DGC Ep 450: Deadly Premonition (part four)

Hello and 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 Duvall and I'm joined as always by my co-host... A man who has come to town to solve the murder of this young, beautiful girl and to bring the murderer to justice. Tim Longo.

I definitely wasn't sure where that was going. Yeah, well, that's a direct quote. I had some other things I was workshopping. A man staying away from any dark, dangerous, isolated places. That was from the... The scene where he's talking to the town in the auditorium. Ah, yeah. A man auditioning for Little Grave on the Prairie.

And then finally, a man the boys like to call Crybaby Timothy. That was my favorite. I think you got that one. I remember that. I think I maybe even made a note of it. I'm sure you were like, huh.

Is that going to come back to bite me on the podcast? We're talking deadly premonition. We'll get to that in a moment. I want to review the upcoming November 15th date, which is, you know, last week we did a live stream. about portal two the the live stream got some things that the podcast didn't and that is actually on our youtube channel so i guess anybody could still go see it if they want i'm not going to discuss what that might have been but there was something different

And, uh, they're definitely going to go with it. And yeah. I'm amping up our YouTube numbers, Tim. It was a stretch goal for the Defeating Games for Charity from 2025, which is the Discord-run charity event benefiting the Video Game History Foundation. that our Discord community runs. And I mentioned November 15th because applications to take part in the January 24th and 25th.

of 2026 defeating james defeating games for charity imagine if it was defeating james for charity wow that would be a whole different thing um can be submitted via defeatinggames.com slash apply there is a link to that in the show notes um and we can talk a little bit about the

live stream in a minute if you want and then the other the other note about november 15th is that uh one of the discord community members noises is part of a 12-hour rocksmith raid train uh charity event with proceeds to benefit the pancreatic cancer action network um i mentioned this because next week tim is out and so um an interview will run with noises from the discord game club um while while tim is away so that will be

kind of a nice, uh, you know, a few days before the event, uh, well opportunity to get to the noises a little. Yeah. And noises, as you mentioned in the, um, in the stream last week, uh, is one of the streamer was one of the streamers in 2025 defeating games for charity where i think he also played rocksmith is my recollection um so rocksmith is the play a real guitar into your mic

game or i guess into an adapter probably um so they can actually fully pick it up uh and uh to actually learn guitar by playing playing it with with in a rock band kind of style rock band or um uh guitar hero sort of style game but with an actual guitar and not sort of a plastic uh you know five button instrument. So kind of a, kind of a different thing there. So, yeah, he took, he was taking, I'm sure this is, um, one of his hooks, but he, he take, he takes requests from the audience.

Wow. And I imagine Rocksmith has everything. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously a lot of video game soundtracks and things, right? Right. Of course. I think I asked for Metal Gear. Nice. Of course. Of course you did. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun. I think it maybe was the song from 3 that was the James Bond kind of. Oh, Snake Eater has a really good. Snake Eater, yeah, it was. It was called Snake Eater. They got a real. Yeah, real neat.

a real uh singer for it too a real performer i forget her name but yeah it's like it was just like they do for james bond yeah yeah that was actually excellent it was uh quite good i remember when i played that um It was fun to record a live stream version of the episode. That's fun to edit, but, but yeah, it was a good time. It was a good time. Yeah. We didn't set, we didn't set.

Great ground rules for me. When we, before we started, we had a couple. That's fair. Yeah. And so there's certain things I probably wouldn't have said if I had known you were going to edit them out. So I apologize. Yeah, it was super fun. I see why people do it. I mean, to be honest, whether we do that exact thing or not, again, it made me think.

I don't know what the format is exactly. So it's not like this episode we're recording now doing a traditional episode like we usually do. But I feel like doing something live that is much more interactive with the viewers as part of... our podcast you know i don't just mean streaming like we do normally but like um a conversation or more like that format i don't know what i mean exactly but it felt felt like it would be fun to do

where there is more of like a back and forth. I don't know. That was one of my takeaways. Yeah, I mean, I used to watch some folks who would stream development, and that can be really interesting to watch, but it's very, very specific to the... you know to the streamer and what they're doing and it takes a lot of preparation so i kind of like i worry about that sort of thing have i did a little bit of that years ago out of curiosity like okay what's this like um

I was like, oh, I don't like this. I'm not going to do this anymore. But it was certainly interesting to look at. And then I came back and did some just playing on stream. And yeah, that's, it's fun too. Although depending on the game, you might be really focused on the game. I can talk like this to you, whether we're on camera or not. And yeah, finding a way to make that interactive.

uh, would be fun. Yeah. And I don't mean streaming a game. I mean, do you know what you mean? Yeah. Sort of like a, yeah. More of like a panel or something. I don't know. Yeah. Well, we just made me think. we will consider we will consider that further

