black when those two things are the scenarios. And those creators, you know, they created Gollum, so. There's nothing funnier to me than what happened with the Gollum game, especially because I already had ah that opinion of them. And then the Gollum game happened and I was like, OK, well, now we're now you and society are even.
00:57:38
Speaker
Now I can feel a little bad for you because ah your tire company was ruined when you made the worst, like the worst game of all time. Oh my God. And that was Grant's time with Matt. Yeah. Sorry about that.
00:57:53
Speaker
Man, my answer is not nearly as as juicy, unfortunately. But I think it's a good I think my example is good because it's not quite on the level of the deponia character. I would say Gabriel Knight. I would say he's an asshole easily. ah For sure. Yeah. You know, he has ah very little regard for other people. He's mildly sexist. um But ah I also. Miley's sexist, but overtly sexy.
00:58:23
Speaker
Yes. Very honestly, yes. Dean Erickson, shout out to Beast With It, man. I love that game. but And actually, i didn't think I didn't think the character of Gabriel Knight was as of a dick in The Beast Within. I think they made some changes to that. But ah the original Gabriel Knight, kind of an asshole, honestly. But I do feel differently about that than Deponia. I feel that at least in Gabriel Knight, we have Grace, who is a firecracker.
00:58:56
Speaker
at least calling him out and saying this is not right. I don't know if they do that in the Deponia games or not. I don't know if these characters are called out or if things are done for humor. ah You know, definitely. But yeah, at least in Gabrielle Knight, people don't tolerate him as much as I think other asshole characters are tolerated. yeah She just straight up walked out like goodbye. Like I'm not down. I'm not dealing with this goodbye. Yeah.
00:59:26
Speaker
I need Grace back in my life. Give me Grace. I love Grace. I love her. I love Leah Remini's voice for Grace. I love the whole cast of Gabrielle Knight. That's not related to the question, but I do love that casting. All right. Do you want to do another email, uh, roses? I see there is a question for you, Matt, about the play date.
00:59:46
Speaker
Oh, okay, Josh. So, Josh, have you played the Playdate? Have you used the Playdate? I have not. I have not, but it looks interesting. It would probably hold my attention for at least a couple days. Well, okay, I'll address it pretty quick then. So, Philip Q asks about the Playdate says, you know, now that I have had it for a little while,
01:00:13
Speaker
and I've tried a bunch of games, what are like what are my overall overall thoughts on
Playdate Console Review
01:00:17
Speaker
the form factor? So you know about it, Josh. It's, you know, it's like a small sort of Game Boy micro size and form, uh, form function, um, little console with, uh, the added thing of it's got an internet connection. It has a, uh, accelerometer and, uh, whatever that thing is that, you know, which way it's tilting. It knows what gyroscope and it has a crank and which attract all of us attention deficit disorder people would ah adore.
01:00:50
Speaker
Yes. that um ah So and some things that Philip points out is that like it's cute and fun to have in your hand. um They could have used an extra button or two like start and select because there's only really like a home button um and.
01:01:12
Speaker
Uh, says like things like handling stats and inventory are a little complex. Um, and there's no, and the fact that there's no touchscreen, they think is a big omission. So that's the charm of this thing though. I think so too.
01:01:31
Speaker
I think the charm of it is it it is in its this simplicity. I could have used like a start button, the fact that I never know if the home button is gonna take me out of the game or it's just gonna bring up like a side menu or is going to bring up like the pause menu. like That is a little frustrating.
01:01:51
Speaker
um But I think The crank, criminally underutilized. There are some games that use it really well. um For example, in ah Root Bear, really great use of the crank. You are a bear.
01:02:13
Speaker
Or no, you you are not a bear. You are filling up a glass of root beer for a bear at a bar. And there's like a fill line and you have to like balance between how much is gonna be foam and how much is gonna be liquid. And you're turning the crank.
01:02:32
Speaker
one direction to unleash the root beer and the other direction to turn off the spigot. I like that. That feels like it would be very satisfying to do. It is very satisfying to do. It is very frustrating when you get it wrong, and the bear is your barometer for that. When you get it right, the bear is so fucking stoked.
01:02:54
Speaker
And when you get it wrong, he makes like a meh face at you that's really disappointing. And if you overfill it, the bear loses his fucking mind. Every time I've ever given a bear or something, he's always been angry. If he's happy at all, I feel like I've accomplished something.
01:03:14
Speaker
I also like when it uses the crank to like when a game uses the crank to ah cycle through inventory um or to zoom in and zoom out is another cool usage of the crank. um To balance something is a great usage of the crank. But, ah you know, I feel like I feel like there is there's so much more that could it could have been used for, and maybe it will. I just read that a season two of included games is going to come out in the Switch in the next year. um So that's the Switch, the play date. I apologize. ah so So that's the Switch too, huh? Wow. I do think it can get a little uncomfortable in the hands being so small.
01:04:03
Speaker
It's cool that you can just carry it around in any pocket, right? That, I love that form factor. ah Great for church. yeah Right, using the, I think like Bluetooth would have been a great addition if I could have like, ah if I could use Bluetooth headphones with it, would be a lot better than plugging in, you know, corded earbuds to the bottom of it, because as it is, when I'm out in public, I just don't have the sound on. And sometimes the sound is really cool. um So that's a bummer. And I will tell you what the biggest bummer is. And what and this is also, I teased this in the ah beginning segment. This is one of the reasons why I haven't reviewed games in a while. The biggest bummer to the play date is it is incredibly fragile, which I found out when it fell the very brief distance from my desktop
01:04:57
Speaker
to my floor and it landed on its corner. And now there is a whole like quarter of the screen that is just black. Oh, that's tainted. You can't ever play that again. Or at least someone like me. It wouldn't work for me ever again. Even if I can see 90% of the screen, I will constantly be looking at that 10% of the black screen. Oh, that's rough. And there is something there is something cool where for ah developers, um and this works for players too, they have created a ah virtual console.
