Get Played - The Case Of The Golden Idol with Eva Anderson

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

Eva Anderson joins Matt and Nick to discuss the adventure and puzzle video game The Case of the Golden Idol. They talk about the unique approach to puzzles, the character design, interesting characters and more. They also talk about Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Animal Well, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, Alan Wake 2 and Death Must Die.SPOILER COUNTRY for The Case of the Golden Idol is from 01:18:18 - 1:20:55Follow 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.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. Hey Matt, since we're doing this case of the Golden Idol episode today, and the game's all about detectives and solving puzzles and stuff, I thought we could try to come up with a really cool puzzle that we could do as an intro. Hell yeah. That's a great idea. It's like a fun audio thing, and then maybe the listeners can kind of like, oh, I figured out it was like, I've got the solution.

I mean, I don't have it yet, but we'll figure it out. No, that's good. Now that there's two of us here, we can make short work of this. No problem. We're probably two of the smartest guys. Yeah. No problem. We're like probably two of the smartest guys. Yeah Okay, what about they would be in the style of the Golden Idol puzzles right so it'd be like like blank and blank Oh, yeah, right. That's a good way to do it right because it's like you've got get words you get to fill in Yeah, so like they had the listener sort of has to fill in words somehow

And this will just work on their phone. Yeah, it'll just work They had to fill in word so they'll be like blank and blank and like those blanks can be like our names right like that's good That's really good. Yeah, cuz then we'll be part of it. Yeah, then we're in the puzzle Yeah, which is pretty cool, and then what if it's like something about? What we're doing yeah I think I think I got something okay. It's like We have to come up with a solution before we come up with a solution But I think I think I'll just like I'll just pitch it to you. It's like like all right Matt time to record the podcast

and Then be like oh blank farted okay wait. That's really good Yeah, and then like they'll have to figure out who farted and then I'll be like Or you know you said hey excited to do the podcast and then I'm like oh my god. Did somebody just Yeah, and I'm like it smells real bad in here. Yeah, it smells like somebody farted Yeah, but who who was the whoever could it be who farted and then also I have a ring like that's another thing like Yeah, you can search our stuff

and like there's like maybe stuff that could like imply who did the fart, right? So like maybe there's like a receipt from like Taco Bell in one of our pockets. Oh, that's good. One of us got a Taco Bell receipt. Well, let's face it. It's like in both our pockets.

We both have the Taco Bell receipt, but then you have to look at the receipt and you'll be like, oh, Nick got the bean burrito. It might've been him. Yeah, but then you look at my receipt and it's also that Matt also got a bean burrito. Yeah, so that doesn't really any help. No, it doesn't help really.

And so then it's like, okay, well, like who did it? And then maybe it also like, it stinks like really bad. It smells real bad. And then like, you're like, hey Nick, your cheeks stinks like really bad. It smells real bad and then like you're like, hey Nick, your cheeks are like really red and then the listener might be like, oh Nick's embarrassed, he fucking farted, that's clearly him. Yeah, yeah.

But then I'm like, yeah, I'm having trouble breathing, it smells so bad in here. You're like okay, so he's not embarrassed. Oh, so his face is red, it's not cause he's embarrassed. Yeah, and then maybe I'm sort of like, I'm posed sort of like where I'm like it looks like I'm holding my ass Yeah, right right right. It's like oh god like Matt It's like Matt farted and maybe he shit a little maybe his pants But actually you look at his pockets, and he doesn't have his wallet, so he's like can I'm concerned

I don't have my wallet, but then we still actually don't know who did the fart. Yeah, that's for you to solve, honestly. That's for you, the listener, to figure out. Who did it? All right, this is really good. Should we do it? Yeah, let's just do one. Hey Matt, really excited to record the podcast. Oh man, I got this Taco Bell receipt right here.

Oh man, that's so crazy that I'm excited to do the podcast too. Hey, you also have a Taco Bell receipt. I also went to Taco Bell. Oh no, where's so crazy that I'm excited to do the podcast too. Hey, you also have a Taco Bell receipt I also went to Taco Bell. Oh, no, where's my wallet? Oh man. I wish I hadn't farted just now I farted so bad I shit my pants. We both farted. We both did it. Gotcha We disguise ourselves as dark hand initiates and Spontaneously combust as we discuss narrative puzzle detective game the case of the Golden Idol, 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 Nick Weiger, along with Matt Appadaka. Hello everyone. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Get Played, where Heather Ann Campbell is out again. She will be back next week. She is in Japan. Did she get up to anything? I don't know if she's done anything of interest her whole time there. We'll find out if she did anything notable when she gets back.

From what I understand, it's been, and I quote, the most bored she's ever been. We'll catch up on all that next time. But right now we have a wonderful guest today, writer for the upcoming Interior Chinatown on Hulu and fan of Leisure Suit Larry, Eva Anderson is back. Hi Eva. Yay, I'm so happy to be back. Yay, thanks so much for making time for us as always.

I can't remember if the last time we had you on the show was before or after Baldur's Gate 3, but I know you and I have talked off-pod a lot about it. I wanted to bring this up. Okay, yeah. So remember when Nick did his impassioned play for people to just try Baldur's Gate 3? Yeah, it worked.

Yeah. It worked. I was like, I had downloaded it, I had tried it, I couldn't get into it, and then I listened to that episode and was like, oh God, Nexus, I have to try Baldur's Gate. So anyway, I have played it through all the way, two full playthroughs, I'm like almost done with the third playthrough, but I bounced at the,

so I did a regular playthrough, one where I romanced a star in, and then, cause I was just like, I have to get back in there and have a full relationship with this character. And then I did that, and then I did a, I have a dirge run where I'm also romancing Astarion, and then I got to like, literally,

I'm right before the end game, and I was like, I don't wanna do that end game again. It is the, without getting too far into spoiler country, the end game is prolonged, and I feel like they land the plane. So like that's the thing, it's my favorite game. They land the plane, it's a very satisfying post game, but the actual ending to me is like one of the

least fun parts of the game. I totally agree. It just kinda drags a lot. I had already just done it twice. But I like, it's the dark urge run is also full of like a new material. Yeah. All these, there's a new character.

I don't know if you've played it or like played on any of it. I played a chunk of the dark urge and I thought I was gonna play through all of it. And then I bounced off of it in the, in, you know, deep into the first first act but like I did really like it so the dark urge for for our listeners who are not as familiar with BG3 or maybe haven't heard this discussion it is one of the characters you can choose to play as and what it basically is is you

have this different sort of tortured interior psyche which is governing some of your decisions and gives you completely different text and completely different dialogue options in certain situations. So it's like kind of like you're a character with some sort of dark mysterious twisted past and you're kind of unpacking this. It's basically like a completely different kind of way to play the game. And it's really amazing that they packed it in there. Yeah, it's also crazy, because like the first run I did, just because I was bad at the game,

I did an evil run without meaning to. I just accidentally murdered a bunch of important characters and then got in trouble. The Heather and Campbell playthrough. Oh yeah, I did a Heather, I did a Heather. And then, but I wasn't trying to be like a scamp, I just thought I am bad at games. And then the second one, I was just like,

okay, I'll just do the nice stuff or whatever. And yeah, but it was like the first game, the first time I played it on PS5, second time I had to get a card and play it on my Steam Deck, because I could not have my husband like see me play it through a Steam Deck. Because it's bad enough to play like a-hour game where somebody is walking through the house going, what, are you still playing this?

And when I started over, I was like, I have to conceal this in some way. By the way, Baldur's Gate 3, very good on Steam Deck. Fantastic on Steam Deck. So good. So that was my second run. And then third run, I was just like, okay, I can't. I was like on the reddits. I was on the reddits and then I got onto the weird reddits

where there's like horny Baldur's Gate reddits. And I was like- Where I'm from, that's reddit. But it was just like, I can't do this. I have to stop playing. And I had to just be like, I have to, I almost uninstalled it from everything. I got like into a real head space.

I was like, either I'm gonna be one of these people on these subreddits who plays it 75 times. Cause I really, it's good. It's so good. Or I need to just like move on with my life and do something else. And so. What was the experience like having, and we've talked about the soft pot a little bit,

but the experience like you play the evil run inadvertently. The second run, you're going through, you're trying to do the valorous path. Yeah. And so what you end up with is a lot of characters who you either killed or were complicit in killing in Act One are now present through the whole game. What was that experience like?

Well, there's just like entire chunks of the story I just had never experienced because I did, I murdered the entire Grove. I murdered the Emerald Grove like right away. And I also killed Karlaak to get a sword that wasn't good. And so Will never joined me because I killed him. And then Halston, who I'd already freed, showed up and I had to kill Halston in the camp

and I just stole his underwear and I made someone else wear it. And then, but I just like, all those storylines, so like act two, like Halston's very important. He wasn't around. All those story I just like, all those storylines, so like act two, like Halston's very important, he wasn't around. All those storylines just like gone. Like you never, you have like someone who fixes mechanical hearts who you can't,

well, you killed him. So also he's not effective, but also he's dead because I killed him. I need to have no one to fix anyway, because Karlak is who he's, yeah. I beheaded her and held her head up to the camera. It was so crazy. So the whole second part I was like,

oh, there's like, there's a dread, well, these are all spoilers, but there's a whole Will thing. And like, great. Like I had Will's dad as a character and Will, I just never, I didn't know Will at all. It was just crazy. So yeah, it was nuts.

So yeah, I unlocked all that content. And then, oh, I also, while I was doing the dark urge run, I also just started doing like, what's it called? Like just a character run where I was a Starian. This is when I was like, I have to stop. An orgy character run. And in that one, I was like, I don't like Will. So I just like let Will get killed

and then I just had his body brought back to the camp, and then I took all of his clothes off, so he was just like a naked dead body in the middle of the camp, and it'll stay there, he'll be in the middle of the camp and stay in front of his tent for four full days before they just take him away, they're like, this is too weird.

Yeah, yeah, this is serial killer adjacent. Also, you can have all the characters, I don't know if anyone has done this, take him away they're like this is too weird yeah this is serial killer adjacent you can have all the characters I don't know if anyone has done this but you can make all the characters in the camp be naked at camp all the time yeah I didn't know you could do that I had a game that didn't have everybody's favorite character in it Lazelle yes I didn't act one in my playthrough and I've thought about starting a new a new run Just to see what she's all about cuz I like I just I simply don't know she I have no idea He's all rocks. Did you do the whole crash without Liz Lizzle?

