DGC Ep 447: Deadly Premonition (part two)

and welcome back to Dev Game Club. 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's quite a serious character, though he likes to show off and is...

too eager to compete tim long ago i mean that might be what it takes tim so i'm not going to judge but uh i believe that was a description of uh george george right the sheriff uh george woodman george woodman yes george woodman from welcome back cotter maybe who knows um Uh, and then when he takes it, Oh, maybe you haven't seen this yet then, or I don't know if you remember, but yeah, even yeah, there's a, there's a troubling scene where he has to show his bare back.

Oh, no, I don't think I've seen that yet. I don't remember. so i look forward to that um we're of course talking about deadly premonition before we discuss uh the game uh just want to refresh people on the stuff i said last week we were recording this on the uh 15th and therefore to be out on the 16th of October. So I can't really tell you about streaming Portal 2 on Tim's Twitch channel tonight, but we will again next week on October 22nd.

And then on October 28th at 8 p.m. Eastern, we will be on Tim's Twitch doing our first ever and maybe last ever live show recording on the.

on the on the stream so it'll be just us talking we'll interact a little bit with the audience uh so so show us show up and show us how important it is to you that we do another one of those uh it is a reward for uh last year's uh defeating games for charity and uh we figured we better get it done before january rolls around they've actually come up with a date already and if you go to the discord there is

There's a link to apply to be a streamer on that if that's something that interests you. And I believe... Phil Salvador from the Video Game History Foundation also retweeted that information out or put it on Blue Sky, whatever that is. I don't know what they are on Blue Sky. Repost, I guess. Repost, yeah.

Anyway, so it's out there. You can find the link if that's something you're interested in. And I'm sure the date is there as well. I don't have it in front of me. I think it's the 24th and 25th of January. Yeah, that's what I had in mind, but I didn't want to commit. So Tim commits. He says the 24th and 25th. I'm sure with his memory, that's perfectly accurate. Yeah, I'm sure that's totally right. Yeah, they're already going. It's awesome. So yeah, definitely.

Set aside that and it is for charity. So hopefully people contribute and yeah, it's a fun, it's a fun weekend. I will say to have everyone coming together and. and streaming and rating to you know from stream to stream yeah two days straight like literally 24 hours 24 hours after 24 hours so yeah yeah yeah yeah it's it's uh

It's like a 36-hour thing, right? I think it goes more than 24 hours. Yeah. It's around the clock, yeah. Right. Yeah, because we have people in different time zones like Kyle and stuff that can take over. And Art and others take kind of the midnight shift in some cases and go pretty late. So, yeah.

Yep. And then all the VODs, I think, get uploaded later to Defeating Games for Charity channel somewhere. So it's all visible later as well. I didn't mention that next week we will be discussing Portal.

two uh on the on that live show recording which i wanted to make sure i made clear okay let's dig into uh the twin peaks of it all um we're playing deadly premonition of course and uh tim happily uh i did this maybe six months ago but just what would you say just last night has uh Rewatch the pilot from Twin Peaks. Yeah, just by chance, to be honest. It's actually not – Jen was super irritated because I kept taking notes while we were watching. It's like, what are you doing?

But it was just by chance. We had talked for months now about restarting it and decided to do it in October kind of for spooky reasons. And then we just happened to be playing Deadly Premonition at the same time. So it was not planned. I'm not watching it because of the podcast. But luckily and ironically, it works out well because I'm able to...

you know, you know, yesterday played, played the game up to past the, the sawmill. And then, you know, we had watched, then we watched the episode. So everything was very fresh. In my mind, as a little bit of Brett, I guess, probably put it on Discord. But the reason we're a day behind this week is just to cover that very quickly is I actually had to. start the game over and buy it on a different platform that was going to be more stable and convenient.

um so i couldn't yeah i couldn't get it really running on any version on steam that i had previously got so i'm on switch now but because of that i had to start from the beginning and basically play it, you know, in a short amount of time up to that point. So, yeah, it was very fresh. I just, yeah, I wanted to bring up Twin Peaks because obviously we know that it was the main influence.

Brett and I are big Twin Peaks fans, I would say, in general. So is Jen, my wife, who's watching it with me. And I just had forgotten how good that... you know the pilot for that show really is like it is really a perfect a perfect episode of the tv show and a perfect opening and it is i'm very i'm very conflicted on is this game An homage? Or is it just a little too much of a ripoff? Because now, of course, it's not a one-for-one.

And you can definitely see the influences and such. And Swery has, you know, the team has their own spin for sure. And you can tell that it is not from North America, right? It is definitely. a product of its region and its culture, which is great. And it brings its own spin to things, not even spin, it brings its own identity of things. However,

There are some things that in the game, I'll give you some quick examples. There are some things in the game where I made notes before watching the show, rewatching the show, where I was like, that's so weird. That's such a specific choice. For instance, there's multiple times when York is either almost looking at the camera or looks directly at the camera, it seems like, during a cutscene and just does this creepy smile.

And it's creepy because it's Uncanny Valley. I don't know if it's intended to be creepy. I think they just wanted him to smile, but it ends up being creepy. I think it's both, right? I do think they are leaning into the Uncanny Valley. Um, some other folks on the discord have agreed. Um, I think that that's the, you know, when you, when you have the uncanny Valley and you can't surmount it.

I think it's a brave choice to embrace it. And I mean, a lot of people wouldn't, at the time, did not think to do that. And, you know, a lot of those early games that had... humans in them but that you know and like you said we still haven't climbed out of this valley we're much better but you know at the time um people were still trying to do it i admire that as well because that that's how you get to it's good enough

uh someday but um it wasn't wasn't there then and it could be quite awkward at times where you'd be like she's i don't I don't know if I want to show this to my, like, this is a really good game that I don't want to share with anyone I know who doesn't play games because they'll never play games. Yeah. The context isn't there, right? Because they're like, wait, what this, what is this?