01:05:35
Speaker
that you can use if you have a Playdate account. So there's some games, only side loaded games, none of the catalog games. But the side loaded games I can play and on a virtual console on my computer that's because I have an account when you need the console to play the cat to use the account. But yeah, like it is incredibly hard now and sometimes impossible to play catalog games. And to repair this play date, it's like $125.
01:06:09
Speaker
so And I'm good with small electronics. I could... swap out the screen myself, but they don't sell the ports individually. And because it is so proprietary, nothing else uses this screen. So I need to either pay $125, buy a whole new one, or just deal with a broken play date. So that is my biggest complaint with a play date is how um unfriendly, like how fragile it is and how unfriendly it is ah about
01:06:41
Speaker
the level of fragile it is. You think they would have for free, didn't you? Yes. Yes. And I'm really grateful to the listener who bought it for me and I'm trying to still review as many Playdate games as I can with it broken. And I probably will at some point, you know, pay to get it replaced or the screen replaced because I, you know, again, I'm very grateful to the listener and I do not want to let them I don't want to let them and other listeners down. um But it it's just it's just a really frustrating thing. Like I reached out to their help desk and they were like, ah, it's $125 and there's no other solution. And it's really a bummer. Roses, I think that you and I need to say the the things and the games that we want more. you know but What do you think, Roses? Would you like a ah play date? That would be awesome.
01:07:37
Speaker
Josh, you want to hit your game hotspot, would like the the upcoming switch, the switch too. I think the scenes, everybody. you know I think he has a new microphone. I really love, I just love microphones, you guys. I love collecting microphones. Cash also. Love that stuff. Love money. All right. Moses, why don't you give us another question? Why don't you read Mike's question?
01:08:04
Speaker
Okay. Uh, yes, this is from Mike. He says he hopes the question is interesting. If you could swap two protagonists from any adventure game, what would be the craziest swap
Hypothetical Game Protagonist Swaps
01:08:15
Speaker
you can think of? His example is taking salmon max and putting them in the grim Fandango universe. Uh, how would salmon max handle like this but like they wouldn't they would be how delicate you would have to be to somebody who just died they're like mac you're dead here hear me hear me out i want to put king graham like king's quest five era king graham because in anything modern because clearly these games are they're supposed to be like
01:08:49
Speaker
They're supposed to be in an older time, right? I don't quite know when, maybe medieval times, I'm not really sure. So I just want to put him in a very modern setting, like Broken Sword. I want to put King Graham in Broken Sword so he can talk to people like ah just a fucking weirdo. yeah Like, will you trade me for this marionette? Like, I just want to see how that would go. My lady? My lady? I'd like a mint, please.
01:09:19
Speaker
Do you do you have Josh what do you have one or do you need a little more time to think because I think I have. Yeah, this is I'd like to put April Ryan and replace.
01:09:31
Speaker
her and put him into Elaine Marley's spot because she ain't going to put up with that crap like Elaine does. Yeah, Elaine, she's she's a tough girl, yes, but she's also gushy for the for the gushy. you know like He kind of like falls ass backwards into the the lovey, you know the treasure trove, like her treasure trove.
01:09:55
Speaker
And um I don't think that's going to happen with April Ryan and the dynamic there. Yeah. Nice. um But in a more serious one, and I'll jump back into our earlier conversation about what is ah an adventure game. Yeah. I want to see ah Indiana Jones take out Sophia Hapgood, I think was her name. Hapgood, yeah. Hapgood. And let's just throw Laura Croft in there. Nice. And just have like the two adventures. Power couple. Power.
01:10:24
Speaker
Yeah, he wouldn't let go. She could do all the shooting for him. Well, he he just solves the solves the puzzles and does the adventure and she'll just like fucking crush every Nazi. I, you know.
01:10:40
Speaker
i I would take Guybrush Threepwood and put him in any serious adventure. Like imagine Guybrush Threepwood in nightmare frames or in like Guybrush Threepwood in like- Like Gabriel Knight, like have him figure out like a crime procedural. He's just grumple. Excavation of Hobbs Barrow.
01:10:59
Speaker
Oh, God. Yeah. Just like have him just like be completely terrified and so confused by everything that's going on. And just like, like I just imagine him facing the true horrors of just running away constantly and people having to like coax him back into the adventure. Be like, Guybrush is like, is that is that town drunk that's hitting on her at first? let go hey You know, you kind of solve your dad's murder, Guybrush.
01:11:29
Speaker
to like I like or like him in mist and it's just completely baffled and he just gives up and just starts like playing around on the beach with like like if you're playing as Guybrush and mist it is unwinnable you cannot beat it are we talking about miss or or fuck mist edition
Casting Adventure Game Movies
01:11:52
Speaker
what's the fuck mr ti and I was hoping that ah ah that Sarah would would remember and and that would make a little bit of the jokesy a regarding our adventure game Hall of Fame. I'm sorry, I don't remember. I'm sick and I'm fogbrained, but I do agree with the sentiment of fuck mist.
01:12:17
Speaker
um So when we were all trying to figure out the games that are going in the in the Hall of Fame, like, oh, can I get, yeah, I think I, I think I just kind of did. Like we, we threw missed out there and, and Sarah's like, yeah, definitely deserves to to have its credit, but F missed. Oh, that sounds right. That does sound correct. And I stay, I stand by it. I will die on this Hill.
