The Case Of The Golden Idol with Eva Anderson

This is a head gun podcast.

Hey, Matt, since we're doing this Case of the Golden Idol episode today, and the game's like all about detectives and like, you know, solving puzzles and stuff, I thought we could like try to come up with like a really cool puzzle that we could do as an intro.

Hell yeah.

Like it's like a fun idea.

Like it's like a fun audio thing.

And then maybe like the listeners can kind of like, oh, I figured it out.

It was like, you know, 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 like probably two of the smartest guys.

Yeah.

Okay, what about it would be in the style of the golden idol puzzles, right?

So it'd be like blank and blank.

Oh, yeah, right.

That's a good way to do it, right?

Because it's like you've got to get words you got to fill in.

Yeah, so like they had to, the listener sort of has to fill in words somehow.

And this will just work on their phones.

Yeah.

It'll just work.

They have to fill in words.

So it'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, because then we'll be part of it.

Yeah, then we're in the puzzle, which is pretty cool.

And then what if it's like something about

what we're doing?

Yeah,

I got something.

I think I got something.

Okay.

It's like.

We have to come up with a solution before we get to that.

But I think I'll just like, I'll just pitch it to you.

It's like, like, all 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 did

and then i'll be like or you know you said hey decided to do their 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 was the

who farted and then also i have a ring like that's another thing like i'm wearing yeah you can wear a ring 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 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 yeah Nick got the bean burrito.

Yeah.

It might have 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, 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 are, like, really red.

And then the listener might be like, oh, Nick's embarrassed.

He fucking farted.

That's clearly him.

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 like, unless his face is red, it's not because 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.

And it's like, oh, God, like Matt, it's like Matt farted and maybe he shit a little bit.

Maybe he shit his pants.

But actually, you look in his pockets and he doesn't have his wallet.

So he's like, I'm concerned that 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.

Yeah, who did it?

All 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 receiver here.

Oh, man, that's so crazy that I'm excited to do the podcast, too.

Hey, you also have a Taco Bell receiver.

I also went to Taco Bell.

Oh, no.

Where's my wallet?

Oh, man, I wish I hadn't farted just now.

Oh, man, I farted so bad.

I shit my pants.

We both farted.

We did it.

We both did it.

Gotcha.

We disguise ourselves as Darkhand Initiates and spontaneously combust as we discuss narrative puzzle detective game The Case of the Golden Idol this week on Get Played.

Wow, it's 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 Apodaka.

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.

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.

Oh, God, I wanted to bring this up.

Yeah.

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 listed that episode.

I was like, oh, God, Nick says 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 a third playthrough, but I bounced at the, so I did a regular playthrough, one where I romanced Astarian,

and then because 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'm doing, I have a dirge run where I'm also romancing Astarian.

And then I got to like literally right before the end game.

And I was like, I don't want to.

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 kind of drags away.

I've already just done it twice.

Yeah.

But I like, it's, the dirge, the dark urge run is also full of like new material.

Yeah.

All these, there's a new character.

I don't know if you've played it or like

I played a chunk of the dark urge and I thought I was going to play through all of it and then I bounced off of it and the in you know deep into the first act but like I did really like it so the dark urge for for our listeners who are um 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 a game.

Heather and Campbell played through that.

Oh, yeah, I did a Heather.

I did a Heather.

And then, but I wasn't trying to be like a scamp.

I just said 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, it, but it was like the first game, the first time I had to, I played it on PS5,

the 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 70-hour game where somebody is walking through the house going like, what?

Are you still playing this?

Yeah.

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 headspace.

I was like, either I'm going to be one of these people on these subreddits who plays it 75 times because I really, because 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 this off-pod 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?

Oh, there's just like entire chunks of the story I just had never

experienced because I

did.

I did,

I murdered the entire grove.

Yeah.

I murdered the Emerald Grove like right away.

And I also killed Karlak to get a sword that wasn't good.

Yeah.

And so Will never joined me because I killed him.

And then

Halson, who I'd already freed, showed up and I had to kill Holson in the camp.

And I just stole his underwear and I made someone else wear it.

And then I just like all those storylines.

So like act two, like Halson is very important.

He wasn't around.

Yeah.

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.

And he'd have no one to fix anyway because Carlak is who is.

I beheaded her and held her head up to the camera.

It was so crazy.

So the whole second one is like, oh, there's like, there's a drag.

Well, these are all spoilers, but like there's a whole Will thing.

Yeah.

And like,

great.

Like, I'm, I.

We 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, um,

it was nuts.

So, yeah, I unlocked all that,

that content.

And then, oh, I also, while I was doing the dark urge run, I also just started doing like, um,

uh,

what's it called?

Like, uh, just a character, a run where I was a starian.

This is when I was like, I have to stop.

Right.

An origin 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 get 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 head 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, 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 didn't, I

had

a game that didn't have everybody's favorite character in it, Lazelle.

Yeah, she died in act one in my playthrough.

And I've thought about starting a new,

a new run just to see what she's all about.

Because I, like, I just, I simply don't know.

I have no idea.

Lazelle rocks.

Did you do the whole crash without Lizelle?

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 uh 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 what 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 are, there are certainly RPGs that have done that had that kind of optionality.

But with this game in particular, first off, I think it's like the biggest game that has had 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 or 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 Laiselle's gone, Laiselle 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.

Yeah.

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, 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 a crazy thing.

And it accounts for that too.