What are you doing? It's similar to like drawing for distance, a problem that took a while to solve and power to solve, where things would pop in and you'd be... driving you know you'd be showing somebody a game and they'd be like wait a minute that mountain wasn't there a second ago and you're like oh yeah it's a you know there's this thing we call draw distance you know and you have to explain like because we can't draw everything yeah it doesn't

it doesn't look like the real world and it would be very distracting to them in a way we just accepted you know but i think here they know like this looks odd You cannot tell me that any human being on the planet who has a crater bone in their body would not look at York smiling at the camera like that and think, yeah, this is good, you know.

Well, yeah, I mean, I definitely agree that they know what they are more than most games, and they do seem pretty self-aware from a very anecdotal perspective of my own. I will say that there's a chance we might be giving them a little bit too much credit because it could have – I'm not saying that he would have thought it was good or bad as far as quality, but they did choose to make him smile.

and there were limitations to that so is did did sweary then also say i want to make him smile because we know it's going to look creepy because of uncanny valley or was it just this is what we have as a smile just do it

you know what i mean like it's it's like how self-aware were they of the yeah it's a really good i missed that in the discord um that debate it's a really good question um that We'll never know the answer to. But long story short, the reason I bring up that specific example is that Cooper does it multiple times in the pilot where he looks just like that and it's a creepy smile. There are specific...

lines that are, yes, as Brett pointed out in pre-show, we have localization challenges, we have translation to and from and back again, right? Because probably, you know, Sawari is watching Twin Peaks. potentially in you know various versions could be subtitled could be dubbed and then also re rewriting that line and then um and then it's localized back into english so it's like you know through many filters

So who knows for sure, but the lines are close enough. And I would never have caught that if I hadn't just watched the episode. So there's, you know, I would say half a dozen maybe. There's a lot of characters that are very on the nose as well. And this is going to sound like I'm criticizing. I'm definitely not criticizing. I'm just more bringing up how much this is Twin Peaks.

And as a Twin Peaks fan, I'm okay with that because I like, this game is weird. There is a, this game is bonkers in all sorts of ways and not just story and style ways and also gameplay ways. So obviously Twin Peaks doesn't have that going for it. Twin Peaks has a big weakness. It's not interactive. So I was just, I guess, long story short, what were some of my other fun examples? Well, I mean, one thing that I did was I went to the diner in this and I was like, oh, this is...

the layout is almost exactly the same. Yeah. I looked in the window at night and it was creep creeping. Yeah. I saw the layout. Yeah. You get, and yeah, we didn't even talk about the fact that you get money for doing things like that, where it's like, Oh, you looked. You look through a window, you get $30 or whatever. And the prices of everything are totally weird, which is another translation thing, I'm guessing. Because, of course, in yen...

Like you look at something in yen, it's like a million yen. You're like, oh my God, that must be crazy expensive. And a million yen is like $600 or $6,000 or something like that. Like it's a whole, at least a factor of. a thousand off like so a yen a single yen i've been playing the tiakaza like a dragon game and it's like sometimes you'll get 10 yen you know when you're searching around on the ground for stuff and it's like 10 yen is like well less than a penny

So you didn't even find a penny on the ground. You found a penny in. So like, I think there's also that of like, because like you'll go and you'll get breakfast and a cup of coffee is like $15 and you're like, what? You know, like a cup of coffee at a diner?

2010? No, you're right. I think it was $15 coming out of the machine, too. Oh, yeah, the machine, right. Yeah, sure. I bought one out of the machine. It was $15. It didn't even register to me. I just did it. That's funny. Yeah, and I think that that's partly... also a money translation thing of like what are things in america yeah that's a good point um because yen is uh yen is like closer to a penny you know a yen is closer to a penny than than you know it's like there are other

other currencies that are like that it's not the only one but i definitely i always have to go and translate you know sometimes i read books that are translated from japanese that have money in them and they actually explain up front um when they say this much again it's this much money you know like Right. It's this much money. Right. Because most Americans wouldn't know that off the top. I didn't. It's only because I saw that in one of those books. Yeah. It's fun to see.

the influence of course um and and even even more fun to have just watched the episode so it's very fresh uh you know obviously we talked about it the first episode because it's so obvious but not having seen the show yet I hadn't realized how much the music juxtaposition to the scenes they also are copying, you know, when it comes to playing off of a certain tone. There's that one song they have in the... that one piece of music they have in the game that is more kind of upbeat.

you know, and kind of matter of fact, and they play it. Yeah. Right. And they play it, they play it at times when it is juxtaposing what you're doing and you're, or what you're seeing and you're like. it, you know, weird you out. Well, that's like bread and that's Twin Peaks bread and butter. That's like, that's like what they're doing all the time as opposed, you know, with the exception of, of the somber stuff and the Julie Cruz stuff. But.

But anyway, so it's just, it was very cool, you know, and of course I know in Discord people are talking about it and I know we talked about it last time. I wouldn't say I'm a Twin Peaks aficionado or anything, but I do, you know. i have watched it the whole thing many times over the years and

It came out at a formative time in my life too. And we watched it live on television when it was coming out as a family. So it was like a big event. And so I really appreciate this game existing because it is like... I don't, I was going to say time capsule, but it's not a time capsule. What is the, what is the sort of term? It's, it's such a unique. It's like a reenactment almost, you know? Yeah. It's like, it's like someone's, it's almost like.

it's almost like someone's doing, I mean, it's not a musical, it's not a musical as a game, but it's like when somebody does the musical version of the movie waitress, you know, it's like, it's like, huh. Okay. All right. You go. That's an interesting choice. But, you know, and I've heard that that musical is actually very good.

But you know what I mean? It's like, it's through it. And I think your localization point is another really good example. It's like, it's gone through all of these filters. It's gone through Swery's own head and filter, right? It's gone through two different cultures because obviously... you know, Frost and Lynch's Twin Peaks is very much about Americana and that culture, right? And kind of through this lens.

But then the game has this just weird combination, but also influences. And so I definitely don't want to criticize it for copying too much because then there's also, they have these moments that are very purely... deadly premonition right and right and would only occur in this game like um like what's a good example uh or it's just like Just like the way they talk about rain and the significance of rain. You haven't gotten to that part yet, I guess. I think they talk a little bit about it.

driving up to the tree they actually talk oh maybe so well yeah after After the, you'll see it soon once you finish. The sawmill, yeah. Once the sawmill, you get a piece of his, of the main antagonist's raincoat, which I didn't know was a raincoat. And they have this whole thing about raincoats. Oh, yeah. And about rain. Yeah. And about why nobody goes out in the rain in the Pacific Northwest.

