Get Played - Papers, Please with James Adomian

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Comedian James Adomian joins Matt, Heather and Nick to discuss Lucas Pope's indie classic Papers, Please. They talk about how Papers, Please plays with the player's morality, how it is an example of video games as art, and more. Check out James Adomian's new comedy special Path of Most Resistance. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod. Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com. Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com. Check out our Anime watch-along podcast Get Anime'd and our complete Get Played, How Did This Get Played? and Premium DLC back catalogue only on patreon.com/getplayed. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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This is a HeadGum Podcast. Hello, Checkpoint Open for Business. Glory to Estrotska. Please step up to the window and present your papers, please. Oh, yeah. Here you go. Thank you very much. All right. Why are you traveling to the country? I just little staycation, you know, okay and Have you any work or business here? No, like I said purely leisure. Okay, and It's a serious have three children where they're not with you. I had to I had to get away Okay, reject it. Oh, I checked it. Please go to the back of get away. OK, reject it. Reject it. Please go to the back of the line.

Yes. Papers, please. Papers, please. Yeah. Hi. I'm actually a citizen of Arstotzka, a naturalized citizen. So I'm just returning back to my job as an engineer. All right. Do you have your do you have your passport? Oh, yeah. Here's my passport. All right. It says here's my ID card. It says here you are 14 years old.

Is that true? Yeah. I don't believe you for a second. Rejected. Go back to the bank. I'm 14. Papers please. Papers please.

Oh yeah. Here you go. All right. What is the purpose of your visit? I have a meeting at the embassy. Oh, a meeting at the embassy. That's right. Who are you meeting with?

I'm meeting with the prime minister. You mean the great prime minister. I'm sure. Rejected. Go at the embassy. Yeah, that's right. Who are you meeting with? I'm meeting with the prime minister. You mean the great prime minister, I'm sure. Rejected. Go to the back of the line. Hey, how's it going? Hello? Papers, please. Yeah, here.

Use my passport. All right, thank you. And what is this? I'm a sex tourist. I'm here to visit these Arstotzkan prostitutes I've been hearing so much about. OK, I do not judge. Hopefully I can make one of them a bride. You want to marry marry a citizen of Ostrotka and you are a foreigner the price is right all right rejected

Please go to the back of the line. Oh what the fuck? Yes, papers, please hello hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello Hello, glory to us Trotska glory to Ostrotska. Here's my papers. Alright, and your passport? Here you go. Very nice. Okay, what is the purpose of your visit? Just going home.

You're going home, and what home is that? Ostrotska. I'm sorry, it's Glory to Ostrotska. Rejected. Go to the back of the line. Yeah, let me through, let me through here. Press, I am from the United Federation. I am from the Free Press. I am from the free press,

I am here to blow the lid off the totalitarian Arstotzkan government. Alright. Let me through. You have your passport? Yeah, right here. Okay. Well, your name is Steve Bigdicks? Yeah, Steve Bigdicks.

Steve Bigdicks is your professional name? Steve Bigdicks, I work for the Washington Post. Do you want to see my byline? I do not want to see. Here's the banner headline from yesterday. Okay, well, what is the purpose of your visit? Well, I'm here to investigate. I'm here to expose Arstotzka to the West.

All right, to expose Arstotzka, and are you planning on, why are you smiling at me? What, I'm not smiling. Yes, you are you're smiling I didn't really Steve big digs. All right, Jack that get to the back of the line sir paper, please I don't have any papers Then give me a specific type of papers actually what kind of papers is that perhaps the papers in a comic book Can you show me your hand, please?

You show me your hand? Here's my hand. I'm stamping your hand. I'm stamping your hand. Go to the back of the light. I'm telling Ellie about this. Go to the back of the light, Joel Bwinnler. Hello, I am Colonel from our Stotsken army. Oh, hello, Colonel.

I understand you have been turning everyone away from this checkpoint. This is correct, Colonel. Glory to Ostrotsk. I wanted to give you this commendation. Thank you. Signed by me. Thank you very much. Steve Big Dicks. Oh, it is you again! We accept bribes and choose between food and medicine as we discuss Lucas Pope's indie classic border guard sim Papers Please this week on Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger. That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premier video game podcast where I am so excited about today's episode. And I know that often when I say things like that, I'm being cynical or a liar,

but today I'm telling the truth. I'm also excited about today's episode. We have a lot to discuss and we have a great guest to discuss it with. I do want to give a couple of quick notes. First up, Ranch is out this week, but our guest engineer, Sam Rogich, is back. Hi, Sam. Hey there, thanks for having me.

Good to have you. You've played this week's game. I have, yeah. Okay, all right, we'll get you in there. The other thing I want to shout out is that we are recording a week in advance for this episode, so we have seen all the rapturous reviews for Astro Bot.

People are saying it's a presumptive game of the year, but it's not out yet as of our recording, so we won't have impressions until next week's episode, so you know, just so you know. Well, that's really presumptive game of the year, but it's not out yet as of our recording. So we won't have impressions until next week's episode. So, you know, just so you know. That's really presumptuous. You think I'm just sure I'm gonna play it? I'll be fucking playing it. Okay.

He said we. Yeah, but are you gonna act like you weren't texting about it, how excited we were to play it? Like I wasn't texting every 10 out of 10 review to you guys? Yeah, that you were basically like, I can't wait to play it like I wasn't texting every 10 out of 10 review yeah you're basically like I can't wait to play a masterpiece that was at 7 a.m. this our guest today one of the funniest people around a comedian and actor his new special path of most resistance is on YouTube September 19th from 800 pound

gorilla James Adome is is here. Hi James. Hi Nick, how are you? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for being here. This is fantastic. It's great to be here in the studio. Can I tell you some of the... Look, look, look! Heather, let me tell you about some of the life-changing benefits of the Path of Most Resistance. Okay, okay.

Now Matt, you wouldn't believe some of the applications that come to mind after you've given up on the path of most resistance. I'm listening. It's a comedy album from 800-pound gorilla and comedian James Adomian. It's good to be here. Yeah, what a treat. God damn it. I listen to the pod sometimes when I'm cooking.

Wow, how about that? It's a to be here. Yeah, what a treat god damn it. I listen to the pod sometimes when I'm cooking wow I got a high honor. Wow there with like a Napoleon bone apart pod Which nothing about ancient Greece which Napoleon podcast. I don't know there's like 10 of them I don't know which one it is I was cycling through a bunch after it was at the Ridley Scott movie or was it just general interest no it wasn't that I listen to this No, it wasn't that. I listen to this Napoleon podcast. You just hang with it, with a seething contest.

I listen to a Napoleon podcast, but it's about Napoleon dynamite. Matt. What, it's true! How many episodes are they on? Just one. Oh. And it's just the movie.

All right, James, I wanna hear about your gaming background in general and a few things you talked about, as possible things we could get into, including this week's game. But one of them you mentioned is a game that I am oddly fascinated with, but I never really got into myself, Qbert. Were you a Qbert kid? Yes, as a young child. I remember my dad would tell me, whenever I saw a Qbert machine, because my dad introduced

it to me at a Dairy Queen or something Sure, and I liked I'm this and I liked it because it's it's a cute idea It's visually interesting. Yes, it's funny and it's really hard. It is a big surprise later as an adult I fell into the sand trap that is cuphead Beautiful terrible I fell into the sand trap that is Cuphead. It's the same fucking thing. A beautiful, terrible movie. A video game. But it's good, and in fact, when I was losing at Cuphead, I finally gave up, I got halfway into the game.

While I was losing at Cuphead, I would get so angry that I would have to come down off of the angry high by playing like levels of Qbert, just to like clean the palette. And I would play retro Qbert just to like wow and I would play a retro Qbert 2 on the Xbox and Qbert sucks let's be honest it's a bad I mean it's a bad game yeah it's at least if you don't want to be that critical it's at least a simple game first yes I mean when I say it sucks I mean I love it I would play it if it was here right now I wish I would be playing it instead of talking to you. And when something bad happens to him, he swears.

I'm not gonna swear. Yeah, a little gibberish. Yes, and it mimics like you, like some teenager or dad playing it and going like, God damn it. And he does the same thing. But here's the, there's a lot of logic flaws in Qbert. He has to jump down these like, onto these like platform squares

and change the colors and so forth and avoid snakes and so forth. And he jumped, brick it, brick it, brick it, brick it, one at a time. And he's in space! Gravity is essential to him. And I don't believe that the mass of one like section of like, it's got what? Gravity is essential to it.

And I don't believe that the mass of one section, it's got what, at most 12 rows going up. I don't believe that that has enough mass to attract, to have actual Earth-like gravity. Yeah, I guess you have to assume it's like a little prince-like reality where just a tiny little sphere could be a planet. Or maybe it's like-

Very dense material. Yeah, it's like very dense material Yeah, it's it's like would they I read once that like this a teaspoon of the the interior of the Sun weighed more than Earth or something like that in that case he should be like And then he's vaporized, painfully. It was instantaneous, but also more painful than a much longer death. Now James, are you familiar at all with the comedy film Pixel, starring Adam Sandler, Josh Gad?