No, she died like like honestly very shortly after that and there's a I can't even remember what it's called. I mean a dragon kills her like in the very beginning basically she's like tied up she's captured and They either killed her or like a dragon comes and like killed her or something like that But it was like it was very quick. It was very quick, and I was just like I didn't even know it to I Didn't know she mattered I didn't I didn't know I hadn't played a game like that before to know That the characters that you meet in the game for the most part are pretty important. Yeah Yeah, I mean there there are there are certainly the RPGs that have done that had that kind of optionality

Yeah, but with with this game in particular first off. I think it's like the like the biggest game that has had this kind of You know that yeah this this kind of, you know, this degree of like choice with major characters. But also it's just like, I think because of its size and scope, like I think that's biggest meaning most popular, most culturally, you know, aware. I think that because of its size and scope, it's like really staggering how much you can miss, to your point. Because like if Leizel's gone,

Leizel has so much story. Like she can be a romance option, but beyond that, it's just like, she has a story that carries into the third act and into the post game. And she's such a major like consequential character, like, you know, and then the fact that she could just be gone from your playthrough, depending on what you do, it's wild.

But that the game also is so well written that it still gives you a full narrative that feels satisfying. That was the craziest thing for me. That it counts for that too, yeah. Yeah, cause I was like, when I told you, I was like, I just killed all the tieflings, including all the children.

Yes. And Nick was like, those are huge characters in action. And I was like, I didn't, well, okay. Like, great. But it was just like, you're was like, I didn't, okay. Great, but it was a psyche, I was like, that's crazy, you're not gonna have any of that narrative. I was like, yeah, I'm not. I wonder if there's a way to play the game

where it's completely ruined. Something like, they've accounted for so much. They must have accounted for every possible way to play, but I guess if you killed all the characters, could you break the game, I wonder. This is a thing I got into, cause you were talking about getting into like deep subreddits, but like, I, you know,

YouTube at a certain point was feeding me so many Baldur's Gate 3 videos in my algorithm that you get to things like- It's embarrassing. It was in my entire sidebar for a while, it's like I also can't have my husband walk by while I'm on YouTube now. Because it's clear what else I watch all day.

But it's always like, it's like every contingency seems to be accounted for with unique dialogue to the point of like, what happens if you take this object before you meet this character and throw it into the abyss? You know what I mean? Like what happens there? What happens if you agree to do this with this guy? I'm talking very generally

because I don't want to spoil things, which I probably should be less precious about. But like, what happens if you form this pact with this character and then you take this step without doing this and there's unique dialogue that covers it. It's like, this is kind of, it's just amazing how well realized this is.

In a way it was like for me, especially kind of coming out of the strike, I was like, oh, this is the most anti-AI piece of art I can think of because this can only be created by humans. Like a computer would not understand what the human mind would come up with and come up with like contingencies and also understand what the human mind would come up with and come up with contingencies and also understand the emotional attachments

you'd have to specific characters and the kind of relationships and what human growth feels like instead of just what it looks like when you chew up a bunch of stuff and spit it out. I was like, this game was written by people. And the fact that knowing that one person wrote a Starion's dialogue

period for the, or they wrote his entire story just like one writer. It's like, it's yeah, of course, like this took years and years of one, this just this one guy's storyline took years of just one person's brain, just putting it together, putting it together. It's a fascinating workflow that it was that like, you know, the division of labor was like, hey, yeah You're gonna oversee this individual characters arcs creatively and they found it all a way to for it all to mesh together and feel totally It's really really cool like a nine Ten part doc about how they made this damn thing. Yeah, I just injected into my brain, right? I would rather be watching that then weird like just injected into my brain. I would rather be watching that than weird,

like Estonian videos of like what happens when you make like all eight choices in one dialogue tree. I was like, that's what I was like, I gotta stop, I gotta do something else. Yeah. It's a real miracle that it exists, it's unbelievable. It's really rad. Yeah, you want like the Psych odyssey like that the dip

I wonder if they have any footage from development, but it would just be cool just to see a bunch of interviews Okay, I want to talk about something else the opposite end of the spectrum You also played one of the worst games of recent in recent memory Gollum. Oh, yeah I bought Gollum full price on launch day. Because I just wanted to get on Instagram and be filming, to be showing people the Gollum. I don't know, I'd read about it and it sounded so funny. Oh man, that little thing that comes up that says, Gollum won the argument.

Have you seen that? No. Yes, yeah. Oh, it's like it become a meme where like, Gollum will fight with Smeagol and then a little graphic will come up that says, Gollum won the argument with his face. And you can like screen cap that and just send it to people if you win an argument.

Oh, I mean, I got like stuck just floating so much in that game. It was like, it's already really hard to play, but also the game is so broken that you're just like, floating in space all the time. You can't move. Oh man, it's terrible. And it's just, it's like, just doing little tasks.

Like you just do like, you're just doing work the whole time. They're like, go down to, yeah. It's actually this? Yes, that's what it comes up. I looked it up and I pull it up on, yeah. Yeah, that's, yes. It's actually this? Yes, that's what comes up. I look it up and I pull it up on my phone, it sucks that it looks like this.

Gollum won the argument. What? That's what comes up on your screen when Gollum wins an argument. That's so funny. What platform did you play it on? PS5. Okay.

It was one of the first games I got on PS5. That's so funny. Cause yeah, the thing I remember from working in development is that you have to get, like if you're going to launch a game that's on a, you know, a Nintendo or Sony or Microsoft, a closed platform that's on, you know, that's on Xbox or PlayStation or a, you know, a Wii U, whatever the hardware was at the time was in the industry. It has to be like certified, like the pub, they have certified. The first party has to sign off on it. And so a game that is completely broken like that,

Cyberpunk is one thing because that game was so high profile and had so much money and so many pre-orders behind it that you kind of understand how at launch they were able to evade some of these things. I guess Gollum is maybe a big enough license where they were able to do it, but it's just like, you should not be able

to ship a game that's completely broken that runs on a closed platform. That to me is baffling, like how they even signed off on it. I mean, can they do update? Does that mean closed platforms can do updates? They can, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you can still, I mean, you can still patch these games on release.

So maybe they were just like, hey, there's gonna be a day one patch that's gonna resolve all this stuff. A year and a half from release, we're gonna be singing a different tune. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I was like, Golem's gonna be a day one patch that's gonna resolve all this stuff. A year and a half from release, we're gonna be singing a different tune. I know, I was like, Gollum's gonna be good. If I reopen Gollum right now, it would just be like, there's a huge patch.

There's a DLC where I'm like, this is so good. It's like No Man's Sky, it's like, man, they fucking fixed it. It's like, time is up. They brought Circus in and he did it all again. It really, that was, yeah, that was really fun, but I really didn't make it past the mid-game point. I was like, this is a really funny joke until I'm really, it's my life.

Yeah. It's such a PS2 era concept. Let's give Gollum an action platformer. They're giving Gollum a movie. Maybe they jumped the gun on this. Maybe they're a little too early. That might be a good Gollum game on the horizon I want to ask about an immersive that you were at that

You're one of the creative forces behind that I attended with a podcast of rides Mike Carlson I had really enjoyed it's called the shape of the night. This was I It wasn't earlier this year was it November? Right after Thanksgiving so yeah, it was like right after Thanksgiving. So yeah, November, December. It was a really cool experience. And I wanted to ask what it's like working with that team,

what that creative process is, because it is something that's interactive. Like we're walking through this exhibition and you're going to a bunch of different installations. There are actors that are, some of whom are interacting with each other, sometimes they're interacting with you, and what that process is,

how you craft something like that. Like, I don't know, I guess I'm just curious, because it seems akin to game development. It will, something that's interesting about that team, there's seven of us, there's like writers, producers, design team, but then we also have this experience designer, puzzle, escape room designer named Tommy Haunton,

who is the creator of one of the top escape rooms in the world, Stash House, which is in Koreatown in Los Angeles. And we've been working together for several years on these various experiences. And what's really fun about Tommy is that, we all create the narrative together. It's almost like a branching narrative script

like you would have for a video game. Because people are gonna choose different things to do. But then Tommy comes in and creates this like crazy puzzle track at some point. And the puzzles interact with all the other pieces of the show. So the way it worked in Shape of the Night was that there was like this weird... We created, there's these multiple rooms,

and the whole show was about dreams and nightmares. So the rooms, there was like a nightmare room and a dream room and different sort of installations and little mini shows and characters that were roaming. But once we figured out what all this stuff was, Tommy came in and created this like, all these puzzles and then he was like the minister. But once we figured out what all the stuff was, Tommy came in and created this like all these puzzles and then he was like the minister.

It is kind of like a character from Brazil, like from the Terry Gilliam movie, who had three faces and just would only respond with like stamps if you brought him a piece of paper. He would like he would give you like a test and it was the puzzles in the in the show. And if you could bring him back stuff, you could get hints from him, but you would have to ask him, we had to write down questions

and he could only respond with these stamps that he had. So he could ask him yes or no questions and he would go like, why N? But people like just spent the entire multiple hours just trying to deal with Tommy's character because they loved him so much. And yeah, but they were all built into the pre-existing structures of the rooms and stuff, too.

So it's about, yeah, just the idea of incorporating puzzles so you don't just feel like you're just being handed puzzles you have to do, but you're like, oh, this room, I thought I saw it this way, but now I'm seeing it another way, and it's this other thing. It's just a really brilliant way of being able to just activate another part of an experience.

Yeah, it's it's I mean, like, you know, I don't attend like, the sort of these sorts of things often. And but but it was really interesting to me is like, it has the feeling of like an open world sort of like, like video game experience. It's like you're LARPing through this environment, you can go in a bunch of different ways. You can kind of like, kind of have like side quests or like, oh, I'm gonna go in this room

and do this thing for a little bit, you know. Whether that's like, I'm gonna watch this basically like a, you know, like a little scene between some actors. I'm just gonna observe that or I'm gonna be an active part of this thing. I don't know. I found it really cool and just in terms of like, it's interesting when you're approaching something that's non-linear where you don't know what direct, what people are going to

approach these things. And I guess like how do you make sure it all works and it all still makes sense? Well, in that case of that show, the show looped multiple times. So we were kind of basing it on this. Well, in that case of that show, the show looped multiple times. Right, yes. So we were kind of basing it on this, there's this show, Sleep No More, that's closing in New York that's been going for like a decade. And that's like where you're in this big hotel and you're going through this, the story of Macbeth, but it's also like Rebecca by Hitchcock.

And anyway, you're in this art deco hotel and there's these characters running through and you could follow whoever you want. But if you know if you've been to the show a couple times, you realize it loops multiple times. So if you miss something the first time, then you can see it again the second time it comes through. So you don't if you see something you miss something once that's like, it's okay. Yeah, that person's gonna come back around and you can see that again, which I think

is fun. Then you get less FOMO that way. Exactly. Right. The person's gonna come back around and you can see that again, which I think is fun. You get less FOMO that way. Exactly, right, right. Yeah, that was a really fun experience. I love, those are the same guys I made the show Arcana with on Instagram during COVID. Oh, right, yes.

Anyone can check that out on arcana, A-R-C-A-N-A-game.com where we have a full walkthrough, but we did the same sort of thing, but all on Instagram and on various websites because it was May of 2020. Yeah, it was really cool. I remember we talked about that on the pod at a certain point.