No, that's impossible. Yeah, right. You'd have to be housebound a significant part of the year. Yeah, so it's just such a quaint, weird, interesting... you know, artifact. Yeah, that's probably the better word than time capsule. This game is an artifact of various types that I just really appreciate. Now it's a problematic as hell in many ways. We just have to say that. I have to say that.

So if you haven't played it, be aware. It is definitely of its time, but that's not even an excuse. It's just, yeah. Anyway, it's problematic. But there's just so many unique weird things about it that go even beyond the show influence. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, and that is a big part of, you know, what I liked about it at the time. At the time I played this, I actually had just rewatched Twin Peaks. Oh. uh yeah i had a girlfriend at the time who hadn't who hadn't who hadn't seen it or maybe hadn't seen all of it and so i re-watched it with her on netflix or something and um and so i was like

It was very fresh in my mind when I played it in 2010 or 11. I don't remember exactly when. I didn't play it right when it came out, but it might have been later that year.

um so yeah i don't i don't remember exactly but i do remember my twin peaks and deadly premonition uh experiences were very close together um and so it was definitely very fresh in my mind at the time If you, yeah, for any listener who is intending to play or might play it someday or is playing along, even if you've played it before, I definitely, yeah, I mean, of course, I know the Discord's been talking about the Twin Peaks influence.

a fair amount. But I highly recommend at least watching the pilot and then playing the game at some point during playing the game because I do think it amplifies the game in a good way. Even though there are definitely a lot of ripoffs, but I think generally okay. Yeah, it's just enough of their own spin, their own version that I buy it. But then it's also video games, so there's a lot of other elements to it that are not in the show.

so yeah yeah yeah um well we should i mean we should talk about some of the gamey bits i mean we we haven't really last time we talked a lot about sort of the structure and the kind of tone and the twin peaks of it all even last week um you know, after we kind of did the long introduction and all of that. So, you know, one of the things I think we need to start turning to is like some of the mechanics. I mean, I don't know if we can.

But some of the major mechanics that we're running into, I mean, all of which we had little bits of last time, there is, so as we talked about, there's an open world aspect to the game.

which was the surprise but it was even more of a surprise once i explained to tim no no it's it's more than you think it is as far as that goes and we'll we'll get to more of that in a minute um but even if you're just following the linear bits there's basically um you know a couple mechanics in there that are ways to sort of i wouldn't say skill test but they are kind of like um

I mean, they're the sort of, you know, grist of any kind of survival horror game, right? And in this one, there's two. There's one that's like clue gathering. There's a little bit of like the, you know, simple locks and keys type stuff as well, but that's not. That hasn't yet been super relevant. There was one puzzle, kind of a dumb chess puzzle at the hospital. But while you're in the hospital, you also are profiling.

The body, you know, you are picking up on clues. There was a there was a thing about that, I think, as well in the opening section before you actually get to meet Naomi Watts. I mean, Emily Wyatt or whatever her name is.

and uh the profiling is basically like well have you picked up all the information in this scene you know very much like even in a batman game has this as well um so We've had a number of these kinds of sequences where it'll tell you basically how many clues you have to find in the environment you're in, and you have to navigate the environment to find those clues.

And they're very, I mean, I think we should talk about the scene at the tree as a profiling section because I think that one actually. shows it kind of off pretty well like how that ties into the narrative and like the cut scenes and like all of that which also like i said feels very twin peaks um do you remember the clues that were there Yeah, I think so. Yeah, the heel, the broken heel. Right, broken stiletto heel. Yeah, the symbol in the hand.

this that's from the autopsy but the symbol um the symbol in the hands is the same as the symbol in the picture of the guy's back yeah right that's why the back comes in later um oh right okay yeah that makes sense yeah Unfortunately, he also asks to see Emily's back. Yeah, of course. And then there's a creepy...

Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. I don't remember. There's maybe something in the tree that I remember knocking out of the tree. Yeah. There's the, you shoot two things out of, out of the tree. One is the stiletto. The other is. Oh, what is the other one? I'll come back. Oh, there's a piece of metal. Oh, right. Like a wood chip with rust on it. And then there's like two broken blades of grass.

So York's kind of job is like he's a profiler and this is the way that you see this knit together. And they don't ask the player to do this. There have been later games, you know, which. especially I think in the indie space, but you know, some other puzzle games like, uh, The Golden Idol games, I think, kind of do this where that kind of activity, even Obra Dinn has this a bit, that activity is like putting together the clues is like the player is actually doing that and not the character.

But I do think that the sorts of clues and conclusions that the profiler comes to in both this and in Twin Peaks are like kind of a bridge too far for most players. Like they're so strange and like. it'd be hard to know how to introduce them. You know? Yes. So I, so I guess, I guess this is a little bit debatable with the Twin Peaks comparison, but, but. Deadly Premonition is in the name. Yes. And York has something going on. He sure does. With him. But I don't...

I mean, I guess they intentionally don't want me to fully understand. I don't know if he is a... telepath or, or what's the term for, you know, I don't know if he's an empath or something. Empath. Yeah. If he's getting the premonitions or what that ref, what the title is referencing, but the profiling, like I, and I actually bought it. Yeah. It's, I'm thinking.

I'm glad you're bringing this up because I do, I do really enjoy those sections, even though you're not technically doing much from a puzzle solving perspective, you know, they're doing it for you, but I think the presentation's great. And I think that it really makes you feel like you're in this crime. And, you know, and he seems to be...

Like he's profiling and he actually talks a fair amount about how good of a profiler he is. But the more and more it happens, the more and more I think what he also is saying is that he has some superpower. that he can actually put these pieces together. At least that's how they present it. Not a superpower, but he's a telepath or something. And that's kind of a cool supernatural side of it.

I don't know exactly who Zach is, but I guess Zach is us. But I don't know. It sort of feels that way, yeah. I will say that that question is answered later. Oh, is it? Oh, interesting. That's my little tease to be like, maybe we do want to play more of this game. There is an answer to that question, and I'm not going to tell you whether your guess is correct.