In the meantime, let's return to Deadly Premonition, which is now we're on our fourth episode. Neither of us have. In my case, I would be finishing it for the second time.

and i've been relying more on my memory for this week's episode um and tim hasn't quite gotten there either so there are some topics about the very end of the game uh that we're just not going to get to um though you know so there is some stuff we might that's towards the end so you know be warned as far as spoilers if that's a thing that you care about um

Yeah, we're definitely going to be spoiling some things. You're in chapter 21, I believe you said, and there's 26. So you're basically, you know, there's a lot of revelations that are still to come for Tim, and I'm not going to spoil those, but anything up to that. is fair game and stuff that we we want to talk a little bit about so yeah based on the structure that i looked up i just looked up the the chapter episode count um not what's in it and yeah it looks like i'm kind of

I feel like I'm in the homestretch-ish. Yeah, you definitely are. And I feel like it moves pretty quickly. Right about where you are. That's what my recollection. Yeah, it really felt like, you know, oh, everything's kind of coming very quickly now. And, you know, this sort of off kilter aspect of the game.

where you're kind of you know you have that uncertainty about what's going on all the time you know like it's source material and you know like the things that inspires it um you know you you want to be Once you're kind of like swaying back and forth, now it's like really easy to knock you over multiple times. So they can just hit you with new revelation upon new revelation. So. That's a good analogy. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's, it's, yeah, you're definitely swaying, you know, like a tree, Tim. And now they're going to take the next to you. Yeah. Well, yeah. And then I'll, I'll bring it up. I'll try to thread it in as we, as we talk, but. We are watching the second season of Twin Peaks now. And to your point there, which I'm sure, as we've talked about, it will be in my takeaways, but, you know, it's a big influence on this game.

critical influence um i had forgotten to your point on the swing and revelation after revelation i had forgotten because that was you know season one for twin peaks and this isn't a big digression so give me a second was eight episodes, uh, very short for the time. I'm sure because it was a mid season replacement. Actually. That's why. Yeah. And it's like, and that happened from time to time, but it's, I'm sure they're.

People were cautious, right, as well. It's like they're not going to get their own full season until they prove themselves. But then the second season was more of a full season. I don't think it was like 20. plus episodes, but it was long. And coming back, I think it was like May to September or September to May or something. There was a gap there until season two.

You could tell that the success had hit them enough to where the gloves were off because the season opener for season two is so much more extreme. In a Lynchian way, but also just in a shock way. Like they wanted to shock people much more than season one did. Even though at the time, season one was... was unbelievable that it was on the air. Watching the season opener for season two is even more unbelievable that that was on essentially primetime TV a little bit later.

But I think it would be considered prime time. But yeah, it was still prime. It was prime time later. So later in season two, they started trying to figure out a different place to put it. And that's actually one of the things.

that put the nail in the coffin of that show was like, you never knew when it was going to be on. Yeah. One week it would be on, you know, whatever Thursday night. And then the next week could be on Saturday night. And then they try it on Friday night and you, you know, uh, Being in the target age group, like a college student at the time, it was very difficult for me. There was no internet. So keeping track of that, it was very difficult to know when it was going to be on.

And it was, yeah, it was just a mess. And I should note that the original storyline which ends i think it is a more than 20 episode second season um and lynch and frost you know subsequently said like that was the pace of writing was too much yeah to do the type of show they were doing you know to do it on that at that kind of scope it would be much better as a sort of limited series that comes back when it's ready um

type thing that today that's kind of more the model for something that complex um they don't like just come out six months later you know it's however long it takes to come out get the story right um but anyway the What I was going to say is originally they actually had one season of Ark and that's up to the revelation of Laura's killer. And I think the episode after that, like that was the original story that they knew they had. And then everything after that.

was them like trying and you can feel this so much oh yeah i can have a second season of like they are throwing and it's not even frost and lynch at that point writing most of the time they're throwing so much stuff at the wall you know just to see what what will work um and it's kind of all over the place and you know the storylines don't really don't really work um they're they're just not as thought through you know in terms of their themes and and all so

um but yeah we should we should dive more into the story here i've basically gotten to i think where you were last time we played but i've been doing so much side stuff or trying to do so much side stuff i've been covering

the world again and again and again, going back to places. I did the whole thing with the bones, which I don't, I don't think I had done before, which I don't know if you've done. No, I found, I found one of them, but, and I see them on the map, but I haven't made a concerted effort. to see what that is. Yeah. I know they're human. Yep, they are. They sure are. I should tell somebody about this. It's always very funny. Says the FBI agent. Yeah, right.

yeah i should definitely tell somebody about this um that's a that story is it's fine it's like a lot of the stuff in the game where it's like oh okay there's there's an interesting mystery here and then how it actually is it resolves