Yeah, it was really, that was, yeah, it was also had puzzles and people were doing the same thing, but just like from their homes basically. I always think that like in an escape room scenario that I'm gonna come in so clutch because I play video games and I just like, am gonna be thinking about the puzzles differently than some of my friends And I I'm so bad at that I always want to like really really enjoy them there I did one one time and there was a it was like a scary one

They're all kind of scary like ish, but like the this one was scary And we found a room where this like woman was like Tied up and like chained to like a radiator She was like wanting us to help her and there was a key to get her out in the toilet And I wouldn't reach my hand I knew it wasn't real, but it looked nasty. It looked it looked gross in there Yeah, I used like there was like a something in there, you know, like a toilet brush or like a plunger. I used that to fish it out and I got it out and gave her the key and she called me a pussy.

I mean, that's pretty funny. That's funny, I like that. You should use Stash House. Should I use Stash House? Cause Stash House is like, it's like the 90s and you're in a drug dealer's apartment and the cops are coming and you have to find baggies of drugs and flush them down a toilet

That sounds I'm in that sounds that sounds awesome because I did do I did delusion once also too and that was really fucked up and scary and I had to sign a Like a waiver to be like if you die like if you have a heart attack and die here It's not her fault and I was like I might have a heart attack and die. I'm pretty I'm pretty scared a lot It's very funny that that's the thing, the trick they used to do in like 50s matinees. When you're like showing like an old scary movie with a giant spider or whatever.

I did talk about this on podcast, all right. It's pretty scary. But last time I was at Delusion, they lost a member of my party. They left her in a closet for like 45 minutes. Oh my God. And she missed the end of the show because they just forgot, they were like,

you're gonna hide in here until the monster comes. And then they just forgot she was there. I sort of wished to, I got put in a coffin and I got, it was, that was very, I did not love that. Yeah, that's scary. That was pretty scary. I got put in a coffin and they like dropped it. So I fell backwards in the coffin, which was scary.

And they dragged me away from my friends. And then they took me to this room and this guy, like they put me on like a bed. I had the same experience where the guy was horny with you He's like crawling around on me and stuff. I was like this kind of sucks I don't like this and then he took me to this other little room like behind That's like behind a wall or whatever and he was like if you say a word I'm gonna fucking kill you Wish I had a little more buy-in or I was actually scared. I kind of just knew it was funny. And then my friend saw my foot in a hole behind the wall

and then was like, Matt, is that you? And I was like, yeah, I'm behind the wall. What is that? He was like, if you say a word, I'll fucking kill you. And he left and then 45 minutes later, like a person from Delusion was like, hi, sorry. Yeah, I was bummed that I missed what they were doing because they got to do a whole other little part of it,

but you know, it's all right. Aw. Yeah, that's to what you were saying about earlier, like that's the thing, like you do have that, I don't want to miss this thing because this is the one time I'm going to do it. Exactly, yeah. I understand why you do the looping approach.

Why do you do all that crawling around on it? It's like, what the heck? Yeah, that's weird. I know. There's a escape room, a Minotaur escape room where they give you knee pads because you have to crawl so much. I would not love that.

No. Yeah, you're giving me armor? I'm out. Yeah. Give me something simple. I can wrap my head around where no one's gonna get hurt and everyone's gonna have fun, like Chris Angel levitating Shaq over a house.

Can I tell you something? That video has ruined my life. Wait, did that just happen? No, he did this like years ago, but it's such a funny video. All right, I gotta watch that. Yeah, it's so good, you'd love it. I pulled it up at a bar on Saturday.

I went to go see some friends and Shaq came up and I was like, you guys wanna see the funniest video I've ever seen? And I had a crowd of like drunk friends looking at my phone. You thought Chris Angel was left in shack? Crying laughing. It was so funny, I got thanked. They were like, thanks for showing me this.

It's so good. Aw, you should thank Chris. Be like, you made my day, man. Yeah, don't thank me, thank the mind freak. Aw, thank you, man. Thanks, buddy. Bunch of people pointing at the sky like, whoa! And then you see Shaq up there. Wave, wave, holding his fucking bullhorn hat.

He's gonna fall off. He's so shocked. Aw. It's so, so good. You guys know who Chris Angel's best friend is? Wait, he's an actor, right? Yeah. Is it, oh fuck, is it Gary Oldman? Yes. That's best friend is? I wait, he's an actor, right? Yeah. Is it, oh fuck, is it Gary Oldman?

Yes. That's who it is, yeah. Chris Angel's best friend is Gary Oldman. That's, that's. It's weirder in the reverse, right? Yes, it's really strange. The other way is weirder, you're right. The fact that Gary Oldman is good friends with Chris Angel is very weird.

That is his best friend. One of them went to the others, like introduced them at their Hollywood Walk of Fame. It's like that degree of friendship. Yeah, it's Gary Oldman introduced Chris Angel. I think on his start I gotta know how they met I gotta know everything I know what they talk about. What do they haven't I mean? Here's the thing the second I can make a magician my best friend. I'm doing it like that's like that's a home run Yeah, I guess if you're really into magic and then you're Gary Oldman stature, then you'll be like well I guess I could just meet the most famous magician and befriend him. He didn't like Copperfield. He met him

He was like, oh this guy's oily. This guy went to on the Lillie Express for $0.27 I want a guy who's got a restaurant in Henderson, Nevada Yeah, yes, Moapa Valley. Moapa Valley, sorry. Yeah, it's where Kaplip is Yeah, the idea that like, so it's the thing that I'm always like bumping up against with like British actors. It's like, oh, we think they're so smart because of their clever accents and that they could do Shakespeare, but like, what do we, what do we really know about Sir Gary Oldman? Maybe his addiction. What kind of guy is he? What's his inner life like? That this is like, this is my best friend.

Yeah. Chris Angel. Has he eaten at Chris Angel's breakfast luncheon pizza, AKA Kablip? That sucks. I do wonder if he's eaten at Kablip. Can we just find that out? Is there a way for us to find out if he's eaten at Kablip?

Do you think his photo's on the wall in there? It's not, I've been twice. I'll see. I mean, if you're in the area, you might as well go. I'll see if I can find any evidence, but while I do that, I want to ask a question for everyone. What are you playing? Hey, I got a question for you. What's the most valuable thing in the world? You're probably answering being the number one draft pick or, you know, having the home field advantage throughout the playoffs.

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Deals that's Alienware.com slash deals Matt I we should start with you because you but yeah, I actually kind of missed the merchant Yeah, I know I was waiting for the merchant. I Look, he wasn because you've been- I'm sorry, I actually kind of missed the merchant. Yeah, I know. I was waiting for the merchant. Look- He wasn't here last week. I thought we'd just blaze past to have a nice clean handoff.

We don't have to worry about the absence of the merchant, but I am just definitely feeling the merchant not being here. Yeah. I think they'll be back. I think we could, maybe when Heather's here, maybe we'll see the merchant again and all will be right. You don't think, I better I think we could maybe, you know, maybe when Heather's here, maybe we'll see the merchant again and all will be right in the world. You don't think, I better not even say it.

Yeah, I don't- You don't think he likes Heather more than he likes us? Matt, that wouldn't make any sense. He's kind of like, he's one of us. No, he likes us. He's one of our dudes. Yeah, he's one of the guys. He's a fella.

I do feel like Heather antagonizes him less than you do. That might be it. She just gives him a little bit less resistance since he knows without her that he won't have any allies in the room. Well, we'll talk about, we'll hopefully talk to him real, real soon. But right now I wanna start with you, Matt,

because everyone wants to hear about Shadow of the Urd Tree. You're the person who's been playing. Oh my God. I had a thought while I was playing it. This is like a true honest thought that I had. I said, this might be my Baldur's Gate 3. Wow. Really? But I, like, because I forgot that I loved Elden Ring.

I just forgot. I forgot that I loved it. I've been seeing a lot of discourse about the DLC being too hard, and I'll say as somebody who is playing it on a now, because when you start a new game plus, it does scale the difficulty a little bit. And you're playing PS5. I'm playing on PS5.

So I'm not I'm not playing the DLC at the base game difficulty. I'm playing it at new game plus difficulty. Right. I'm getting my ass kicked. I'm going to tell you that right now. I'm just thought it's Game Plus difficulty. Right. I'm getting my ass kicked. I'm gonna tell you that right now. I'm just not, it's hard. It is hard, but the feeling you get when you beat a boss is, I don't know, maybe what doing DMT feels like or something. Like it feels incredible.

I feel amazing. Like my heart, I mean, this is maybe a bigger issue. It does feel like my heart's gonna burst out of my chest. Are you seeing the mechanical elves? I'm seeing I'm seeing I'm seeing everything. I see I saw like it all like an old relative in the corner. It's been long past It's it's tough. It's it's but it's like I don't know I don't I couldn't tell you a single thing about the story. I don't know what's going on. I've watched the cut scenes.

I might try to watch one of these long lore videos because I'd love to know more about the story. I'm just going around getting my ass kicked, deciding I'm not going over there right now, going in a different direction and then succeeding in different ways. I'm just exploring. the DLC is huge. I haven't deviated from my build yet,

which feels sort of like a betrayal to the DLC. And remind us what your build was. I'm playing an astrologer, so I have a lot of magic. I have swords though too. I have the Sword of Night and Flame, which is like a magic sword. It's a pretty sick sword actually. It has cool weapon art. And

I I went through the New Game Plus with just me and my Mimic tier and we were just fucking people up. It was like, I don't know, it was like we were like We were like the cops from Bad Boys. We were like the Bad Boys kind of, of the

the lands between. We were just going in and just like asking questions later and just kicking ass and now that we're in the DLC getting my ass handed back to me. And you know what? My medicine is not tasting so good. It's tough. But I am I've been seeing a lot of people talk about like I've seen like popular Streamers talking shit about it and like it's been getting like review bombed and I I'm here to say My dears if I can just put on my capital G Gamer hat for a second. Yeah Might be a skill issue

You're playing the skill issue card you might just be bad at it you just might be bad at it It's okay. Like you have to like I don't You might just be bad at it. You just might be bad at it. It's okay. Like you have to like, I don't know, like I'm bad at the game. I'll just say right now, I'm bad at it. I did beat it, but it's, I'm not, this is not a type of game that I'm like, I've not played the other ones.

Sure. I've tried Demon's Souls. I've tried Dark Souls. They're too hard. This one, from what I understand is a little bit easier. It's still hard as shit. It's really hard. Well, not Shadow of the Earth tree, Elden Ring. Elden Ring is a whole. Elden Ring just has more understand is a little bit easier, it's still hard to shit. It's really hard. Well, not shout out the Erd Tree, Elden Ring.