But it does get answered late in the game. Right. And to your point, to the earlier point about how aware of what they're doing, are they? i do really appreciate this this game does seem to know what it is like it is leaning into the fact whether it's the limitations of uncanny valley or whether it's just we're a weird game and we're gonna

we're going to go, we're going to go all the way, you know? And I just really appreciate that. The other thing with the profiling that I wanted to mention, I had my notes. I didn't mention pre-show is there. Now I haven't played heavy rain. I know that's kind of a bit of an infamous one. I kind of avoided it because I know that mechanically it's...

Very shallow. Yeah. But I feel like I should play it someday. If only to have the Jason scene. Jason. I quote that scene. I've never even seen it. Jason. Jason. But so, so I know that that's like kind of known to be the, you know, the not only probably that team's. most popular game or infamous game, but also as far as like a serial killer type game, you know, there aren't many of those out there, but one thing I've appreciated about this one is that because, um, true crime is a very.

common topic in my household i'll say not not by my choice but it's like it's constant constant topic um uh for the family uh and so It kind of dawned on me as this profiling stuff was happening in Deadly Premonition and as we're playing, as I'm playing, that there aren't a lot of games that deal with this head on.

serial killers are bad news you know and bad things happen and typically games don't want to handle that stuff now of course are they doing it in a ham-fisted way of course they are They don't have the fidelity, you know, there's, there's not the nuance and the seriousness of it obviously isn't their goal, but I just kind of applaud them of like, yeah, there's, I mean, there's some things mentioned in these profiling scenes that are just.

Yeah, stuff that comes out of Manhunter or what's the other Fincher thing? Zodiac. Zodiac or then the other Fincher thing. Seven? I don't know. Seven, seven. Where you're like, oh man, I wish I could unhear that. Yeah, yeah. That one's especially dark. I mean, what is in the box? Yeah.

uh so anyway i i do i do kind of expect that quote to come up at some point i don't think it does but it's the sort of thing where you oh it totally would you could feel it coming yeah um yeah the uh what was i gonna say oh yeah so The point I wanted to make about the profiling is that, like you said, it doesn't ask a lot of the player other than interact with this environment, investigate, quote unquote, this environment.

um and there might be some conclusions you draw from that yourself as well like why are these things in the trees for example is that just a mechanical thing um so there might be some things like that but but then like the the things he the conclusions he draws you're like oh actually that i would not have thought of that like and in fact george is more the stand-in for the player i think at that point of being like he kind of says something that

naively sounds reasonable to you and he's a you know he's a law enforcement officer himself so you're like okay yeah that makes sense and then york is like oh no that's not what happened And then he like lays out this much more complicated, but explaining all the evidence kind of solution, which is, I mean, I think the writing is actually quite good in its goofy way, but quite good in like the.

the level of thought that's been put into like what everything means here. Um, and that actually gives me, gave me at the time and gives me now like way more confidence in. how this story will be handled from a plot perspective right that it's going to be interesting and worth my time and it's good that that that happens so early like it happens um

even in the hospital scene where I think there's like maybe three clues on her body that you have to pick up. And then you basically take over the investigation or York does. Um, cause who knows, maybe you're Zach, Tim. Um, yeah, well that was my immediate.

assumption is that it's just a dual personality kind of thing but but then as i mean as i'm driving around now more in the open world section which we'll get to later um you know there's those conversations you can trigger while you're driving yeah um About movies. I actually have just recently saw Jaws as well. There's one where he goes very deeply into Jaws. He's clearly like a classic movie buff, 70s, 80s movie buff.

Um, but he's telling Zach about it. So yeah, it's, and that, and I, to your point on writing, those are, I think were really well written and performed as well. Those little, those little interstitials. Yeah, I think the profiling, though light mechanically, it does the job well. And I do feel like you get to know York's deal more.

and the killer's you know situation and in the victim's situation and all that stuff so um that was the other that was another example i'd forgotten about when you're in the morgue and he um he finds the I don't know, is it a seed or whatever? It's a seed, yeah. Yeah, and he then takes over control of the investigation because it's a- comes that seed he has found in other cases. Yeah. He pulls like six, six bags of. Yeah, exactly. That literally happens in.

Cooper finds the same thing with the letter. The letter under the fingernail. Yeah, and he literally has the same speech. I'm assuming control. I know that's uncomfortable for you, blah, blah, blah. So it's like, which is cool. You know, it's fine. And he calls, what's his name? Farrar's character. Alfred. If you haven't gotten that far, Alfred's the bald. Oh, no. Yeah, it's not. He's incoming to pilot. He's not far away, though. He's quite a character.

The other thing I do is I mix up what's in Firewalk with me and what's in the pilot too, because they go back. There's some Firewalk with me in this as well, because a lot of the... associative work that he does from his clues are um are more like the the blue blue rose clue there's that dancer scene do you remember that from firewalk with me it's with chris isaac not with dale but yeah

Chris Isaac sees this character and I forget who's in the, I think it's Kiefer Sutherland's in the car with him. And he's explaining to him like, Oh, well her, her purse, she had this kind of purse. And then she was wearing these kinds of shoes. And like, it was like this.

weird, you know, like you said, kind of empathic communication of like putting together these pieces. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it is cool. I do actually think that that stands out. I will say that I'm not sure the combat stands out particularly well. I mean, I think it's kind of fine. You know, it's, it's. Not great. It's not super polished.

you know i i'm playing on the ps3 and i have one of those you know third-party controllers which is not good um so it's a little it's been a little tricky for me to do the combat uh at times like i'm you know normally it's not a problem but then

I think in the hospital, one of the guys has a shotgun and that guy definitely got me once, you know, and that's a lot of, you know, that's almost a start over situation, getting hit once if you're close enough. You know, what are you, I mean, it's, it's very RE4.