Yeah, because I was like, when I told you, I was like, I just killed all the tieflings, including all the children.

Yeah.

And Nick was like, those are are huge characters.

And I was like, I didn't.

Okay.

Yeah.

Like, great.

But it was a psyche.

He was just like, that's crazy.

You're not going to 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 like completely ruined.

Like, that, like, something like, there's, I mean, they've accounted for so much.

Like, they must have accounted for every possible way to play.

But, like, I guess if you killed all the characters, could you break the game?

I wonder.

This is a thing I got into because you were talking about getting into like deep subreddits, but like, like, I, you know, YouTube at a certain point was feeding me so many Baldur's Gate 3 videos and my algorithm that you get.

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, 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?

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 like the emotional attachments you'd have to specific characters and the kind of relationships and like what human growth feels like instead of just like what it looks like when you chew up a bunch of stuff and spit it out.

I was like, this game game was written by people and the fact that knowing like that one person wrote a starian's dialogue period for the they wrote their 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 the the division of labor was like hey yeah you're gonna oversee this individual character's arcs creatively And they found it all a way for it all to mesh together and feel tonally consistent.

It's really, really cool.

Like a nine,

ten-part doc about how they made this damn thing.

And

just injected into my brain.

I would rather be watching that than weird, like, Estonian videos of like what happens when you, yeah, when you make like all eight choices in one dialogue tree.

I was like, that's what I was like, I got to stop.

I got to do something else.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a real miracle that it exists.

It's unbelievable.

It's really rad.

Yeah.

You want like the psych odyssey, like the dib.

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 at the opposite end of the spectrum.

You also played one of the worst games in recent memory, Gollum.

Oh, yeah.

I did not finish Gollum.

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 said it's so funny.

Oh, man.

That little thing that comes up that says Gollum won the argument.

Have you seen that?

No.

Yes.

Oh, it's like it'll become a meme where

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.

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 it's actually, it's actually this.

Yes.

That's what I'm saying.

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.

Because, 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 Nintendo or Sony or Microsoft, a closed platform that's on, you know, that's on Xbox or PlayStation or,

you know, a Wii U, whatever the hardware was at the time was in the industry.

It has to be like certified.

The first party has to sign off on it.

And so a game that is completely broken like that, like 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 kind of

evade some of these

things.

I guess Gollum is maybe a big enough license where they're able to do it, but it's just like, you should not be able to have a 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 platform updates?

Okay, no, you can still, I mean, you can still patch these games on release.

So maybe they were just like, hey, there's going to be a day one patch that's going to resolve all this stuff.

A year and a half from release, we're going to be seeing in a different title.

I know, Gollum's going to 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 skies.

Like, man, they fucking fixed it.

Yeah, this is good as hell.

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 like the mid-game point.

I was like, this is a really funny joke until I'm really, like, it's my life.

Yeah, right.

It's such a like PS2 era like concept.

Like, don't give Gollum an action platformer.

They're giving Gollum a movie.

I mean, they're giving, I mean, maybe they were, they jumped the gun on this.

Maybe they're a little too early.

There might be a good Gollum game on the horizon.

I want to ask about an immersive uh that you were that you were one of the creative forces behind that i attended with a podcast arides mike carlson um i really enjoyed it's called the shape of the night it was

uh i well it wasn't earlier this year was it was november

right after

thanksgiving so yeah it's a it was a really cool experience and i'm i i wanted to ask what it's like 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.

Well, 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 slash puzzle slash escape room designer named Tommy Haunton, who is 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 like several years on these various experiences.

And

what's really fun about Tommy is that, like, you know, we all create the narrative together.

It's like, it's almost like a branching narrative script like you would have for a video game.

Right.

Because people have to are going to 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 the stuff was, Tommy came in and created this like all these puzzles.

And then he was like the minister, this kind of the 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 show.

And if you could bring him back stuff,

he would you could get hints from him, but you would have to ask him, we have to write down questions, and he could only respond with these stamps that he had.

So he could give you, you could ask him yes or no questions, and you'd go like YN.

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 like structures of the rooms and stuff.

So it's about,

yeah, just the idea of like incorporating puzzles.

So you don't just feel like you're just like being handed puzzles you have to do, but you're like, oh, this room, like I thought I thought 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 like another part of an experience.

Yeah.

It's, I mean, like, you know, I don't attend like these sort of these sorts of things often.

I, and, but, but it was really interesting to me is like it has the feeling of like an open world sort of like experience, 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 going to go in this room and do this thing for a little bit.

You know,

whether that's like I'm going to watch this basically like a, you know, like a little scene between some actors.

I'm just going to observe that, or I'm going to 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, where 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.

Right.

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 um 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 uh 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 um 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 like yeah that person's going to 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-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 going to come in so clutch because I play video games and I just like, I'm going to be thinking about the puzzles differently than some of my friends.

And I, I'm so bad at them.

I, I, but 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 and like ish, 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 into the toilet because it looked gross and i knew that

i knew it wasn't real but it looked nasty it looked it looked gross in there yeah and i knew i used like uh there was like a something in there like a 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.

That's pretty funny.

That's funny.

I like that.

You should do Stash House.

Should I do Stash House?

Because 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 mean,

that sounds awesome.

Cause I did, 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 our fault.

And 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 that the trick they used to do in like 50s matinees yeah like show like a like an old like scary movie with a giant spider or whatever i did talk about this on podcast all right

like 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 wish to, oh, I got put in a coffin and I got, it was, that was very, I did not love that 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.