Elden Ring is a whole. Elden Ring just has more of like a sub-safety net, like things with the, you know, the, feels like you have a more extensive like summon system and... Yes. But I also think, I saw, I can't remember who said it, I'm going to be paraphrasing this point. They make the game, FromSoft makes the game hard so that when you do succeed you do feel like a million bucks. Yes failure is learning and then when

you reach when you get over when you triumph it's like it's more satisfying that you you always want something that's like just before beyond your capabilities that's the ideal. The other all the other games are easy every other game I play is easy yeah Final Fantasy final fantasy is easy like or comparatively. It's like way easier I don't think I died one time playing re- I don't think so. I just don't think it happened but like This I died. I think five times within the first like four minutes And I was like, okay, we're back like we're so back

But you just have to like pick your lanes. Like you have to sort of like, I don't know, there's a new scaling system in this where you get new like upgrades, where like you find these things that they give you more strength or more defense. And they're just everywhere. You just have to go look for them.

And so when I'm having a hard time with a boss, I just go look for them, and then I find some, and they come back and I'm a little bit stronger, and then I can do it. I beat a boss that was having a really, really hard time. I went through two controllers, like, battery. Wow. Trying to defeat this boss.

And then I did do it. Ranala, smoked. Wow. Got her. Sorry about it. Can I ask, just as someone who hasn't gotten into it yet, and what I was seeing, because I noticed it was mixed in the Steam store.

This seems like bad faith. A lot of it, well, a lot of the reviews I was reading were about performance issues on PC, which I imagine will be, you know, but apparently there's a lot of frame drops, people are experiencing, but I'm curious, is there any sort of consistency to the biome?

Does it look and feel differently than the rest of the Elden Ring world? No, it kind of looks like it's just a different place, like a different place within the lands between. I did see that they put out a, what do you call it? They put out a map where it's like on their Twitter, they showed the old map and then they showed the new map and it fits right exactly in this one spot on the map.

It's a separate map completely, but the idea is it's right here in this area, in this other realm that sits above the lands between and it does like I don't know it has this like tears of the kingdom type thing going on too where some of the some of it you're going up like there's like stuff you're scaling there's stuff that's up yeah you're not going north you're're climbing. Yeah, yeah, you're going up. Yeah. And. You're going up, Nick. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, I don't know, that stuff's cool.

There's like new creatures and new bosses that are new, like walking around creatures that you've never seen before. There's like these big like fucking like fire guys walk around, I don't like them. You can't get too close, because they'll get you. And some of these guys can one I don't like them You can't get too close because they'll get you And some of these guys can one hit you like yeah like in it's that sucks cuz I I have like a wimpy build I have like a like a lot of health and it sucks to get one hit because I'm like well

That's all like that's all I got all I have is my long health bar But I am I am really really enjoying it. I have so far I think logged Probably like 15 hours in it already Since release to the point where something that I've heard in my household already. You're sure I playing this Elden Ring a lot Oh sure right yeah, can't kind of can't seem to be putting down this Elden Ring. Yeah It's I'm doing it too much I'm doing it when I is the thing. I'm doing it when I'm supposed to be doing other stuff. I feel like that's a common thing,

just having like an SO that you live with who does not play games as much as you, which is kind of like. I did not turn my head when I was called, and that was like a, you can't really, you can't do that. That's a thing, yeah. But this is the issue with the FromSoft games, there's not a clean way to pause.

You can't pause. So like, I just had to be, I got, now I have developed a thing where like, I would just say like boss fight and like, she like, okay, I understand that you're the middle of something and then when you die in the next 40 seconds, you're gonna be able to come over and talk to me. Natalie's health bar appears in your frame of view.

The real boss. I did not get any clarity on whether or not Gary Oldman went to Kblip, but I did find a 2014 headline, Gary Oldman blasts Hollywood politics, defends Mel Gibson and Alec Baldwin. Yes, yes. What a cool guy. God bless him.

I mean, I'll say it. He's like the third best Gary. But Nick, in your elders... Larsen. Jules. Cooper. Coleman. Wow, he's getting further and further down the list.

I say Gary from Spongebob is up there too. That's like my generation. Yeah, sure. But I throw them in there Why not Shanling? Oh Shanling's number one? Yeah, I went to high school with a kid named Gary and his whole thing was that He always had a spoon. I was like that's fun Really like Mitch well. He wasn't the spoon man It was like he was just he carried a spoon around was he psychic and he wanted to maybe bend it with his I don't notice. I think it was just like his like hey, I got my thing, I'm the spoon, I got a spoon.

You went to a really big high school, right? I did, yeah. Yeah, so people had to feel like- You had to do something to kind of stand out, right? I just gotta have a spoon all the time. I get my little gimmick. I was the exact opposite of that guy then, because I just was like, I'm just flying under the radar.

Right, that's what you wanna do. I don't wanna have a thing. So it's shadow of the ear tree overall, you're like, you're having at the time of your life It's yeah I think when I'm done with this I'll assess whether or not it's actually like maybe my favorite game of all time It's like it's unbelievable like this game is amazing I do want to mess around with some of the other like some of the new weapons and some of the new I might

Respec that seems like a crazy thing sure I might why not but I wanted to know where you're at in your playthrough of Elden Ring, because I just want to know. I started over again. You started over again? Look, I just, I was just sort of like, I just couldn't get excited about playing the character that he put so much, so many hours into earlier. So I'd started this new character, and I'm forgetting the name of the class. I want to say I think it was a Vagabond. I think I was playing a Vagabond and I was like, this is cool.

But then I was like, yeah, I really want to be the naked guy with the club. So I went and I rolled a wretch. And so I'm like, that's what I'm like, I'm like, I'm gonna start over with a retch. I'm excited to play this and I'm gonna get all the way through it and then I'm gonna work my way to Shadow of the Airdrie. But that's the way I'm also gonna have like a lot more time in July for a lot of for other reasons. So it's like, I'm gonna have more fun just doing a new playthrough. The other thing and and Eva, I'm not sure how you play the games where you create a character,

but for me, part of the experience is, I create so many more characters than I actually exceeded through to completion. I probably started 12 different Baldur's Gate III characters that I abandoned at some point in Act I, but not Act III, but somewhere in the first act, and then I just like,'re ones that I like to Me that's just part of the experience part of the fun of it

So like a false start is not a not a big setback for me. Maybe I'll play Elden Ring you guys are making It sound really fun. It's really really fun. It's so hard, but maybe I could it is awesome though. It is so yeah Yeah, it's kind of my first game. It's sort of I mean I guess I did play the Demon Souls remake a little bit before Elden Ring came out, but it's the only one of these games that I've beaten, and I absolutely love it. It's the first FromSoft game I really got into. I played a couple of Dark Souls in the past,

and Demon's Souls on PS3, but it's what led me to Sekiro, Shadows Die Twice, which I played all the way through and absolutely loved. And I don't know, I think it is an awesome experience. He probably would love it. If you can handle the jank of Gollum, you'll love Elden Ring. The other thing about it is that,

like the world is just so grimy and nasty and has just like the way that story is laid out is really, you have to kind of look for it and I feel like you'll like just parsing that detail and making the connections on your own because it's part of the fun of it. Okay. But Eva, what are you playing these days?

Animal Well. Oh yeah, oh yeah. It's so good. Yeah, it's awesome. My husband just calls it Circle. What are you watching? I'm still playing Circle. He's just happy I'm not,

there's not a sexy vampire. And he has to do it. And yeah, I just got the fourth flame the other day. So I've gotten to the second stage basically of the game. I love it though, man. It's beautiful and I love the music. It's so cool. Yeah, it's really cool. I'm also playing Lorelei and the laser eyes,

which is a puzzle game that just dropped. You were telling me about this. And I was like, eyeing it. And I was like, I don't feel like I'm also playing Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, which is a puzzle game that just dropped. You were telling me about this. I was like eyeing it and I was like, I don't feel like I'm gonna have time to get into it right away, but I really wanna play it. It's extremely a Nick Weger game. Yeah, it seems like it. Aesthetically, yeah.

And it's got cool puzzles and yeah, it's great. It's got like, it's in the style of kind of like a retro game, but in ways that are unexpected. It's just, it's in the style of kind of like a retro game, but in ways that are unexpected It's just it's really cool. It's also got great music also really good on Steam Deck. I've been playing on Steam Deck I took it with me on a trip and I really got into it that way. So yeah, those are my two things I've been doing lately like a little bit of Oh, yeah, Alan Wake 2 DLC love I loved Alan Wake 2 so much. That's

That's my whole shit. I love Alan Wake 2. Have you done Control? Yes. I did I did I did all three in a row Okay, yeah, I'm a sicko too. I did like you. Yeah, I was just like And I watched the performance of the game awards like 20 times in a row I love that section of the game so much. It's the best. That was like, I was, that was like, I wasn't ready for that. I actually played Control after Alan Wake 2. Yeah. So the kind of similar section in that game. I was so, I was unprepared, but I had to like put the game down and like walk around. There's a really crazy section in Alan Wake 2. Yeah. I gotta play it. I bet you would love it. I'm sure I would love it. It's exactly that kind of like,

it toes a very fine line for me. Yes. Where I'm like, if this gets too silly, I might be out. Right. But it stays, it stays so on point the entire time where it never dips into something

where I'm like, this is too much, I'm out. You called him Scandinavian Kojima. Yes. I was like, yes, Matt, yes, yes, yes. At one point I was like, oh, is this just like a Twin Peaks knockoff? And then it got so weird that I was like, no, not at all. This is one guy's weird brain game. Yes, exactly.

So I just downloaded Night City and I've been working my way through that. Nice. Yeah, so that's what I'm playing. Wow. Well, I'll touch on Death Must so that's what I'm playing. Wow. Well, I'll touch on Death Must Die real quick because I messed around with this. It's an early access and it went on sale in the Steam store. So I was like, I'll try this.

This is some bitch out. Developed by Realm Archive and it has been described as Vampire Survivors Beats Hades. It is exactly that. It is the vampire survivor style gameplay. Are you adding it to your queue? I'm going to get it right now. I'm getting it to your wish list. I'm a sicko.

It is exactly that. To the point where, and I don't mean this is a negative, this maybe sounds like it has some negative framing, but like I think it feels like if you could have an AI prompt make a game and you said, what if vampire survivors met Hades? This is what would be generated. The art style is so similar to vampire survivors and the tone is so similar to Hades. And then the way that the boon system works is gods appear and they are gods who you can

map one-to-one onto the Hades gods. So it's like it's at the point of, it's almost like a pal world level of homage, Matt. It's like an Edinburgh Wonka experience. But it's not like janky or shitty or feels like a ripoff. It feels like its own thing, but it's also so clearly wearing its influences on its slave. I really like the art and animation, especially the effects. The effects look really nice. And then what it adds to the vampire survivors,

kind of auto shooter, bullet heaven, whatever people call this genre. I don't know if we've landed on the perfect name for it yet, but what it adds to this is that you can walk around and you can aim your attacks with the right stick if you're using a controller, which again, everything old is new again. The arcade twin stick shooters go back to the 80s. My point of reference is Smash TV, but there were games that came out before then which have this.