There was something I started noticing about that storyline that was then confirmed at the end. So it was another one of those like, oh, I figured out what was going on here in some way. Right. Or at least I noticed something about the environment. I don't want to say more than that. interesting where those bones are found um but i've basically just gotten to the point where i'm about to go to i just left the art gallery and

We should maybe talk a little bit about that because I actually like that puzzle a lot. That was one that felt like an actual puzzle. You know, finding the code to get into.

diane's office right right which uh do you want to set that up a little bit describe um because there's another one that's similar to that because that was a few weeks ago for me what okay When you are in there, you go and approach a painting on the first floor, basically in the entryway of the gallery, which was also really striking because there's this huge...

like statue that's like, they say five meters tall. So whatever, whatever that is, nearly 20 feet tall. And it's like looming over the whole. You know, it goes from first to second floor is two staircase. And it's a really cool image. And then you walk in and depending on the order in which you do things, eventually you get to move over to where there's like some of those red.

you know particle effects on the ground and and out of a door comes olivia who is um the wife of the and co-owner or co whatever of the A&G Diner, which is like the double R. And she comes out. She's a little upset. She's looking at this painting on the wall. And when she leaves, she drops.

memo on the ground and she says something sort of cryptic and you're like huh and then you go and look and you get this memo and there's a key as well and the memo has like three things on it and they're basically names of paintings and you then go through the gallery and the paintings aren't necessarily well i guess they have they have sort of activation

that same activation particle effect in front of them. So you do kind of know them when you see them. But there is stuff where you have to make assumptions. There's one you have to find that's hidden away in a room in the basement. There's one that You actually never see the painting with the same title, but you see a painting on a similar theme. And the number of trees in these paintings is the numbers that go into the keyboard. Right, right. Which I thought was pretty good.

um you know as far as that kind of weird resident evil the you know kind of not that deep but still still felt deeper than most things and more well motivated than most things in in other Games that have a sort of survival horror puzzle aspect to them. Yeah, there's one later when you're trying to get into... Harry Stewart basically has set up some puzzles for you to...

do before you can get to him. Yeah. What am I, Professor Layton? Come on. Yeah, because he's eccentric or whatever. And yeah, there's one that deals with music. scores and another kind of number one. And there's a one with like these kind of like statues on a chess board sort of thing. But yeah, that also is number related. So yeah, they're, they're definitely.

I definitely applaud them for, you know, rather than Resident Evil basically doing a lot of lock and key stuff with just different shapes and different things. It's like, yeah, it's all, you know. or puzzle, you know, like literal puzzle pieces. They definitely are mixing it up some more in this one. Yeah, I definitely appreciated that as well. I'd kind of forgotten that that was the case. I mean, there are some that are not.

super deep. But, but anyway, that one was one that was in the main story, you know, and there's also, you know, the weird chess puzzle with Usha in the hospital, which was not great. That one was a stretch. That was, I think, partly a localization problem because I think the prepositions they used made it sound like the solution was something different than it was, which was not great.

and then yeah because the way it was worded it definitely was like oh it's this order of these puzzles you know and that was not the answer and you know like you know i don't remember how many times i put it in where i was like come on that's exactly what it's saying um it did it felt like a bad localization i can see that yeah um and then i don't know that there have been any real other ones for me

thus far. Um, so I, there'll be maybe more coming. Yeah. There there's, uh, yeah, there I've, I have a vague memory of another set that. Yeah. Is around that's related to another murder. Oh, okay. And I haven't gotten to that yet. That'll be coming up. Yeah. So yeah, there's, I mean, you're, you're. referencing stuff that's in my you know near future as far as gameplay goes but i mean having played it before yeah i'm not worried i wouldn't be worried anyway about spoilers but um

you want to go into the story a little bit more and we can maybe talk about some of the stuff that's a little grating to say the least. If you want to, you don't have to go into terrible depth, but we should probably at least warn people. yeah yeah yeah just kind of where the plot goes yeah i mean the the let's see so after yeah so where you are um Trying to think. Go to the diner next. Names like Diane is the art. Is the art gallery owner. Yeah. Art gallery owner. Becky is the sister.

To Anna? No, they're friends. They're friends. They're friends. They were like best friends. Yeah, they're sort of like... Who was it in Fire Walk With Me? There was a character who... was with Laura Palmer. So it's sort of akin to her. Not Ronette. I don't remember. Yeah. So anyway, so yeah, I forget Becky. I definitely get characters mixed up.

Um, for sure. Uh, yeah. Diane and Becky live together in the big house by the water. And then Sally is. Oh, that's right. Becky is Diane's sister. Becky is Diane's sister. Not her daughter.