Yeah, he was like crawling around on me and stuff.

And 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 and i was like all right

i i wish i had a little more buy-in or i was actually scared i kind of just knew it was funny and then uh my friend saw my foot in a hole behind the wall and it was like matt is that you and i was like yeah i'm behind the 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 awhile yeah that's to what you were saying about earlier like that's the the thing, like, you, 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.

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.

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.

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.

I gotta watch that.

That's so good.

I pulled it up at a bar on Saturday.

I went to go see some friends, and I

Shaq came up and I was like, You guys want to see the funniest video I've ever seen?

And I had a crowd of like drunk friends looking at my phone.

Chris Angel was levitating and crying, laughing.

It was so funny.

I got thanked.

They were like, thanks for showing me.

This is so good.

Oh, you should thank Chris.

Be like, you made my day, man.

Yeah, don't thank me.

Thank the mind freaks.

Ah, thank you, man.

Thanks, buddy.

A bunch of people pointing at the sky, like, whoa, and then you see Shaq up there.

Wave with Wayne holding his fucking bullhorn hat like it's gonna fall off.

He's so shocked.

Aww.

It's so, so you guys know who chris angel's best friend is uh i wait is that he's an actor right yeah is it oh fuck is it gary oldman 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 it does

weirder you're right the fact that gary oldman is good friends with chris angel

One of them went to the others, like, like introduced them at their Hollywood Walk of Fame.

It's like that degree of friendship.

Yeah, it was Gary Oldman introduced Chris Angel, I think, on his star.

I gotta know how they met, I gotta know

everything about them.

I have to know what they talk about, what do they have?

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's 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 Lolian Express one of the times he's not.

But the idea of the guy who's got a restaurant in Henderson, Nevada, or whatever the fuck is that?

Yeah, yes, uh, the Moapa Valley.

Moapa Valley.

It's where Kablip is.

Yeah, the idea that, like, also, it's the thing that I'm always 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 really know about Sir Gary Oldman?

Maybe he's addicted to him.

What kind of guy is he?

What's his inner life like?

And that this is like, this is my best friend.

Yeah.

Chris Angel.

Has he eaten at Chris Angel's breakfast lunch and pizza, aka Kublip?

That's what I do want to.

I do wonder if he's eating a kublip.

Can we find out what's going on?

I feel like

is there a way for us to find out if he's eating it kublip?

Do you think his photo's on the wall?

It's not.

I've been twice.

I mean, if you're in the area, you might as well go.

Yeah.

I'll see if I can find any evidence.

But while I do that, I want to ask a question for everyone.

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Matt, we should start with you.

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 and 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, you know, maybe when Heather's here, maybe we'll see the merchant again and all will be right.

You don't think I better not even say it.

Yeah, I don't, 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.

Yeah, 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 and

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 want to start with you, Matt, because everyone wants to hear about Shadow of the Erd 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.

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 on PS5, yeah?

I'm playing on PS5.

So

I'm not playing the DLC at the base game difficulty.

I'm playing it at New Game Plus difficulty.

I'm getting my ass kicked.

I'm going to tell you that right now.

It's hard.

It is hard.

But the feeling you get when you beat a boss

is,

I don't know.

It's 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 going to burst out of my chest.

Are you seeing the mechanical elves?

I'm seeing everything.

I saw like an old relative in the corner that's been long passed.

It's tough.

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 cutscenes.

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, and so I have a lot of magic uh i have um

i have swords though too i have the sword of night and flame which is like a magic sword uh it's a pretty sick sword actually has cool um weapon art um

and

i i

i went through the new game plus with just me and my mimic tier and we were just 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

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 it's 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 am 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, Carl?

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 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 as Elden Ring just has more of like a sub safety net.

It's like things with the, you know, the

feels like you have a more extensive like summon system.

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 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 is easy like comparatively it's like way easy i don't think i died one time playing re i don't think so i just don't think it happened um but like

this I died, I think, five times within the first like four minutes of like playing it.

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 new, there's a new scaling system in the, in this where you get new, um, 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, and then I can do it.

I beat a boss that was having a really, really hard time.

It was like, I went through two controllers, like, battery, while trying to defeat this

boss.

And then I did do it.

Ranala smoked.

Wow.

Got her.

Can I talk 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,

apparently there's like a lot of a lot of frame drops people experience.

But I'm curious like what is the what are the

is is there any sort of like a consistency to the biome does it look and feel differently than the rest of the elder ring world

no it kind of looks like it's just like a different place like a different like different place within the lands between

um this i did see that they put out a uh uh what do you call it they put like they put they put out a map where it's like on their twitter they they showed the old map and then they showed the new map and it fits right exactly in this like one spot on the map.

It's a separate map completely, but like the idea is it's right here in this area, uh, 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 climbing.

Yeah, yeah, you're going up.

Yeah.

And

you're going up, thank you.

you yeah yeah

and uh it's like i don't know it's that stuff's cool there's like new creatures and new bosses that you like are new like walking around

uh creatures that you never seen before there's like these big like fucking like fire guys walking around i don't like them

you can't get too close because they'll get you um and some of these guys can one hit you like pretty like and it's that sucks because 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 I got.

All I have is my long health bar.

But 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 sure are playing this Elden Ring a lot.

Oh, sure, right.

Yeah.

Kind of can't seem to be putting down this Elden Ring.

Yeah.

I know.

I'm doing it too much.

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.