No, it sounds like something. So Qbert factors into this movie There's some cubert lore Lore and cubert there Gettable IP Cuber is transformed into like a sexy lady at one point Oh shit But at the end of the movie, Josh Gad fucks cubert and they have babies In the nose?

In the nose? We don't know He fucks cubert in lady form. She turns into this sexy lady from this pinball game or whatever it was, you know, like someone who would be on the side of a cabinet. Now, when you play Qbert, in the new ones, you get to do different avatars that are pointless.

You can make him like a truck driver Qbert or like a pretty lady, but it's just the Smurfette rules of making a character a lady. It's like same guy with blonde wig. No, this is a human woman that we can only assume has the internal organs of a cubit. Yes, because what happens when they conceive

a litter of children in the mid-credit sequence. It's a litter. It's not just one kid, it's several kids. Implying that they're not mammals. Also, I think. Wouldn't they come hopping out? I guess mammals have litters. It's like half-Cubart, half-man abominations.

That's what's in the crib. Great, I'm glad I don't know this very, this movie at all. I need you to know so that you can maybe avoid it, so you can just keep the memory of Cubart alive how you like it. My pristine memory of Dairy Queen blizzards Qbert I think he's in that um the Sarah Silverman cartoon video game He has like a cameo there, I believe he is in there, yeah.

Again, gettable IP. Yeah, it doesn't bode well for the Qbert IP if he's in two separate non-Qbert movies. Pixels did all right for itself, because it also had Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. Those are some heavy hitters, but yeah, Qbert is definitely like available. But that's the Sandler,

they're gonna say yes to Sandler. Yeah. I would love a Qbert like dark reboot where he's like, where you're like, are you prepared for the squares? A dystopian future, the year 3042. That was like every like every IP trailer for a while just had like a point in the trailer

where it'd be like a war is coming. I was like, what's going on? Right. This is the, this is the shoots and ladders movie? What's up? What the hell? The fragile peace treaty has fallen apart. The coiled purple snakes have risen up against their... Q species masters. One remains. So you got into Cuphead. You played that for because I that's one of my favorite

games. I love Cuphead It's beautiful. Yeah, it is gorgeous. And hilarious and it's too hard. It's very challenging It's like someone fell asleep on the make it too hard lever And then they were like, oh shit that was the release date It's not and it's not fair and I stopped playing it because I was like I don't want to do this to myself I don't want to be this angry anymore. Yeah, I get that. One of my main assets as a gamer beyond anything is just patience.

And so I will persist. And so I just kind of accept, okay, I'm gonna lose over and over again. I somehow don't really rage out all that much. But- An internal rage. It's an internal rage. It's got a bubble over at some point. I was gonna say rage it's an internal rage external and

internal silence yeah one day we're gonna see why girl in the news because he's reenacting falling down but I do kind of wish that game because it's so pretty video game podcast host Nick Weigar attempted to press reset on the headquarters offices of Nintendo. I'm blowing dust on the cartridge! To your point, because the game is so gorgeous and it does have, I feel like, appeal to a lot of people. It's like, oh wow, I want to play this thing that looks like an old, you know, an old cartoon. I do kind of wish it that it was a little bit more approachable from a difficulty standpoint. Like, I understand their logic of like, hey, if this is a

fictional game from this time period, arcade games used to be super hard, this would be super hard, but I don't know, I kind of wish it was a little bit easier. Yeah, you know, like an authentic nickel-operated Xbox game. Yeah, that game was so, I got so angry at that, and even if I wasn't like, you're raising my voice, which I did at times, which I did, and I was surprised there were no complaints, not from my immediate neighbors,

I'm surprised there were no complaints from the rest of the block about what happens sometimes at 2 a.m. with me in Cuphead. When you would beat a villain sometimes, one of the little, uh, the characters you have to beat for whatever, you know, whatever you call them, bosses, when you would beat, when I would beat some of them after like a goddamn five or 10 days trying it, sometimes I would hear myself saying things like, I'm glad you're dead. I'm glad you're fucking dead. Like the one, there's the fucking dancing gumball head guy.

Oh yeah. I'm glad he's dead. I'm glad I killed him. No, Nick. If I could, I would put a bullet in every single gumball in his fucking stupid machine of a head With his dumb fucking tap dancing. Get f- oh my god Now Nick finds one of the characters of Cuphead attractive. Yeah, do you find any of the characters of Cuphead attractive?

Also the speed with which he said yeah I was gonna ask this specifically because so the the cuphead DLC the delicious last course I'm not sure if you played that Yes, I've long given up on the whole It is I'd love to watch someone play it It is good and one thing it has it has the lovely miss chalice is a new playable character and miss chalice Also is like it like in like funky Kong in Donkey Kong tropical freeze has like funky mode Which makes the game a little bit easier. Ms. Chalice is a little bit more like powerful

and has a little bit more survivability, so. Oh, they fucked, they were like, oh, a bunch of people have given up on this fucking game. This is Nick's little crush. I saw it and I loved it. The soundtrack is so good. I think, I don't know, I bought it on, I think I bought the soundtrack on vinyl because it's so good. Great music. It's so good, it's so good. I think I bought the soundtrack on vinyl because it's so good.

It's so good. It's so good. It's a great score. Cuphead and his pal mug man. In an anal high. I don't know if you watched the cartoon at all, but the cartoon is like, I think it's well done, but it does make the choice of the characters

have to speak. I did not because I auditioned for it. I usually don't watch things that I auditioned for and don't get, which means I have intake mostly of Bloomberg News and European cinema. The thing about the TV show is that it's way easier than playing the game, you just have to watch it. That would be those psychos over there. What is it? Studio? Well forgot their name of their company.

Oh right right right. Those psychos over there. What if they made the fucking kids cartoon hard? You have to watch. It seems hard. Folks, your TV died. It seems hard. Oops, your TV died. Yeah, it's like a Studio MDHR. It's an acronym. Yeah, Studio MDHR. I followed them.

I was so into the game. I got an Xbox in order to play it, because it looked so cute. And I love that kind of animation. I'm a cartoon nerd before other things. And so I love the reference to Fleischer and Popeye and Betty Boop and all that stuff. And even some of the obscure cartoon characters

and franchises of the time. It's utterly gorgeous. And it sucked that something so beautiful could have hurt me. I will say the most fuckable character in the whole thing for me is definitely, I mean, what is this? Sure. Of course, the devil. He's in a tuxedo. He's in a dirty showbiz tuxedo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like I've seen people say that he's like a horny kind of character. Yeah, I've done shows with

Mean it's a character The mustache the mustache I mean irresistible. Yeah, cuz there's there's mr. King dice and then there's also the devil himself Yeah, I think of well of King Dice. Mr. King Dice, yeah. I think of, well, I take everything back. Cut that, please. I'm talking about King Dice with a tuxedo, right? Yeah. It still works. They're the two antagonists. Yes. He's the, oh, yeah, he's like the adjutant.

He's like the lieutenant devil guy. And his boss fight is so hard because it is like you have to, there's a game board and then you roll for where you're going to go's a game board and then you roll for where you're gonna go on the game board and then you have to beat like as many as nine different bosses in a boss attack mode and then you have to beat King Dice, like in sequence. I heard that and that was like the final straw.

Like I was already like, well, I don't know, I'm gonna take some time away. And then I read that somewhere, someone complaining about it and I was like, oh, I'll never pick this game up again. Because I don't, also, this, I realized I am not interested in proving the athletic ability of moving my fingers in a certain way

to get past a certain level. And I've had a hard day doing a bunch of bullshit. And I've had a hard day doing a bunch of bullshit. And like, I've been, you know, I've been basically screaming for a living. Right. Doing cartoons. People don't understand this. All cartoon performances involve screaming. You think, no, that was Betty Boop.

To accomplish a whisper into a microphone, and like, okay, it's just a weird, quiet scream. So I basically scream for a living, so I'm exhausted and I just realize I don't need this. I don't need to be like, would you really, to really get past the world three levels, you've gotta have like a foot pedal to help, like a foot pedal on a piano.

Fuck you, fuck you. Gumball machine rules, pow. So I gravitate more towards like, this is how bad of a dumb gamer I am. Where it's like, only occasionally too, usually in the winter time. But it's like, I wanna jump and I wanna move. I wanna decide and I wanna flip. I don't want to jump and I want to move. I want to decide and I want to flip.

I don't want like a lot of like combo moves. Unless it's mash the buttons at an arcade where you also have a beer. Like the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, the Simpsons, which is the same game, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a one-to-one. Yeah, they're both just Konami beat-em-ups.

Yeah, and there's nothing I like more than you're like walking by a warehouse and then wham, warehouse door. Watch out for the wham, foot clamp, also behind this warehouse door. I was listening to Jeff Gerstmann's podcast, which I really enjoy, and he pointed out something about those kinds of beat-em-ups Which I had never really clocked but for like people of our generation Matt's a little younger like for a lot of us. It was like that was our first exposure to co-op gameplay That was the first time we could pay play alongside somebody on the same team. You don't just lose Yeah, yeah, you infinitely suck the quarters out of dad's pocket, right?

