DGC Ep 446: Deadly Premonition (part one)

Ben, welcome back to Dev Game Club, a weekly podcast in which two veteran game developers look at games from the past to discuss their relevance and impact today. I'm Brett Duvill, and I'm joined as always by my co-host, a man who has been through a lot of crazy situations. That one, that one takes the cake. Tim Longo. Yeah. It does take the cake. And speaking of cake, before we get to the game from tonight, I wanted to.

Oh, mention Eric will power from last week. That was a great conversation. Really loved chatting with him. And as I said, I think in. Well, I think I said it in the post-show or the outro. He really got the assignment. He was, of the many guests we've had, he's probably the most just devs talking to devs person. Yeah, just in there. so yeah it was nice yeah for sure really good fun uh fun thing to do and then the other bit of cake um is uh we are going to be having a live episode...

Taping slash stream. This is a bonus reward for the defeating games for charity event. That was last January. We're trying to make sure we get it done before next January. So we're going to do that.

on the 28th of this month 28th of October which means we'll be playing our game from this week if you're in the discord you know what that is we'll get to it in a moment we'll be playing that and having episodes about it uh on what would be the 8th 15th and 22nd and then we will do that live uh episode which we'll be discussing portal 2 on to tie it back into the cake um because we've been playing that on tim's

twitch channel wednesday evenings when he normally streams our our recording will be at our normal recording time which is for us the tuesday evening at 7 p.m eastern or 8 p.m eastern rather and then i'll get this all down by the time we're actually there next week i'll do this better um and you know in the meantime we'll have three episodes about our current game our spooky game for october and then hopefully we will

we will be able to come to that episode and do it live, redeem that reward, and also have an opportunity for people to ask questions in the chat if they want to directly. I don't know if we'll do any other. Kinds of things. I've thought about some ideas, but we'll see where we are. Oh, you mean like singing reviews? No, I wasn't thinking. I think that ship has kind of sailed. We just kind of moved on from that at some point. Has it?

Well, I don't think you get to decide. We also don't get any, you know, I have a couple in the email that have been in there for years, but we haven't had an actual review with a song in it for a long time. So I don't know. And our goal is to finish Portal 2 co-op as well. Yeah, so we would aim to finish that in three more. Yeah, the next three weeks.

We'll also maybe talk a little bit about the Portal 2 single-player campaign. I don't know that I'm going to play all of it again, but I have played a bunch of it already. So we'll see where we get with that. I don't know how much. You've played as a single player, Tim. Only the first chapter, yeah. But I do, I am going to try to play more, yeah. I feel like I remember it being longer than I had expected. It's longer. Yeah, it's a lot longer than.

Yeah, longer than one for sure. So I'm going to get as far as I can, but playing it on the Steam Deck makes it easy. Okay. Yeah, we expect your hit rate to be about the same as, you know, for the main cast.

so it's a 50 50 chance folks you know um anyway let's move on uh to talk about our game for this week in the next couple of weeks we are playing finally now that we've opened up the decades, um, we are turning to 2010s deadly premonition. Um, I'm going to set the game a little bit in its year. Last year we played Alan Wake, I believe. Wasn't it? Or was it the year before? No, you could be right.

I'm not the one to ask. Yeah, I think it was last year. So we're actually following up. Alan Wake actually came out in the same year. So it is interesting and is in a... Similar setting. So it's interesting to compare them from that standpoint. I'm sure that's going to come up a lot over the next couple of weeks. But additionally, games that came out in 2010 that are kind of of interest.

because we played them or our predecessors to them on the cast resident evil 5 came out god of war 3 bioshock 2 halo reach Super Mario Galaxy 2, although that's so far from Super Mario 64 in some ways. It's hard to compare. Fallout New Vegas.

civilization 5 dead rising 2 another horror game there um metal gear peace walker i think those are all the ones that i had that were related to or sequels to games that we've played but then you also have uh um amnesia dark descent and limbo uh darksiders heavy rain red dead redemption danganronpa uh trigger happy havoc which i believe is the first in that

sort of visual novel-y kind of weird series on the PlayStation. And then some additional sequels, StarCraft II, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, which I mentioned to Tim in our pre-show. Probably my favorite, and I recently replayed it. And Mass Effect 2, I think. Do you have any others you want to throw out there? No, I think you got them all. I think you got the big ones.

Starcraft 2, I think you mentioned. I did, yeah. Yeah. No? No? I think that's... Yeah, especially those horror games that are all in the same year. It just also just dawned on me that none of those horror games that I think are all kind of impacting each other were made in the U.S. I think you're right there.

But they – oh, no, amnesia doesn't take place in the U.S. But you know what I'm saying? It's like they're made by people from different cultures essentially trying to – and succeeding in in you know representing representing that some sort of you know stylized yeah amnesia and limbo are kind of not that limbo i don't i wouldn't call

Yeah, no, I wasn't counting. Limbo is kind of a horror game as well, in my view, anyway. So, yeah, for sure. I mean, I'd even put, I mean, Heavy Rain isn't really, it's more of a thriller.

Yeah, no, but it's in the space. It's in the space. It's kind of adjacent. And I don't know what you would call Danganronpa. It's more like... battle royale the the movie not in not in its mechanic it's not a game where you fight a bunch of other kids in that way but it is about high school kids kind of in a in a i don't know murder party um

I know literally nothing about that. Oh, okay. Yeah, I mention it because it's one of those that's a white whale for me that someday I'm going to play and just have never gotten around to. And I own it. So someday I really will play it. But anyway, yeah, so that's the year that was. It's quite a, you know, it's a sequel-heavy year, especially in the sort of AAA space. But...