01:12:44
Speaker
i have another I have another one for this, this swapping protagonists, and it is to put the duck detective in also any serious mystery. ah but wow yeah Right, like put duck detective in like, ah what's it like a very serious mystery game? What's this a mystery game that's like,
01:13:01
Speaker
Black Dahlia. OK, yeah, but don't detective. And he's just like, he's like, hey, I'm here. What? a What's what do you guys got going on here? Somebody's been murdered. He's like trying to crack jokes. He's like, ah, this is a little bit over my I'm in a little bit of deep water here. Oh, my God. The puns. This whole thing is quackers to me.
01:13:29
Speaker
The the full like FMV her story with ah with Duck to tech du Detective like she's her own she's her own she's her own sister. This is this is getting a little too crazy for me. I feel like we can use Al Lowe as a character since he's in four or five. Can we make Al Lowe the Want Some Rye? Of course you do guy because I'm pretty sure it already is him anyway.
01:14:00
Speaker
zork is that zork and returns zork yeah yeah yeah lots of rah course you do yeah i don't think it would change very much is the thing exactly we just want to put our friends in in video games yeah all right put me in uh any game any just any game any game um that's now i'm in it You are Guybrush 3-point. I was just gonna say that. I'm like, no, you're so much Guybrush 3-point. should've seen that coming. All right, let's move on to another question. Josh, do you have time for, say, two more questions? Sure. Okay. All right. i suppose um This is from Nick. Suppose a movie studio bought the rights to adapt your favorite adventure game. You're the casting director.
01:14:49
Speaker
who would you cast to play the characters in your favorite game? Oh, nick wouldol yeah yeah. This is my favorite conversation like in the world. I don't care if I'm at a bar where people be getting high fiving. I don't care. Like it doesn't matter the worst setting. Like you talk about this and I am in video game protagonists and I don't want to pump my, my channel or anything, but I did a bunch of, a bunch of these from monkey Island and George and broken sword and all that.
01:15:23
Speaker
Broken Sword for sure. ah Chris Pine is gonna be a- I love that. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. All right. I got that. Tracks. No, I love that. That's brilliant. ah Do you have, you who else do you have? Day of the Tentacle. ah Bernard we cast, you ever watched the show or Gotham, the Penguin character?
01:15:49
Speaker
in the in the the television show Gotham. I have not. What his name is. I mean, it looks like him. He has the same gate, like everything about him. That is Bernard from Day of the Tentacle. Nice. OK. Do you have any other cast for ah Broken Sword besides Chris Pine? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've got them. i've got Oh, you did a whole. When I first started the channel, it was like three years ago. OK, so we'll just go. we' go We'll go ahead.
01:16:16
Speaker
Nico is, gosh, what's her name from that 70s show? Mila Kunis. Mila Kunis. Okay. Mostly just because I want to see a movie with Mila Kunis because I yeah love her, you know. Rose's, do you have, Nick really wanted to know what your, what your Laura Bowe fan casting. Oh Lord, can I even,
01:16:45
Speaker
I don't know if I even could. The dagger of Amun-Ra. Who is who? Yeah, the dagger. they're out So likes let's see. For Laura, it's gotta be it's got to be a very bubbly type, ah somebody who plays a bubbly type. It sounds insane, but bear with me. I feel that Reese Witherspoon could do it.
01:17:11
Speaker
I just, I feel like she could do it. Yeah, I, okay. Because she was so good as that bubbly, smart person in, uh, in Legally Blonde, right? And that's kind of what you get. And you get a ah bubbly, but very smart female character. And like if Tracy flick from election was a little bit less of an asshole, sorry, I said election. mean I'm sorry I said election on today, November 5th. I'm sure that it just said shivers through both of your spines, but, ah but you played, yeah, Tracy flick, but less of an asshole. That could totally be Laura Bell. See, I think that works out, but like the, the, the hardest cast, who can we cast as Pippin Carter? Like,
01:17:56
Speaker
ah What about um ah ah ah the guy, I'm blanking on his name and I can't believe it, the guy who plays Sherlock, Cumberbatch, Benedict Cumberbatch. Benedict Cumberbatch. Well, i can we like jump through space and time for this? Yeah. Because I would say, you're right, who's gonna tell me no? I would say Clark Gable as Pippin Carter.
01:18:20
Speaker
Not bad, not bad. I mean, i i I have a feeling he's slightly based on that anyway. But like, yeah ah pip like I could totally see Clark Gable in that role. And for more reasons than just the mustache. For sure. What about ah one more? What about Yvette? Yvette Delacroix? Sabrina Carpenter.
01:18:43
Speaker
Oh my God. ah ah That's so good. Isn't it good? And she's such a modern like version of that character.
01:18:54
Speaker
I see what I think, Yvette, I think of Blanche Devereaux from Golden Girls. Oh, that is good. Yeah, but obviously, it would have to be the younger version of a Blanche Devereaux type. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, who would be the boyfriend? Oh, Steve Dorian? Steve Dorian.
01:19:16
Speaker
who knows some idiot who's like who's like kind of like a big dumb jock type in today's like media i think that would Hemsworth could play him oh yeah oh my god hate him too fucking great Great. so yeah Or, you know, I got another one. ah ah Travis Kelsey, the the national football player. Just yeah throw him in there. Because he doesn't need to do much.