But mechanically, it works really well here. And then the thing that it adds is that like, you know, the way you kite enemies, the way you maneuver, you can still be attacking them. Whereas a game like Deep Rock Galactic Survivor, Vampire Survivors, oftentimes the way your attack goes is based on which way your character is moving. It's just kind of fixed relative to the way your character is facing. So it's nice to have that flexibility. It also is an inventory system.

So like, you know, rogue-lite style, if you die on a run, but you maybe picked up some loot and you have that loot which you can sell to a merchant or that you can equip for that character or equip on another character subsequent runs because there's a bunch of different classes and all these characters have different abilities that they all play and they all fail feel a little differently. Some are more squishy, some are more powerful. The only thing I'll say is that the writing has parts where it's an again, it's an early access so all this stuff may get another pass or whatever, but there's some of the writing feels a little bit like forum-speaky and that's the kind of stuff where it's

like I play video games to kind of get away from this. You know, like I kind of want to be like in this world not have a thing where you're referencing like, like it feels just kind of internetty, you know, but whatever. Talking about Karens and stuff. Not exactly that, but you know, but like, it's just kind of like stuff is kind of written

in what 20 years ago you call Leet Speak, you know, or it has like emoticons or within the context of a line or whatever. It's just the way the characters are written isn't always as locked in as like the art for instance, but I do think it's really cool. I do think it's a really interesting iteration on the format and I'm excited to see where it goes

in the final game. I've really enjoyed my time with it. ["Golden Idol Theme"] Let's talk about the case of the Golden Idol. This is a 2022 narrative puzzle game that was one of my favorite games of that year, developed by Color Gray Games, which is a Latvian independent developer that consists of Ernest and Andres Klaesvins, probably butchering their names, I apologize, Klaevins. It is published by PlayStack and it was very – you know what?

In the same way I was kind of talking about Death Must Die, where it's influences on its sleeve, this one is very much inspired by Return of the Obra Dinn and her story. The developers have said as much. The difference is if you just at a glance, you don't necessarily – you aren't necessarily like, oh, this looks like a you know return of the Obra Dinn it looks like its own thing it has a unique aesthetic so what you do is you solve a series of murders by examining a tableau frozen at the moment of death and then filling in keywords and prompts to describe who did what to who it is built in the Godot

engine which is a free open source alternative to Unity. And it came to iOS and Android via Netflix on June 11th of this year, which is our little bit of a reason why we're discussing this. I really like this game. Eva, had you played this prior to, yeah, you had played this before. This is actually one of the reasons I got a Steam Deck was to play this game, because you talked about it so much and at the time you could only get it on PC. So yeah, I played it like at that time, like when it first dropped, like right after you

played it and I loved it. I was blown away. Yeah, it's like aesthetically, the music, the narrative, I think it's like one of the most exciting things. I recommend it to a lot, like to everyone. If you like puzzles and you like like storytelling in a kind of indirect way, like that kind of the world building that exists in here, it's just like, I don't know, there's so much stuff in the same way that you're filling in the blank as a mechanic to play the game. You're like kind of also filling in the blanks

of the story as you go through in terms of like what this larger world is. But we talked about the aesthetic. The game seems like kind of set up to un-more you, to like everything is very dissonant. Like a lot of the character designs are like intentionally like abrasive and ugly. The music is oftentimes kind of like, you know, almost even unpleasant,

but I don't mean that in a negative way. It's just like intentionally so, it's like such a choice, just it's presenting like kind of just like disturbing stuff, but also, but not disturbing in like a horror way, like disturbing in just in terms of being unsettling. I don't know, Matt, you hadn't messed around with this game before right? Yeah, this was my first my first go-around with it, and I was excited to like get through it and finish it

I don't like games like this typically, but this one really hooked me I think because like the story was interesting and like I don't know it felt rewarding to to solve all the puzzles, and I would often go for the letters like there's some optional puzzles that like to solve all the puzzles and I would often go for the, there's some optional puzzles that, like some of them are hard. And I think maybe some of these puzzles I'm like, I don't know, I was sort of like,

this one might be a little over my head guys. Like I was like, this is a little outside my wheelhouse, but when you solve a puzzle, I was like, maybe I'm actually pretty smart. I'm actually a really smart guy. There are two feelings I have when playing this game. And there's also, there have been two DLC episodes that have been released, which we'll also talk about,

Spider of Lanka and the Vampire of Lemuria. There's moments where I feel like you solve something and it's so satisfying because you're like, oh, I figured it out and I got it. And then there's also moments when you're like a little bit off and then you just try something and it works and that feels almost like anticlimactic because I'm like, hmm, I don't think I really figured it out. I don't feel like I really earned this one, but I guess I kind of pieced it together.

But like, you kind of have both those feelings, I feel like, when you're going through it. Definitely had more of those than the other, the previous kind where you would like, where I would solve one and it's right completely. That's what I'm like, I'm the smartest guy alive. This is amazing. Nobody else did this. I'm like, I'm the smartest guy alive. This is amazing. Nobody else did this.

I was like, this is just me. The thing about playing it on the Netflix version of it, I was playing it on my iPad, I kind of felt like a baby. I kind of felt like an iPad baby. It does look like a game for a baby. Yeah, and you're dragging the words to the right spot. It was kind of, it kind of was like a, a I don't know I kind of felt like a baby It's especially when you do the hints yeah, well yeah, then I need help yeah

I did also the way you're just the hints are just like you're just naming objects. That's a pipe. That is Oscar It's crazy. I won't yeah That never felt good. I kind of wanted to then be playing it on like my Steam Deck or like just something else entirely. But I did, I enjoyed it. I don't know. I guess also solving crimes is fun. I do really like solving crimes.

Me too, murders. It's very fun. Solving murders is fun. Are we doing spoiler country on this? I think we can maybe start a little bit generally. Okay. But like, so for instance, just to talk about how it works,

but yeah, we can delve into spoiler countries. Yeah, this is a spoiler I wanna talk about. So there's, so basically as you'll have like this, I'm sure some of our audience has played it, but for those who haven't, you'll have like, you'll be looking at, you know, like a corpse and then maybe some bystanders in an environment and it will be populated by little icons that indicate you can act with these.

As you go there, you will populate and you have a certain number that you will get. You will populate your phrase book with just a bunch of different words that you can use to connect together. So like names like Albert and clouds Lee and then words like Bay and thumb and then you will have a sentence that will have basically mad lib style, some gaps in it that you will fill in with these words that you're dragging and dropping them. The thing is, yes, it does feel very baby gamey on the iPad, which I messed around with a little bit because of just the nature of it. It feels like you're kind of filling in a picture book.

Feels a little bit less like that on PC. And when I was playing it, I should say, I was crying for my mama. It also looks like the worst adventure game of like 1985. Yes. It's like an abandoned where aesthetic, right? Right. It's like one of those things where it feels retro

but to nothing in particular. There wasn't ever a time that games actually look like this. But it's like the idea of like, when you're looking for like old Sierra games on like a weird like illegal website, there's also other games called like John's Journey or something and you're just like, what is that? And it's just like the ugliest game you've ever seen.

And that's what this game looks like. Right, it's below like a Freddie Farkas Frontier Pharmacy. Yeah, it's worse than Gold Rush. Yeah, it's just a game called like Brian the Magic Keeper. I was like, what the fuck is this? And he plays like, this sucks. Yeah, exactly, but you're like, should I play this? You're like, no, I'm not gonna do that.

But then there's also like a world where you played that game when you were 11 and it was your favorite game. Exactly. Because it just happened at you at the right time. So then you will have you'll have these phrases that you'll collect and then you will have a thinking panel, which will have a place where you'll have to fill in like what the you know, what the solution is. And some of those, Matt, to what you're saying, you'll have some optional intermediary things that will be just like, hey, here's portraits of characters.

Can you fill these in? And that basically is almost like just an intermediary step to help you come to the solutions. I think that's actually like a really creative part of the design or really clever part of the design. But yes, to read the very first one, and this is essentially a tutorial mission, so this is not really much of a spoiler. So the salute, it will be like your prompt will be like, blank, pushed blank from a cliff in the blank

of blank on Monkey Paw Island. Then the solution will ultimately be Albert Cloudsley pushed Oberon Geller from a cliff in the Horn of Thumb on Monkey Paw Island. These are things that you've all put together from inferences and just, you know, in – into it in connections. I find it really satisfying to solve some of these. I think that especially on the front end of the game when a lot of the stuff is really clear and unambiguous, it's like – it's super- duper satisfying. Now as it goes, I do think especially when it gets into the DLC, which I overall still

really enjoyed, I do think it reaches a point where – I don't know. It's tough to talk about because you don't want to be like, I'm stupid, which maybe it is. But I do think there are times when it's like this is maybe so obtuse and maybe the way that you've kind of heightened the difficulty is by making this so expansive. Like you're not just dealing with one environment, now you're dealing with like a bunch of different environments you're toggling between and then Vampire of Lemuria, you are dealing with multiple timeframes in different environments.

So you're dealing with like I've got six different environments I'm going between in three different timelines to solve one puzzle. you're dealing with like, I've got six different environments I'm going between in three different timelines to solve one puzzle. And so it's just a lot of stuff that you have to track and it feels a little bit workbooky. Yeah. Oh no, you go. Did you play the DLC?

I didn't mess around too much with the DLC cause I finished the base game and then Elden Ring came out and I was like, well, there it goes the rest of my life. Oh yeah. I will say, I at least had the benefit and not the benefit I could blame some of my like not being able to figure stuff out. I had COVID recently I was like all this COVID brain You're not stupid. You just had you got the you got the bad sick. Yeah, but it's you know, it's okay to be dumb

It's fine. Yeah Can I say something about the DLC? Please. I don't think this will be spoiler, but a lot of the DLC is very clever. Yes. I played the base game before, I played the base game again. I was like, this is the most, this game's incredible.

There's like story that's revealed in puzzles in the base game that I'm like, this is, I've never seen this in a game before. Where like realizing something by solving a puzzle that's a huge story moment, I find it to be very thrilling at times. This character that I remember from three puzzles ago is now in this one and he's betraying this other character

and I realize, oh, he's been doing this, playing this shadow game the whole time that I haven't been able to track. Stuff like that. That sort of shit, yeah. Yeah, brilliant moves. And by filling out the, being like, is this go here? And realizing when it fills out, that's correct.