With Alan Wake and Deadly Premonition and some of these others that are projects of smaller scope, I think you're seeing some interesting things. I would put Darksiders in that as well, which is a game that I've... I quite like and have played a couple of times. So yeah, interesting, interesting kind of gear, but not one of those where you're seeing lots of new ideas, I guess. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Agreed. It is, what, I guess five years into that generation of consoles with the Xbox 360 coming out in... uh 2005 so i guess this is kind of what you expect right is like you're getting later into a cycle um you're starting to see a lot more sequels you know often polished and large and interesting uh in their own right in some ways but also trying to pay off on investments that have happened earlier in the generation so i guess that's a common theme we see kind of in the middle

in the middle of that, uh, that time. And I think that with the next, next consoles came out in maybe 2014. So we're square kind of in the middle, um, of everything. So. that's what makes this game so even weirder to me yeah it's like yeah you know it's original new original ip it's doing some pretty different things um Yeah, putting it toe-to-toe with Alan Wake. Yeah, so some stuff will come up for sure. I don't remember the dates of release about how toe-to-toe they were, but...

They were probably pretty close, although I don't have that in front of me either, because why would I do that, Tim? Oh, no. February 23rd, 2010. Yeah. So this is earlier in the year from Alan Wake, which came out, I think, in September, something like that. It was definitely a later in the year kind of deal.

Anyway, that's our next game. I'm only going to talk briefly about Swery 65, which is to say Hidetaka Swahiro. Sorry if I am mispronouncing that. terrible at uh japanese names um and developed by access games he's kind of um you know because of this game kind of established himself as a bit of an auteur in that way because it had such a unique

voice in games. We'll talk about how unique the voice is necessarily because of how close it is to a beloved property of ours. I mean, it's another reason why... wanted to play this this year in particular is that we lost lynch um yeah in january or february and so it's uh um you know it's uh it's time to play a play something heavily inspired by him for sure um Anyway.

And then it published by, at least in North America, it was published by Access AKSYS, not to be confused with Access, A-C-C-E-S-S, which was the developer. And then this director's cut, which is how we're playing the game. I'm playing it on PlayStation. three and tim was playing it on pc uh steam deck trying to get that working with uh Well, I'm playing on PC right now. Oh, you're playing on PC right now. Okay. It actually just crashes on Steam Deck. There is a link in the Discord.

you know, for those who are interested in probably the episode discussion channel, which links to an article to tell how to get it working on the Steam Deck. I can't. vouch for that at all i don't have a steam deck but um generally people are pretty helpful there so you might even check that out yourself tim yeah i'll look i'll look and see okay so tim other than me talking about this game

which might be all the contact you have with this game. What did, what did you know about deadly premonition coming into playing it? Yeah, almost nothing. You, you definitely were my main contact on it. But, you know, you're always pretty, I think, disciplined with how far you go because I think you know.

I don't like spoilers, even though you don't care typically. Yeah. But you have some discipline there. So I think, you know, you've talked around what it is. And I do remember when the game came out. And since then. uh it's always been very clear to me that it's had a cult following and of course sweary comes up all the time too still along with suda 51 and you know and

And now they're both apparently working on a game or they did work on a game together. So I've known of it and I knew the Twin Peaks. uh influence because that's kind of what always that's always what people would bring up when it comes to the game i remember for instance I don't know if it was Giant Bomb at that time or if they had left yet or not, but I remember that group talking about the game when it came out, you know, and so I heard it through their reviews and eyes.

talking about sort of like it's the impression that it was making because of its very direct influence and you know probably for better I was going to say for better for worse but I think I can say clearly for better we haven't had a Twin Peaks game or we haven't had any, I can't think of others that would be very directly related to Lynchian style.

Yeah. Video game space. So I think that is for me, at least from an outsider's perspective, I always felt like this game was the one that held that, that mantle, you know what I mean? It was like, okay. Do you want to play a Twin Peaks-y kind of game? Alan Wake is in there too, but I feel like luckily...

That is more Stephen King, really, as well. Stephen King, and I think that they, I would even say, of course, neither of us have played two yet, but I played, you know, American Nightmare, and we both played Control quite a bit. I do feel like luckily they have created their own thing for the most part, but their influences are clear. But I do think Remedy has established their own. While this game very, very clearly...

Yeah. And it's coming from that. So that's all I knew, really. Okay. I mean, I knew it was survival horror, so I assumed it was like a Resident Evil clone. So that is sort of true. There's some truth in that, yeah, for sure. And as we play, you know, I don't know how far we'll get in three weeks. I mean, I will probably replay it entirely.

I think it takes place over a very short period of time, like three, three days or something like that. I, I, is my recollection is, is like, and, and we'll talk about what that means this evening because that's something I think.

is like i said one of the things i don't think you know about the game and i didn't know about the game going into it originally but i'd like to tell me it says in the report at the end of the chapters it says how many days it's been yes yeah which reminds me of fatal frame which actually might be the game we played last year. Oh, you're right. That's what I was going to say, because I think we had our interview.

Last year. Yes. Right. Played, but we couldn't get, we couldn't get. Cause they were busy finishing Alleroy too. Right. Okay. Yeah. That makes it'll frame. I just have, I just said. yeah serious nervous nervous flash well i mean that has that same structure of like at the end of the first night right or whatever at the end of this period of time um which is why why i brought it up and that game is scary

Yeah, that's a scary game. This game is not scary like that. So it'll be a little easier to sleep this month.

Um, okay. Well, I'd say your impressions are pretty similar to what mine were. I mean, I didn't know story 65 before this, but I would call him and pseudo 51 kind of a tourist. Um, and. in a in you know from a culture that you don't with the exception of kojima you don't really think of as being um heavily auteur based right um you know it's not

they're not kind of front and center. They're directors, I feel like, in Japan. Yeah, they really try not to. Yeah, their names are out there, but it's not like, you know... It doesn't feel like the career path there in some ways. It's very much the team makes the game. There is a director at the top, typically, and especially, I guess, in horror.

You know, but these felt to me at the time in 2010 is like almost indie developers, even though I mean, access games, I don't think it was a huge developer. So it probably is kind of indie Suda 51 has kind of. you know they were going and doing like grasshopper manufacturer or whatever he was doing at the time and it just was kind of a weird time from from that standpoint like oh we're getting these weirder games crossing over

Yeah. Well, and that era, we've probably talked to, so we don't have to go too deeply ad nauseum about it with Alan Wake, but that era was, because it was mid... cycle like you said there's a pattern there at least in the old days there was a very consistent pattern with the cycle of years within a generation and how companies would de-risk mid-cycle and that's why

Brett listed off so many sequels because they would come out with maybe more first iteration of games at the beginning of the cycle and then try to amortize their investments in that first game. You're using an engine hopefully again and again. Exactly. And most of the time those games don't.

you know don't make their money back in the way that they would like so doing a sequel is like if you make it that far you really kind of have to yeah to make it worth worthwhile so well and also you have a team that knows how to make that game so it's a natural fit to keep making i mean bioshock 2 is kind of the outlier there because it was literally made by a different team across the country. Yeah, that was a weird, weird example. Kind of a weird example because...