Waiting to waiting for the screening of the Lion King or whatever out of dad's pocket, waiting for the screening of the Lion King or whatever. Dad, we're winning! Yeah, but you can be playing, like you and your dad can be playing together and like at a home console, there wasn't really the equivalent at a time. Or like you and your friends can all be playing four player. I remember that X-Men arcade game of just like,

we can all be a different X-Man. What an experience that was like to all team up. And it was just, I could do this kind of dexterity finger work in a game I don't need any piano player moves moves with the fingers. Okay I'm sorry I broke it I was I was actually drumming on the it's not a percussion instrument is it? It's a vocal amplification. It's a fragile piece of uninsured what wait it's a fragile piece of a microphone technology. Somewhere at Head Gum Head Quarters. Head Gum Quarters. He insulted the Gumball. And now he's attacked by it. Did you have a favorite one of those?

Like was it all tied to the IP? Like where you're like, oh I like the Ninja Turtles game, I like the Simpsons game, or were they all kind of the same to you? I think the Ninja Turtles one came out first, am I wrong? I believe so, yeah. I believe so, yeah. And that's what was like, eyes wide open, like what, what?

It was very fun. Yeah. And it was fun because it was like your brother and your cousins, then like, or like a friend or something. And you weren't just watching some other kid play something you're all doing at the same time. Yeah, I remember-

I remember that I was, I was a, I was suckered into Ninja Turtles completely. For sure. I remember the experience of like seeing that, like it was just like, it was so, it's so weird to think back on you would discover something in physical reality. So I remember being at a pizza parlor. It's always, it was Shakey's Pizza Parlor.

Yeah, yeah, we're at a pizza parlor. It was probably a Shakey's for a Shakey's knockoff for my friend's birthday party, and I saw a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cabinet, an arcade game for a show that I watched. I was like, what the fuck is this? And then I'm watching like the Ninja Turtles fight the Shredder, and my mind is absolutely blown

by this possibility. Yeah, it was just so, and it wasn't like I read about it in a magazine, certainly didn't like watch a YouTube video about it, I just stumbled upon it, it's so strange. I was like, if you have any of the modern consoles or even the Netflix app, there's a new Ninja Turtles game that is in the style of those games called Ninja Turtles Shredder's Revenge.

And it's an absolute blast. It is so good. I will say this though. I've never seen a home console that can withstand the kind of hand pounding that you would give to an arcade console, like meant to be played thousands of times. Yes. Hammering it at the full 10-year-old strength

that you have in your fist. Yeah, I'm going to maybe then recommend not doing it on your phone. Brr, brr, brr, brr. You don't knock the batteries out of the machine at Shakey's Pizza. I love also there's something very rewarding and comforting that it took me a long time to realize an adult was not a

Facet of real life is that the bad guy would start flashing red and white when you're starting to beat him Yeah, like I mean, I mean the closest I saw it was like during Occupy Wall Street I think Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York City actually started flashing red and white and we almost beat that boss level but we didn't. I saw it, I saw it, we almost had him. A couple more quarters. A couple more quarters and we would have fucking won at least that level. Which means they then would have had to open fire on us. Laughter Music

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Right now, get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription, but only for our listeners at Babbel.com slash played. Get up to 60% off at Babbel.com slash played. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash played. Rules and restrictions may apply. All right one more question here and this is for everybody the question is what are you playing? What are you playing? Hi it's me the Resident Evil Merchant and I'm here to ask you the question of the week. What are you playing?

Nick Weigert, what are you playing? Wow, Resident Evil Merchant, thanks so much for letting me leave things off here. You're welcome. Great to have you as always. It's always good, and I love your work. James DeLorean. Wow.

Where? A huge fan. Wait, now where do you experience, are you from another world or? I'm from the world of Resident Evil 4, but I've been living on the streets of Los Angeles for about, when did this show start? Four years ago when I crossed over

in order to introduce a segment. Wow, so you live in our world, you're stuck in our world and live in it as well. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Holy. I've seen some of your content on YouTube and on television and I like it a lot. It's really good work.

Do you have a way of watching these things or do you experience- I have a phone! Okay. I thought maybe you just experienced most media by looking through a window at a wall of TVs. I wish they'd still- Like in a comic book. They don't do that anymore. They really should.

They only do that in all superhero movies. Yeah, in movies. Even set today. I feel like that was a window of time that I didn't get to experience when you walk by an electronics shop and they're all playing the news and you don't know what it is.

Right. Now, I live in Los Angeles and I have most of my life. And now I, it's like less than once a year I see the local news in LA. Yep. Yep. When would you ever be like, K-Cal 9 reporting live?

I don't even know how to watch it. It is strange to see that, because that device is still employed in modern movies because it's just so useful to be like, oh, there's this big like I think in the new Quiet Place if I remember if memory serves they have like that little local news breaks that the Quiet Place is happening. I'm just like, Did they say it like that? Did they say, oh the Quiet Place is happening? They're like it's a Quiet Place now so everyone piped down. Oh, yeah, those aliens came into the studio and took them out of course because they were speaking.

Yeah, that's the then that's always a trope in one and those two is like like the you know The studio was collapsing is the quiet place the M night Shyamalan No, the quiet place is the no that's trap. Okay. Sorry Jesus Christ Well, it could be a number of things it could be you know, I knock at the cabin It could be the lady in the water. That's right That's a little bit like Shyamalan but the one at the new this year's trap and the quiet place is the John Krasinski franchise Great sure our our Hey, he's milky milked that he milked that look to the camera so well

Hey, he's milking that look to the camera so well. And now he decides movies. Kind of our Warren Beatty, thespian and director. That's true. Did he direct Dick Tracy? He did direct, Warren Beatty did direct Dick Tracy and still holds the rights. Everywhere I look it's Tracy, Tracy, Tracy. To me that's the peak of both Al Pacino and Madonna. God, so good.

Yeah, his performance is big boy. Just like the best. Oh, is that, what's his name, Paul Sorvino? No, big boy is Al Pacino's character. Who's the, Lips Manless. Who is this Paul Sorvino who you're introduced to sucking down platter after platter of oysters? Yeah, just a nasty, nasty motherfucker.

I'm right, it's Paul Sorvino. And then he gets buried alive in cement. Yes. Not the bath, big boy, not the bath. I'm watching this at like nine years old with a Dick Tracy hat. Like, what the fuck? How the fuck do you guys know all these lines

from this movie? There's a lot of lines you know. I know I've seen that movie so many times. I think it kind of came on the heels of Batman. And so for me, I like the Batman movie and it's similar, sort of like kind of had that art deco aesthetic. So I just kind of respond and felt it was very comic book-y. Right. They were like, these kids like this shit.

Let's show them, Let's give them flat top Get getting tagged up like Bonnie and Clyde He was the coolest of all the sidekick villains really cool Yeah, and they they fucking they put holes in him. Yeah, the worst part of it They all look like garbage pail kids the makeup was horrifying right? and they all looked like garbage pail kids. The makeup was horrifying. Right.

Like, you know, Joker was kind of an attractive guy in Batman, but. Sure. The guys in Dick Tracy were nightmare toilet people. No, they're abominations. Prune Face. They were like toilet people. That's a good way to put it.

Yeah. Prune Face, yes. And then Dustin Hoffman was Mumbles. Was Mumbles, Mumbles Mahoney. And then Dustin Hoffman was mumbles mumbles We're talking about papers, please we should have done the Dick Tracy movie Thank you Heather I'm gonna talk about who the fuck is that why would you call me Heather? Oh, sorry I was I was saying thank you to Heather for deferring her microphone to the Resident Evil Merchant. You're welcome.

So the Resident Evil Merchant can speak. You're welcome. Very nice of you to do this. If you want me to put on her skin, I can. Please don't do that. Oh, God. Please don't do that. So since we're discussing Papers, Please, which is an indie solo dev game, I thought I'd bring up another one that is recent.

The Crimson Diamond. This came out in August of this year. This is developed by Toronto-based Julia Minamata. And it began as a pixel art project, and it became this full-fledged text parser adventure game with EGA-style retro graphics. So EGA, console-wise, kind of akin to the NES Sega Master System generation, but it's a higher res.

It looks a little sharper than that. Sharper, and and less popular. Yeah. So it's 16 color graphics. And it's very much an homage to the classic Sierra LucasArts adventure games. But it is based on text parsing. So you are typing in, look at cabinet, open cabinet,

look inside cabinet, you know, pick up tumbler, all your typing commands. So it has like a very like sort of retro feel to it from that reason. But it's super playable. And a big part of what happens with the reason why that is with Meena Madhya's design is that it's got a bunch of quality of life things like it's click to move, you can use a mouse, it has a graphic inventory. There is a really, so like you can see all of your items, you don't just see a list of your items. There is a map and then there is a notebook slash, you can just type in review into the

parser that will tell you like all of the things you need to do in her voice. And it's a really elegant way of having the objectives and helping you keep all this stuff in front of you because you've got enough to worry about with trying to figure out what the hell to type. But it's set in like the early 20th century and you are Nancy Maple and she is a mineralogist who takes a train up to a lodge in rural Ontario to investigate a mysterious diamond. And this is the kind of thing where I'm all in on all of this.