It's just kind of like.

I did not turn my head when I was called.

And that was like a you can't do that.

That's a thing.

You can't do that.

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 Natalie and I developed a thing where like I would just say like boss fight and like she's like okay I understand that you're in the middle of something and then when you die in the next 40 seconds you're going to 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 Kablip, but I did find a 2014 headline: Gary Oldman blasts Hollywood politics, defends Mel Gibson and Alec Baldwin.

Jesus.

Yeah.

What a cool guy.

God bless him.

I mean, I'll say it.

He's He's like the third best Gary.

But, Nick, in your elderly, Carson,

Jules,

Cooper,

Pullman.

Wow,

he's getting further and further down the list.

I say Gary from Spongebob is up there, too.

That's like we're my generation.

Yeah, sure.

I'll throw him in there.

Why not?

Shandling.

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 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, yeah, you did something to kind of stand up.

I'm just going to 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 the that's what you want to do.

I don't want to, I don't want to have a thing.

Uh, you're, so it's Shadow of the Ear Tree overall.

You're like, I, you're having the time of your life, it sounds like.

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 to do, but I might 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 I'd 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 going to start over with a wretch.

I'm excited to play this.

And I'm going to get all the way through it.

And then I'm going to work my way to Shadow of the Air Troop.

And that's the way I'm also going to have like a lot more time in July for a lot of other reasons.

So it's like, I'm going to have more fun

just doing a new playthrough.

The other thing, and Eva, I'm not sure how you play the like games where you create a character, but for me, I'm like part of the experience is I create so many more characters than I actually seeded it through to completion.

Like I like probably started 12 different balder's gate 3 characters that i abandoned at some point in act through act one um but not act three but act somewhere in the in the first act and then i just like they'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 good yeah it was kind of my first game it's sort of i mean i guess i did play the uh 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 was the first Fromsoft game I really got into.

I'd played a couple of Dark Souls in the past and Demon 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.

You probably would love it.

If you can handle the jank of Gollum, you'll love Elden Ring.

The other thing about it is that 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 Evo, what are you playing these days?

Animal Well.

Oh, yeah.

So good.

Yeah, it's awesome.

My husband just calls it Circle.

Oh, he's still playing Circle.

He's just happy I'm not, there's not a sexy vampire that he has to deal with.

And yeah, I just got the fourth flame the other day.

Okay.

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.

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 going to have time to get into it right away, but I really want to play it.

It's extremely a Nick Weiger game.

Yeah, I've seen it.

yeah.

And it's got cool puzzles, and it's, yeah, it's great.

It's got like, it's, it's in the style of kind of like a retro game, but in ways that are unexpected.

Um,

it's just 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.

Um, like a little bit of, um, oh, yeah, uh, Alan Wake 2 DLC.

I 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 like i did like you yeah i was just like oh and i watched the performance of the game awards like 20 times in a row so i love that section of the game so much best that was like i was tech that was like i wasn't ready for that actually i played control after Alan Wake 2.

Yeah.

So the kind of similar section in that game.

So I was unprepared, but i had to like put the game down and like walk around because there's a really crazy section in alan week two yeah i gotta play it i bet you would love it i'm sure i would love it this is another game exactly that kind of like it 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

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.

I was like, yes, Matt.

Yes, yes, yes.

Because it like, 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 a one guy's weird brain game.

Yes, exactly.

So I just downloaded Night City and I've been like working my way through that.

Nice.

Yes, 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 some bitch out.

Developed by Realm Realm Archive, and it is described, has been described as Vampire Survivors Meets Hades.

It is exactly that.

It is the Vampire Survivor style gameplay.

Are you adding it to your QR code?

I'm going to just get it right.

I'm a sick.

It is exactly that.

To the point where, and

I don't mean this as 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 the, what, what would be like generated.

Like, it's the, 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, it's, it's at the point of, it's almost like a pal world level of homage, Matt.

It's like a, it's like, yeah.

It's like an Edinburgh Wonka

experience.

But it's not like janky or shitty or feels like a rip-off.

It feels like its own thing, but it's also so clearly wearing its influences on its sleeve.

Cool.

I really like the art and animation, especially the effects.

The effects look really nice.

And then what it adds to the Vampire Survivors, you know, 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.

I mean, 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 flexibility.

It also is an inventory system.

So like, you know, Roguelite 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.

They all play and they all

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 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 internety, you know, but I whatever Karens and stuff.

No, 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 a modicons 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.

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I eventually got off that roof when the sun rose.

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 Klasvins, probably butchering their names.

I apologize, Clavins.

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, wears its influences on its sleeve.

This one is very much inspired by Return of the Obra Din and her story.

I mean, 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, you know, Return of the Obradin.

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 were discussing this.

I really like this game.

Eva, had you played this prior to yeah, you had played this game.

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.

Yeah.

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 an 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, 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 designed, like set up to unmoor you, to like, like everything is very dissonant.

Like the, a lot of the character designs are like intentionally like abrasive and ugly.

The music is oftentimes kind of like,

you know, it

almost even unpleasant, but I don't mean that in a negative way.

It's just it's like intentionally so.

It's like such a choice.

Just it's it's presenting

like kind of just like disturbing stuff, but also, but not disturbing in like an

like a horror way, like disturbing and 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 solve all the puzzles.

And I would often go for the, but it's like, there's some optional puzzles that like some of them, some of them are hard.

Yeah.