2K, I guess. That's who that is, right? Uh-huh, yeah. Yeah, so they kind of wanted to like, well, while you're doing your next, we know how long it takes you to do games. That was the problem. That was the problem. Yeah, it was that the sequel they wanted was not going to be out. when they wanted it and the other one there is fallout new vegas which is the same story same story yeah yeah because fallout 4 uh came out

Oh, let's see. 2008 is Fallout 3, so 2014 or something. You weren't even working on Fallout 4. It was like, no, we're going to stop working on Fallout and go back to... Elder Scrolls, yeah. It's Elder Scrolls. So it's like, okay, well, we have to do something then because they're not going to be ready anytime soon. Yeah, it was trying to capitalize on a real big success, even though that hadn't happened with the Elder Scrolls series itself, with Fallout being a property, an IP they purchased.

I don't know. I think management felt differently about that. I won't talk too much about what the team thought about that, but anyway. Yeah, there's some... Some stories to tell, but what I was going to say about this particular era that I remember, and this is definitely anecdotal and, and, and I'm generalizing, but with sweary with.

If you look, if you kind of, you know, see where he came from, because he actually goes back all the way to Neo Geo SNK. And, you know, so you see where Suda, you know, Suda came up. I forget where Suda came up. Swery, you have, you know, Kojima obviously is still technically working with Konami exclusively. But then remember Clover Platinum, right? So there was that transition. There was... Which Final Fantasy guy was the one that left to do Blue Dragon and start his own thing? Oh.

Sorry. It's after like nine o'clock. I put you on the spot. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, my point. It was the father of Final Fantasy. Yeah, we're the worst. I'm sorry. Everybody yelling at us. Calamity is so pissed off right now. Hiranova Sakaguchi. Yeah, Sakaguchi. Yeah, thank you. And so my point is that the Japanese game developer game developed me.

community was shifting a bit too. And I don't obviously know the ins and outs of that because we're not in it, but there was a series of creators who were starting their own things and doing, I would even put Shenmue in there. Right. Of like all of these really talented people who are like, I'm just going to go, you know, and Suda is the best example because he was like embracing punk rock culture.

in the way that he even branded himself. And so it's like, but it was like within this five-year span, I feel like, right? And then Clover was really well regarded.

and then became platinum and all this kind of so it's just and you know kind of trying to break away 51 was capcom capcom right exactly games it was capcom 5 right and i think another capcom 5. uh guy the one who made killer seven and i'm i'm not going to come up not killer seven um oh god what was it called beautiful joe beautiful joe he he that person split off too and yeah i think that's clover right yeah yeah

So maybe that was just a delayed – because the same thing happened in Western development about five years earlier, right, when you have like – gathering of developers and you have ion storm and like all of these sort of collective, you know, so maybe that was sort of the, they were the next wave, but. It's also when Shinji Mikami left right around this time. Yeah, exactly. There was something in the air. I feel like the guy who did Ninja Gaiden Black, the guy who wears the black sunglasses.

also also also went to clover i think maybe or something um maybe platinum um Maybe. I don't remember, but I feel like this was the time where there were a lot of people who were in Japan, and like you said, maybe following the West in that way, who were just kind of breaking out and doing... doing new things and just like we're not going to be you know we do actually want to go out and have our own kind of auteurist

uh, or tourist voices out there and we've got ideas and we feel these other companies are too hidebound or, you know, whatever. Um, so it's very, very possible, um, that that's kind of, was kind of in the water at the time. I don't know. Interesting period. Yeah. And of course, you know, self-publishing was, or, you know, smaller publishers were also becoming possible. Right. Well, I mean, we just finished our...

You know, at least our indie series. Right. And that was all in the same timeframe too. And a lot of the ones we played were, were on the West, but at least. Cave Story was not. So yeah, it's just interesting because obviously each culture is going to have and each region is going to have its own version of these sorts of transitions.

because the business is different, the cultures are different and stuff. But there was a series. I just remember there being a series of them. And this game, not necessarily one of the poster children, but I do think it's kind of in the... conversation as far as like, what did, what did they do? Yeah. What, what's going on, you know? And I think that's why, and I only mentioned giant bomb back in the day, um, or that group that I, you know, I, I generally, um,

respected their editorial opinions. That's, I think, why they kept talking about it, because it was a surprise. It was like, you know, it just came out of nowhere in a way. yeah uh so yeah it would have been on my bingo card for the year you know things that i was like i'm gonna want to play this this year and i think it was because i was you know at that time very in the kind of blogosphere and all of that that i even kind of heard about it and was like

oh, I got to play this. Other indie developers or indie developers at the time were talking about it, and I was like, oh, clearly I have to have that. I actually originally played it on the 360, and I have a disc somewhere, but I didn't want to. i didn't want to connect the 360 up here i've got i've got currently three consoles connected to this tv it's more than i got ps3 four and five i don't know why i have the four up here the five does all of those but um anyway

It was like, I'll play it on the PlayStation this time out and see how it's a little different. Like I said, we're playing the Director's Cut, which came out three years later. It will be a little less janky, although...

You clearly will have some figuring out to do. It's back to Interstate 76 for you as far as that goes. Oh, yeah. Luckily, it's not that bad. That was just tragic. I wonder if I still want to... pursue that someday fix that yeah but yeah just for for so it sounds like steam deck people know about from the discord but i'm even playing on pc and I didn't have time to troubleshoot it, but there seems to be a compatibility issue that you can fix, but I was running.

for this session i was running at about 15 frames the whole time so it's not the ideal experience yeah that's that's not good for a game that's 12 years old so or 15 years old 12 years for this this edition

um i guess i mean we've we've danced around the twin peaks a little bit so we should dive into it one of the things about this game is that it is you know like kojima's work it's heavily um heavily heavily influenced by american pop culture especially twin peaks um you know that's that's a thing you knew about it that's the thing i knew about it going in um we'll talk in a little bit about the things that

that i didn't know about it going in and i'm going to share with you just to kind of like broaden out your understanding of the game so as you play it more you maybe explore things you might not otherwise um but How does it rate for you? Like what parts of it are you pulling out and saying, oh yeah, that's Twin Peaks to me, you know, and where do you think it departs? Yeah, that's a good question, but I think it's...