No, I think she's a sister. They might be sisters. That could be. Not as relevant. The one thing I'll say about that, though, that I think they do nail because... we can't not talk about Twin Peaks when you talk about this game is that they understood one of the critical aspects of Twin Peaks when it comes to a small community where everybody is connected in some.

way yeah both both very a way that is very forward-facing and then there's also usually a hidden way right and then and then and that's one thing that that um that Twin Peaks did well of just kind of like a web, right? Basically of these connections. And so you have a lot of like, a lot of rich, fertile ground for-

Like you said earlier, revelations of like, oh, wait, what? Those two are together? Oh, this person backstabbed that person? Oh, you know, these two have a history? I didn't even know they knew each other. You know, all this kind of stuff.

um i like the way you put it too about like it's you know there's the forward-facing stuff and then there's the you know the stuff that you that is kind of buried um you know that's not that people know but is not known to strangers let's put i guess would be the way i would put it and one of the things i like about those kinds of you know these kinds of stories is that though you know part of the mystery is uncovering that stuff and seeing

figuring out how it how it fits in i think a lot of the side stories the uh the sort of open world missions or whatever they're called um are really reinforced that and those connections and i think if you're paying attention even to the map and where people are are and are going at different times um sometimes also reinforces that not as well as i'd like which way we can get to when we get to the open world

inside story kind of discussion but um because sometimes it's just there's really nothing there it's just a person standing in different locations very weird um but um but sometimes you know it's like oh this person go is going where why are they going over here like it gives me a lot of those old text adventure vibes like i've mentioned of just like huh there's a story here you know can i find it can i find what that story is yeah yeah

Like when Cason is off with the boys in his truck going off to the park or the forest, I guess I'd say. And I'm like, and I was leaving. I was there. I think I was. I think that was right after I went fishing for the documents, which we should talk about later. Okay, yeah. My first fishing experience was for documents. Yeah. And then I leave, I'm driving. Like you do. Well, to be honest, York says something like that.

I think it's like, well, this is, this is, I, you know, something, something, some tongue in cheek thing like that. Like, well, I guess this is what you do when you're fishing for, as an FBI. By the way, do you know, did you notice on the map what the name of the lake is? No, I didn't. It is Lake Knowledge. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. No, the names are great. Like one of the main thoroughfares is Vail Avenue or something. Yeah. That's so good.

Yeah, so there's a lot of good stuff. But the anecdote was just I was leaving there because I was just finishing that mission up. And to your point, I'm like the living world side of it. driving up there as I'm leaving, because it's just part of a sim. And the two kids, the twins are with him. And I'm like, what the, what's going on here? You know, and of course, that's going to come back.

Yeah, well, okay. It's going to come back not with those twins, I'll just say. I don't even know how to parse what you're saying. Yeah. So I'll, yeah. I mean, the twins, I know that kind of want you to stream this because I want to see your reaction to some of this. Yeah. We were talking in pre-show.

uh when what brett was just referencing we're talking in pre-show about streaming because because i am going to start um in fact tonight after this recording i'm going to start um trying to play as many of the unbeaten games that i have from the podcast on stream and just test that out and see how it goes. This would, of course, be one of them. And I don't have, I don't think, that much longer to go. So it wouldn't probably take me too long to finish it.

It's a tricky enough game to play, for me at least, that streaming it, I have to think about or figure out how to talk about it. You know, when it comes to like true crime kind of related topics and the darkness of humanity, you know what I mean as far as Kacen shows up with the twins. I'm like... You can actually talk to Jim, who's the grandfather.

Yeah, I see him on the map. I just haven't gone over there yet. Yeah, I went and talked to him because I was finding the bones and I was actually looking at the map. I was like, I'm actually pretty close to... the Forrester's cabin that Jim spends his days in. Oh, I did go in there at one point, but he didn't have anything for me at the time. Yeah, no, this probably would have happened.

Later, I guess. Right. When once Cason comes to town. So if you went early, he wouldn't have had anything. But once Cason comes to town. So I was looking and I was like, oh, the Ingram twins. I know I have to talk to them for a side story or an open world mission. I keep saying side stories because that's what they're called in Yakuza. They're called side missions, I think. Yeah.

Yeah, they're called missions, but not stories. So I'm like, oh, I'll just go over there and there'll probably be a car. I won't have to huff it all the way back to where I parked my car because there's a couple of bones that are like a long trek into the woods. and i was just like trying to find all the things i could do you know between where i know after breaks would be like can i find every character who has you know a little notepad next to their name on the map um

And go do those and find out what they are and try to figure them out. Some of them, some of them feel like they have like requirements. Like you have to figure out like Gina, you know, whose sponge you found a week or two ago. at the gas station like clearly you can she has one you know it's it's in the map and it's like on the list of missions but like

there's a precondition for her talking to me and I don't know what it is. And it doesn't, the game doesn't tell you. So it's like, and she sort of is like, is that all you have for me or something like that? So I'm like, is this an outfit thing? Cause I think you can find more outfits or is it like, Oh, I have a lot of outfits. Oh, is it a car thing? Uh, you know, like what, what is the thing? Right. So it's your sponge.