It's very much like stop to shoot. You can move. I think you can move if you're using a sort of hand-to-hand weapon like the knife or the... the oh i haven't even tried yeah i believe you can move when you have those so it's you're not locked in place i think you move around but then that's actually kind of hard to do um to actually do the combat and do that uh you know you know i mean

I don't have a lot more to say about the combat. You've done more of it at this point, so I wanted to at least get your... Yeah, the sawmill's pretty frustrating at times. I've been... I think I've...

has so far gotten the sort of distance and pacing of it so i i you know i'm i'm staying i'm basically trying to compensate for the the bad parts of the combat by how i how i in encounter how i engage um but i have an additional and you know people roll their eyes on this one but i have an additional criticism because I am playing on the switch and everyone knows that I hate those analog sticks because it's so terrible. And so it's very difficult to aim at all. So I have been

heavily leaning on the lock on, but of course you can't do headshots if you do the lock on. So it's, it's kind of mixed blessing. So, but it's, yeah, the, to be honest, the places, the only places I failed have been the QTEs, which. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, Hey folks, there's, there's like traditional, I mean, it's of its time, I guess, but, but the end of the, we're already getting pretty long of the tooth by. 2010 i think yeah so yeah you're right i think it's i think it's like 2004 was god of war right i mean it was definitely you know although this was a game that like we talked about last week had started in 2007 and then had been rebooted you know maybe it was

carryover from that part or whatever it's hard to know yeah that's fair but um but yeah i mean the the quick time events i'm always surprised when they happen like it actually even happens in the profiling section although they're not necessary

to do. After you pick up each clue, you can basically look and see, oh, what part of the puzzle did I just get? By hitting the... that x to start profiling x for me uh to start profiling really quickly and you'll just get like so what you what you're seeing in those profiling sections to go back is like there's like a basically a video that you don't have that's very fuzzy

like you can sort of see some outlines on you maybe get a little bit of the audio mostly the voice lines that are happening there and as you pick up the clues you kind of more of that fills in you kind of get more of it so you can sort of see which pieces you've just picked up as you pick up the various pieces just to clarify there. Yeah. And I've stopped actually watching them as, as I get them. Yeah. Because there's not really a point. Yeah. And you don't even.

I don't think you often get any money for doing that or anything like that. So there's really no need. People want to do it. Because I'm such a min-maxer, though, I have started to try to aim to... rather than lock on so I can get some headshots because you get more money for the headshots. No, you do, yeah. Obviously because it's a zombie game, but they've done a little bit of help for you in some cases because they have some of them.

And, you know, they bend backwards like in that sort of creepy horror way and their head is kind of center mass. But anyway, yeah, it's too bad because, you know. I probably think we probably talked some about it with Alan Wake as well, but it's like, there was a lot of combat in Alan Wake and it's better in Alan Wake, but not.

too much better. And it just kind of ends up extending the game in a not fun way, which is just unfortunate. So for this game, for Deadly Premonition. So, you know, it's there.

I don't know, like if there are longer protracted combat like sections than the sawmill, then I definitely am going to be frustrated. Because that was a very long section. You are doing the combat while collecting profiling clues. Yeah. So you're going through the whole thing and you, you know, and so you, you're.

And then it ends with a really elaborate QTE sequence. And if you remember, do you want to talk about this at all? Yeah, no, it's fine. I do remember it. I mean, I do also remember it as being... probably that there might be one towards the end that's quite bad as well but this one i remember being like whoa this is like i don't know if i'll get past this because of my frustration um point luckily i played it in 2010 yeah

Yeah, luckily the QTE section, when the boss, for the boss, oh, there is a great, great device. Yeah, I guess I'll say device that they introduce in that section and I'll get to in a second. But yeah, but at least the QTE section in that boss area is the same sequence. So I failed multiple times, but I did memorize it eventually and got through it that way. And, you know, unlike some of the games where they just change it on you. Well, and it was random in the first part of the game.

If you didn't succeed against your first encounter with the, the robe to figure. Oh yeah. I didn't realize that. That part was random. Okay. That makes me nervous then. This one definitely stayed the same though for a while, but. Yeah, so, you know, they're leaning on it too much. I think we've probably even talked about Shenmue at some point, right? This probably was another influence on the game in some way.

But the ending sequence of getting out, do you remember the ending sequence getting out of the... Well, talk about the device that they introduce because it leads into that. So there's one section. So he's unbeatable at this point. guy in the red raincoat. You know, he's whatever. He's a supernatural whatever. So there's this sequence where you kind of, you hit a dead end room.

And he's coming after you. And it's a great like shining moment where he's bashing through the door. And they cut to a picture in picture. of him in first person bashing through the door maybe might be third person there but he eventually goes in the first person and then they show you and they tell you to hide and there's multiple places to hide

kind of like Alien Isolation in the room, like in a locker or whatever. And then you obviously have to hold your breath like you do in Alien Isolation. As he's walking in that one dream sequence, they introduce it in this game. with that little kid. And so he's walking through the room and then he eventually leaves. I forget exactly how it ends. And then you get out of there. But then as you're getting out of there, it turns into this. running sequence that you were running toward the camera.

Which is the worst thing of all time. Yeah, I hate those. And you're like, there's obstacles. There's one of those in Beyond Good and Evil, too. And I was like, ah. Oh, that's right. Yeah, you have to climb over. So you have to climb up on things that you can't see. And so it's terrible. And then you also have to dodge him.

throwing his axe at you with a QTV. But the coolest thing about it is that they have this picture and picture of him. So when he's in the room searching for you while you're hiding, they go into first person from his perspective. Yeah.

It's really neat and really, really unexpected and clever. And it's like, wow, that is cool. So that's like, it's one of those surprising moments where they just wanted to do this, I guess, you know? Yeah. They did it. So I assume this is their own engine. Do you think? I believe it is. Yeah, I believe it is. I don't, I don't, I don't think they credit any engine at the beginning. I'll, I'll look it up while we're talking, but.