It's so far a tricky question for me because I mentioned some of the editorial opinions about that. You've brought it up before, so I generally knew about it. The trouble with going into the game this so much later for me and knowing that going in, unfortunately, that sets a bar. It probably doesn't really want to be set because I'm going in and I'm now, and I didn't do this consciously. I just kind of.

realized it as i was playing and now that you're asking me i'm like oh yeah i actually really was i'm very judgy for this game because of that comparison so i'm coming in i'm like so to your point on like what's landing and what's not There are definitely many moments when I'm like, okay, you're trying too hard to be Lynchian. And so I'm, you know... down to York himself. He's definitely a jerk version of Cooper.

So far, at least, maybe he becomes nicer later. But, you know, he's not as likable as Cooper is. So he's Dark Cooper. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And in the same way, George. Woodman is, you know, is no Harry S. Truman. George Woodman. Yeah, the names are great, though. I will say that he slash they have nailed a lot of the naming. Even the town, I think, is great. Emily Wyatt. Yeah. Instead of naming her Naomi Watts. Holly or what's the –

Pauly. Pauly, the hotel? Yeah, Pauly what the... Oh, I've forgotten. She's a great character. Oh man, that scene at the table. That's a good moment, right? It's a really good moment. Can you describe the moment? Because I specifically noted that one. I've forgotten that. But also, before you describe the scene, I want to also remind people that... I mean, I think I got my first widescreen high-def TV in like 2008.

Right, so it's also that transition. I'm well behind, but 2005 would have been the first gen with HD native. yeah okay fair yeah right so i mean i'm not that far i think like i bought my xbox 360 i think in 2008 um And and a TV that same year to, you know, to have the HD. But, you know, we're not that far. I mean, that's the generation in which we, you know, we go widescreen by default.

You know, before then it was some games were 4-3. I think Beyond Good and Evil was like the first kind of mainstream game that was actually 16 by 9 with black bars top and bottom on a 4-3 TV. Which game? Sorry, I missed it. Good and Evil. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I also remember, yeah, I just remember myself, Dead Rising on the 360 was a big... high-res moment. Because remember they had that whole controversy about reading the text? No one was used to making UI for a high-def TV.

And they all had developed it probably on monitors. So the text was too small. Yeah. Because it was so clear, you know. But they were like, oh, me. I still have that problem. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. Plenty of games where I'm still like. They had to patch it, basically, because we didn't know how to develop for HD. I was at Crystal at the time, and I remember playing it in a meeting room.

describe the table scene. It is a good example of one of the pro positive moments for me. And basically like to your question, your original question, like basically scene by scene, I'm going through and. judging how well it lives up to its inspirations. And for instance, I actually did think the opening cut scene with the exception of.

the lady in the tree and the snake and like things being, you know, it's not just a problematic aspects, but it's more of just like being a little bit too on the head, you know, like the snake and. Oh, yeah, it's in Garden of Eden. Yeah, and the Jesus, you know, and there's thorns around her wrist. Yeah, around her arms, yeah. So all that being said, the other aspects of that, like, for instance, the twins.

Finding a ladybug and this, I guess we know it's their grandfather, but he's still creepy as hell, you know, laughing in a creepy way. Yeah, no. And it's like, you know, how much of it was intentional and how much of it was just. the nostalgia of the old video games. But I will say that that scene felt like, the opening scene feels like somebody who does really have an intentional goal.

of how they're going to direct the game. And there's a lot of discipline in that scene because they spend a lot of time on these two kids playing with a ladybug. And that just would never happen in those days. It still doesn't happen. And so I got to hand it to him. It doesn't even happen in movies much anymore. I can't even tell you how many times I'll hear a review where somebody will... you know, some critic will call out, you know, like on a podcast will call out.

how refreshing it is that they spend a little time or they'll watch an old movie from the seventies and be like, yeah, remember when we used to have these little character moments, which developed the world and the setting, you know, you know, and there's two old white guys. You hold on a scene longer than you need to because it tells you something about the time. Or you follow a camera. Anyway.

So, yeah, very appreciative of that. And it does show that not only does he and the team have discipline, but... It also shows that they were allowed to do it, right? They were left alone to do what they felt was right. So that opening scene set a good context for me. And then the end of that opening scene where literally they go through character by character showing everyone crying.

uh at anna's death i guess you know and it was but then it's sort of like the absurdity starts coming in and then you have the dream sequences which that's an example of uh that i would say is like trying too hard yeah where it's like okay that's the red room from um that's the black lodge from from twin peaks blah blah blah but it's their version and it's out of time out of space i guess it's a dream So there's some heavy handedness, but...

Every once in a while, there's definitely some moments. And I think the writing actually, which I think he wrote the script as well. I believe that. There's some localization challenges, but there's some oftentimes I think the writing is very quirky and very... on point when it comes to the inspiration. I have to say, the writing of York talking to Zach, who you don't know who is, but he's talking to Zach about Tom and Jerry.

Yeah. And the way it's set up is so good. It's like, well, Jerry, you know, Tom, you know, it's, it's, if you know, it's consensual, you know, they're codependent. Yeah. It's very like psychological and you, and you. And he's talking with, you know, Zach and you're like, wait, who is he? Like, it sounds like coworkers or family members or something like that. Like.

people they know and then eventually it comes it becomes clear that they're talking about the cartoon characters tom and jerry the cat and the mouse and you're like wait what it's it's a very like There's that scene where Quentin Tarantino talks about the, I don't know, homoerotic undertones of Top Gun in some movie, like I've forgotten even the name of the movie back in the 90s, where it's like this intensity of.

pop culture analysis that was also kind of a thing right you know that in the in the kind of in that time period which of course this is where more or less where this is set and when this is set so it's on multiple levels for me, working in that moment, you know, when it's at its best, it's like, whoa, you know, this is really keyed in to what it's doing. I mean, it's not always great.