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, you know maybe i'm not maybe i'm actually pretty smart i'm actually really smart guy there there there are two feelings i have when playing this game and there's also you know there's been there have been two dlc yeah um episodes that have been released which will also talk about spider of lanka and the vampire of lemuria

there's moments where i feel like you you 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,

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 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.

Yeah.

I kind of felt like an iPad baby.

It does look like a game for a baby.

Yeah.

And you're like, you know, you're dragging the words to the right spot.

It was kind of, it kind of was like a, I don't know.

I kind of felt like a baby.

Especially when you do the hints.

Yeah, well, yeah.

Then I need help.

Yeah, and then also with 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.

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 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.

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 country as well.

There's a spoiler I want to talk about.

So there's, so basically, as you will, 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 some, maybe some bystanders and 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 Cloudsley, 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.

It feels a little bit less like that on PC.

And when I was playing, I should say I was crying for my mama.

It also looks like the worst adventure game of like 1985.

Yes, yes.

It's like an abandonware aesthetic, right?

Right.

It's like, it's like one of those things where it like 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, it's not, it's below like a Freddy Farkas frontier pharmacy.

Yeah, it's worse than Gold Rush.

Yeah, it's just a game called like

Brian the Magic Keeper.

What the fuck is this?

Like, this sucks.

Yeah, exactly.

But you're like, should I play this?

You're like, no, No, I'm not going to 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'll 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 a 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

it will be like your prompt will be like, Blank pushed blank from a cliff in the blank of blank on Monkey Paw Island.

And then the solution will ultimately be: Albert Cloudsley pushed Oberon Geller from a cliff in the horn of thumb on Monkey Paw Island.

And these are things that you've all put together from um inferences and just you know in intuiting connections uh i 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 it's it's super duper satisfying um now as it goes i uh i 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 just, 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, 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 this, in different environments.

So, you're dealing with like, I've got six different environments I'm going between and in three different timelines uh 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 uh because i finished

i finished the base game and then elden ring came out and i was like well there goes the rest of my life oh yeah i will say uh i at least had the benefit and not the benefit uh i could blame some of my like not being able to figure stuff out i had covet recently i was like oh this covet brain of mine so

you're not stupid you just had you got the you got the bad sick yeah uh but it 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 i don't think this will be spoiler but um a lot of the dlc is very clever yes i i i played the base game before i played the base game again i was like this is the most this game's incredible um 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.

Yeah.

Like, realizing something by solving a puzzle, that's a huge story moment.

I got, I find it to be like 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.

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, like pompous.

rich guys

in these like kind of lovecraftian narrative just getting lit on fire and poisoning each other and look looking like shit

yeah just like stupid too, getting dumber and dumber as they go.

I mean dumb names like Angus.

Yeah, exactly.

Fat and scared.

Getting gutted.

And so when it DLC is like, what it becomes this 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 immediately was like, ooh, like, why did this pivot to, I know you're under, they're going back in time and in some way closing loops and stuff, but also I did feel like,

for me personally, it revealed that, like, these are European developers.

Because it feels like, this has a specifically like, 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, it was you so

the black

you you want 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 get what you're saying because it also, like, it gets into prequel territory with the DLC.

We're 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, I'm not getting too far into spoiler crane, but the end of Vampire Lemuria, you're like basically directly setting up what comes in the base game.

Yeah.

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.

Right.

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, you know,

I see what type of

viscount this is supposed to be or whatever.

Yeah.

But nothing is taking place in our reality.

Yes, it's all, 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 the,

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.

I mean, I'll check it out.

Hey, Emma, can you let us know?

Yeah, yeah, I'll see what's going on.

I did have something like that recently.

We were watching this like True Crime Doc, and something about what was going on in it, I said to my fiancé, what if this lady is just like a racist, weirdo?

And I was right.

Oh, there you go.

I was just like, this super, it was just that.

Yeah, she's like a weird lady.

Rochelle, you played this game and you had not played.

You were not familiar with this game before, right?

No, no.

So you played all, you played the entire game on phone on your phone that's my understanding yeah and

you played all the dlc too yeah okay it was nice just i was be i'd be playing wherever i was yeah but it was so small i do feel like i got a little bit of a headache migraine situation from playing on the phone yeah because there's a lot of text and there's also like a lot of like tiny stuff on the like on the screen and i played a little bit of act one on on the 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.

I think it works really well.

I mean,

I loved it.

Feeling like a baby is not bad.

No,

it's really satisfying.

Yeah.

But what was it?

Like, what did you feel?

And like, like, your experience, like, because we checked in with you, and at first it seemed like you were saying that, like, 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 like the first couple chapters or whatever i like just like didn't really understand what it wanted me to do necessarily like or how to solve it right and then once i started to understand kind of how they were positioned 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 like i don't think mark i think mark tried to talk to me multiple times while i was playing and i don't think i heard him at all

that gamer tunnel tunnel vision.

And then I had like a little notebook and I was taking notes and stuff.

I took notes too.

Yeah, it helps.

It helps to like write shit down.

Because 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 that.

Wow.

I'm glad.

Have you played Oberden?

No.

Return of the Oberden.

That's a good.

That's a really good idea.

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 mysteries in the same sort of way.

You're intuiting stuff.

And it has the same sort of thing where when you get everything correct, you get a really satisfying,

you know, music sting.

Amazing.

Yeah, you're on like an old merchant vessel and trying to figure out how all the people on it.

disappeared or died.

Oh, sick.

Yeah, it's cool.