You're like, oh wow, that's what that is. The DLC, as soon as I started playing it, I was like, I wonder if the developers don't understand why I like this game. Which is rich white guys being fools. Right? It's like these grotesque, pompous, rich guys in these kind of Lovecraftian narrative

just getting lit on fire and poisoning each other and looking like shit. Yeah, just like stupid too, getting dumber and dumber as they go. Having dumb names like Angus. Yeah, just like stupid too, getting dumber and dumber as they go. Having dumb names like Angus. Yeah, exactly. Looking fat and scared.

Yeah, getting gutted. And so when it, DLC is like, what, it becomes this like, like East Indian, like, Sultan narrative, and it almost aesthetically becomes like, the really sketchy stuff that's in like a Sierra game like a leisure suit Larry sure I mean it was like ooh like why this pivot to I know you're under They're going back in time and some way closing loops and stuff, but also I did feel like

For me personally it revealed that like these are European that these are European developers. Because I was like, this has a specifically, almost like when you see stuff from Europe and you're like, ooh, what's going on guys? And then you're like, oh, this is from Europe. It has like, you see that? Yeah. The black Peter?

The thing is, you play, especially in the base game, it feels like, oh, this is all critiquing the British Empire, this is all critiquing colonialism. Exactly. And I, yeah, I get what you're saying because it also like, it gets into prequel territory with the DLC where like saying like, here is the story before the story,

here's what led up to this. In particular, by the end of the, you know, not getting too far into spoiler cream, and Vampire Lemuria, you're like basically directly setting up what comes in the base game. And so I do understand that, yeah, they're like, they're kind of going into a different environment,

but applying the same visual treatment to everything. But I do, what I do like about it overall is that it's all fictionalized. Like there's nothing where it's like there's nothing really anchored in the real world. You can come up with like the one-to-one of like, okay, I see who this is. I see what nation this is supposed to be. I see what type of this count this is supposed to be or whatever. But nothing is taking place in our reality. Yes, it's all very, and also like it's creating an alternate reality where something very

different happened in Western Europe. Because of the result, like politically and stuff, because of what happened supernaturally in the story. But yeah, I was just like, is this very racist? That was how I felt with the DLC, with both parts. That was how I felt with the DLC, with both parts. I mean, I'll check it out. Hey, Emma, can you let us know? I'll see what's going on.

I did have something like that recently. You were watching this, like, True Crime Doc, and something about what was going on in it, I said to my fiance, what if this lady's just like a racist weirdo? I was right. I was like, oh, yeah. I was just like, does Super, it was just that? Yeah, she's like a weird lady.

Rachelle, you played this game and you were not familiar with this game before, right? No, never have it. So you played the entire game on your phone, that's my understanding, right? Yeah, and the DLC too. You played all the game on your phone. That's my understanding, right? Yeah, and the DLC too. You played all the DLC too? Yeah. Okay.

It was nice, I'd be playing wherever I was, but it was so small. I do feel like I got a little bit of a headache, a little migraine situation from playing on the phone. Yeah, cause there's a lot of text and there's also a lot of tiny stuff on the phone. Yeah, because there's a lot of text and there's also like a lot of like tiny stuff on the on the screen and I played a little bit of act one on on my phone and I was just like I can't do this and so I switched over to iPad Which I found much more playable. I actually like the iPad UI quite a bit. I want to try it now

Yeah, it works really well. I mean it I love I loved it. I feeling like a baby is not bad It's really satisfying. Yeah. But what was it, what did you feel? And your experience, because we checked in with you, and at first it seemed like you were saying that it was like, oh, I think this game's pretty hard, but then also you made your way through all of it. Yeah, I found it super challenging.

I think the first couple chapters or whatever, I just didn't really understand what it wanted me to do necessarily, It was super challenging. I think the first couple chapters or whatever, I just didn't really understand what it wanted me to do necessarily, like how to solve it. And then once I started to understand how they were positioning things, where to find certain things,

and just thinking outside the box, I guess, my life was consumed for two days. Like completely. I love that. I don't think Mark, I think my life is consumed for two days I don't think mark. I think mark had tried to talk to me multiple times I don't think I heard him at all that game or tunnel vision And I had like a little notebook and I was I was taking notes and stuff It helps to like write shit down Yeah

also There's parts where you're decoding like symbols or there's like an invented like Lemurian language and you have to like, some of that stuff is just like, I can keep going back to the same screen repeatedly but it's sometimes easier just to write my own notes. But did you enjoy the experience overall? Yeah, I loved it. I've like literally been scouring the internet

for a similar game and I haven't really been able to find anything like it. Wow, I'm glad you liked it. Have you played Obra Dinn? No, Return of the Obra Dinn. That's a good, that's a really good one. Yeah, it's to find anything like it. Wow. I'm glad you liked it. Have you played Obra Dinn? No. Return of the Obra Dinn. That's a good, that's a really good one. Yeah, it's a game that inspired it.

It's like a first person game, but it is like the same sort of thing you're solving, like mysteries in the same sort of way, you're intuiting stuff. And it has the same sort of thing where like when you get everything correct, you get a really satisfying music sting. Amazing.

Yeah, you're on like an old like merchant vessel and trying to figure out how all the people on it disappeared or died. Oh, sick. Yeah, you're on an old merchant vessel and trying to figure out how all the people on it disappeared or died. Oh, sick. Yeah, it's cool. There's a sound effect in the case of the Golden Idol that I love. And it's when you click on some,

it's just the click sound. The click sound, once you clear, you click on something and then stuff will pop up and it'll be like, oh, this guy has like a sword and like a ring with a ruby in it and like a note. And then you click on that and it's like, chk, chk, chk. Yes, right.

Yeah, when stuff, when words just filter into your vocabulary. I don't know what that was doing. It's satisfying. It's really satisfying. It's like you're just like clearing tasks off your calendar. Yes. Has a great tactility to it.

No, that's awesome. The other thing is like, so you talked about old Sierra games. I was actually thinking about these while I was playing this because, you know, the thing in the old school Sierra adventure games, I mean, first off, they were, they used text parsers. So you would like the original King's Quest or whatever, and like its earliest iteration, you'd like be typing stuff in. And it was like playing a text adventure.

So like, you know, you do the shit where you try to figure out the exact thing the game wanted from you, like open drawer. I can't open that. Pull drawer. I can't pull that. Pull drawer handle. You pull the drawer open. You know what I mean?

Like that sort of shit that you'd encounter in these games. I don't know if there's anything that bad. But then they reach a point where when mouse input is widespread, then they have a thing that a lot of people criticize as like hunt the pixel because their time, particularly in Sierra games, it was like you were going through, you were examining a screen, but you didn't know what was interactive because there wasn't anything that you were mousing over and it was saying that you could interact with it. You just had to kind of click on everything or try your verbs on everything.

And then the LucasArts games, LucasFilms games and then ultimately LucasArts, the developer added a thing where you had the innovation where when you moused over stuff, it would highlight what was interactable. Anyway, this game has basically just like exclamation points or just like areas of interest on screen. So you don't even have to do that step. You're just like, OK, I'm going to go look at all these spots and look, and look through them.

And I like that because it's still very satisfying to check that off. But it also still feels like you're exploring the environment. You can also turn that off. I didn't just realize that. Oh, I didn't realize that. They're like, hey, if you don't want that, if you want a pixel hunt. Yeah, you can turn that off. Interesting. I will not be playing it that way. Yeah, me either. I agree.

To me that doesn't add to the challenge of it. That's just like, now I'm just gonna click everywhere. Because some of the, like you were saying, some of the scenes are, the early ones are kind of, not obvious, but a little clearer what's going on. But then you get to some of these later ones where like, not 10 people, but like five people are dead in like a weird game gone wrong.

And you're sort of like, what happened here? This is crazy. Yeah. Well, and also there are, the game is very, very good at presenting red herrings. Like there will be like a guy running from the scene holding a dagger and you're like, well, that guy is who stabbed him. And it's like then as you examine it as you really go through

everything we try that I was like oh wait no that's a red herring that's designed to make me think that's the guy but actually this other guy who's trying not to get caught and pin it on that guy that's the guy from the citizen app that was running around with a knife outside You have to pay us to know what block. Oh man. I don't know. I found, I think I agree overall that I like the base game more than the DLC, but I like that they kept making the DLC.

I like that. I was very satisfied when that dropped and I got to mess around with it. I leaving like knowing there was more game, I was so desperate to play it because I loved it so much. And also they're dropping a new game this year, right? Yes, so they have the, I actually played the demo of it. Oh cool.

Which is out right now. And fuck, I should have written down what it was called. Hold on. It's in a called the, another. It's another Golden Idol but it's it's set in the 1970s which is really interesting hold on let me look this up return of the Golden Idol no it might be called it might just be called Golden return to the Golden Idol yeah but anyway what's what's interesting about that is rise of the Golden Idol rise and that's supposed to be out by the end of the year.

The art is like, you know, again, it's a choice, but the art is, it still has the very, you know, kind of malformed, ugly, intentionally ugly character designs, but it all has a little bit more dimensionality to it. It's a little bit, it just has, it feels like another layer of polish and detail. Feels like there's a little bit more animation. And then also just the fact that it's set in a more contemporary environment just has things like, you know, there's a news broadcast

and that's part of the clue. So like you've got like a different sort of media that you can interact with. I don't know, I really enjoyed it. I thought the puzzle design was super well done and. How much is the demo? The demo is just is like three puzzles. I think it's the first chapter.

The other thing that the game has is like, you know, there's these interstitials that you unlock that advance kind of the story. Those have a layer of interactivity and puzzle to them as well in this one. So it's like also, cause again, layer of interactivity and puzzle to them as well in this one. So it's like also, because again, part of the fun is you solve the puzzle, you figured out who did what to who. And then sometimes that paragraph, that bit of summation that you'll get saying what happens

actually explains the motivation that you maybe can't infer from this. So like, oh, I see this guy was stealing this thing. And that's why this person was killed. But you can't necessarily just infer that from the action that you're seeing. But this one has that layer of like, you're also piecing stuff together in terms of who's everyone's relationship to each other,

and you're revealing that to yourself once you solve the puzzles and you see how they all interact. That's cool. Yeah, it's really cool. I can't wait. And it also, there's a really good red herring in that one too, and especially in the first puzzle, where it's like, oh, I know what happened to this guy, and they're like that's not happen this guy

They're kind of like that's not happen. Yeah That's what keeps happening. I guess it's maybe like writing for a procedural You know writing for like a like a law and order or something like that's like yeah You want the audience to think they're ahead of it, and then you'd be like no. We're actually out of you You stupid bitch It's not the guy right I would I wouldn't mind if like they just put out like one of these a year You know like just like just keep just keep my brain stimulated like like they can even release them as chapters Like the like the telltale model used to be where it's like chapter one of this

Game would come out and then a couple months later second chapter comes out. I'll take all that they can give me Yeah, it's kind of how the DLC works cuz like the game is divided into chapters the DLC each kind of feels just like one additional Chapter so it's kind it's kind of that I assume they'll have the same model with rise of the golden idol But you know, we'll see I've mentioned this on the on the podcast Before but the there are these European game the Scandinavian games called rusty lake that also they drop like little mini Chapters like like periodically and they're very cheap or they're free, but you can just get them They're baby games you can play on an iPad Through characters and themes and stuff

Okay, those are really if you watch little bites of stuff like that. Those are really fun because sometimes I just I need to just feel like I did something, you know what I mean? Like something you can't always Finish a Final Fantasy 7 rebirth, you know always got that kind of time but if I could just check off a little like quick little game like that, but Feel like you did a task. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Cause I'm not doing tasks in real life. I could do one of these. No, you're doing it in a game.