My recollection is it's very common for engines to be custom in Japan. Yeah, I mean, especially because it's got open world streaming and things like that. So it's just such a weird... Yeah, such a weird, but yeah, the picture in picture chase and then the tension of that sequence hiding, but seeing his, um, um, his. first-person point of view is super, super interesting. So that was a fun way to end that sequence. It doesn't list an engine and sort of the sort of

I don't know what they call this, but that's a sort of box with the sidebar with the details. So I would have to assume that it's a... It seems custom, yeah. It would be very unusual in Japan. It's got the jank of... Use physics, it says. Those gurneys, man, they definitely roll. They definitely roll. You've been rolling your way. Yeah, it's, yeah, I don't.

i don't see another engine mentioned in here so um one of the things i wanted to call out um speaking of the red raincoat is possible uh film reference there as well have you seen um don't look now the nicholas rogue film i want to say like 73 with julie christie and uh donald oh classic classic horror movie um kind of more of a gallo kind of feel um

very paranoid. Yeah. It's, it's actually about, and another thing that brings it to mind is that there's, that Sutherland's character is also sort of got some sort of empathic.

you know mental power he has premonitions it seems um including at the beginning and but at different points during the during the film it's uh it's great movie yeah you should totally totally watch i mean it has that sort of slow like um new hollywood feel you know where it's not moving although i think rogue was was british maybe dutch rogue or roeg um so it's a little slow paced today but it's definitely got

paranoia and one of the most beautiful you know sort of romantic scenes between a husband and wife it's which is quite it's a sex scene but it's you know not super It's just different. It's a great movie. Fantastic movie. Well worth seeing again. They're clearly movie buffs. I don't know much about Swery and we know that Kojima is obsessed as well. Yeah, Swery's a definite huge film guy. Yeah, I mean, he talks – yeah, again, the interstitials, if you're – I didn't know what the little –

audio cue was when you're driving that just appeared every once in a while. And I guess it's when you can talk to Zach about movies. You can just, yeah, hit the, hit the talk button, you know, whenever it appears. Yeah. Yeah, quite in-depth. Yeah, he'll go on and on. His favorite movie being Ferris Bueller's Tale. Well, and he had just been talking for me. He had talked about before that Fred Ward. Yeah.

in remo williams the adventure begins like terrible there was never a sequel oh and that was joel gray well his daughter and he just keeps going you know jennifer gray was in ferris bueller's day off and i'm just like man you know i would probably love having a meal with this guy Um, not, uh, not York. Yeah. I had, I had forgotten, um, about both of those elements. I didn't. get that far what i did was i sort of replayed the the sort of tree profiling chapter um because i was

I was curious about like, well, how much open world stuff can you kind of do in that time? And it's quite a lot. I could have done way more than I did. I just did a few things, but I met, I went to the RNG diner.

and i think it's rng but whatever it is i went to the diner and i met the uh olivia there and he goes into this whole thing about olivia newton john you know this british this english actress you know and uh she made this film in 1982 xanadu you know and he just goes and goes and i haven't actually ever seen xanadu but uh he goes and goes and goes about that uh because she says something about like not not really loving her name which is like

not a thing you say when you first meet somebody hi i'm brett i don't really like my name but you know that's the yeah that's the unique flavor of this uh this yeah and i yeah again women portrayals The pair of women in this game is not great, but I think that that's where that's coming from. But I also wouldn't be surprised to discover that the first time he meets Audrey, Audrey says...

you know, in Twin Peaks, Audrey says, I don't really like my name. And, you know, Dale's saying something, but Audrey Hepburn, you know, I could, like, it would totally fit in in Twin Peaks, you know, so. Yeah, could be, could be.

Yeah, so, yeah, I saw you in Discord mentioned that you had played that section two different ways to kind of see what the difference is, which is just amazing that the game allows you to do that. open world section has been weirder. And it's just dawning on me as we're talking about it, that it was just, I guess by happenstance, because the clock's going all the time.

And the days, because it keeps track how many days you've used. Yeah. So I guess this just happened by accident. But when I came out of the sawmill, it was like 10 o'clock. 10 pm or you know after dark and so i had that scene in the dark with the two of them where they're showing me their backs right right to prove that they don't have the symbol on their backs um and that's where george reveals

something's going on with him. Um, and so then they leave and I'm, it's in the middle of the night and I'm at the sawmill and the next thing is the community meeting. uh, which there's a community meeting in the pilot of twin peaks, by the way. Um, and that's the next day, like at whatever, three o'clock, 3 PM or something. And so I'm like, uh,

What do I do now? That's like the middle of the night. I do have the car. You could go fishing, Tim. I guess so. I guess so. But then I realized my car only has 8% of gas. Uh-huh. And I also didn't realize what flares were for at the time. So I am not close to town. I run out of gas. I have no car. Nice. And there's nobody's awake. Right.

And I have no, and I have no, and I, and again, I, in retrospect, I guess I could have used one of those flares. I guess that's what they do, but I only have two, so I'm kind of conserving them. So basically I run back to town. And also there's no place to sleep. So I also didn't realize what cigarettes do. I guess they pass time without sleeping. So I did use one of those later.

So long story short, I eventually get back to town. I have no idea how to fuel the car. So I'm like, okay, I guess I'll just go around and collect cards and see how much time passes because I got to wait for everybody to wake up. I couldn't even, you know, I had no gas. So I think I eventually go back to the sheriff's department and take another car that did have gas. So I did get a car eventually and I went.

eventually back to the hotel and slept but during before all of that there is a gas station of course so you yeah yeah but i couldn't the car was out of gas so it's like they couldn't get it there so that was one of the other things i did when i was in because it was like at half full

when i did it the first time so i was like oh i'll go i'll go fill that up and see what else i can you know kind of find it's actually funny because if you do that it's actually easier one of the things about the game that's difficult is that the map The map both on your HUD and the map in the pause screen are both terrible. So to get up to where you're going to question the witnesses, the people who found the body, the twins and the guy who keeps the grounds.

you i i mean i kept opening the map and then i would like try to follow roads to get up to where and i'd keep coming to dead ends i try to follow them back to where i was but by then i had lost track of where i was relative to where i went and so i kept like closing the map reopening the map because it would recenter it on me yeah going nodding a lot right yeah oh my god and then um

but then the other thing is that if you hit the pause button to use the map while you're driving around if he's talking with zach he'll stop and i don't want to stop that So it's also like, oh, well, I don't want to do that either. If you don't immediately go up to the witness location with.