01:19:51
Speaker
ah all right You don't have to be intelligent. So if we're doing favorite games, and I'm sorry, like for listeners, I'm sorry, this is so based around just straight up classic point and clicks today, but we have Josh Cleveland on, so yeah you probably had to expect one we were going to lean into classics ah for this episode. but um i So I'm gonna cast Monkey Island, right? Because, yeah yeah absolute favorite. And I think I would go a lot of alt comedians, because I feel like there's just such,
01:20:26
Speaker
I feel like there's just so much in Monkey Island that's still funny and that could be really mined by people who are kind of undermining the premise. So like for Guybrush himself, I'm going to say Chris Gethard.
01:20:46
Speaker
there's kind of a sad sack element that's to Guybrush, Threepwood, but also just like a silly and kind of but like, ah not fourth wall breaking, but like sure kind of a subversive comedy element to him. yeah And ah this is this is a little more wild, but ah for Stan, I'm gonna go Weird Al Yankovic.
01:21:15
Speaker
Oh, that is, yeah, that' that's actually one of our our runners up on on our video. You gotta go with me. It's some it's Army of Darkness guy for Stan. I can't think what his name is. Oh, Bruce Campbell? Bruce Campbell. bruce i can yeah I can see that. Or Fam. What's that what's his last P-H-A-M-M? the The guy from... You know what I'm talking about? Tommy Fam or something? No. Okay. Yeah. Well, now I take it all back. Nevermind.
01:21:48
Speaker
It's really good, I promise you that. i would I would throw Maya Rudolph in as Elaine Marley. Like a younger version? Yeah, yeah yeah yeah Maya Rudolph, Elaine Marley, I think she has the rage and the temperament to pull it off. I think she could go back and forth between
01:22:09
Speaker
sweet and saccharin and tough and rude, right? Like I think she could just jump back and forth between the two. um And then Danny Trejo as LeChuck. Oh my God, what a good, I was gonna go, this is, again, i I was leaning towards like comedians for this, so ah Danny Trejo is a great idea, but LeChuck, I was gonna go Bob Odenkirk.
01:22:34
Speaker
That's funny. That's really funny. Like if you threw him in, like you'd have to add a new ah dimension to LeChuck, but I could absolutely see a LeChuck played by Bob Odenkirk with Bob Odenkirk's voice. Yeah. And that sort of, um,
01:22:56
Speaker
confident with a underpinning of sadness, especially if you're going like return of Monkey Island, right? Return to Monkey Island when Guybrush and LeChuck both have this like pathetic old man sadness to them. And yeah like, I really love the idea, like obviously Chris Gethard is much younger, but obviously I love the idea of putting both of them like in those roles and having just like this underpinning of like, oh, this is a little bit thats these guys are goofy and and capable but also like a little
01:23:28
Speaker
All right now I've got a good question for you when it comes to Monkey Island, yeah, who would you cast as Legrand? Largo Legrand Oh I'm gonna stay in the art comedian thing and say um ah ah My god, why can't I think of his name? um He Oh ah my god, he I saw him not that long ago. Give me a hint, give us a hint. on Todd Berry. Todd Berry? Okay. I'd go Todd Berry as Largo Legrand. What's that? good ah Go ahead. If we were stepping away from the altar, because I could see putting, well no.
01:24:17
Speaker
Because I was thinking, if we put a tough guy as Largo Legrand, it doesn't quite work. Because Largo Legrand shows up as a tough guy, but he spends the whole game getting clowned. I've got the real answer here, though. You ready for it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. All right. Buckle your safety belts, because we're going to crash this car right now. The grumpy gamer himself, Ron Gilbert. Ron Gilbert as Largo Legrand. OK.
01:24:47
Speaker
I guess I could see that. I could see it. Yeah, no, I can see it for sure. Oh, man. Who's the girl from Superbad? She'd be my Elaine Marley. I can't think of what her name is right now. The name escapes me. The red-haired girl. The red-haired girl from Superbad, Emma Stone. Emma Stone, yeah. Emma Stone, Emma Stone. Oh, that's a good... I like that. Actually, I think that's a really good suggestion.
01:25:14
Speaker
It's funny to me that your reference for Emma Stone after after like she has had this incredible career trajectory since Superbad. And you're like, oh, that girl from Superbad? Not the girl who won like Academy Awards and who won like like Oscars for all her other roles. But no, ah she was in Superbad. Well, the other one I was going to say is Scarlet Letter.
01:25:43
Speaker
Oh, mean, it's not called Scarlet Letter though. What is it called? Easy A. no easy Easy A based on the Scarlet Letter. I get the child, a big child.
Note-Taking in Games
01:25:55
Speaker
yeah um All right, ah let's do one more question and then we'll say goodbye to Josh and Josh. Thank you so much for hanging out with us. Yeah, thank you for answering questions.
01:26:07
Speaker
Is there anything, we'll do what we're done. We're gonna do one more question, but why don't we, is there anything you want to promote while you're here? Anything you wanna send, any place you wanna send people to? Nope. Let's go. That's what I always say too, I'm like, man. This is your show. Okay, Roses, you wanna read the last question?
01:26:26
Speaker
Sure do. ah This question comes from Agnes, and they ask, my question is, what is your opinion on note taking in games, as in getting a physical piece of paper and pen to solve a puzzle? And personally, they don't care for it, but a lot of people do really seem to love to still do that. So do you guys take notes when you play certain adventure games? Not in 25 years. Oh, wow. I still take notes. Yeah.
01:26:55
Speaker
No, I think one of the best innovations of adventure games are when they actually have in-game notes. Yes. That you can add add your notes, especially in like detective games and that. But the only game I really, really... like The era that I stopped was the maze era.