Yeah.

There's a sound effect in the case of the golden idol that I love.

And it's when you click on something.

It's just the click sound.

The click sound, like once you clear, like the, you click on something and then it's 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,

yes, right.

Yeah,

I don't know what you're just filtering.

I don't know what that was doing.

Vocabulary.

I love that.

It's really satisfying.

That's really satisfying.

It's like you're just like clearing tasks off your calendar.

Yes.

It has a great tactility to it.

No, that's awesome.

The other thing is, like, so you talked about old Sierra games, and 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, they used text parsers.

So if you would like the original King's Quest or whatever, in 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 that, you do the shit where you try to figure out the exact thing the game wanted from you.

Like open drawer.

uh i can't open that uh pull drawer i can't pull that uh pull drawer handle you pull the drawer open you know i mean like that sort of shit that you did 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 uh 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 of click on everything or try your verbs on everything and then the LucasArts games Lucas Films games and then ultimately LucasArts the developer had added a thing where you had the innovation where when you moused over stuff it would highlight what was interact like interactable anyway this game has basically just like exclamation points or just like like you know areas of interest on screen so you don't even have to do that step you're just like okay i'm gonna 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 could also turn that off.

I did just realize that.

Oh, I didn't realize.

Yeah, they're like, hey, if you don't want that, if you want a pixel hunt, 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 going to click everywhere.

Because

some of the, like you were saying, some of the scenes are like the earlier ones are like kind of like not obvious, but like a little clearer, like what's going on.

But then you get to some of these later ones where like, like 10 not 10 people but like like five people are dead in like a you know weird like game gone wrong and you're sort of like what the what happened here this is crazy yeah well and also there are the game is very very good at presenting red herrings.

Yeah.

Like there will be like a guy running from the scene holding a dagger and you're like, well, that guy's who stabbed him.

And it's just like then as you examine and as you really go through everything and try that out, it's 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 pinned on that guy is the color from the citizen app.

That's always running around with a knife outside.

Yeah, with 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 oh, fuck, I should have written down what it was called.

Hold on.

It's called the, it's another.

It's another golden idol, but it's, it's set in the 1970s, which is really interesting.

Oh, cool.

Hold on, let me look this up real quick.

Return of the Golden Idol?

No.

It might just be called Return of the Golden Idol, yeah.

But anyway,

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 like dimensionality to it it's a little bit uh just has it feels like another layer of polish and detail feels like there's a little bit more animation um and then also just the fact that it's set in a more contemporary environment just has things like you know uh there's a 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 um i don't know i really enjoyed it i thought the puzzle design was 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.

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.

Yes.

But you can't necessarily just infer that from the, the, 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.

Oh, I can't wait.

Yeah.

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 then you're like, that's not what happened to this guy.

They're kind of like, that's not what happened.

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.

It's like, like, yeah, you want the audience to think they're ahead of it.

And then you'd be like, no, we're actually ahead of you.

You stupid bitch.

15 minutes in.

You got to have your guy.

And it's not the guy.

Yeah, right.

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 Telltale model used to be, where it's like chapter one of this game would come out, and then a couple months later, a second chapter comes out.

I'll take all that they can give me.

Yeah, it's kind of how the DLC works because the game is divided into chapters, and the DLC kind of feels just like one additional chapter.

So it's kind of that.

I assume they'll have the same model with Rise of the Golden Idol, but we'll see.

I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but there are these European games, the Scandinavian games called Rusty Lake that also they drop like little mini 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 all right good new god

yeah and they're all connected like through characters and themes and stuff okay but those are really if you want just 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 I something you can't always

Finish a Final Fantasy VII rebirth.

You don't always got that kind of time.

But if I could just check off a little, like quick little game like that, but...

Be like you you did a task, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, because I'm not doing tasks in real life.

I could

do it in a game.

Yeah.

I also like his just talking about 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.

There's a guy with like a fucking spear through his throat.

All the deaths are so violent.

So nasty.

It's so funny.

Yeah.

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 guy has like a metal ring in his head.

And to me, I was like, that's the more grisly weapon.

Because that took shit.

That took effort.

Yeah, that was just 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 kid who's an idiot

and he just looks dumber than any character

or whatever like little pip I would do a whole little pip DLC that's what I 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 want to explore some of these existing characters I mean they they do like are they are integrated in the DLC yeah

for sure uh do it do we need to get into spoiler country i mean do we have anything we we haven't covered

You had a particular point.

Yeah, I'll just say this so you can edit it out if it's not prescient.

But I just want to say the thing that made me, and I just, maybe I'm 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 it, 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 this solution is.

Like, it's like, it's like, you basically get get one clean playthrough 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, yeehaw.

Yeah,

yeeha, yeeha.

Just like that, 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, I, I was so blown away by that.

Really, really good.

It's really cool.

And they've given you every single thing to put that together yourself.

Yes.

But for me, I just hadn't.

And it 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.

Yes.

And I just hadn't been like, oh, and also like years of someone's life.

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: 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 Lemura, you've not gotten to know this character as like the old version, the old version of it, yeah.

So, in the same sort of way, but realizing that, 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 from 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, the next game.

Yeah, hey, the hatch, you're talking my language.

I love the hatch.

There might be a hatch.

I love that they're, I love that they're changing the lookup a little bit.

I love that they're in the 1970s and the, the, the next game.