Every aspect of this works for me. Train ride back in the 1910s, great. Looking for a diamond, why not? But if you like any of those classic games, or if you're just curious about how text parser games work, I would really recommend it, because it's really, really fun, and the story goes in really interesting ways,

and the art is super duper appealing. I'm just really impressed by this game and anytime something like this comes around from an individual developer, I believe this game was first exhibited in like 2019, so they've been working on it for a while. Anytime something like this comes about, I'm just amazed by the artistry.

So, the Crimson Diamond, really liked it. How do you hear, because you'll come into this segment and you'll say a game that I've literally never heard about. And I feel like I'm pretty in touch. Like, where did you hear about this game? So this game is pretty, I think this game has been fairly under the radar.

Actually we'll shout out Polygon for putting this, you know, I saw a story about this and let me see if I can find the author here. It was Nicole Carpenter wrote this game up. And so I checked it out and I'm really glad I did. So yeah, shout out to Nicole as well. All right. Cool. But anyway, it's the Crimson Diamond. Matt, what have you been playing? Well, you know, I've been playing Star Wars Outlaws still.

Yes. Yes. And it's still really, really good. I've gotten to a spot now. I'm not very far into the game I will say but where I was calling it more like Red Dead Redemption you know mixed with Star Wars I agree with that still to some degree, but it is more it is more of a stealth game than I realized it is Primarily a stealth game than I realized it is Primarily a stealth game okay?

Things can go south very very fast Can you tell me what a stealth game is so instead of like in in like in other like action adventure type games? Where you could just be going and running around and shooting and stuff this game real life. Yeah this game like real life yeah in real life this game requires that you hide and you're a little more discreet and things like that so you can like maybe lure a stormtrooper by whistling and then take it out out of sight from people so that you don't want to attract attention because there is like an implied law and order around you exactly yes so there's you're doing a lot of hiding you're doing a lot of like quiet sneaking around type stuff

But then when things go south you have a blaster so you can start you can start blasting but something that I didn't realize until it was too late a Few times because I kept failing Encounters, and I was like gosh. What what am I missing here what there there's a mechanic I must be missing there's an icon that floats over some of the enemy's heads and that's when they're maybe triggering an alarm if the alarm goes off the whole thing's fucked you're fucked but if you shoot the people that are setting the alarm off is it like a cartoon like exclamation point so it comes above it is sort of like it's like hey you have and it's like a cartoon like exclamation point? Sort of like it comes above their head. It is sort of like a thing that's like hey you have the and it's like a time

So it's like you have this much time until the alarm goes off Woke up, woke up, woke up, what's going on here? Wait is the Metal Gear Solid exclamation point from Betty Boop? Is that what it's a reference to? Hey cow! Kojima got it from from Betty Boop for sure. That's possible. Yeah, he's he's certainly a

Horny horny enough of a guy to have seen it Wow, but I I'm still really really enjoying it. I'm on like a Starship Destroyer like right now, and it's Fucking awesome. It is just really cool Like I do think that if this game wasn't if this game wasn't a star wars game. There's almost a 50% chance I just simply wouldn't be interested in it. Yeah, sure, but the the fact that it is like good Star Wars is really like Say like not even really saving or covering for the stuff that I don't like because there's nothing really I dislike in it I'm just more in I'm just more invested in it because I'm doing Star Wars

I'm gonna hop on Matt to talk about this game also because the thing that I, get her! That I'm also continuing to play Outlaws and what the placement has hit in my brain is Dragon's Dogma 2. It's like, this is never going to be my favorite game of all time, but it's extremely satisfying to just keep doing these missions my least favorite part is the stealth stuff

In part because I don't quite understand the field of vision of the enemies Like like there are times where I'm like am I under the table enough that they can't see me or am I like is this? Not cover like I can't tell what it is that I'm supposed to be hiding behind. Whereas like, I feel like Metal Gear or like Gears of War even have these like snap to cover mechanics or like a thing where you're like, this is a standardized height.

And I know that anywhere that this height is, I am hiding behind. Whereas like sometimes I'll be hiding behind something and somebody will walk past me like a velociraptor in the kitchen. And I'll be hiding behind something and somebody will walk past me like a velociraptor in the kitchen. And I'll be like, how did that guy not see me? I thought that was it. But yeah, it's really fun to leisurely play.

And I'm really glad that it is not a game that I was looking forward to say like, like Shadow of the Earth Tree. Like if it wasn't like a destination game for me and so I'm having a lot of fun. Like the kind of movie that you see at a movie theater wasn't your favorite movie of the year but you really had a nice time.

Like the new Quiet Place. Kind of the same thing. We all have this talk of stealth is making me think of one thing I should have mentioned the Crimson Diamond. There's a big mechanic in it is you walk by a door and you hear a conversation like, they're talking about something in there.

And then you can listen in and Nancy Maple will do a thing where she'll cup her hand to the door or she'll just kind of be listening and kind of a little scandalized. You'll have a different, it'll cut to a different shot. It's very, very satisfying. Did you make this game? Eavesdropping Sim.

Developer Nick Weiger, designed by Nick Weiger. I wish. All right, James, what are you playing? All right, I play bad video games. I play dumb ones. Currently on the mobile phone because the Xbox that I had played on and off for a few years, the controllers aren't working,

maybe because somebody threw them across the road. Not even with Cuphead, with like, just much easier with like Child of Light or something. So the controllers like, yeah, I put new batteries back in, but uh-oh, there's a rattle in it. So now it's to the phone, and I do, if the phone does something wrong, I will slap it occasionally, but it's resilient.

And I'm talking like a stage, this is like, the Marx Brothers or something. Right. So I play bad mobile games just to pass the time sometimes. And I mean, sometimes it's like Angry Birds or whatever. And I've played a lot of the dumb games where you control like basic. It's just you control an army of dudes and you're like marching around. And however many you have, there's a number floating above you that says, how would like and you can fuck

Up anything that's lower than that number and so then you see like a squad of skeleton soldiers And they're like and it said it you and your guy your guy You you know you it says like 15 and they and it there says like seven times two and you're like we could barely get them Brawl at him, but then the problem is, you're like, oh, I could do this for years. And then the problem is, you have a squad of 15 guys marching around, and then there's a giant sea monster that's like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

and it says, the square root of 400, and you're like, bub you hesitate and he slices you. He assassinates all your guys and you become like toothpicks for him. Wait, so these are like, cause I've seen these advertised. I've never actually played one of these. Those are the games you play.

Yes. And here's the trick. When you start playing one of those games, they, there's like an alert on top of their head. there's like an alert on top of their head that's like an exclamation point, except it's like, we got a real sucker here, guys. And so you start getting dumber and dumber games advertised to you, and I'm not playing this, but I'm spending so much time watching it

because they don't just let you humiliate yourself and play the dumb game again. You have to sit through a commercial for an even dumber video game. Because there's no way I'm paying, I'm not paying, are you insane? I'm not paying for this. So you have to, and I always get the ads for Royal Match.

Okay. And they're always like, well, we got these morons playing this thing, let's see if we can get them hooked on this. It's the next one dumber down in the file. And it's all, it's the same, and I have never played it formally, but I know everything that happens. There's a fat king, he's stuck in his own castle alone.

And his royal power availeth him not. He's, availeth him not of any advantage. He's like, they leave him not of any advantage. He's like, help, help me. There's fire and water. Who could possibly help me defeat the twin threats of fire and water? And they, they, and you're just like trying to wait it out and they have a phantom finger come in

and play it the wrong way, where it's like, oh, I know what you should do. You should push these rocks over into an adjacent part of the screen that doesn't matter. And you're like, that's not what you do, but the moment you intervene, bam, they download everything, and they know your mom's phone number.

So you can't, you just have to sit there and watch, you just have to sit there and watch it you just have to sit there and watch it. And then there's like a little X that appears in the corner and you think, oh, like the agreed upon rules of computers. You could click the X to close the window. Not anymore, that's a social contract from the 90s. That you can no longer click the X in a window to close it. Now if you do that, bam, they control every device in your household.

So I just watch him for hours. This fat king stuck in a castle with the easiest problems. He's like, a roof with a door and lava. Help! If you help me, I'll give you the jewels that I baked into the floor. So you're playing a game, and in order to continue playing it

and you don't wanna put money into it, you're watching commercials embedded in the game? For Dummer, I wish it was in I know I wish it was in game. I wish there was that, that would be, I've played, I've seen that before where it's like, hey, here's a dumb game inside the game. No, it's, they're just like, this is a, this is a raw ad. This is a commercial for you being a stupid person.