Yeah, if I give her her sponge. Give her her sponge. Yeah, so I don't, you know, I haven't figured that out. Anyway, if you, if Kacen is, so Kacen was basically there to pick up the boys. from that house the the house was locked so i couldn't actually talk to the kids i was super annoyed i was like well who else is here and i went and talked to the grandfather and he's sketchy about case case oh and he's like he's like well um

You know, Keith and Lily like him, you know, and so... Oh, yeah, he said that to me someplace too, but it wasn't there. Okay, yeah. I think the things that they'll say are just...

they'll say it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Which is good. You, you means you'll get them regardless of where, as long as, yeah. So long as you interact with the characters. So, which is again, talking to the sort of interconnectedness of all the story is like, you know, You can go and talk to any character who has any named character and they will.

I mean, they may repeat the same thing over and over again, but they will have something that bears, they will tend to have something that bears on the story overall. Um, and what Jim has to say is like, I don't trust that guy. And sometimes you should listen to us old people.

uh but you know the boys you know the twins parents like you know casein so i guess we're you know i guess it doesn't matter what i have to say about it or something like that you know um you know it's very it's a very like you know, you should listen to your elders sometimes kids in a kind of moment. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if there's one thing that.

With this fidelity and this medium at this time in game development, if there's one thing that's hard to do is to make interesting... characters that I don't know give you give you things to think about whether they're good or bad I guess good things or bad things to think about but you know just Because of our medium, there's often, you know, action and the stereotypes are really heavily one to two dimensional. Right.

I do, and that is the case in this game too, like they're definitely tropes, right? And stereotypes. But they have so many characters that I do think it has allowed them to have some... little bit more I mean nuance is too generous but a little bit more unexpectedness with some of the characters because they they do have really kind of a full town

Yeah. And Kacen is one of those ones, you go back to the art gallery later, which you may remember, which is, spoiler, when you find Diane's body. Yeah. Or she's actually not dead yet when you find her. But it does reveal some of Kacen's. stuff going on there too yeah and he's he's wrapped up in all sorts of stuff i even talked to him at one point in the hotel that you stay in

He was there for some reason. I don't even remember why he said he was there. He just stays there when he comes. Okay. Yeah. So he was there, but he was out in the lobby just sitting on the couch. I'm like, what are you doing, dude? Uh, and then the funny thing about when at the end of the day, like when I left, Oh, this was in the morning. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I ran into him. Um, cause after we had dinner on the first day at the A and G, I went to the.

galaxy of terror, I think is what it's called. Right. The, the biker bar. I think that's, no, no, that's, that's, that's Carol's place. Thomas and Carol own and work at, right. I guess Carol owns it and she sings. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's like the main, that's like a roadhouse. I went and hung out there for a while. There was a story, you know, a side mission that I was trying to figure out if it would trigger and it seemed like not. So I eventually went back to the.

hotel. And when I got there, he was just, he had just checked in when it was coming down the hallway to his room. So I ran into him going to my room. It was wild. The simple fact that you can actually, that what you just said occurs is just wild. Just through timing.

You ran into him as he was, as he was going there. So you ran into him while he was having his morning coffee. Right. Yeah, exactly. And it's just like, and you might not run into him at all. Although I think, I mean, eventually you'll definitely run into him. I mean. Yeah, he's part of the key story later. And then the big section I just finished. was back at the galaxy of terror or whatever that thing's called. Cause there's, there's more to that building than you see. Um, uh, yeah. So,

Uh, the one, like as a macro topic, the one thing I'll say about the simulation, open world stuff, I want to give a couple of examples of ones that I did too. Um, I don't think, you know, I, I haven't done as many as you for sure, but I did do more than I thought I was going to do. uh, is that the, you know, it, it is a, I was telling Brett in pre-show, I really, I go back and forth on, is this a good homage or is it?

a rip off and and just kind of like too close to home and there definitely are still as we're watching the show some very direct examples of them ripping off a concept that is literally uttered you know, almost line for line from the show. So I'm really, but there's always, they always find a way to twist a little bit to surprise me. And it's just.

it's definitely weird that i'm watching the show and playing the game because almost nobody would be doing that right so that's just like a just a like the universe happenstance so that's definitely added element that you i wouldn't notice this stuff normally of course because i wouldn't remember the show Which is a nice thing about being you, by the way. You can watch Twin Peaks every few months and it's like you. Oh, yeah. It totally is true. It's totally true.

there we were watching and and like something will happen and i'll look over her at her with a wide-eyed and she's like what you didn't remember that i'm like oh my god that's amazing she's like you idiot um uh and so Yeah, but the one thing I will say that the game has over Twin Peaks that I always, I just, it was sort of a feeling when you watch the show because that show, similar to this game, there's a lot of characters.