And,

I mean, it's just, I, I, it's, I feel like they've thoroughly explored this, again, sort of, you know, East India Company era, uh, British Empire environ to kind of just flip it up to a few centuries, I think, is a really, is a really clever choice.

I don't know.

I really, really enjoyed this game.

I'm glad you, I'm glad everyone else liked it as well.

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're all, they've all got different masks.

So things like that.

You've got to identify them by their various masks and cloaks or their jewelry or whatever.

Or like, you know, 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 you know that sort of i love that that stuff rocks to me you would be in a secret society me you think so i think i mean look any secret societies that want me i'm i'm a hundred percent in

we are going to bohemian grove

i'm in let's go like you know like my favorite part of the john wicks movies is not the action stuff i i love that There's like, they trade, they talk in gold coin.

You know, what's going on in this bad guy hotel?

I love the bad guy hotel.

Continental?

I love the continental.

The bad guys all hang out there in their own currency.

Assassins are like famous.

Like if people 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'd be like, guys, I know that this is like the scariest world.

It's kind of cool.

Do you think bad guy hotels though also just have extra like rooms they have to fill and that you might just end up in you do like a hotels tonight scenario.

It's like a group-on 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 is like they have a room open.

You get a corner suite for like $80.

This is insane.

Yeah.

You wake up, the whole room's been like shot to shit.

You slept through it.

You're like, what the hell?

Guys are fighting with katanas in the hallway.

Jesus Christ.

Everyone's gonna get my condom absolutely hot.

Yeah.

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.

And

in the like one morning, we were just like in our hotel room and like two men just burst into the room, like two armed guards.

And then they like locked all of our like windows.

And we figured out that they were like, oh yeah, the president is like underneath your window giving a speech and we don't want you to just like kill him or something.

But we didn't know that was going to happen.

So these were like, these guards were like,

and they were like, Yeah,

but that was like because that was not a precaution, that was like almost like they forgot at the last minute.

Wow, that's crazy!

Yeah,

was it Zelensky?

No, it was the guy before Zelensky, it was the guy who owned a chocolate factory, but he was not the bad one that got ousted.

It was the between those two.

There was a chocolate man.

I haven't heard about this chocolate.

I haven't heard about it.

I went to his chocolate factory.

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.

Yeah.

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?

Danikovich was the one before him who was the best,

who everyone hated.

If that happened to me, what happened to you?

I'd still be scared.

I'd be like, that's so, that's so dizzy, right?

Yeah.

That's so stressful.

And also the words that they just said were

kill president.

So they were like.

But they meant don't.

Yeah, 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 words.

Jesus Christ.

Anyway, that might have been a bad guy hotel.

I mean, it might have been them.

Here's the thing, though, too.

You should not have the president speak.

That's like 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 would 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 going to go ahead and say what I was going to say.

What the hell is going on over there?

It seems like a crazy point.

It's fair.

It is crazy.

Any other thoughts on Case of the Golden Identity?

Anything we missed?

I equally felt smart and dumb playing it.

And I think that's fine.

I think 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 then that gets pushed to the back a little bit.

Another example of this I love in the paranormal activity movies, everyone's like, oh, the shelves are opening or you know, the stuff's moving around.

There's a coven of witch 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 at 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 going to watch it.

It's a standalone movie, but it would have a lot of the stuff you like.

Give me all that you got.

I love freaky side stuff.

It's just a freaky side stuff movie.

Yeah, I want to, I'll, despite like any misgivings I had about the DLC, I will play anything these guys make.

Like, I think this is an incredible achievement.

Shout out to Color Gray games.

Yeah, Color Gray.

It's really, really, really good.

Oh, cool composer,

Ukrainian composer.

Yeah, it is Kyle Misko is the composer.

for the first game.

Beautiful soundtrack.

Really, really good.

Yeah, and beautiful, again, in the way that was just like, that's just aggressively dissonant at times.

And, like, this is, 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, well, I guess I gotta go back here to investigate more.

I don't know.

I just, I like that feeling.

Yeah, I do like to that part of the UI is if you remember something from another puzzle, you can easily go back while you're 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.

Because 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 through multiple puzzles.

And so, one guy who was the culprit in one might be the victim in 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.

Like, because also they do a good job of making the characters look the same

like chapter to chapter as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The one where they're wearing masks, I was like, this is going to be impossible for me.

This, I don't know,

this is tough.

But I did, I did succeed.

What a game.

Yeah.

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 this.

The Netflix thing is,

basically, it seems feels like everyone has Netflix.

But like, you know, the way it 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.

But I think it controls, if you just, it's one extra step, and I think it controls really well on iOS and NySum Android.

And Netflix has so many good games.

They really do.

They have Life is Strange.

They have like all sorts of like.

Yeah, they get Into the Breach on there.

So good.

Yeah.

You don't want to, actually, they do have Hades on there.

You don't want to give Netflix any credit, but it is like that, they do have good games on there.

And I feel like they're bringing this to a bigger audience.

Yeah, they've good, they've good taste.

Yeah, 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 could be any character in 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?

I say yes.

Eva says yes.

Yeah.

I think I'm going to,

just to keep it interesting, I'm going to say no because part of me thinks,

in a sense, there's almost no way, but I'm like, I don't, 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.

Matt gets a point.

Hell yes.

Next up.

Wait, are you telling 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 there's

impossible.

I barely know who that is.

I don't know who it 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 you might have stumbled on him.

They don't call him Squall in Kingdom Hearts, though.

They call him Lehon.

Oh, interesting.