And you know, you know, whenever you see an ad for Royal Match, that you're doing something on the internet that you should stop. You know, whenever, when as soon as you see that king, that's it. That's the end. There's no, there's nothing positive at the end of your internet journey tonight. I read the version and we talked about this on the podcast, I think a little bit before, but like I've seen versions of versions of these ads that are like,

they're showing the game. They're showing a game you described. Like you're scrolling up the screen and you've got a multiplier over your head and you've got an army that grows and contracts. But then it's someone playing that game telling you that a lot of these games are fake, but this one's not fake.

I see that one too. I was like, what the hell? That one too. The layers of this. A lot of these games are just thinly disguised ways to like grab your data and go to some disreputable companies. Not this one, click here. And then if I look at the comments of the ad all the comments are like this game is oh this is bullshit this is a lie so like the ad that's saying that their game is not a lie is itself a lie. Of course. Yeah. You wouldn't, if you were a classy,

if you were a classy game, you wouldn't even recognize those things. Right. They would be beneath you. Yeah. What kind of person, you got some ShamWow guy going like, hey, let me give you the lowdown

of this like disreputable game. I feel like as the sole remaining person on Twitter in this group, they still post those ads on Twitter, but now that there is the ability to moderate everybody else's content, every single ad will just say underneath it, this is not the game, this is an ad for something that doesn't exist. Or like, this is not how you play the game, this game cannot be interacted with this way, these aren't the graphics.

Like every single ad has disclaimers at the bottom of it that are just saying, this is a lie. And yet those people are still buying ad content on Twitter. So Twitter now, this is interesting, it's like Fantasia from The Neverending Story, a world collapsing into itself, except Elon Musk, he is the nothing doing it to himself. Yeah.

He's like, this world is being destroyed by the nothing. Who could possibly have predicted this terrible force in the clouds? Meanwhile, he's blowing the evil clouds up into the sky. There are people, you will find things like games like, I don't know if it's specifically Clash of Clans, but those kinds of games, those are the games. Clash of Clans, you know exactly where I'm coming from.

You will find people, there will be people who will spend like tens of thousands of dollars on those games. And I think it's just, I think it's either just like kids who get their parents' credit cards, or it's like the kind of old men who will sometimes type porn search terms just like as a post on Facebook. It's like there are people who just like do not understand how the internet works at all. You'd be surprised. There are accomplished professionals who have gone down this hole. just like as a post on Facebook. It's like there are people who just like do not understand how the internet works at all. You'd be surprised. There are accomplished professionals who have gone down this whole,

there is a house in the app store. They call the Clash of Clans. Did Ted Cruz like say that he was playing Diablo Immortal or something, he like paid like Some amount of money to get like the best gear and everybody was like of course he did that he sucks We're playing Diablo Ted Cruz! I was playing Diablo!

I got suited up with a shoulder pads By a helmet on top of a hockey mask, two six shooters, three five shooters, and one big gun. All right, let's talk about papers please. Alright, let's talk about papers please. and play fantasy football to win cash with DraftKings. Pick a player and choose if they'll have more or less of a stat like yards, touchdowns, catches, and more. Get your picks right and you'll win cash. Download the new DraftKings Pick Six app now

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that expire in six months. NFL Plus Premium offer only available to new and former NFL Plus subscribers. Additional NFL Plus Premium terms at nfl.com slash terms. So papers please and I think people know about this game. I imagine if you listen to this podcast you're aware of this. This is like I think one of the you know kind of er games as art examples, one of the big indie games. This is a narrative puzzle game where you play as an immigration officer at a border

crossing in the fictional country of Arstotzka in 1984. Gameplay involves interviewing a series of individuals each day and verifying if their documents permit entry into the country. And there's a narrative on top of that. There's also a sim aspect of managing your finances as you try to keep your family alive on your poverty level wages. This was released in 2013 from Lucas Pope, who is a solo dev who has gone on to make some other really notable games. Lucas had previously worked at Naughty Dog on the Uncharted franchise and left to just kind of make his own thing.

So you cannot think of two games more different than Papers, on the Uncharted franchise and left to just kind of make his own thing. So like you cannot think of two games more different than Papers, Please and like Uncharted 2. But it's like he worked on both of them. And he became apparently interested in immigration. His wife is from Japan and so they would travel in and out of the country a lot and so he had a lot of experiences dealing with immigration officers and that was the genesis of this idea. Okay sir, you make video games? Is there a reason that we can't have a Native American handling that? You got papers to show what you're doing, sir? Okay, sure, sure, sure.

So, James, this was a game that you pitched. This was an idea, a game you possibly wanted to talk about. What is your background with Papers, Please? Well, occasionally I do play cool games. I I I'm a man for all seasons, so I've played the dumbest and I've played some of the most interesting ones, too. And this is one. It's not mash button intensive.

No, it's it's like I guess you said narrative puzzle game, which is a way of saying like, you don't have to smash a controller. That's how I entered. It's like, it's like choices, choices, choices. And there's very sudden things that happen and interesting things. But I remember I had read about it and then played it 10 years later. I think I played it one or two years ago recently.

After having, I heard about it and was like, I gotta get around to that someday. And I finally did. And I was like, I'm gonna played it one or two years ago recently. After having, I heard about it and was like, I gotta get around to that someday. And I finally did. And I got nothing else. It was, maybe it was like the tail end of the pandemic or something like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

Fine, sure, better, nothing else to going on. And it was, it was, it was, it was very darkly funny in some ways. It was like, like it's this beaten down kind of like Eastern European, like end of the Cold War, like there are some freedoms allowed. And it's like spy games, catnip to me, right? There's an armed checkpoint,

there's occasionally things that blow up. There's like, then the technology is like late Soviet technology where there's like a tele telephax teletype thing that you'll get commands on I love all I love all that I love that world it's also deliberately looks like that kind of video game graphic style from the 80s that you would see like Tetris or something else from that time. And what I mean, I knew a little bit about it, but I didn't know the main thing about it

when I went into it, which is that the game rules aren't explained to you and you're not supposed to obey the rules. Right. Which I don't think, I mean, there's things that surprise you in a game sometimes, where they're like, we need to make sure we don't tell everybody right off the bat

that they should never trust something that's this, you know, shaped this way or whatever. What am I, what am I hiding? Why am I being so vague? Cause I can't remember. But it's things like you don't, you are each day and part of this is like the creeping bureaucracy of this failed state is like each day you are given new orders and the new orders refer to like a new document you have to examine or a new criteria that someone has to meet

or this person, people coming from this country all must be searched because they have a trade war, you know, things like that. There's always new complications. And there's this rival country that's their bitter enemy. And then they actually don't have good relations with anybody. No. They have all their neighboring countries, like passports are like distrusted.

And they're also not good with their own people. And okay, so it's satirical. It's satirical. And like a great satire, I see, and I've seen this before in works of art where they're like criticizing something about a Soviet communist system where if you're like a level two thinker,

you're supposed to go, oh, is it not that much different from my own system of government? So, but that's what what allows it to get made. It's not like, it's not like, it's not like, your fucking capitalist system sucks. It's like, this fictional communist system sucks. What if we point out a bunch of things about it that are exactly like your capitalist police state

that you live in? And the coolest dystopian thing about it is that you're supposed to quote unquote win the game. You're supposed to win the unwinnable game by disobeying the orders basically, by disobeying what the game tells you to do. Yeah, so you can, there are 20 different endings in this game and yeah, one thing that happens

is that this organization, this rebel organization that they call, the government calls a terrorist organization, EZIC, is trying to recruit you to kind of work as a double agent to work for them. But you have a choice to follow them, or you could also sell them out and just be a good government worker, and that has its own end game.

But we're gonna say other. I was gonna say, no game I've ever played has brought out, okay, that's not entirely true. I guess depending on the way you look at it, maybe Maybe my playthrough of What's the what's the most recent big RPG? Maybe even remember it maybe Baldur's Gate 3 brought out a bad side of me. But immediately upon playing this game,

I immediately wanted to be bad. Like I want not break rules, but to follow rules. You wanted to be the police state. Immediately. You were like harsh, no. Maximum sentence. The thing that I've always, when you encounter like say a parking garage attendant,

right, and there's a working man. We're all working, it's a hard life out there, but when they assume like an enormous amount of authority over you, you get really frustrated with them because it's like, come on man, I don't know where my ticket is, can I just, and it's like no, no, no, no, and they get really angry and they get really authoritarian

about how you parked in the parking garage or whatever. And I've never understood that. This is a Caruso property. Yeah. This is a Westfield Caruso property. I've never understood the pull of that or the thrill of that until this game where I was like, get the fuck out of here

with your bad papers. Do not show these fucking papers to me. Go to the back of the line. That's the thing, because the way the game works is you're basically paying on a commission on how many people you can process. So you quickly, and this is part of why the design's so effective, it quickly engenders in you

a feeling of like you're frustrated with people who are taking up your time needlessly. So someone comes up to you, they don't have their passport, it passports like what are you doing here? You're rejected or you're just Simple foot and yeah the first simple funny guy He's like a simple funny guy who comes along like me I'm simple funny guy making a little bad joke, and then you're like get the fuck come on then you're like wait a minute I like to there's an element to there. It, it's obviously takes place on a mobile screen, but there's an element where I think you physically

have to palm over where the stamp is gonna go down. This kind of thing, it's pretty kind of fun. This is on all play, so I have this on Steam, but I did, I played through it again, but I also like, I played it on mobile, I see. But I also played it on iPad, This is the very iPad I'm holding. And I will say that like, did you play it on phone or iPad? Maybe it was on a phone.