But it certainly, like you said, knows what it's trying to do. It may not always succeed at that, but we can't all be David Lynch. No, no, no, no, no, none of them. Nobody can. Nobody ever will, I think. But, but, but I, I do, I agree with you that so far, you know, I, Doing it in this medium with this technology, maybe. I don't know. I actually, I'm going to talk myself out of that because there's definitely.

I think they could have gone in some direction stylistically to help themselves with the fidelity and all that kind of stuff that would have actually been beneficial. But those are lessons I think we learned later anyway. And they were just trying to make it. engine work. So I get that. I'm not going to fault them for that. But I do agree with you that the hit rate is higher than the miss rate. So I'm still happy about that.

And the Tom and Jerry conversation, because it was so early, I think the scene after the first scene, right? Or the third. I mean, he's in the car still. Yeah, yeah. So that was definitely the moment where I was like, okay, this is something. Something's going on here that is actually good and intentional. yeah, like you said, knows what it wants to be. And you said this in pre-show, which is another topic we may talk about probably in every episode, but there's an ambition here.

that he has and that the team has that you can see as well. And they're going to, when you're going to be that ambitious, you're going to fall short on some things. It's just inevitable, but at least they're...

going for it so um that leads us to maybe there's many other scenes along the way some of the flashback stuff and there's definitely and to your point he lingers on characters longer than anyone really should in this time And the music, he has this, there's this one song, one of my notes I wrote down was, which is funny because in our household, it's a Gilmore Girls reference, but.

For this game, I call it the La La Song. Yeah, yeah. There's like a kind of a folky, you know, tranquil La La song where there's some singing with it. They're just La Laing. And he puts it in the weirdest over the weirdest scenes. And then he just lingers on somebody's face who obviously due to the technology. can't really emote at all yeah right yeah so this is definitely that era of uncanny valley where we are filling in a lot of the blanks right um and

for better or for worse, mostly worse these days. I actually think he's leaning into the Uncanny Valley. Yeah. He knows that it doesn't look human. Yeah, right. And he's kind of... you know playing with that in a way that you know in a lot of other horror games of this era and even now right still you know instead of instead of trying to show you're showing you know distorted things right i mean

You know, that's kind of horror's bread and butter in video games is like things that are not human because we can't replicate human humans well. So we just kind of go to these, you know.

other places zombies certainly which you know were human but you know they don't have any humanity left and the fact that they have an uncanny valley totally works that's fine here the people are weird to look at and he just i think is just kind of leaning into that in a way that i think lynch would do at times you know because he's a lot of his characters and actors i should say actors are not like straight from central casting you know especially in his older work you know where people just

more unusual looking and more unusually behaving if you think of like blue velvet and you know going that far back he doesn't go to like ordinary you know traditional stars in most cases and not in all cases in some cases he's definitely definitely leaning i mean naomi uh watts is a star you know um but a lot of the a lot of his actors are just kind of offbeat

characters you know and uh and he lingers on them as well and in the same way that uh that's where he is yeah and yeah i don't i don't know how they didn't get in trouble for this, but Emily in the game is basically modeled after Naomi Watts. Oh boy. You're lucky. You're lucky that, that, that this was a time before people were very, uh, such things. Yeah. And doesn't know what video games, you know, um, maybe doesn't know how to even find this, but well, that, that.

That happened with The Last of Us. And I forget who it was. But Ashley Johnson, Ellie actually looks a lot like Ashley Johnson, if you know. ashley johnson um but she also looked a lot oh like um what's her name abby no no that no no in in the first game she looked a lot like the actress in juno who's now uh who's trans is now mail. Oh, yeah. Elliot Page. Yeah, Elliot Page. Threatened to sue. And then they're like, no, no, it's based on this person. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I think, yeah, agreed. Yeah, it's tricky, yeah. But I mean, what I was going to say as far as like the performances, and I do want to give him, to your point, the benefit of the doubt that he's leaning into the Uncanny Valley for sure, because he definitely seems to know.

Like they even could have done a little bit more to hide it, but aren't right. Like facial expressions aren't even there. So it could have been a production reality, but I'll give him a benefit of the doubt that he kind of knows how weird it is. Because I would say we're still modern AAA games and quadruple A games are still chasing the photorealistic face and facial expressions. And we're still not there yet. Yes, there's some amazing stuff out there, but you still...

For a non-gamer to look at that stuff, trust me, I've had firsthand experience where people are like, that is creepy. What is that? I'm like, no, that's the best we can do. No, it's bad. It's still bad. So yeah, so leaning into it. But then you have this scene with the hotel owner. And her husband is an older woman, an older white woman, and she's hunched over. All of his characters so far are very stereotypical, cliche characters.

And some of them are pretty unfortunate, I'd say. I won't get into that. But Polly's cool. She's got a good little backstory that is revealed very quickly. He has come out to this very, you know, he comes out of his room. and it's a very creepy empty hotel chairs are even on top of tables right like they've cleaned but it's the middle of the day

Or at least the middle of the morning. It's in mid-morning, yeah. And so you already get, it's not necessarily a shining vibe, but it definitely doesn't feel welcoming. And then she's the only one there. And for some reason, the banquet table in the cafeteria, they keep calling it, is a really long banquet table, like in Batman bank long, you know, and.

They both sit at either end of the table. And then to your point, to your widescreen point, they frame the shot beautifully where they're both on either side, either edge of the screen. And then I can't tell if they're on a balcony or something, but the background- There is a balcony- Outside, yes. You're seeing trees. You're seeing the Pacific Northwest. There's windows there, but they're-

floor to ceiling and it's a high ceiling besides. So, yeah. So, so you see when you're that close in, you actually can't see the ceiling. All you see are the trees and it looks, so it looks very surreal, right? Because it looks, it looks like they're kind of. It looks like there's a wall missing, you know. And obviously everyone knows I'm partial to the Pacific Northwest, but also it hits the Alan Wake card, you know, and the Stephen King stuff, Twin Peaks.