I also like his, just talking about like, like the, you're kind of laughing at the characters in it. I do like the dialogue in this game because you'll get a little bit of that as you're investigating and it'll always be like, like, like, my stars, he was dancing the parlor just moments ago. And there's a guy with like a fucking spear

through his throat. All the deaths are so violent. They're so nasty. It's so funny. There was one where, in the one that I referenced earlier, where it's like some sort of parlor game situation gone wrong, where a guy is holding like a ring, like a metal ring, and then another a ring like a metal ring and then another

guy has like a metal ring in his head and to me I was like that's the more grisly weapon cuz like that took a sharp ring yeah that was tight. To throw a ring through someone's skull. Oh man my favorite character who only had like one and maybe one half little moments is little Pip who's just like a little kid who's an idiot. He's like, meh. And he just looks dumber than any character. He's like, oh they got nice coats or whatever. Like, oh little Pip.

I would do a whole little Pip DLC. That's what I wanted from the DLC. I was like, just take me on a little Pip adventure. Yeah, it's honestly like maybe you just wanna explore some of these existing characters. I mean they do like, they are integrated in the DLC yeah for sure do it dude do we need to get into spoiler country me do we have anything we haven't covered um you had a particular point yeah I'll just say this

you could edit it out if it's not prescient but I just want to say the thing that made me and I just maybe I stupid, but both times I played it a couple years apart, I forgot that I pulled up the names. Let me just, I'll just give a warning. If anyone has not played Case of the Golden Idol and they are worried about spoilers, because this is a game you can very much spoil. And as I was replaying, I was like, oh yeah, I just remember what the solution is.

Like, it's like, you basically get one clean play through of this when you experience it for the first time. But we are entering spoiler country, so hold on to your hats and glasses. Giddy up, yee-haw, et cetera. Yee-haw, yee-haw. Just like, the character of Lazarus Hearst enters midway through the game.

Really interesting, sinister new character who just pops in, just shows up. And you're like, oh, this is a new guy. I just finding out about him from a letter someone sent and now he's just like shirtless and getting inducted into the secret society. And then he's just like the main villain for multiple chapters. And when you when I put to when the game made me put together that he was this other character that had become, that

had made himself young. Right. I was so blown away by that. Really, really good. It's shocking. It's really cool. And they've given you every single thing to put that together yourself. But for me, I just hadn't.

And I was in the end game that I was like, oh, it's him. Like he, then they say like the, they already had done, they teach you that the idol can like take something and give it back. They can take heat out of water and then replace the heat somewhere else. And I just hadn't been like, oh, and also like years of someone's life. They can do that.

Lifespan was the same way. Yeah, but just the moment of realizing this character I've been interacting with was another character from earlier in the game, astonishing. Someone's life. They can do that. Lifespan. It was the same way. Yeah. But just the moment of realizing this character I've been interacting with was another character from earlier in the game. Astonishing. I just felt like it's such a beautiful piece of like a puzzle as narrative. It's really cool. And I also think that the, so the Golden Idol, the titular Golden Idol is such a key part

of so many different, you know, it's like, it's basically every, every single scene revolves to some degree around the existence of the Golden Idol and everyone like trying to take possession of it and its attributes. But yeah, the reveal of like what it can do and its various powers and why it's such a precious thing. I will say this is maybe another thing about the DLC is the DLC kind of replays that beat with a different character and it's a little bit less satisfying

because it's a character you've not gotten to know as, I'm talking about Vampire of Le Mure, you've not gotten to know this character as like- The old version. The old version of it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So in the same sort of way. But realizing, oh, they look the same.

Yeah. They have the same shaped hat. Yes. Yes, and also the DLC also implies that there's almost like a hatch, like from the Lost type scenario with a little bit of modern technology going on. I thought that was puzzling to me,

but also I would like to explore that more in the 1970s, in the next game. Yeah. Hey, the hatch, you're talking my language. I love the hatch. There might be my language. I love the hatch. There might be a hatch. I love that they're changing the look up a little bit. I love that they're in the 1970s in the next game.

And I mean, I feel like they've thoroughly explored this, again, sort of East India Company era, British Empire environment, to kind of just flip it up to a few centuries, I think is a really clever choice. I don't know, I really, really enjoyed this game. I'm glad everyone else liked it as well. I also, I like, like, I don't like this in real life,

but like, I like media, I like to hear stories about like secret societies. That shit is all great, yeah, they've all got different masks. So things like that, you've gotta identify them by their various masks and cloaks or their jewelry or whatever, or a corpse will have a sheet pulled over it,

but his arm is dangling out, you can identify him because of a watch or something, that sort of shit. I love that shit. That stuff rocks to me. You would be in a secret society. Me? You think so?

I think so. Look, any secret societies that want me, I'm 100% in. It feels like we're going to Bohemian Grove. I mean, let's go. You know, my favorite part of the John Wicks movies is not the action stuff. I love that there's like, they trade,

they talk in gold coins. Yeah, what's going on in this bad guy hotel? Yeah, I love the bad guy hotel. The Continental? I love the Continental. It's great, the bad guys all with this bad guy hotel? Yeah, I love the fucking continental. I love the continental. The bad guys all hang out there, get their own currency. The assassins are like famous, like if you like know that they're assassins,

that's cool. It's not really, it's sort of a reverse secret society, it's like sort of like everybody knows about it. You and John Wick just being like, come on guys, this is cool. I know that this is like the scariest world. It's kind of cool. I feel like guys, I know that this is like the scariest world, it's kinda cool. Do you think that bad guy hotels though

also just have extra rooms they have to fill and that you might just end up in, you do like a hotels tonight scenario. Right, yeah. It's like a Groupon experience that you can get, you can stay at the bad guy hotel. Well you don't even know you're at the bad guy hotel, you're just like, oh this room,

they have a room open. They got a corner suite for like $80 This is insane. Yeah, you wake up the whole rooms been like shot Guys are fighting with katanas all When I went to Ukraine Years ago with Amy Nicholson We were staying in this hotel hotel Ukraine, which is like the big hotel in the main Plaza I went to Ukraine years ago with Amy Nicholson. We were staying in this hotel, Hotel Ukraine, which is like the big hotel in the main plaza.

And one morning we were just in our hotel room and two men just burst into the room, like two armed guards. And then they locked all of our windows and we figured out that they were like, oh yeah, the president is underneath your window giving a speech and we don't want you to just kill him. But we didn't know that was gonna happen,

so these guards were like, ah! And they were like, yeah. I would- That was not a precaution, that was almost like they forgot at the last minute, oh shit. They didn't secure this floor. There's also random people staying in this hotel. Wow, that's crazy.

If that happened to me. Was it Zelinsky? No, it was the guy before Zelinsky. It was the guy who owned a chocolate factory. But he was not the bad one that got ousted. It was between those two. There was a chocolate man. I haven't heard about this chocolate man.

I haven't heard about this. I went to his chocolate shop. I feel like I can't say what I wanted to say about it. He was fine, he was fine. He had a little, you could go to his chocolate shop and buy little chocolates. That's fun. That's, I mean.

They got fun presidents over there. They got better presidents. They got a chocolate guy, they got a comedian. Why not? Yanukovych was the one before him who was the best. Oh, got it, yeah. Who everyone hated. If that happened to me, what happened to you,

I'd still be scared. That's so disarming. That's so stressful. And also the words that they just said were, kill president. Oh my God. So they were like. But they meant don't.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or you might. Here's the thing, that's not what I would say if I meant don't. That's not what I would say. I would pick different I meant don't. That's not what I would say. I would pick different words. Jesus Christ.

Anyway, that might have been a bad guy hotel. I mean, it might have been. Here's the thing though, too. We should not have the president speaking outside the bad guy hotel. No, no, you can't go there if you're the president. But then I'm also just thinking about how funny it is that the hotel is called Hotel Ukraine. Like if there was a hotel here called Hotel United States of America,

it'd be the worst hotel on earth. It would suck so bad. Yeah. Also, the only bar in Hotel Ukraine was a strip club. In the hotel? Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say what I was gonna say. What the hell is going on over there? It seems like a crazy place.

At this point, it's fair. It is crazy. Any other thoughts on Case of the Golden Nine? Anything we missed? I equally felt smart and dumb playing this. I think that's fine. I do like it. I'm eager to check out the second one.

Give me more of the Secret Society stuff. Because I feel like that's the stuff that gets pushed to the back a little bit. Another example of this that I love, in the paranormal activity movies, everyone's like, oh, the shelves are opening, or the stuff's moving around. There's a covenant of which storyline in those movies

that they never, ever want to get into. And I'm like, tell me about that. That's so interesting. They always show it in the last five minutes of those movies. Give me, if this new game doesn't have the Secret Society stuff, I'm out. Matt, you should see the, you should watch First Omen. I feel like you would like it.

Oh yeah, you would like First Omen. Look, I haven't seen any of the Omens. You don't need to. I saw your recommendation on this online and I was like, Eva says to watch this. I think I'm gonna watch it. It's a standalone movie that would have a lot of the stuff you like.

Give me all that you got. I love freaky side stuff. It's a freaky side stuff, the movie. Yeah, I wanna, despite any misgivings I had about the DLC, I will play anything these guys make. I think this is an incredible achievement. Shout out to Color Gray Games. Yeah, Color Gray.

It's really, really rad stuff. Also, oh, cool composer, Ukrainian composer. Yeah, it is, Kyle Misko is the composer for the first game. Beautiful soundtrack. Awesome score. Really, really great work. Yeah, and beautiful again in the way that was just like, that's just aggressively dissonant at times.

Yeah. And like, this is unsettling. And then there's like parts where it's like, oh wait, this environment has a different soundtrack, and then I gotta, but I gotta go back to this one, and this place, like, it just sounds scarier there. So I was like, oh boy, I guess I gotta go back here to investigate more.