01:27:13
Speaker
where we didn't have the internet to quickly run and put us out of our misery, where we actually had to track screens. So like the King's Quest V era. I remember, oh, that was fun for me though. Like I had a grid paper out and all that. Those were good times back then, but not since then.
01:27:37
Speaker
I like taking notes when I'm clearly doing it for fun and not because I absolutely need to. Otherwise, I'm never going to keep track of this. So just as like as a very quick example, sometimes when I'm playing Stardew Valley, even though there's, you know, you catalog things within that game.
01:27:56
Speaker
There are times where I still take physical notes and I like it, and I don't need to. I just like it. I just like you know writing down who loves what gift, you know for example. And it's it's really not because I need to, it's because I want to. like i felt I feel compelled to engage more with the game as I'm playing it.
01:28:15
Speaker
I do the same thing in Stardew Valley. In non-adventure games, I do it a lot when it's like, all right, these are the, especially games where there's like a completionist element to it, like Metroidvanias or RPGs, where I'm like, okay, these are the things I still need to do. And yeah to and like, I write down a little to-do list, sometimes I'll write down like the components I need to build something or the... yeah you know, like you said, like who likes what gift? And I really enjoyed it. I did take a few notes for Death of the Reprobate. Me too! Yeah. I bet in the same spot. I bet we did. There's a puzzle in Death of the Reprobate that is math-based and it is absolutely absurd. Like there's a point where the character even says like, are you serious about this? And the other character's like, yeah, we are. yep And you have to take notes and you have to get it right
01:29:06
Speaker
for the characters to say, ah, we're just kidding, it's all random. But you have to get it right before they'll do that. I think, I didn't get it wrong enough times. You can also keep yelling. You can also be like, this is absurd. And you can forgo it completely. Oh, really? I didn't know that. But yeah, I took notes in that. I'll say, I love, I fucking love taking notes in games. If I have to do any puzzle solving outside of the game, and like that's my fucking favorite. not Okay, not if I have to Google things. i ah yeah I was given a game to review not that long ago. Earlier this year, that was all about like, yeah you didn't even know, it wasn't it wasn't, signposting the puzzles. You knew there was a puzzle, but you had no idea how to solve it. And when I looked up the walkthrough, it was all like Googling different stuff and going to like the developer's website. And du it was really fucking weird. And I hated that. But when it is like, I have to sit down and think about everything that I encountered and push it around on a piece of paper and really untangle it. I love that shit.
01:30:20
Speaker
um A recent example of that is Lorelai and the Laser Eyes. And I'll post this on, I posted it on, I think threads or something when I finished the game, but I'll post it on our Instagram with it, this episode comes out. My pages of notes on Lorelai and the Laser Eyes are so fucking insane. They are just, they look like, okay, if ah if I were ever accused of a crime,
01:30:51
Speaker
they would be used as evidence against me. Clearly this man is psychotic because look at this. Are you taking notes in multiple personalities as well? Are you an actual embodiment of the character that you are playing? I know role i might as well have been. These look like they look like they're from the fucking Zodiac Killer.
01:31:16
Speaker
they are they're so wild um and uh and it was so fun ah yeah that was such a fun gaming experience and and looking back like i'm looking through them right now and it's just a series of numbers and shapes and a maze and like different colored pencils and shit because i'm like oh i took a note here but i wanna i wanna indicate which of these things to pay attention to in which circumstance it's just really un an indecipherable endless, maybe even if you've played the game. no It feels like since I got in this side of the business that my my priorities have adjusted. And it's a real shame because now I play games to, OK, this is a cool point. This is a talking point I can talk about or make a video about or something. And it's not the same. I don't feel like I'm playing games.
01:32:16
Speaker
anymore and i'm sure that's for another another discussion or another conversation i thought hey i have access to all of these incredible games well first of all no i don't get any of the good games we give them to you guys like our reviewers like ah and so like ah but the ones that i actually do end up playing i feel like i'm always just taking notes for uh talking points that's that's a shot That's another thing I was gonna say, you're you're dead on, is that I also take notes on every game I play now, just for reviews, for whether it's a written review, which I you know don't do as often anymore, or whether it's for the show. every Basically, every game I play gets a page of notes on my little steno pad.
01:33:01
Speaker
i have I have notes that I still have for everything I've ever reviewed on YouTube. I have entire notebooks of notes for everything you've ever seen, I have notes for. yeah yeah and I cherish them. I cherish those notebooks. Do you have like physical physical notebooks? Like, Dear Diary. Yeah, yeah they're physical.
01:33:25
Speaker
for reals, oh, that's cool. What if it was an entire notebook for every game? So you play like Death of the Reprobate, it's three hours, and you have an entire front to back, full on college rule notebook. I explain everything I am ever doing. I'm like pointed over here, clicked, okay. This is how I felt about this, in this scenario. Yeah, yeah, yeah, here's how I would have felt if I were a different person. Here's how I would have felt if I played the game underwater.
01:33:53
Speaker
Gabriel stopped here to take a bathroom break. All right. Here's how the bathroom break went. Exactly. Gabriel Mike really offended me when he was, uh, when he was actually sexist in this part. For real. look i and I do have a lot of notes, though. Like they are, like I said, there are notes on everything I've ever done. So there I have at least five full you know front page to back page notes. I thought about auctioning them off for charity, if anyone's like interested in my process. um All right.