Maybe the phone version came out a few years after the Steam version. It did come out later, but like it is, I will say that the, you know, the interface is intentionally like cluttered. Like they give you not a lot of screen space to work with for all of your documents. You have too many documents that you can fit on one screen at one time

You have to flip through these multiple notebooks You have to flip pages to look at like regulations and stuff It's super duper cumbersome So I found playing it on an iPad was even like more frantic of like I'm dragging shit around You have to drag the stamps over and stamp reject or you know accept or reject in the right spot And then there was a certain points you get different stamps that you have to It's it's just like it's so much business that you have to do and that adds to kind of like the the frenetic Aspect of it Matt. What is your your your history with this game? I so I

Was only playing through it for this episode. I had not played it previously I played Overton when we covered that and I had played his other game Mars after midnight, which is exclusive to the playdate and it's a very similar concept where Aliens are trying to come into a Like an AA meeting of sorts and then based on the ailments of the aliens coming to the door You can let them into the meeting or not But it's great like space aliens. Yeah, it's basically space aliens, yes. Yeah, like with multiple eyes, bunch of arms,

things like that. To an AA meeting. Yes, or it's different types of meetings. There's like a meeting for aliens that fart a lot. It's dumb, it's like a similar type of thing, but it's great. But with this, I became very quickly concerned with how fast I became very quickly concerned

with how fast I'm able to just follow orders. Yes, for sure. Like, okay, these are the rules, I guess sorry about it, like I don't know, and I would feel bad, I was like, oh, this person's ticket is only a couple days expired, is this okay? Or like, oh, they're actually, they're tickets for another day in the future, but it's not today.

You gotta have to come back on the day that your ticket says, sorry about that, and then just kind of go about my business. It felt, I will say, it felt really, really bad. It is, and so we'll have points where like, hey, those will happen fairly early on, we'll be like, hey, my wife is in line after me, please permit her,

the wife doesn't have the right documents, but you can separate the two of them. And she'll curse you. And things like that will happen. It makes you think of the morality of following orders in a very interesting way. And it made me think by contrast, it made me think all the way back to when I was a kid,

and we would play Contra on the Nintendo NES. And I mean, set in the late to mid eighties, Contra to me is now as an adult thinking back on it, it's like you're sent down to Central America by video game Ronald Reagan as a death squad. And you're like, you're a kid and you're like, sure, do I get a bandana, machine gun, got it! And it's like...

To me, the message of Contra is, at the heart of what you're fighting as a Contra fighter is an alien monster. That's what communism is. Obey orders, get it, fucking tag it up! Yeah, yeah. And then this, you're not, they don't need to tell you, it's not in the video game, you don't need to know that it was an elected government. But like with this, you know, we're talking about, it's like there's a day cycle,

so you go in to work every single day, but at the end of your work day, when you get your money, you have to make concessions about your own livelihood, whether it's you're gonna spend money on heat for your family, food for your family, or medicine for your sick family. Yep, you have to balance, and I think I played it twice. The first time I just crashed and burned

where everybody died, and I was obeying all the rules of the police station and my family died. Yeah. You can kill your whole family if you're not careful, because your pay gets docked if you make mistakes. But that ties into the moral calculus of, well, shit, I can let this guy's wife through, or I can let this woman's son through.

So you have to pace out how many times you break the rules over a certain period. Right, well for me, so far, I didn't get to finish the game, but so far, that was zero times, because I was like, the first time I broke the rules a little bit, it was a mistake, and you get like a ticket

that's like, hey, don't fucking do that again, all right man? And I was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I hate getting in trouble at work. It is, in some ways, it's not, it doesn't fulfill the reason that some people play video games, which is like, I want to escape from this world. Yeah.

I made a joke once, back maybe when in the days of Twitter where I was like, how come there's not a video game, because I was recently frustrated about this, Twitter where I was like how come there's not a video game because I was recently frustrated about this where I was like how come there's not a video game about that simulates like Navigating medical insurance rules and getting someone in and out of the hospital with a lot of appointments And then someone replied to me who would say they were simply like because we want to escape from this world So it doesn't accomplish that at all It's like it's like if anything it's like what are you not like about living in this world? And it makes it worse, but it's it's it was a very interesting thought puzzle. Yeah

More a moral thought puzzle. I think that's why some people like, you know who do have You know for thinking of this from a highfalutin standpoint like really like this game or again You know use this as an example of games as art because like it's fundamentally not fun Like it's not fun to play It's pretty interesting. The tasks are pretty miserable it's really it's really monotonous and then what you're what you're doing is like you're either servicing a You know this this totalitarian government or you're aiding this semi-duned rebel cause It's like there's not like a great outcome here

Heather just said what in a way that I know that if this was her real job, she would run that fucking booth like it was a Navy ship about to go to the bottom of the fucking ocean. Yeah, absolutely. Ah, you're both by the book. You're both Team Dystopia.

I love, okay, what was the name of the country again? It's Arstotzka. Arstotzka. Yeah. I was also after the name of the country again? It's a art Arstotzka Arstotzka Yeah, I was also after I like I was in the middle of playing a second time and I was thinking I was like Oh my god Slavoj Zizek is from Arstotzka The young the crumbling communist system of Arstotzka we were presented with this daily ethical crisis system of Arstotzka. We were presented with this daily ethical crisis, were we not, to stamp the paper store to call in the assassination of the family. Essentially, one can look at this from the

capitalist perspective as well. Wait, so you like, I mean, I guess there is an aspect of the gameplay loop is satisfying. Yeah. But I, so I think I get what you're saying to some level. It is fun to some degree. It's also extremely fun, and I know it's a game world, and I'm beginning to get concerned about my own tendencies when presented with a game world.

Because if at any point there is- Just now? I've known you for a while. None of the surprises are here. game world because if at any point there's now But like it's really fun and funny to me like to stamp it rejected and throw the Passport in their face. That is the thing you do throw it You just you throw it fucking flick it at their face. Sometimes they have remarks to where they're like fucking scum I wish that this was a VR game. Like I wish you had a cluttered desk. You wanna be there?

I wanna be there. Like a cluttered desk that looks like the Stasi Museum in old East Germany. And you have all the little devices and the stamps and you're in a helmet and you're doing the things so that you can can shuffle around the papers with your real hands and stamp with a real stamp and then also be very casually,

because you also have to hide things from things. So hiding, sliding a passport underneath the window would be so cool. Heather would go to video game conventions and cosplay as one of the like police station. But enthusiastically. Arshoska go fuck yourself. And if she was supposed to get her discretion

either give you a free download or like reject and she would always be like sorry, nothing free for you today. I do get what you're saying. I do think this would be an interesting VR experience. Like just like, you know, like the same way some of those like office simulators or whatever, just be like, okay, just this drudgery,

like actually being fully immersed in it. And then actually, yeah, having to be covert about things. I watched like all 20 endings. I watched just a super cut of all of them. And it's interesting, cause like some of them come about from just like doing really stupid things. So like, there's like, you know, agents from the government who come to investigate when this terrorist group

slash, you know, rebel group starts working with you. And you can just like hand them the secret decoder that they gave you. And the guy just like takes you away to prison and you can just like hand them the secret decoder that they gave you and the guy just like takes you away to prison and you get executed. I didn't think that happened, that's off. But I like that it just controls for like really, anytime it controls for like,

you mentioned Baldur's Gate 3, it's the best at this. It controls for some dumb thing that the player could choose to do. Like I just, I really like that. The other one is so this the the available avenues of protest always leave to an even stupider fatality. So the so you get like at a certain point, if you choose to give your your son your at your son's birthday in the timeline of the game.

And so you can spend a lot of money to get him a set of crayons that he wants for his birthday. And that results in the rest of the family dying. Exactly, because the rest of the family, it's like the cost of both rent and food, or the cost of both heat and food for a day. So it's like a huge expense by your wages. But if you choose to do that,

he draws you a very sweet portrait, like a crayon drawing, that you can hang in your wages. But if you choose to do that, he draws you a very sweet portrait, like a crayon drawing, that you can hang in your office. But then if you do that, then the officer comes and he will say, that's a violation, he will dock your pay for it. So you'll lose an additional $10 on top of that, or 10 credits for doing that.