Northern exposure, you know, like name the sort of, you know, the mystique, I guess I'll say, of a good old Pacific Northwestern forest. But then they're sitting and she can't hear too well. And he can hardly hear her either because she doesn't speak too loud. So it's, you know, he's saying stuff and she thinks he's saying something else.

he's like, come close. Can you come closer so we can, I can hear you better. And he's like, and she's like, no, I don't, that's not appropriate. Yeah. She's, she's very coquettish about it. Like he's, or something. So, so it's just a really. You know, that and Tom and Jerry so far are the ones where I'm like, okay. Those are good. Those are good. Yeah. If there's at least if, even if there's, you know, even if.

25% of the game achieves this, then it'll be worth it to me. It's just doing this consistently, being lynching consistently, I can only imagine is very difficult. Yeah. As an audience member, I will say even Lynch himself isn't consistent all the time for me. For sure. Yeah. So it's like it's not easy to do. So I got to hand it to him for even trying.

And the fact that they had some of these teams. That's really, that was the problem with Twin Peaks, right, is that they had a hard time sustaining. Yeah, how do you end that thing? Yeah, over the course, you know, even just the two years of the first two seasons, it was just very difficult. to to maintain that kind of and you know on the schedule that a network tv show required it was basically impossible these days it would be done differently but um

Yeah, you'd have shorter seasons. You'd have shorter seasons and they'd be further apart. We're about to start re-watching. Oh, yeah, I re-watched earlier this year. I've got it all. All in my brain right now. Ken's not going to watch season three, so I'll be continuing solo on that part. Oh, okay.

But yeah, I'm a big fan of season three. I know. I know you said that. I only saw it the one. So it'll be interesting. I wonder if, you know, I don't know how quickly we'll watch it, but it'll be very timely playing this game. So I'll have a good back, you know.

back-to-back comparison yeah um yeah so i you know the the challenge you know and and to hit just to hit one of the other topics i know you had that that is a segue and um we'll talk much more i think in the future episodes about um when it comes to the gameplay unfortunately and the in the world structure like i did somehow did not know it was an open world game it's it's tagged as an open world game. Yeah. I didn't know that going in.

you know so okay yeah you drive a car pretty early yeah which i was like what am i doing right now um and it's actually there's quite a bit there's quite a few mechanics related to it um the whole controller is taken up with Yeah, they got all sorts of stuff. And so this is the part where I'm going to blow your mind because I think it's important for you to know this. So it is an open world game. There is kind of a schedule of events.

Because it's also a simulated city in a way. All the characters have routines that they are doing before you've even met the characters. All the characters in this little town have things that they are doing that might not intersect with the plot at all, like that you might not need to see. So it's a little Shenmue in that way. Exactly.

Interesting. And you would have no idea. The first time I played it, I played it and I was like, well, I really like that. But I played basically the linear adventure. The survival horror linear adventure of this game. And then I was looking at like, you know, cause you know me, I was looking at the achievements list and I'm like, this is what now?

And it's like, if you bring, you know, a certain item to a person at their home, you know, at these hours of the night, you get a thing. And then it's like, well, okay, well, I'll go try to do that. And then you're like. You're in some trailer park somewhere or a diner. I don't remember what was the first thing I did. I went to some place and I was like, wait a minute, there's all these people here just having life. They're just...

You know, and they might intersect with the story later, but I haven't met any of these people, but I can just go to where they are, you know, and, you know, and just like skip the schedule, you know, and like, and I was. my mind was so blown at how much work had been put into. And that's why, because I know you're not going to ever play this again. So I want you to know this now that. Yeah. Oh, I appreciate it. There are people in all these houses.

there are, you know, all the ones certainly that are marked. Cause if you look in the, you know, the pause screen, there's a map and there's like a lot of like places of interest, but there are places that are, you know, like you don't have to go ever. But that's where the people live. So if you want to go see them after hours, they're there and you can see like stuff about their lives, which has a very also Twin Peaks sort of feel because Twin Peaks would often like.

have little scenes of characters in their element. And it was all tied in in some way. Well, it wasn't tied into the main story necessarily, but it was tied into the experience of Twin Peaks. And this also has that. Um, and it's the part that, you know, is most surprising to me of a game of this era and Shenmue is a definitely, I hadn't played Shenmue back then, um, is a good sort of touch point for that.

You know, it's also kind of similar to the games I've worked on where characters have schedules, but it's much richer. And the connections between all those characters feel really thought through, you know, in the way that. you know, like Bobby and imagine a mix character and, you know, Leo.

and all of that stuff all shelly um all fit together you know and and then how that tied to the diner and then like all these things there's kind of all of that going on as well um so there's this it's this web of character connectivity for lack of another phrase that you know is is in this game and is not even remotely apparent you sort of like if you if you know it's there you can sort of feel it in the police station because characters are moving around from room to room

There's some unnamed characters, but like Emily is not always in one place and George is not always in one place. tommy is kind of in one place because he's trying to figure out how to get into the files or whatever because he lost the lost the squirrel you can also ask him about all the different squirrel keys like if you know um i know you got to that part right you finished do you finish it

place police station oh no i thought we were just supposed to get there no i haven't finished it i just yeah so there's a there's a whole thing with with keys you know and they all have different squirrels as the keychains and like i knew which one he needed And so I gave him all the other ones because he would say, oh, no, this is this type of squirrel. No, no, you're looking for a southern flying squirrel. And he'd like to describe this other squirrel. And York would be like.

well this one's not even a squirrel at all it's a chipmunk just like it's it is like the amount of detail that goes into some of this stuff is very it's yeah it's a lot it sounds like a yes game sounds like they were having fun um It reminds me also of some aspects of Dead Rising, right? Because that, though not truly simulated, it was the impression of simulation.