It's fairly complex. Most of the time you're kind of scratching your head on like, what does this mean? What is actually happening? Don't let's not even talk about season three. And so there's a lot of filling in the blanks in your mind and kind of. trying to figure out what the heck they're even talking about and what the relationships are and there's always this like i'm a visual a very visual learner and so

seeing the town, seeing the people, like all the relationships, all the places. I think that's one of the reasons why I loved being up here, living up here and being able to go to the town.

the towns they filmed it in even though they're not the real towns of course from the show um is that i i wanted a spatial awareness about where everything is even though in the show there it's not you know they don't have that there is no real map But in the game, there is a map and there is spatial awareness and there is this sense of place and there is this simulation of people doing their things.

I would love to see a day in the life of an XYZ person in the show. But you just never get that because that's not what the point is. That's not the medium. So that's kind of a leg up, I guess, is my point that the game has. that you miss from the show because you never really, probably by design, you never really get the full picture of the town in the show. It's just a bunch of places. It's a bunch of locations.

Yeah, and I think that that's kind of an ether. Yeah, that later shows that, I mean, all the kind of serialized television owes a debt to Twin Peaks, right? and certain things have made it easier for that stuff to fly one thing is that of course back in the day when twin peaks was originally on we were all just having these conversations and it was in the magazines like i don't know entertainment weekly or whatever um

every week to like what is going on with the show and that kind of stuff but like because there was no internet it was very much the or only the very beginnings of the internet i guess um you know there wasn't really a the world wide web So you have this like, you know, conversations just.

amongst the people that you're around. Right. You know, and, you know, in my case, like I said, I was in college, so it was like I'm around a lot of people who are watching this. And so it was like you could have these conversations. But. And you could have those moments where you look over at somebody and you're like, no way, in a way. But later shows, you know, I'm thinking of like Breaking Bad would do.

things like that where you follow a character or you know even we were talking about the last of us because it's another adaptation um you know having that great you know episode in the first season with um what's his name from parks and rec Oh, Offerman. Yeah, Nick Offerman and his partner and how they met. And it's like a whole episode telling the whole story of their post-apocalyptic love story and how it came to an end, right? And you can do that.

um when you have that kind of space right you know and when you have time between seasons to figure out what you're going to do with stories and things like that but you know back in that time and when you're only going to do you know eight to ten episodes as well right you're gonna you know you're gonna be really focused and and think about what goes into a smaller amount of stuff um instead of doing what they had to do under the constraints of network television of the day

Anyway, my point being basically like, this actually, I mean, you sort of can do what you want to do in this, as far as that goes with this game. It's not always rewarding. um you know i sort of mentioned earlier that i at one point i was like oh i wonder what emily is doing at these apartment buildings i can see her there on the map she's not moving um

I'm going to go over there. And I go over there and I think we had just all had lunch at the sheriff's department, which is ties to another topic when it hit. And she's just standing there, you know, in. They're sort of like under the eaves of the building, just standing, doing nothing for a while. Like she's just standing there and you go talk to her and she, she gives you the, just the one line.

I don't have anything interesting to say kind of thing, which, which is something like, do I have something on my face or something like that? And it's like, it was a real letdown that it wasn't there. Like I would have rather her not be there and visible. so that I would come up with my own story of why she's there.

Like, and maybe later, like if she went into a room and came out, is she having an affair with somebody is, you know, is she meeting with an informant? Is she like, what is going on in that moment? which I guess I could have done if I didn't follow her, but because I could follow her, it kind of ruined the illusion for me a little bit. Was she on the second floor? No, she was on the ground floor. She was just hanging out. She was just standing there.

in her idol pose, uh, you know, hand on her head, you know, it's just like, huh? You know, like, yeah, I missed opportunity. Yeah. Put, put her in a, put her in a room. I can't get in, you know? And, uh, yeah. you know, and maybe that was originally the intention. Like you never know, you have to go with what's there. Right. And we can only work with what's there. Um, so. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, it's, yeah. The, the fact that it is a living that I guess my, my previous.

little monologue that was overstating things i think i can boil it down the feeling i'm talking about is is that you know you get to live in the town yeah and you don't get to live in twin peaks um even though