01:34:28
Speaker
Well, Josh, thank you so much for coming on and answering questions with us. No, hold on. Let's go back here. I want to hear more about this these these notes. I actually would like to see one of these notebooks. I think that would actually make for a really good YouTube ah video. like Oh, OK. yeah Let's go through ah ah pushing up Rose's circa 2003 notebook on a date. That's a three. but Yeah, I mean, yeah, I have them dating back at least 13 years ago. So I will. You know what I'll do? I will take a few pictures of my notebooks and I'll put them on Twitter for all the viewers. If you want to see. They're riddled with with drawings. So. And i I I will also put my. um I'm also going to put my Lorelei in the laser eyes. Do it. notebook
01:35:24
Speaker
on Don't do it on Twitter. I don't know if I'm going to be on Twitter anymore. no i did everywhere I'll put it Depends on how tonight goes. I might just be off Twitter. Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's definitely not on Instagram because that's what you're supposed to put. You're supposed to put photos on Instagram. All right. I want to tell you guys, I love you all in the weird way. Thanks. Thank you. Really, really. We love you too. The feeling is mutual.
01:35:50
Speaker
and yeah And we will talk to you soon, ah Josh. Thank you. Roses. Hi. I want a quick rundown, a list of our recommendations with you.
Recommended Games Discussion
01:36:02
Speaker
We've got every time we do one of these segments, we get a ton of recommendations. That's true. People are like, hey, check these games out. Have you ever heard of this game? You like this game, maybe you like this one.
01:36:12
Speaker
So I'm going to run. I made a list. So we're not going to read all your individual emails, but everybody who sent one in, thank you so much. Um, and we'll say whether we've played them, whether we haven't played them, uh, whether we're interested in playing them on, you know, all that stuff. All right. Hit me we'll we're a rapid fire. The many pieces of Mr. Koo. No.
01:36:33
Speaker
ah No, but it looks kind of interesting. It's cute and cartoony. The Dark Side Detective. Yes, love it. Yeah, it's great. It's so funny. And I haven't gotten too far into the sequel. But first game's great. Yeah. Lydia. No, but I own it. Actually, oh somebody gifted me Lydia. Yeah. I don't know of it. Oh, okay.
01:36:53
Speaker
ah Okay, somebody says the Sokoban games. Do you know what those are? I don't. It's just any, it's as ah it's a Japanese category of games for those box pushing puzzle games.
01:37:04
Speaker
Oh, so okay, yeah, no, I'm not familiar like at all all. Playing like Box Boy on a Game Boy when I was a kid, um but I haven't played them in a long time. They specifically mention a game called Isles of Sea and Sky. Say it's unlike most Sakubon games, this one is open world and non-linear, and the art style definitely reminds me of Link's Awakening.
01:37:28
Speaker
That sounds interesting. It might be worth checking out. It's the one other one I'll point out. I don't know if it's technically a Sokoban game, but I played it a little bit. It was a game released earlier this year. It'll just take me a second to find it, because I can't remember what it was called, what it was called. I know it's in here somewhere. I'm just digging through my... oh a ranger, a role-puzzling adventure, which has like a really strong story and it's like everywhere you move moves that entire, ah like everything's on a grid. right And every every direction you move moves that entire line of the grid in that direction.
01:38:18
Speaker
So if you're moving left and right, the entire left and right shifts with you. If you're moving up and down, the entire up and down effect grid shifts. So items that are in that path move with you and you got to solve puzzles that way. it's It's cute. I think I would get tired of it playing it for too long, but anyway. Okay. Tactical Breach Wizards. No. No.
01:38:42
Speaker
I've heard of this, like a strategy game came out this year. It's supposed to be really charming, people think it, and very funny, but I haven't played it. um Silent Hill 2 Remake. No, too scary.
01:38:54
Speaker
I've never played a Silent Hill. Too scary, I have, and too scary. Too scary, okay. Cat cafe manager. No, but want, very badly. Yeah, I mean, that one I think we have to pause for a second and look up cat cafe manager. Yeah, I think I need that. We've got to slow down the rapid fire to look at it. You told me to rapid fire. I know, but we have to look up cat cafe manager. That's like my strong point as a person is rapid fire.
01:39:21
Speaker
It's like a simulation. Oh, it looks cute. All right, we'll have to look into Cat Cafe Manager. It looks cute. Koala Lumpore, Journey to the Edge. Not like Koala Lump.
01:39:35
Speaker
love like love Spelled Koala Lumpore. Spelled Koala like the bear and Lump-pur. lumper I feel like I know this game. No, I don't know. I looked it up and I do not know this game. Wait, do I? There's some weird this weird nostalgia does it happening right now he in me Malaysia. Like, is it is it supposed to like take place in Malaysia? I don't know. We'll have to look at that. ah But not up. Yeah. The demons forge. No, no. um Normality.
01:40:07
Speaker
Yes. I have not. Yeah. No. Oh, God. Yeah. Just very notorious adventure game. kind of For being called normality, it's very surreal and strange. And quite frankly, annoying. And no, I will not review it. And nobody talked to me. Would you would you say is it is it in the vein of ah the game I always? I can't remember the name of. With the grandma? Yeah. it's less It's lesser. It's more okay came than that. Yeah.
01:40:36
Speaker
Okay, somebody, ah we were asking, we were talking one time about the Muppet, about if there's no Muppet adventure games, and they pointed out that there is a Muppet Treasure Island game. ok That is ah like ah like one of those, it looks like one of those narrative story books, like interactive story books. Yeah, I will play that. I'd play it. Yeah, I love the Muppets. Two people asked us about Discworld Noir.
01:41:03
Speaker
Yes, Discworld Noir is kind of an underrated gem. They definitely go into a different art style for Noir. It's 3D, but it's a lot of people say it's the best of the Discworld games. I've heard the same thing. I've never played it, but it's been high on my two playlists for a long time.