Yeah, it's got a script and when characters are going to appear and when you can find them at different times. Yeah, you can miss stuff, right? And it's meant to be replayed and all that stuff. So yeah, I'm still glad we played Dead Rising because that is such a... Yeah, I still love that game. Yeah, I had a blast. So that's really interesting. I really am glad you brought it up. I'm happy that they did that. And for me, at least, it goes back to the influences.

as well because twin peaks um northern exposure uh you know not just pacific north northwest shows but but um i there was a third one i was just thinking even now just blank on it but I don't think Lynch and Snow are on Mark Snow, right? Did I get that right? Yeah. I don't think they're on record saying that. Mark Frost. Frost, sorry. Or Snow is X-Files. Is this a Northern Exposure guy? No, no. Snow is X-Files, actually.

so i'm getting all my my 90s mixed up but yeah anyway um uh twin peaks was very much the town was a character right and i feel like to your point on like all the the web and interrelationships in that show Yes, it was about, at least for a lot of it, Laura Palmer specifically and all of that, but...

But it really was about sort of that web and how everybody interconnected. And of course, the soap opera aspects of it, it all was about like gossip and, oh, there's actually a backstory with these two characters, you know, and oh, these two, you know, this one is. So it's like that's kind of the bread and butter of that stuff. So the fact that they have taken the game, the video game medium, and created a simulated version of that.

makes me even more excited because you know I think we talked about this in pre-show we know the history of Alan Wake development wise and that they had originally wanted to make an open world game. And maybe there would have been some of those simulated aspects, right? Where it's like things would have to be on schedule. Like for instance, when

When I was told to go to the sheriff's station in this game, it said, oh, we open at nine. I was like, what do you mean you're open at nine? Yeah. Well, I have to wait. Yeah. And I was like, the clock is ticking right there on the dash, you know, or on the.

I guess it's on the HUD. It's not on the dashboard, but if it kind of feels like it's on the dash. Yeah. And there will be times that the schedule is frustrating. I'll be, I'll be completely. Yeah. That's the downside to this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely. I definitely I can remember the first time I played it. I think when you're actually going to the tree, which was our original target, I kept not getting there in time. And I think it was because at the beginning of the game.

when i was getting used to the driving controls like it took me too long to get to the sheriff's station and that threw me off for the whole day you know or whatever yeah which is also a bit of a drawback it does excuse me i feel like it opens up a bit As far as the schedule goes after that. But that first day feels like a lot more constrained. And I think one of the things about this that's interesting, you know, compared to like Alan Wake's open world.

Alan Wake wanted to have the open world about just like all the forest and stuff. And this is the town is the open. It was about the town. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that's a, that's a. It's a good choice, you know, and I think that that choice makes it possible to have this richness and and also surprising, you know, like because it does, you know, it does mean a lot of authoring.

that most people I don't think would see. Like I said, I think the first time I played it, when I played through it, I had no idea. And then I was literally like, oh, well, oh my God, I have like 30 trophies I haven't done. Like what's going on? And I'd go and look at him and I'd be like, wait a minute, who? Like when?

what are you talking about? And they're all very specific and like, you know, do this by, for this person by this time and things like that, or at this time. And they tell you like literally in them, like how you would do it. But it does, once you start doing them, you're like, what is going on? This wasn't part of my game. I didn't know this was here. I wouldn't want you to not know that because...

Like I said, I know you probably won't play it again, and it would be frustrating to get to the end and go, wait a minute, I missed a huge part of the world of this game. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It makes me really want to investigate the Steam Deck then, too, because that'll make it easier for me. You make it easier for you, yeah. To play it. Yeah, look into that. There's a link. I'll look into that. Thanks for whoever.

Mark or somebody. Yeah, I forget who it was. Some guesses at who it could be. But yeah, thanks for putting that up. It wasn't Mark. But OK. Yeah. Yeah, there's the Steam Deck folks are. you know we band together well you have to

When you're talking about trying to support PC games that go back 30 years or whatever, everybody's got to try to pull together on that. Let's put a pin in it there. We're going to want to talk about... combat there's gonna be a lot more to talk about um in the future certainly with combat but with all of what's going on in this game um and you know it's been 15 years since i played it or you know near enough um so

There's definitely a lot that's going to come back to me as well as we play. I do think we'll... We'll have covered all the topics in three weeks, but you may want to play more of it. So it'd be good to have it on your Steam Deck. Let's quickly turn to email. We have a couple. Might as well get through them this week. They're about Portal.

And these were, of course, sent to devgameclub at gmail.com. Why don't you go first with this one from Ashton Herman. Okay. Games that had to be games from Ashton Herman. Yeah. Hey. Tim and Brett, I was really drawn in by our conversation on Portal and how it had to be a game, quote unquote. I totally agree that it's a great example of a game that really feels indivisible from its medium.

Could its story be adapted to a book or movie or something else? Sure, but the adaptation would be dramatically different as the experience from the source material. It's a question I like to ask myself a lot when I'm playing a new game. Could this thing have worked as well or better as a movie? I don't personally believe that it's the end-all be-all of a game's artistic merit, but I do think it can be a helpful thought exercise when trying to unpack.

What makes a given game work for me or not? I was reminded by an indie game called The Red Strings Club, which looks and feels like a classic LucasArts point and click. but plays out more like a visual novel. There's relatively little game play in it, and I can actually remember asking myself at one point if I wouldn't have preferred to read its narrative in a graphic novel or something.

But then the game started asking me some really challenging philosophical questions. They had a relatively minor impact. a relatively minor impact on the game's story. But by posing the questions to me in an interactive medium, I was forced to grapple with some of my own deeply seated beliefs in a way that I don't think I would have if it hadn't been a game.

I wrote about it at length back when I played it and don't want to take up any more of your time. I just really appreciated your perspectives around this topic. I guess I wanted to add in my two cents that a game doesn't even need to be. as mechanically complex as Portal is to leverage its medium to great effect. Instead, the sheer nature of video games as interactive experiences lends themselves

to player slash reader engagement in a way that I think is both unique and powerful. Thanks as always, Ashton Herman. So well put, better than I could have. Yeah, better put than we did, I think. Yeah, I mean, I am always reminded of something like The Walking Dead or whatever, which doesn't have a lot of mechanical depth when I think about questions like these. And the mere fact that you are... The choices that you're making do have an impact on you.

Even if they don't really have an impact on the story. I mean, the game's going to end where it ends in the end of episode five or whatever it is. That's where you're going. You're always going there. The mere fact, though, of making choices that you make is the feelings you have making them, you know, like that's part of the experience.