I don't know, I like that feeling. I do like too that part of the UI is, if you remember something from another puzzle, you can easily go back in a puzzle to the other one to be like, what was going on here? What was that person's name? This is the known information we have. Cause that was actually a hard part for the game for me

is that I'm bad with names kind of. Well, the characters like, and the characters continue on with multiple puzzles. And so one guy who was the culprit and one might be the victim and the next and so forth. But also that the hint system, they make you do a little task to earn a hint, but it makes you drill the names of the characters

so that you get much better at identifying the characters. If you are a dummy who needs lots of hints like me, by the end you're like, oh yes, that's Oscar. Oh, that's Edmund. Because also they do a good job of making the characters look the same, like chapter to chapter as well. Right, yeah.

The one where they're wearing masks, I was like, this is gonna be impossible for me. I don't know, this is tough. But I did succeed. What a game. What a game. If anyone hasn't played it yet, you check it out on, I mean, I think it's a great way to experience is on the Netflix thing is

Basically, it seems like everyone has Netflix But like, you know that the way it works is a little clunky in terms of you have to open the Netflix app And then that redirects you to another app to download Yeah, I think it controls if you just it's one extra step and I think it controls really well On I on iOS and I assume Android. And Netflix has so many good games. They really do, yeah. They have Life is Strange,

they have like all sorts of like cool. Yeah, they get Into the Breach on there. So good. Yeah, you don't wanna, they actually do have Hades on there. You don't wanna give Netflix any credit, but it is like, they do have good games on there. I feel like they're bringing this to a bigger audience.

Yeah, they've good taste. Does Netflix got the games? I wonder who's working in Netflix games, because it may just be like, hey, it certainly feels like people who are great at picking out interesting indie games and curating a great collection. And so I imagine they're people who just are very passionate

and knowledgeable. Hey, it's time for a new segment. Yay. Can our producer ranch identify dudes from video games? That's right. It's the premiere of Dude Ranch. Yay. So I will name a dude, and Matt and Eva, you guess if our producer, Rochelle Chan,

Ranch knows who it is, and for our purposes, Dude is gender neutral, so. Hell yes. It could be any character from a video game. And Ranch, you'll be on the honor system. So I will have them guess if they think you know it, and then it will ask you if you actually know it. Got it.

Got it, awesome. All right, first up, does Ranch know this dude, Master Chief? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I say yes. Eva says yes. I think I'm gonna, just to keep it interesting, I'm gonna say no, because part of me thinks, in a sense, there's almost no way,

but I'm like, I don't, I'm not sure. So I have not talked with Rochelle about any of these in advance, so I don't know myself. Ranch, who is Master Chief? I don't know. Oh! Matt gets a point. Hell yes.

Next up. Wait, who is Master Chief? Oh, I guess I should tell you, Master Chief is the main guy from Halo. Oh, he has a name. Yeah, he does have a name. His name's not Halo. All right, Matt gets a point. Next up, does Ranch know this dude, Squall Leonhart?

No. Eva says no. I mean, I also know that it's, there's no way that, it's impossible. I barely know who that is. Matt thinks it's impossible. I don't know who that is. Ranch, who is Squall? I don't know.

Okay. You both get a point. Squall is from Final Fantasy VIII, but he is in Kingdom Hearts, and I know that Mark, because he obsessively plays Kingdom Hearts, I thought there was a chance he might have stumbled upon him. They don't call him Squall in Kingdom Hearts, though. They only call him, they call him Leon.

Oh, interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah. Okay. It's weird. Okay, next up, Guile. I'm gonna say yes on this one. I feel like there is more

video game character literacy amongst fighting games for some reason. Fighting games cross over. Is Matt allowed to explain what it is in the answer? Well, I think again, we'll trust Ranch on the honor system that she's not gonna take new information from this. Say no. Matt says yes, Eva says no. Ranch, new information from this? I'll say no. Matt says yes, Eva says no.

Ranch, who is Guile? From what you said... No! When you first said Guile, no, I have no idea who that is. Is he from Street Fighter? He is from Street Fighter. Is he a blond hair? Yeah.

Okay. I kind of pictured him after you said the fighting be more careful. Okay with that. That's fair I don't know who guy I just call that a mulligan. We're figuring this out as we go. I ruined the game. No, it's fine No, we're we're we're this time. We're done All right next up scorpion I Say no, I'm gonna say yes. Eva says no, Matt says yes.

Ranch, who is Scorpion? Amelia's dad. So people who don't listen to Doughboys, the associate producer of Doughboys, Amelia Marino, her dad is named Scorpion. Really? Yeah, he's named Scorpion. But that is not who I'm talking about if y'all thought ranch was interesting

Ever on the production side of head gum is out of their money I don't know who scorpion scorpion from Mortal Kombat So Eva gets a point there and Matt didn't say fighting games. I didn't say I didn't give a huge clue away. Yeah Okay I'm not like my list I don't think I think that this game is maybe the premise of this game doesn't work I don't know if you know any of these maybe I went too obscure here next up Peter Pepper I don't know if you're gonna know any of these. Maybe I went too obscure here.

Next up, Peter Pepper. Peter Pepper. It's also just kind of funny to hear the guys, like to hear the people. This is the thing about video game dudes, it's sometimes fun just to say their names. Yeah. I'm gonna say no.

I'm gonna say yes. It'd be the biggest shock on earth, but I'm gonna say yes. Ranch, who is Peter Pepper? I don't know. Peter Pepper is the chef from Burger Time. Yeah, I do know what that game is. Do you do know the game? I don't know. Peter Pepper is the chef from Burger Time You do know the game? I don't know what that game is. Eva gets a point there. Okay, it's my uh I didn't know that. Beyonce's favorite video game, and I don't think she could pull Peter Pepper. It's like Quelo It's like pulling Quelo as one of the Cinnamon Toast Crunch guys

That's true, one of them is canon know that because Paul Rust would say it out loud all the time. What is his name, Quello? Who is Quello? I think he's the skinny Cinnamon Toast Crunch chef. Yeah. Oh no. Bad name.

Okay. That sucks. I know, I hate it. Next up, Funky Kong. I mean. Yes. Yeah Funky Kong. I mean. Yes. Yeah, this is absolute yes. You both say yes.

Ranch, who is Funky Kong? Donkey Kong's brother. I'll give you both a point. He is in the Donkey Kong Country franchise. She pulled Donkey Kong. Yeah, you got that. That'll work. Is he his uncle?

I don't think he's a blood relation. I think he's just another Kong in the universe. Just a guy, yeah. He's just a cool friend. So Kong's not a last name? No, it's not, it's just like kind of they're all just Kong. It's almost, if you think about it too hard, like it's their ethnicity.

Like it's like his name. They're all Kongs, yeah. Is King Kong a Kong? Yeah. Not according to Nintendo. They don't wanna get into that. That's a whole thing. That's been litigated actually might be his ethnicity it might be okay cool I think of it as a last name but but I don't

think there's a they're related and like there are a lot of Smith's funky Kong is cool he's got sunglasses on yeah you would like you'd like him he's got yeah you mean you would love he sounds cool dude like him. He's got, he's cool. Yeah, I mean, you would love Funky Kong. He sounds cool. He's a cool dude, yeah. All right. He rides on a surfboard in Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze.

He's really cool. Yeah, it's called Funky Mode. All right, Matt has three, Eva has four. Yes! Let's go. Couple more left. Three more left. This is embarrassing for me.

You should not be embarrassed. You're not expected to know these. It's actually good that we don't. This is great. I not be embarrassed. You're not expected to know these This is I have not known I didn't know guile. Oh, yeah, this is great Next up Edmund clouds Lee. Yes. I mean yes, I hope Ranch who is Edmund clouds Lee the guy from the case of the cold I almost forgot what is that it was from the game? Wikipedia before we start recording so I could remember his name

Yes, he's a wiki Community all right two more Larry Laffer. I was a yes I Just hope for ranch's sake that she doesn't know Ranch who is Larry Laffer I have no idea Larry Laffer the titular leisure suit Larry They made these video games about like a horny guy. Yeah, he's a horny guy your favorite game like a horny guy. Yeah, he's a horny guy. Your favorite game. It's my favorite game.

Eva loves that one, it was for her. We have three, we have Perilous Patty, we haven't played through the rest of them. We gotta do more of them. Yeah. And then there was a game they just skipped in the series, right? Was it four?

I think so. It was a joke, they skipped it. In the comments that we get, it is the most requested thing. You know, the thing I get tagged in online the most is when the bundle is on sale. Oh really? This show has ruined my life.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they're, hey, they're Sierra get adventure games. You should play, they're so fun. They're definitely so fun and not weird. They don't make you feel sick. Yeah. One left. It's tied up, so not weird. They don't make you feel sick. Yeah. One left, it's tied up, so this one will decide it.

Larry Bird. Yes. Eva says yes. I mean, just for the sake of breaking the tie, let's say, I'm gonna say no. Rochelle, you've been covering your face. With your scarf. With your scarf the whole time

to not disclose anything to the contestants. Who is Larry Bird? Basketball player? I will give it to you. I was looking for specifically Jordan versus Bird one-on-one, but he's been in a number of NBA games, yes. Yes. If Ranch would have said specifically what you wanted,

I would have, I guess, passed away. What? You would have just shot through the ceiling You would have caught on fire like one of the golden idol characters Yeah but I'm spontaneously combusted And we're all just screaming Oh he caught on fire huh? We don't know Couldn't have speak he was sitting there just a moment ago

He just drank his diet coke. Evil Wins, thank you, Ranch, that was fun. That was so fun. I should have had a Mary-Kate and Ashley license to drive one in there next time. That's this week's Get Played, our producer, Rachelle Chen, Ranch, yard underscore underscore sardar. Music is by Ben Prunty, benpruntymusic.com.

Our art is by Duck Brigade Design, duckbrigade.com. And hey, check out our Patreon, patreon.com slash get played where you can find our entire pre-HeadGum Back catalog plus ad free main feed episodes and our Patreon exclusive show, Get Animated. Matt, what are we doing this week? We're watching, we're doing a watch along. That's right. Of Pokemon 3, the movie, and you might be surprised by our take, and that's all I'll say.

The three of us, me and Matt and Ranch, watched the episode on the show, or watched the movie, rather, on the show for the episode, and then we did a live commentary for it. It was a lot of fun. You can find that at patreon.com slash get played. Eva Anderson, thanks so much for being here. Thanks, Eva.

So, so fun. Yeah, we will do another Leisure Suit, Larry, now that Rochelle knows who Larry Laffer is. Yes. Rochelle, will you play the other ones to catch up? I will play it. You do not have to play those. You should not play them.

Rochelle sends in her resignation next week. Sorry, I have to dedicate my life to Larry Laffer. Eva, anything you'd like to plug? This fall watch Interior Chinatown on Hulu. That's it. Check that out. Yeah. And you're a good friend of the show, very generous with your time.

I do have to tell you, you got played. Sorry. Yeah, sorry. We've been on the show before, you kind of know. Oh man. Are you guys gonna put this episode out still? Um... Yeah, we'll put it out.

Everyone's gonna know you got Plit though.