But then after that, this is another ending I saw, if you put the picture back up and he comes back, then you get arrested and sent to hard labor. And then after that, this is another ending I saw, if you put the picture back up and he comes back, then you get arrested and sent to hard labor. God damn. God damn. It's really, I mean, it's great. It's a really fascinating experience.

I mean, once it starts to heighten to things like you have the scanner feature, and this again, James, what you're saying of talking about, it's so clearly about our own culture, so clearly about TSA security theater, because there's a scanner feature and this again changed what you're saying of like talking about it's it's so clearly about our own culture so clearly about TSA security theater because there is a scanner feature where you get a nude picture of whoever the person is who's applying for entry yeah that was fascinating because that's been a real controversy in actual America right when one remove When one removes the layers of flat tire, let's be honest, we're talking about the southern boy. It's a real controversy where they had these perverts at the Department of Homeland Security were like,

well, most of us have promised not to masturbate to the pictures. That was basically what they said in the news. So you get this, but part of that is that you get this photo and sometimes someone will be like smuggling drugs or smuggling a gun or something like that. So again, like if you're role playing as the guard, you can talk yourself into like, well, this is a thing we need for the security of the great nation of Arstotzka, you know? And it's like, but it is the sort of thing of like, you're just seeing how dehumanizing this whole experience is for all parties.

Right. It makes me I've this has made me consider while while I was playing it, it occurred to me. Now, of course, you're obviously going like, well, is this game banned in China or Russia? But then I was like, well, okay, with our with the way with the way this particular matrix is programmed in this country, is it on a list of banned games for Department of Homeland Security workers? Or is it like, if someone downloads on this phone, it's considered a level one flag. And they'll have to be questioned about it.

How did you play this game, officer? I followed the rules. I used the body scanner judiciously. We're gonna dock you 10 credits. And if we see this on the next audit, you will be taking away life in prison. You also at a certain point, so like this rebel faction or sometimes just refugees running across the border

start to become a problem. So you get at a certain point, you get a gun. And then if you successfully gun someone down, you get a pay bonus. That's right. They arm you at some point. They arm you, yeah. Because sometimes there's like a motorcycle guy

that just tries to break through at a fast speed. And also I think there's some guys that are like, there's some people trying to penetrate the checkpoint that are just pure bad guys with nothing redeeming about them. And then there's some guys, excuse me. There's some people trying to penetrate the checkpoint that are just pure bad guys with nothing redeeming about them And then there's some guys excuse me. There's some guys that are like no I'm trying to bring food to poor people Yeah, there is it depends

I mean It's one of those things where it like kind of depends on how you're all playing it because there is the the rebel org that is Trying to blow up the checkpoints so that they can like let a bunch of people in and so they they can kind of topple the Government so there's that but then yeah, there are also people who are just like trying to cause mayhem and then yeah, they're just people just trying to cross. Again, these events are closely mimicked in what happened in the Yugoslavia of my youth.

I feel like I have to make a recommendation for you, James. If you enjoyed this type of game, I kind of feel like we gotta get James playing Disco Elysium. Oh my god. It has like- I've heard, I want to, as soon as I can clean up the rattle in my controllers,

I saw a preview of it somewhere. It's like on, it's like, I have an old Xbox, it'll work on that, right? You should probably be able to play it, do you have like a Macbook or something? Oh, it's like a... You can play it on Steam. You can play it on any...

On an iPad or something. Yeah. Oh, I've heard about it and I saw like a preview of it and it looked cool. It seems like it just might be right up your alley. It would be your favorite game of all time. Yeah, you'd love it. I've heard this. Okay, all right, okay.

So this isn't gonna be my winter time. Yeah, yeah. This is after I'm done birthing this horrible baby of my stand up special. After this demonic creature is brought into the world. I'll take a little vacation and play disco. I'm pretty sure you will text me in all caps multiple times while playing the game. Right. I've heard I've heard this and I'm glad to hear it from you guys that I want to play it too. You enjoyed it all, I guess? All of us, all of us. It's one of my favorite games. But yeah, it's such a high level of writing,

but a big part of it is like you can role play the game and I played through it a few times and I role played it as a communist because your politics is a big part of it. Right, oh fun. I played it as a fascist, but by far the most unnerving was playing as like a down the line neoliberal. It was just like, this is so upsetting,

the kind of person I am. Ew, gross! They program it that way? Yeah, yeah. Like a guy with the pale blue globe emoji in his social media. Or one of the gross Pete Buttigieg guys. Yeah, you're gonna love it.

Hello, Think Tank. Yes. Ooh, a good guy. I'm so curious. No, you love it. Okay, Sam, you have played Papers, Please. Briefly, yeah. What was your experience and when did you mess around with it? This was three months ago. Oh, okay, so So very recently it's cuz a friend introduced it to me Yeah After we had done like a 12-hour set build at his warehouse in Lancaster And he's usually like a first-person shooter like battle battlefield kind of super intense

Yeah war game style and so it was like a long day and he was like I'm super addicted to this game and the first glance I was like this looks like a Outs browser game that you would play like kitten cannon on or something. Sure So yeah, he's like it's super exciting. I'm waiting for like the moment We're doing like a doom first-person shooter Scene is gonna happen and I was just confused that it was just all you're doing is stamp You know, he explained it to me and I understand that the narrative was super interesting You can pivot to 20 different endings

Yeah, so I played it for like an hour to know say I don't understand after 12 hours of building all day It feels like a job when you're coming home Experience and I was relating I was thinking about when you're saying that earlier about it. It's just like why it feels like work Way to engage the necessary nature of the steam. It is a way to engage the necessary nature of the steam. It is a way to engage the necessary nature of the steam. It is a way to engage the necessary nature of the steam. It is a way to engage the necessary nature of the steam.

My god, Eric, I claim. Any other thoughts on that? I mean, it's like, it's the thing, it's like kind of, it's both straightforward to talk about, but also too like unwieldy to really talk about. I think it is a game that if you're listening to this and you haven't experienced it, I think it's worth it. It plays quite well on mobile devices.

It obviously goes on sale on Steam and other platforms all the time. I do think it's a game that it's worth playing through all the way, but also I think you could mess around with this for an hour and get what it's doing, get what it's trying to say. So I would encourage if anyone listening this, I imagine a lot of you have played this, but if you haven't played this, I'd check it out because it is a classic for a reason. And I'm curious, what was the, can you, do you remember the outcome, Heather, when you played it from like the bad, like the harsh, I'm going to follow the rules perspective? I don't remember the ending,

but it was just like, thank you. It is, yes. It's just like, it's not. They were like, good job. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. No, because that's how I played it too, and it's like, you do this whole thing.

Was your family healthy? Uh, I think one, no. Because you can't get enough money, right? Yeah, somebody. No matter what, you can't get enough money? Yeah, somebody died. I don't remember who died or. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no.

I mean, conceptually you're miserable, but you have been told good job. It's like the equivalent of getting a little gold sticker on your shirt. It's basically just like showing how thankless this task is if executed properly, because basically what they say is, yeah, I'll see you back at work on January 1st. It's like, that's it.

You don't get any sort of combination. I know both times I played it, there were like family members that died. And maybe when I was more ethical, more of the family members died. Yeah, well, because it's the sort of thing of like, again, that the poverty, you know, level finances, the choosing of between wants and needs, like, if you start to once you start to figure out that like, hey, I actually don't need to feed my

family unless they're hungry, I don't need to, you know, turn on the heat unless they're cold. I don't need to give them medicine unless they're beyond sick but very sick, which means they're near death. So like, you start making all these compromises and you realize the life you are giving to your family you're supposed to provide for is completely miserable. But it's the only way you can survive. It reminds me of life in the late George H.W. Bush administration in the United States when I was in the early 90s as a kid. And it also reminds me of the late George W. Bush administration in the mid-2000s when

I was living in the United States of America. It's grim stuff, but I don't know. It's so compelling and so effective. I told Mary about this game because she was like, what are you guys playing this week? And I was like, oh, it's this. And but I don't know. It's so compelling and so effective. I told Mary about this game, because she was like, what are you guys playing this week? And I was like, oh, it's this. And I explained it to her and she was like, oh my God, that sounds like the best game of all time.

And I was like, yeah, it's pretty good. She's like, oh, oh. And you have to like make decisions about like your family versus strangers. And I'm like, yeah. And she's like, oh, I love that kind of awful. Oh, that's great. I can't wait to show it to her. It's someone you share your home with.

Hey, I got a segment here. It's time for Indie Game or Indie Game. I'll explain. Papers, Please is a classic indie game. I will give you a title, and you tell me if it's an indie game, an independently developed video game, or an indie game, the subtitle for an Indiana Jones video game. So you can say, Independent or Indiana.