I think Gone Home is another example for me too, because I think when we played the indie series, specifically the walking simulators, Dear Esther is the only walking simulator I had played before all of that. and i had intentionally avoided them because i'm such a mechanics and systems snob i was like i don't know why i'm just gonna i want something richer in the gameplay space

But I was so wrong. And to Ashton's point and your point, gone home, yes, gone home probably could have been in other mediums. And we're not saying they can't be. translated to other mediums it's just it just would be a very different experience to have portal be that right and and wouldn't i don't think be what i would want personally but gone home though uh canned, so to speak, story, I think because it was interactive for me at least, had I think a bigger impact for sure. Yeah.

yeah and you're doing the work right you know as we talked about you're uncovering the connections and like you're spending the time when you're not playing the game you're thinking about the game at times you know um i certainly do with with some of those games that have been impactful for me um i wouldn't say that that happens as much with the richer games the richer more systemic games right i don't tend to think about them a lot when i'm away from them um

Well, that's not the case for me. Yeah. Okay. Well, I guess we're different in that regard, but you know, some yes, some no, but, but no, not all of them, but yeah, yeah. I'm very like, just to give you an example of like a not, I mean, it has story, but it's not. not really the focus it has a campaign sort of i'm very deeply into no man's sky right now and i think about the game constantly and it's basically a survival game so it's like

I can't wait to build my this, that, or, you know, it's like, it's a completely lore and story agnostic. No, I think, I think there are games where. there's experimentation and things like that. And those I do appreciate thinking about when I'm not there. Oh, I should try this. I should try that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So that, you know, I'm more thinking like.

I don't know, like I don't think about JRPGs when I'm not playing them. You know, I love them, but I put them down and I forget until I pick it up again. You know, so it's kind of like that anyway. I mean, those are games that have tons of systems often. that are interacting and I just don't really think about them. Um, but then, you know, other games I do. Um, anyway, uh, thank you for that Ashton. You did really put that nicely and succinctly. Um, I appreciate it.

Appreciate the input. I have one here from Mike. The subject is simply portal. He says it's about both of them. Thank you for your recent episodes about Portal. When Brett mentioned portals are safe, I thought about how that contrasted with Quake, where teleportation conflict means instant death.

that uh unfortunately i think most of the specific phrase you gave portal doesn't carry to its sequel uh when tim mentioned figuring out how to aim at distant walls i thought about how portal 2 will quote unquote snap your portal to a specific position if your aim is close enough I use this a lot during the underground aperture science segment, but it feels a lot less like discovery and more like scripting. Thanks again, Mike. I agree. I didn't even know it did that. Oh, yeah. Is there a button?

No, no, no. It's just when you shoot at a wall, especially if it's one of those walls that's not super wide or whatever, it will actually align itself perfectly for you in the center of that wall. But it'll actually move your camera? It won't move the camera. It'll move the portal. Oh. So you'll shoot at the wall and it'll move it. And I mean, typically we're aiming...

Yeah, it's kind of correcting for you. I suspect that that was maybe a response to some feedback. Usability probably. People probably kept shooting it.

off angle walls and they're like i know i'm hitting this wall right and they're like well i guess not and then they move on right yeah that's a double-edged sword yeah yeah it really is and so if you if you like the freedom or you want to experiment more it does it is a little harder i have noticed it playing it um that it is kind of like helping me solve um in that way um and and the original doesn't do that at all that i could tell so my very my snarky unfair response to that is

We've talked about many times on the podcast and that feels like a bandaid to a level design problem where level design did not work well enough with systems design to, you know what I mean? Yeah. Now, obviously, once the levels are blocked out and down the production chute, sometimes you just can't go back and fix this, stuff like that. But Valve usually has the...

So it's like, I don't know if you're snapping like that, then there's something, something else was wrong. So I, you know, I'm again, I'm not, it's easy for me to say I have not made a portal game. they did wonderfully better than I could do. So I'm not trying to be high and mighty, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I, I have noticed that mostly playing the, I haven't noticed it so much in co-op because we're kind of, although I do see it sometimes I do notice like, Oh, that, that.

Moved a little bit from where I shot in. But, you know, if you are, I would say the places where I most. want to help is in those kind of high velocity situations where i'm like i'm shooting out of here to go and oh my god i've got to land a shot on this thing before i get there and um

they might've gone just a little more in that direction, but it's a good point. I do. I mean, I wouldn't say, um, that the praise doesn't carry to its sequel. I don't, you know, the scripting, I don't know. It doesn't quite feel that bad to me, but I can see how it rip.

would rub some folks the wrong way um we'll talk about that more in a few weeks as i plugged uh earlier we will be doing a portal to uh you know bonus cast uh in a few weeks so and you will see all that information in the discord. This is just making me remember portal all over again and how much that game, how good that game. Oh, it's so good. Oh my God. Yeah.

um yeah we have a fan run discord and uh you should uh check that out um we are on the web web at devgameclub.com and my co-host twitch is at twitch.tv slash Tim Longo Jr. with the JR at the end. We, of course, will be both on there the next few Wednesdays where I will be joining Tim in co-op Portal 2. We've been playing some Spelunky first and then going and basically doing a...

a section of levels like the co-op campaign is, is, uh, uh, like organized around concepts. So we've, we've done the first two of those concepts and, and next time I guess we'll do concept three. So looking forward to it. And thanks to, just to plug it, thanks to Calamity for helping me with getting the automated YouTube video on demand uploading going. Oh, cool. So from now on.

Um, as long as I remember to press the button, Rhett had to remind me of even that step last week. Uh, cause it's, you know, usually I'm like, I'm tired of time to go. Um, but now if you miss. The VODs, even on Twitch, because I don't have them up there forever, they should from now on always be on our YouTube channel. That's right. They'll be at YouTube slash at dev game club.

So we're on there as well. Our intro and outro music was written and performed by Kirk Hamilton, commissioned by a friend of the cast, Aaron Evers, and our logo, that Discord, our merch store, all by Mark Garcia. Have fun reading signs in your coffee this week and good night. Good night.