George and Emily, they'll go on their own. So then you're actually free to do whatever you want, which is, I think kind of the game signal to you. Like you, you know, you can take this time to do what you want. There's a HUD indication that, um, food is available at this time um when you come out of the hospital it's like 11 45 in the morning so you and and when you're driving like under the map it's like oh from

like 11 to one or something, 10 to one, there's food, right? So you can go, you know, get food at places. So you can actually look at that, the map at that point. I was like, well, I'll just kind of go kind of. if i'm going alone it's kind of natural to kind of go this way and swing by and pick up a trading card here some of them you can't get to because locations are locked

And then I was like, oh, but I also noticed when I played this through the first time that I was low on gas by the time I got up there. So I'll pick up some more gas now so that I have more after I redo that section, the profiling section. So I went to the gas station and that guy, if you slip him a hundred bucks, will basically give you a clue about all of the things you can do in town.

so every time you give him 100 bucks he'll tell you like oh did you know so and so if you bring him a such and such we'll you know we'll do something for you so there's also like a built-in mechanic of like things you can spend your money on that will help you understand the game but you have to find like nobody tells you about this stuff you just have to find it yeah this is definitely a classic oh this is a game like you don't get the first time you play it so you play it again

And then halfway through, you discover something new that you're like, well, I wish I knew that when I started again. Maybe I'll start a third time, right? That was my experience back in 2010 or whatever, when I originally played it.

Yeah, the map's terrible. To your point, I basically have shifted over. I think we've talked about this. I'm trying to think of what game we've talked about this on, but maybe many games. I feel like it's a topic we... come back to all the time for me i really love learning because you're replaying sections and moving around a space yeah especially like in an open space like this you kind of learn just naturally the way you do in real life, the town.

Yeah, we certainly talked about it with GTA 3, for example. Yeah, GTA 3, you learn districts and you're like, relativity of this district or that district, and you learn landmarks and stuff. And so, yeah, the map is so bad that it's like, and just...

hard to distinguish I also think that it that it doesn't wrote for me I actually prefer when maps maintain north up yeah yeah exactly so it's like so i usually turn that setting on for you know and so my brain just this one's this one's car car or character relevant Right. So I'm always confused and turned around and stuff. So what basically my nighttime adventures turned into learning the town because there's nobody out.

I couldn't do anything because everything was closed. I could look now. I don't know if people know this, but most buildings at night, I assume it's maybe in the daytime too. Yeah. You can peek into most. like a key building windows. And so here's York running through the town at 11 PM at night, looking in everyone's windows. And sometimes they're like in there sleeping, eating dinner, doing stuff, cleaning up, which is like, again, to the simulation point.

they're in there doing stuff. I think those are spaces you might actually be able to go into later too. In most cases. Yeah. Yeah. If it's not midnight. Yeah. Um, and so, but then I was collecting cards, you know, I was collecting collectibles and the,

the little metal things. And then midnight rolls around and the sky turns red and zombies come out. And are running around and a giant Doberman Pinscher, undead Doberman Pinscher comes out, flips my, I did have my car at that point, flips my car over. chases me down and i'm and i go on top of this roof and then i just you know because it can't i you know i cheesed it like in dark souls and it couldn't get up there and i and i dispatched it that way but um

Yeah, this game is weird. You ran into the blood moon, Tim. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what I thought. I was like, oh, the blood moon. Yeah, that's when everything resets. So I think it's from midnight to 6 a.m. if you're out. at night, then it's just zombies or, you know, combat. If you, if you're in open world, I don't know if that's every night, but I assume it is. Yeah. To me that, that also has a very, which is.

Actually, I don't remember if I made this connection last week, but it has a very Silent Hill 2. feel that way oh i forgot to bring that up last week i wanted to mention that yeah yeah i did too last week and i i didn't write it specifically down on my notes i just had it in my head and i was like i'll remember that totally forgot um for two reasons one is This stuff, but that didn't really come into play last week. The other is...

The way he enters town felt to me very similar to the beginning of Silent Hill 2, where it's like, oh, well, okay, he crashes his car. The other guy parks at this sort of rest stop. um you know goes into this gross bathroom and looks himself james looks at himself in the mirror and then walks way down into town right um but it has a very similar feel

Yeah, the town, the reason I was going to bring it up last week was just the feeling of a town, you know, and Silent Hill being the town and this one green whatever. Greenville, yeah. Yeah, there's also a hospital, of course. Right. Oh, yeah, that's right. Pretty common horror trope, but there's one here. Yeah, it's such a mishmash of different things.

Yeah, it's such a weird, I mean, obviously I'm glad you suggested it. I know you've been wanting to play it for a long time. Yeah, it's just another one of those just keep having these unexpected things happen. in you know that i just never never would have seen coming uh some of the tropes of the time for when it came out but also just it's such a weird game in so many ways and nobody would i mean

I'm sure there's some real, to your point, like direct indie games that have been influenced by it, but nobody's making this kind of stuff. Yeah. Nobody did even then. Sadly.

Yeah. Yeah. It's too bad. I mean, it's just, you know, people won't fund it. Unless you, unless you have the, your own funding to just do weird stuff. Well, I mean, and I wonder, you know, as we're kind of winding down here, we don't have any email this week, so we can go a little bit longer. I wonder to what degree you think about this in terms of.

of kojima you know especially with death stranding which to me would be the more the greater analog um for sure that's and the ones then the ones i've played anyway yeah i haven't played five or v or whatever but i've played the other middle gear solids and i haven't played really any death stranding um though i i watched you play a little bit and i've seen

I've seen some of it. And I have it installed currently, so one of these days I'll get to it. It's a perfect example. Yeah, that is the AAA version of somebody being allowed to do this. Cause that game is bonkers as well. Yeah. Even just the concept on paper. It's like, why did, why did that get funded? You know? Oh, it's because it's Kojima, you know? Yeah. So.

Yeah. Do you think, do you think it's just that? I mean, and are there, are there similarities? Like it felt to me like that's kind of an open world game, right? With. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Well, I think the similar, yeah. I mean, obviously not direct in the. I mean, it's horror and stuff, but there's some, but I more mean that it is very unorthodox concepts being put into, you know, kind of modern design paradigms, drink.