I was a member of the fan club, wanted to live in. I have an address in Twin Peaks because of it. And, you know, I had that as a fan back then, had the urge to know and... no more right and yeah can you imagine a twin peaks game which is of course what sweary's trying to do with this game to make his own but can you imagine like a simulated twin peaks

video game where they do have the town all relative you know relative i would i would go a different direction tim i'm thinking gilmore girls license oh my you that That would be a successful, if it's done well. Billion dollar game. Oh my God. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Take it from me. I'm going to edit that out. I don't want people knowing. Take it from me. They're on their eighth.

rewatch. Oh my God. If we could just get it, you know, get selling a copy for every time they watch it. But Gilmore Girls is still having a, you know, they're still having a moment, right? There's new merchandise. Like there's new things happening. There's rumors of more stuff. But I think that Gilmore Girls is like Twin Peaks in that it is about a town of people. Yeah, yeah.

You know, and no, that's my point is like, it's another place where you could, you can even better imagine living there because you really do have a sense of where everything is. Yeah. Yeah. The water, but it's a real, well, yeah, but it's also inspired that by that town that you went to with. Yeah. In Connecticut. Something Station. I forget the name of it. Chainsaw Station. It's a very different sort of town. Nice.

All right, I want to hit quickly just a couple topics, and then we can go to takeaways. The first one is, okay, you've got that big open world. What are you going to do in it? You're going to drive everywhere, Tim. How do you like that? Oh, man. Yeah, I mean, we talked about, I think in the first couple episodes, I think we're a little bit more generous on, you know, oh, you know, it's not perfect. At least I was. It's not perfect. And, you know, I'd rather have an open world than not.

And have the ability to drive wherever. They made some weird choices as far as like spacing things out. Yeah. As far as world and level design. It only has one gas station. This huge place. Yeah, exactly. There's that, but also just like, you know, the map designer was not talking to the rest of the team or something. They're just not. Yeah. So, you know, I guess just stuff that.

is easily fixed and easily noticed. But man, does it hold the game back. The driving is so bad. The driving models are bad. I've upgraded the car. I've purchased new cars. I've tried different things. And some of it, as people know, I've railed about on the Discord, is the sticks on the Switch are probably a big part of my issue. It's bad with a PlayStation 3 controller, I can confirm. If that's the case, then it's just too bad because it's a thing you do. I didn't realize how much you do it.

and you do it a lot you do it a lot yeah yeah it's it's one of those things where you know i've always wanted a game like this Games like this where you're using a car to get around, but it's not a racing... The focus is not on cars. To just have a very simplified... And actually, Red Dead maybe had this, or maybe...

Maybe not Red Dead. Maybe it was... Oh, you're talking about splining? Yeah, splining. Yeah, basically, I want to go there. Yeah, okay, Red Dead does do it. I couldn't remember. I was thinking also of Assassin's Creed, I feel like.

you know there's times where you can be like oh i just want to go to this place run me there it's a great solution no it's a great solution and i you know with the car i could even see like you could have some minimal interaction where it's like you want to speed up and you can like shift lanes with the

with the you know the um the shoulder buttons or something like i want to go over the left lane so i can pass you know i want to get back over to the right lane just like much simpler good driving models you know yeah yeah because it's not you know you can't deliver on it if it's not your focus you know and um yeah plenty of games that can't even nail it when it's their focus right i mean it's a hard thing to do and especially at the time with physics engines where they were

You know, it's just, yeah, well, I don't know. I really just want the, and actually LA Noire did that as well, where you could, I feel like you could have your partner drive. Another good solution where it's like, you could sit there and you could have the conversations like he's having with Zach, you know, and not, you know.

And not deal with the... That's why the Red Dead solution was so good because they did have a lot of conversation that was pretty critical and sometimes a critical path that... so you could do both and not feel weird. Yeah, if you were just near enough to the character, I think, you would follow somebody else. Yeah, you just press a button. Yeah, and you would ride along with them. It was really good. Yeah, it was really good.

Yeah, and it was very cinematic, which is one of the reasons they did it. Yeah, right. It looks great. The thing is, because once I found out the store for the cars, They each have their own categories of stats and stuff. I mean, they don't have numbers, but they show you like this one's turning, this one's faster, this one, you know, so they have tunability going on and I don't want to like.

I don't want to say it's easy or anything, but I just feel like this, we said it in pre-show, this is an unpolished gem of a game. And I just don't, I think they... didn't spend enough time they didn't they weren't able to spend enough time on it and i don't think they did enough play testing because if they had put this in the hands of anyone anyone else then but themselves they would have instantly seen the problem and

it looks like they have the knobs to tune yeah um they just didn't do it i mean i think their model may just not be capable enough that even if you dial up the you know the uh, whatever the handling all the way, what you find is like, Oh, I can handle myself right off the road really quick, you know, or whatever. Maybe, maybe it's just so sensitive. Like it's so it's like, yeah. Anyway. Yeah. So for, for, for me, it's just.