01:41:22
Speaker
All right, somebody else asked us, they're surprised that we've never talked about any of the Daniel Mullins games. They specifically mentioned the Hex, but- I don't know that one. But there's also there's also Pony Island and Inscription. Now, Daniel Mullin games, I... I fucking loved inscription and I still sometimes will download and re-download inscription and play it for a while. It's like a great, great card game that also has these other elements like escape room elements and these like narrative elements and this ARG kind of wrapped into it. It's really cool. What Daniel Mullen's games generally do is they are ah like very meta and they are commenting on game design at the same time as they are.
01:42:09
Speaker
like legitimately cool games. And oftentimes there's something that basically almost ah metaphorphysically metaphorically or literally inhabits the game that you're playing. Like the game that you are playing is haunted. All of Daniel Mullen's games are awesome. And awesome Pony Island 2 is supposed to be his next game. um I don't know when it's scheduled to come out, but it's gonna be fucking like,
01:42:37
Speaker
The guy is amazing at making games and if I would suggest people start with inscription because that that game is just, um it's a little less weird than the others, but it's super weird and it's incredibly good. Like it's, the point of the game isn't just the card game, but the card game you could play forever. It's really well done. Okay. yeah Keep going. ah Heroin's Quest? Yes.
01:43:05
Speaker
Yes, it's just like, very fun just like quest for glory, quest for infamy. Yes. I started a quest for infamy ah for whatever reason. It feels like the quest for glory games, but like every time I start it, I give up like 30 minutes into it. I don't know why.
01:43:25
Speaker
I think it's because it is like Quest for Glory, but it's not. There's always like a weird, when you do like a fan game, there's always an expectation. And I think that's the risk of doing fan games. And heroine's quest does it so well. Yeah. Sometimes they're amazing. Sometimes they don't reach the expectation that you have. Yeah. yeah um A tale, a tale of two kingdoms.
01:43:49
Speaker
No, no, but it looks weird. Yeah, but I want to um murders on the Yangtze River. No, but my interest is peaked. Yeah, I think they they suggested it um as because we were so into paranormal site. I see that. Yeah, I will check it out for sure. I will check that out. um Ripper. Yes, of course. I played Ripper.
01:44:16
Speaker
I've never played a Ripper, i've I know of it by reputation. Panic in the... Yeah. It's pretty awful. That's all I have to say. it's it's you know it's It is what it is. ah Panic in the park. Nope. No. Another FMV game, supposedly, that is like looks like of the that era, the Night Trap um Ripper era. Yeah, yeah. um So somebody asked, the makers at the last door also made the Metroidvania game Blasphemous.
01:44:46
Speaker
Oh, I did not know that, and I i have not played it, but and looking at screencaps, like, oh yeah, I could see, yeah, I could see that. It is a great Metroidvania, well, okay, it's a great Metroidvania in terms of style, um yeah and like, it's based around... um i like Catholic ah iconography in like Spanish, like ah what is it called? Holy Week in Spain. um So it's very, you know, kind of like interesting. i um This is going to turn into the my I'm an artist, but anthropologically. Oh, boy.
01:45:26
Speaker
It's interesting, it's got a lot of interesting cultural shit to it. yeah um But it is ah just a ah very bloody, a little bit blocky in terms of like, it's not, as the movement isn't as fluid as as some of the better Metroidvanias, but it's a little bit blocky of a Metroidvania, but it's beautiful to look at and it's a great Metroidvania to explore. ah Blasphemous 2 was also really,
01:45:53
Speaker
Good, and the DLC for Blasphemous 2 just came out. I got it this weekend, I haven't started it. Okay, Toe Jammin' Earl, back in the groove. Yeah, I've played both Toe Jammin' Earls. Well, this is the third Toe Jammin' Earl, the remake. You're right, this is the third one. Nope, I have not played that one. In fact, it kind of went over my radar a little bit. I don't know how.
01:46:22
Speaker
but yeah, no, I haven't played it. No, I think it's the fourth Toe Jam and Earl, because there was a third one that was 3D that I don't think anyone ever played. Okay, no, but it would be kind of a fun way to play. I think it would be, yeah. Okay, Goblins. Goblins, the goblin games, definitely a Matt game and not a Rose's game. I know they're very puzzle based, but they're like old school puzzle based where it's like lemmings, right?
01:46:51
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Uh, I am not a fan of, I have played all of the goblins games. i know Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not a fan of them, but I really, really wanted to get into Woodruff and the Schnivel, which is not a goblins game, but it's in the same.
01:47:09
Speaker
like style and it's like the same developer. but And that was more to me more of an adventure game. But I tried to play it and it didn't I don't know, it just didn't age well, I guess, not in a problematic way, just in a way that I didn't want to play it. So I'm actually not a fan of the the cocktail games. Sorry, I'm just really bad at them. OK, the prophecy, though, are we in the prophecy?
01:47:37
Speaker
No, I'm not familiar with that one. I assume it has to do with the band, Wien, does it? I don't know. No, probably not. I don't know either. we'll be right What else would... Yeah, what else would... It's short for Wieness.
01:47:54
Speaker
Oh no, there's a wizard in the game named Wien. I always assumed it was a game made by Wien. Okay, so you remember when Onomatoguchi released a game, like an album, but as a game, and you like explored the game and found tracks and played them. That's cool, I like that. No, i've not I actually didn't know that.
01:48:22
Speaker
It was really cool, um but ah yeah i think it was I just Googled it. I think it's called Capsule Silence. Okay. Unless I am looking at it wrong. um ah Idea. We should do a podcast episode about bands or music that went into adventure
Music in Adventure Games
01:48:43
Speaker
games. So like Bad Day on the Midway.