I hate that word, but I can't ever think of a better one at the moment. And then just with its own kind of tonal, you know, tone and style that is just unlike anything else out there, you know. And themes as well. So yeah, it's not, you know, one for one, but it falls for me into the category of like very few people would be allowed to do this kind of thing.

And luckily, I mean, I think in this case, yeah, it's interesting to see because I guess Suda, we know that Suda, they're collaborating now and Suda falls in the same category of also getting, you know, getting the green light to do.

kind of what he wants or do do interesting things and there are definitely others but um i also think they were at a time where it was it was still relatively cheap like the bets weren't huge sure you know and that's where it makes a big difference right you know because around this time let's see 2011 i think the week comes out so that travis touchdown yeah no more heroes um

This is where exactly where I was going is like one of those games where it's like, oh, yeah, nobody makes makes only two to 51 makes this or his.

He made a survival horror game that actually was mechanically pretty interesting. I can't remember the name of it. I'll have to look it up for next week. Not the lollipop one, was it? No, not lollipop chainsaw. There was this light, dark... oh yeah right i didn't play that yeah and i can't i can't remember what it's called um but it's it's i should just look it up now i might as well i've already looked up something this week well yeah and and

Yeah, I think there's that. The other one that probably people are yelling at their podcast devices is Remedy, right? Right, yeah. Remedy has gotten themselves into a... position where they've gotten the credibility and they've had enough successes to be able to not write their own checks, but to do interesting things. obviously with Sam's guidance, but as a team. So they fall into that category too. Yeah, it was Shadows of the Damned.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, I didn't play that. I did. And it is pretty interesting. It does have some parts where you're like, yep, that's Suda51 right there. There's definitely times where I'm like, are you kidding me with this stuff? But it was pretty interesting. And I'd rather have something a little zanier, even if it's... you know far from perfect uh yeah i do really like the the bigger swings and it's unfortunate that we you know we don't have

But it's hard to find these, I guess, is my point. I don't necessarily know that they're not even out there, right? It's just hard to find them. And it's certainly hard to get them funded. So you're not going to see them from the...

for the big studios for the most part, rather. Yeah, and the interesting thing, so to the point, I'm thinking about Death Stranding a little bit more, and we don't have to actually go into that game specifically, but as it applies to Deadly Premonition, the interesting thing that's dawning on me now... That I think, and this is just my own opinion. I don't think I can reference any other sort of like more editorial opinion on this. But the thing about that I would compare Deadly Premonition.

And even suited as games to some degree, because I think oftentimes they're not mechanically polished enough for me. But like they, they ooze style so much that I enjoy them to some, you know, enough.

But I think with Kojima's games, and partially because his polish level is always so AAA, and so they spend, as a team, so much money on that stuff. With both Metal Gear, as ridiculous... as a franchise as that is, and both problematic, but also just zany also about the characters, the moment to moment gameplay is usually very good.

Do you know what I mean? Like the sneaking, the combat, CQC, whatever it is, like it's fun enough to play. Yeah, yeah. Like every one of the Metal Gear games has something that is very polished as far as the gameplay goes.

So all the other stuff that comes, the story, the characterizations, all of that stuff, you either like or don't like, but you... at least you're playing a good fun game and death stranding similar right yes there is a lot of hiking and backpacking but yeah so you're fun you know may May vary on that. Your worst fulfillment might not be there. But the combat's actually very good and polished and tight. And you can, in this sort of...

Far Cry kind of way, you know, go attack a camp, you know, an encampment or a base. And it feels, you know, it feels like a real top-notch game. So I feel like people give him a bit of a pass, give them a bit of a pass because... it still is a good mechanically good fun game to play most of the time. It's just, you know, he adds in things like backpacking and you're like,

I think it stresses people, people's patience, I think for some people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's also, I think that the sort of big publishers.

and sony's probably you know the leader on this you know are willing to support that to an extent it's like it's like they're oscar bait if there were oscar bait right i mean it's like they're looking for a thing that is that they know they probably are not gonna i don't know how much money the stranding made like sales wise and i mean he's got a real okay yeah i mean they they

did a second one. Right. But I think there's also just cache, you know, of having him, you know, in the studio. Right. And I do think that that's like, you know, it's hard and it's hard to develop those people.

you know um in the games industry because it's so collaborative like it's really hard you know to to identify i mean a lot of the ones we've we we have are people who have been in it so long that they just kind of got to that position right because they were in it from the beginning you know certainly a lot of people we've or or very early you know that we've interviewed

or reached out to interview in some cases, you know, and, and that's, that's also to a degree true of Kojima, you know, he was, he's been doing a long time too. Right. So anyway, that was a little.

little diversion, uh, from the main topics, but, uh, thought it was worth, uh, looking at a little bit. Well, Swearie's still going to, right? Yeah. He's still around, you know, it's, but, uh, you know, there's. They're, they're infrequent games and I, I, they normally don't, I don't actually hear about them. Like if I didn't go look, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't know. Yeah. Part of that support that he needs. Yeah. Yeah.

So that's another, that's a, that's a whole separate problem. Anyway, we love to get your reviews. We don't have any new ones this week. And of course we'd love to read your email sent to dev game club at gmail.com. com we're on the web at dev game club and my co-host twitch is at twitch.tv slash tim longa jr with the jr at the end where these days you're a big spelunky streamer is my understanding Yeah, real big. It's how fast can I die stream.

yeah uh i'm usually holding back waiting to go because we've been playing uh in in parallel and then i start going and then somebody in the chat is saying yeah tim's dead and i'm like I just finished 1-2 and they're like, yeah, he died on 1-1. What is happening? I literally last week hit the wrong button because I was so rusty and I placed a bomb instead of dropping my dog. Tragic. Nicely done.

We also have a fan run Discord. There's a link for that in the show notes. Our intro and outro music was written and performed by Kirk Hamilton, commissioned by a friend of the cast, Aaron Edwards, and our logo, that Discord, our merch store, all by Mark Garcia. He was doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes for that charity event in January as well. Have fun angering the monarch this week and good night. Good night.