Does everyone understand? Are these real Indiana Jones video games? These are are all real every single one of these is real Okay, and everyone can guess for for each one first up the first couple are gimmies first up the great circle. Oh Matt Indiana either Indiana James okay. I gotta do some variety here, so I'm gonna just see what happens. This is an independent game. No, I'm sorry. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

is an upcoming action adventure game published by Bethesda. Fuck you. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Indy Indy Indiana James I'm sorry return to the overden is an independent shipwreck Also by Lucas Pope Lucas Pope's one of his other games All right next up the fate of Atlantis Heather says, Indiana I Think I'm gonna say Indiana as well. I'm gonna say Let's keep this trend up. Let me you you know, I'm not opposed to a pose

that's duopoly. Well, you know, you should never relegate yourself. You're a third party option, right? What was the subtitle? What was the subtitle again? The Fate of Atlantis. The Fate of Atlantis, well, I think my father's fate was much the Fate of Atlantis? The fate of Atlantis, well I think my father's fate was much the fate of Atlantis.

I think that's an independent game. Fate of Atlantis, no, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a 1992 point and click adventure game by LucasArts. Alright, Matt has three, Heather has three, James you have to get on the board. So I've got three also? Zero. Next up, Call of the Sea.

Okay. That's, they wouldn't, surely they wouldn't have both Atlantis and Call of the Sea. I'm calling that an independent game. I'm also calling it an independent game. Independent. You are all correct. Call of the Sea is an independent first-person adventure game released in 2020 by developer Out of the Blue. The system is set up so that if you go along with the two-part system, you're rewarded.

Much like a flesh-and-meat space version of Paper's Plane. Please! What amazes me about RFK Jr. is first off, he was like, he like, there was never been a more wide open lane before Biden dropped out for a third party candidate. And he's just such a nasty freak. He can't even take advantage of it. But also, he has two depraved animal stories. Well, let's parse these separately here for a second. You know? You've got to separate, as I like to say, the fur from the meat here. What do you, I don't know what the problem is about having, you know, a third party candidate

who's, you know, got the name Kennedy. And then, oh, you think, oh, just like Bobby, my father. And then at every point that the plot progresses, you orient further and further to the right. To the point where by the end of the campaign, the only thing I was right about was that my father and my uncle were killed by a government conspiracy, which was simply the credit card for me to get in the door

Now as far as the bear and the dog I mean come on you get hungry What was the whale thing chainsawed off a whale's head and strapped it to the roof of his car. Are we not counting a worm as an animal? Well he received- Oh he's got the brain worm. He received worm. Yeah, that's true. He didn't do something to a worm. Worm happened to him.

Yeah, worm. Well, of the part that's missing from the mainstream coverage, I gave a speech about this but CNN cut away and that is that it was Earthworm Jim. I had Earthworm Jim stuck in my head for 35 years. And every once in a while I just hear the ray gun and it goes cool! Alright, next up. Independent or Indiana, the case of the Golden Idol. All right, Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones. That's Indie, baby.

Matt is correct. This is an independent puzzle game from 2022 developed by Color Gray Games. Next up. I think they owe some money to Indiana. Here's a Golden Idol. Great game. The's a gold night. Oh, great game. The Forgotten City. Oh, shit. Independent game. Indiana Jones. I'm going to say independent on this one.

It is an independent game, a first person time loop adventure game released in 2021 by Modern Storyteller. James has two, Heather has four, Matt has six. Perfect. So far. Next up, the Staff of Kings. Yeah, that's Indiana Jones. I'm gonna say Indiana Jones. I'm gonna say independent game.

Or it's a pornography. Indiana Jones and The Staff of Kings is a 2009 action adventure game published by LucasArts and the AV Club gave it an F. Pretty harsh. Alright, next up, Crypt of the Necro Dancer. Independent game. Yeah, independent. Crypt of the Necro Dancer? Yeah, that's an independent game. You are all correct. That one is an independent game.

This was a rogue-like rhythm game from 2015 by Brace Yourself. Alright, next up, Instruments of Chaos. That's an independent game. Indiana Jones and the Instruments of Chaos. Instruments of Chaos, independent game. I'm gonna just get, I'm gonna say Indiana Jones. I think that's too, it's too cyberpunk for Indiana Jones. Instruments of Chaos, starring young Indiana Jones is a

1994 Sega Genesis game published by Sega you mean the River Phoenix young I think it's the one from the TV show Remember they had a young Indiana Jones TV show the syndicated show Yeah, Matt tried to throw a point there and still ended up hitting a bullseye. I didn't try to throw a point I just wanted to see, I felt like, I felt like I knew. Matt's pitching a perfect game, let's take the final one. Should I play the lottery after this? Whenever you have any luck, always start playing the lottery.

Always. Alright, finally, his desktop adventures Now I have a question Yeah If it's not Indiana Jones could it be the subtitle of another franchise or it's always the full title of an independent game? It's a great question. This is not a this is not a trick question. This is one or the other It's okay. So it's it's either an independent. It's a separate title or of an Indiana Jones. Either Independent Game or an Indiana Jones subtitle. So wait a minute, you can't have a standalone game called His Desktop Adventures, whose?

I gotta say it's Indiana Jones. I'm going Independent Game. I'm going Independent Game, and I'm gonna also say that it's possibly a hentai game Indiana Jones and his desktop adventures is a 1996 windows procedurally generated venture game from Lucas arts Trent Ward of GameStop of GameSpot reviewed the game as having low quality visuals and audio But possibly being useful for passing time quite an endorsement Matt wins well played Matt. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Hey, that's this week's Get Played. Thanks to Sam Rogich.

For guest engineering. Sam, anything you want to plug? My band Guk is playing the Observatory in October. Wow, congrats. Yeah, it's gonna be a good show. The fifth Observatory? No, if it's on fire, yes, we'll play that. I watched a Guk set on YouTube. Yeah, it's really, really an experience Thanks, there's rad stuff our producers Rochelle Chen ranch yard underscore underscore sardar music is by Ben Prunty Ben Prunty music.com Our art is by Duck Brigade design Duck Brigade comm and hey check out our patreon patreon.com Slash get played where you find our entire pre head gum back catalog plus ad free main feed episodes and our patreon exclusive show Get animated Matt. We're watching Violet Ever. Matt, we're watching Violet Evergarden.

We're watching Violet Evergarden, and if I'm correct, these are the last ones of the run. Wow. And maybe we'll be watching something different next week. It's gonna be possibly up to you guys. Or maybe we'll roll right into the movies. Find that over at patreon.com slash get played. James Adomian, Path of Most Resistance.

Congrats on the special. Tell everyone about it, how they can watch it, and anything else you wanna plug. It's Path of Most Resistance. Congrats on the special. Tell everyone about it, how they can watch it, and anything else you wanna plug. It's Path of Most Resistance. It's the culmination of a 20-year comedy career that's probably about to wrap up. I'm really exhausted at this point. Finally, I got a comedy special,

and by that, I mean I just decided to do it myself, because no one was ever gonna Give me one so I fucking did it and I did it with the right people. I did it with 800 pound gorilla They know exactly what they did a great job really great job with a low budget effort that looks like a lot more money went into it and I'm very proud of it. We filmed it almost a year ago, but it still feels crisp and It's available now. It's available.

It's, you can pay what you want on 800poundgorillamedia.com and you can stream it on YouTube as of September 19th. That's the big release. And I'm very, I'm very, so you could download it, rent it, however you wanna do it. It's Path of Most Resistance. And it is my life's work and swan song. And it, it's the work and swan song.

And it's the culmination and the end. And I'm done after this. It's, no, I've, I've, I've, I've, I had a lot of fun doing it. And I think it makes me laugh still to this day. So I can't wait to watch it. You're one of the funniest people in the world. We've all been fans of yours for a long time.

Really awesome to have you on the show. Likewise, on pure comedy terms. This is my favorite podcast been fans of yours for a long time really awesome to have you on the show. Likewise, on pure comedy terms this is my favorite podcast I've done in a long time. God bless you. Thank you it's not just the video I mean the video games are just merely a you know excuse for them to be as funny as they are. Heather doesn't even play. She just hangs with everybody. She just all, she improvises, she just hangs with everybody. I would, I would honestly, I would not be shocked if that was just like a ruse Heather had been doing for the 20 years I've known her. I've been pretending to be a gamer and just lying her way through it.

That's true. I know it's not true. That's the fine, that's when you almost saw her flashing red and white. And she just simply goes, it's not true. That was a HeadGum podcast. Hi, guys. I'm Ago Wodim. Check out my new show, Thanks Dad, now on HeadGum. I was raised by a single mom, and I don't have a relationship

with my dad. And spoiler, I don't think I'm ever going to have one with him because he's he's dead but but I promise you that's okay because on my new podcast I sit down with father figures like Bill Burr, Kenan Thompson, Adam Pally, Hassan Minaj, Tim Meadows, Andy Cohen and many many more I get to ask them the questions I've always wanted to ask a dad like how do I know if the guy I'm dating is the one? Or how can I change the oil in my car? Can you even show me that? Or better yet, can you help me perfect my

jump shot? I am so bad at basketball. Oh my gosh. Maybe I'm bad at basketball because I don't have a dad. But subscribe to Thanks Dad on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.