01:48:46
Speaker
was written and directed by the residents. ah ok Peter Gabriel has a game, I think called the, ah ah their queen well, Peter Gabriel does have a game, but Queen has a game, I think called the Eye.
01:48:58
Speaker
and like I know like David Bowie was was a part of one of those games. like Yeah, we should do that. I think that'd be really interesting. i So I was just reading Jason Schreier's book, Play Nice, and apparently one of the companies that would ah eventually, either it was either Blizzard or one of the companies that would merge with Blizzard um and some of the like creative forces behind early Blizzard. There was a, I think it was Guns N' Roses.
01:49:25
Speaker
ah wanted to make a game. nice And like they got they got their choice between, I think it was like a Star Wars game and a Guns N' Roses game. And then something happened where they they couldn't.
01:49:37
Speaker
do the Guns N' Roses game, and it just Googling it right now in the at Los Angeles Business Journal, um one time Guns N' Roses lead singer Axl Rose sued Activision Blizzard for 20 million dollars. Oh my God. So I don't know if it had to do, oh, it was a about for Guitar Hero, so maybe it was something else. So funny. But ah there was something, I'll have to revisit this anecdote at some other point because i yeah there was something more funny to it, but okay.
01:50:03
Speaker
All right, but anyway, that's why I saw the wean the prophecy thing, and I yeah assumed it was the band wean, and so I wanted to talk about Onomatoguchi, but it's just not. Okay, ghost trick.
01:50:15
Speaker
No, but I really did wanna play that. I think I just lost track of it because there are so many games yeah to play and i I do a lot of stuff and I'm an artist. So, you know, i i I did see those screenshots when it came out and I am very much interested in it. Yeah, I would love to play Ghost Trick. It's another Japanese adventure game. Yeah. um All right, we got two more. Dark Eye Chains of Satinov and Dark Eye Memorial.
01:50:42
Speaker
So I am pleasantly surprised to hear that they that those were made. I haven't played them, but I have played the original Dark Eye, which is many years ago, which now is a pain in the ass to get to get running. It's one of those. I think it's Windows. So it is an older Windows game. But the Dark Eye was an adventure game based on the tales of Edgar Allan Poe. And it was done in this very interesting art style, almost like almost stop motiony. But if you look it up, you'll see what I mean. It's very weird and and surreal ah characters almost look like puppets. There's a lot of texture. Okay, and the dark eye. And so I played the original. um But I didn't I I'm very interested to know these new ones are these new ones they are based on
01:51:31
Speaker
I think they're only based on. That doesn't mean that that like it's the same dev or anything. But I will also say the ah we have talked mad shit on Daedelik in this episode and Daedelik made both Dark Eye games. But I am I am curious. At the very least, I'm curious because the Dark Eye is one of those very niche almost. i It's not well known enough to be a cult classic, but it could be. It could be right if it was runnable.
01:52:01
Speaker
If we had a good waiter, if if it was accessible to your average person who plays adventure games, then yeah I think it would do too interesting. um Okay, well, those are our recommendations. ah You know, we will look into them, like right? like As we always look at these days things, and sometimes we come back and play a couple of them. so ah Thank you guys all for the recommendations. That is a ton. We also have just like this massive ah list from old episodes. Oh my god. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. So ah thank you all for that. And thank you guys for your questions. And thanks to Josh Cleveland for being on. We are part of the Adventure Game Hotspot Network. What?
01:52:50
Speaker
which is owned by Josh Cleveland. um And ah so go check them out. And there's a bunch of other cool shows on the network, including Josh's show.
Promotions and Podcast Network
01:53:00
Speaker
Everybody, you can find us on Instagram.
01:53:06
Speaker
Save Your Game podcast. You can email us. It's making me laugh. surround You can hear email us, mattandroses at gmail dot.com. What else can people do? ah um ah
01:53:21
Speaker
You can tune in next week. I panicked! Oh my god! Roses, next week is our ranking everything episode. Yes! Oh, I'm looking forward to it. I love ranking stuff in numerical order.
01:53:34
Speaker
So I think we're going to probably skip ranking things this episode. Yes, because we're gonna be doing a lot of it. and But next episode, we're gonna do so much ranking. what I say we should see like, we'll do our intro segment and then let's let's see how many rankings we can get in in an hour.
01:53:55
Speaker
Oh my God. Yeah. Let's do it. Yeah. Okay. Watch. We'll be like, we'll be like on game three in an hour. We'll pass like no fuck. We fucked up fucked it up guys. Um, but yeah, I think that's it. And Hey, I hope we're not living in a dystopian hellscape right now. I hope, um, we have a president who's Not a criminal? Not a criminal who mildly sucks rather than is the worst thing that up yeah that a country could possibly face. Like mildly sucks like a president does, you know? Like a president's supposed to mildly suck. Yeah, it's true. Politicians mildly suck. It's just how it is. A president is not supposed to ruin the world, destroy the whole world.
Closing Remarks and Humor
01:54:42
Speaker
So. And if it does turn sour, we at Savior Game are here to hopefully bring you some joy, I hope.
01:54:50
Speaker
reporting to you from Canada.
01:54:55
Speaker
All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening and thank you for your questions and your recommendations. Thanks, Josh. And we'll see you guys next week. Wait, you forgot to say at the end. I am so sad right now. I can't, okay.
01:55:14
Speaker
I'll say it because Matt is a sad boy. I just want to say that podcast is art and art is suffer. Politics is suffer. That is true. USA is suffer. Hashtag sad boy.