I didn't know that.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's weird.

Okay, next up.

Guile.

I'm going to 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 going to take new information information from this.

Say no.

Matt says yes.

Eva says no.

Ranch, who is Guile?

From what you said.

No.

When Eva said Guile, no, I have no idea who that is.

Is he from Street Fighter?

He is from the family.

He is from Street Fighter.

He's the blonde hair.

Okay.

I kind of pictured him after you said

I'll be more careful

with that.

That's fair.

I don't know who guy.

I'll just call that a mull again.

We're figuring this out as we go.

I ruined the game.

No, it's fine.

No,

this is the first time we're doing it.

You did ruin it.

All right.

Next up,

Scorpion.

I say no.

I'm going to say yes.

Eva says no.

Matt says yes.

Ranch, who is Scorpion?

Amelia's dad.

So people who don't listen to Dough Boys, the associate producer of Dough Boys, Amelia Mourino, her dad is named Scorpion.

Really?

So yeah, she's named Scorpion.

But that is not who I'm talking about.

If y'all thought Ranch was interesting,

whoever on the production side of headgum is out of their mind.

I don't know who Scorpion is.

Scorpion from Mortal Kombat.

So Eva gets a point there.

My matted fighting game.

I didn't give a huge clue away.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm not looking at my list.

I don't think, I think 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.

It's also just kind of funny to hear the guys.

Like to hear.

This is the thing about video game dudes.

It's sometimes fun just to say their names.

Yeah.

I'm going to say no.

I'm going to say yes.

It'd be the biggest shock on earth, but I'm going to say yes.

Ranch, who is Peter Pepper?

I don't know.

Peter Pepper is the chef from Burger Time.

Yeah.

I do know that.

Do you do know the game?

You don't know the game.

Okay.

Eva gets a point there.

Okay.

It's my

fiancé's favorite video game, and I don't think she could pull Peter Pepper.

It's like Quello.

It's like pulling Quello as one of the cinnamon toast crunch guys.

One of them is chronically nice.

Paul Russ would say it out loud all the time.

What is his name, Quello?

Yeah.

Who is Quello?

I think he's the skinny cinnamon toast crunch chef.

Yeah.

Quello.

No,

bad name.

Okay.

That sucks.

I know.

I hate it.

Next up, Funky Kong.

I mean.

Yes.

Yeah, this is an 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 kong.

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.

According to Nintendo,

that's a whole

thing.

That's been litigated, actually.

But it might be his ethnicity.

It might be.

It might be.

Okay.

Cool.

I think of it as a last name,

but I don't think they're related.

And like there are a lot of Smiths.

Funky Kong is cool.

He's got sunglasses on.

Yeah, you would like him.

You would like him.

I mean, you would love Funky Kong.

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.

No, there's no.

This is great.

I have not known.

I didn't know Guile.

No, yeah.

This is great.

Next up, Edmund Cloudsley.

Yes.

I mean, yes.

I hope.

Ranch, who is Edmund Cloudsley?

The guy from the case of the golden.

I'll say, I almost forgot

that it was from the game.

I was like, is that Cloudsley?

I looked up his Wikipedia before we started recording so I could remember his name.

He is a Wikipedia.

He's a yes.

He's a wiki.

There's a fan community.

All right, two more.

Larry Laffer.

I'm going to say yes.

I just hope for Ranch's sake that she doesn't know.

I'm going to say no.

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.

It's my favorite logo.

Evil loves.

That one was for her.

We have three.

We have Perilous Patty.

We haven't played through the rest of them.

We got to 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's one of the joke they skipped it.

In the comments that we get, it is the most requested thing.

And 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,

hey, they're Sierra adventure games.

You should play as they're so fun.

They're definitely

so fun and not weird.

They don't make you feel sick.

Yeah.

All right, one left.

It's tied up, so this one will decide it.

Larry Bird.

Yes.

Eva says yes.

Hmm.

I mean, just for the sake of breaking the tie, let's say.

I'm going to 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.

If Ranch would have said specifically what you wanted, I would have, I guess, passed away.

You could have just shouted this.

Yeah, yeah.

You would have caught on fire like one of the Golden Island characters.

Yeah, I would have spontaneously combusted.

And we're all just screaming.

Oh, he caught on fire.

How?

We don't know.

Goodness me.

He was sitting there just a moment ago.

He just drank his Diet Coke.

All right, Eva Winston.

Thank you, Ranch.

That was fun.

Thanks, Ranch.

That was so fun.

That was fun.

I should have had a Mary Kate Nashley license to drive one in there next time.

That's his sweetest Get Played.

Our producer is Rochelle Chen.

Ranch, yard underscore underscore sard.

Our music is by Ben Prunty, BenPruntyMusic.com.

Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

And hey, check out our Patreon, patreon.com slash get played, where you can find our entire pre-head gum back catalog plus ad-free main feed episodes.

And our Patreon exclusive show, GetAnimaid.

Matt, what are we doing this week?

We're watching, we're doing a watch-along

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 this.

You should not play them.

Rochelle sends in her resignation next week.

Sorry, I had 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 hey, you're a good friend of the show.

Very generous with your time.

I do have to tell you, you got played.

Sorry.

It's sorry.

It's a, yeah, we haven't been on the show before.

You kind of know.

Oh, man.

Are you guys going to put this episode out still?

Yeah, we'll put it out.

Put it out.

Okay.

Everyone's going to know you got played, though.

That was a head gum podcast.