It's a bummer. There were times when I definitely wanted, like we talk about wall missions all the time and it wasn't a particular mission.

But the driving was a wall mission for me at times. And I'm like, oh, I don't want to keep playing. I definitely had that experience when I first played it. I can remember just getting up to the... the murder scene and that road is super windy and just what are we doing here and not getting there in time and having to do it all again uh was awful i can i can remember that at the time um

And yeah, and then speaking of time, I do love what this game does with time. And it feels to me like sometimes when you're inside buildings. Well, most of the time when you're inside buildings, time does not advance. But I feel like, but then sometimes it advances a whole bunch. So it's really weird. Like if you go to the sheriff's office. And you have lunch, which is great to do because you get great, funny conversations between the police officers and York.

where they'll ask him, you know, like, oh, you must travel a lot or whatever. Or have you seen any good movies lately or whatever? And he'll say something like totally not appropriate for lunch. He was talking about some movie where heads were exploding and it was probably Mars attacks, honestly. But he was, you know, he's just describing stuff.

you know, that he's seen and it's all gory and they're all like, I'm trying to eat here, you know, or whatever, you know, and, and so those are, that's good to do. But if you do it too early in the chapter, like you say, it's like. 10 a.m you're like well i might as well just get that out of the way it will advance time to one o'clock because now you've had lunch um and so just skip you lose a bunch of time but then in other buildings you'll go in

Time stops and will never advance. And you'll come out and be the same time. That's most of the bars and whatever. And then there's the third case, which is you're in a story. mission inside and you'll come out and it's like oh i went in and it was five o'clock and now it's like 10 30 and you don't feel like you've been in there five hours um you know as a player

I mean, you probably haven't as a player, but also you don't feel like it's been that kind of, it's like, no, the time that you come out of here is 1030 period, you know? And so it's, it's just a weird, it's another way that the game feels very unsettling. it's not telegraphed, you know, often you do kind of learn the rules. I think over time you kind of get a feel for, okay, this, this sort of activity will.

advanced time this sort of activity will not advance time um you know and times are only important if you're especially if you're trying to do a lot of the open world missions you know the the story the um you know the side stories So if you're, if you're doing that, you, you need your time. Like you need as much time as you can get. So it's, it's one of those things. It's like, you really want to learn it. And I'm often like.

going and like trying to plan where I'm going to go in part because like, well, I'd rather talk to a person who's indoors. So I will wait until I see that they've gone indoors at a place and go see them. And sometimes that doesn't work out for me because I can't get in for some reason, like with the children. Wow, yeah. Yeah, that's a good point in that it... Because they've had the goal of wanting to simulate everything, in simulated games, time is a really important time of day.

Especially in open world games, time of day is a really critical thing that does tend to be consistent. So it's like it definitely is a tension that they're pulling away from that issue. Which, to be honest, Red Dead runs into as well in that it is a simulated open world with a lot of story missions, which can happen sometimes.

weirdly at night when they weren't really probably supposed to be at night. You know what I mean? And then sometimes they'll advance the story to be nice. And they will. Yeah. You know, it's like, yeah, it is really weird. It's a weird tension with open world games that, um,

is a hard one to solve right i mean i think most most games that that deal with day night cycles but have story you know overlaid on top of it will run into that problem at some point like this only works at you know and there's Lots of different ways to deal with it, but none of them are great, you know, in terms of your sort of experience of time. So anyway, but, you know, it is.

a weird game. And so having a weird time system, I guess, is just, you know, kind of what you're in for. Um, you know, it's one of those problems that is hard to solve and cause they have so many problems.

none of which they're solving particularly well. That's some of the jank. GTA 3, you can see the influence there too, right? The funny thing about this game... that maybe is a segue to takeaways is for me is that as opposed to maybe any other game we've played, I feel like, or most of the other games we played. I'm not sure this game had an influence on other games. No. I think it is a game that you can see the influences upon it.

Yeah, yeah. And we include Twin Peaks, of course, in that, but you can see GTA, you can see Shenmue, you can see Resident Evil, right? It is an amalgamation of a lot of different things put in a really weird package. But I think because of it, it makes it a pretty interesting game as well. Yeah. Yep. Yep. I agree. I agree.

All right. Well, you mentioned takeaways. We should get to them because I'm trying to leave you some room here before you stream tonight. So let's go straight to takeaways, a part of the show where we at the end of the series discuss some things we take away. from the game we've played as developers and uh why don't you uh go ahead with your first one okay um

Yeah, and if we go over, that's okay. I expect I will have this one as well, if you're starting where I think you are. Yeah, well, this is always a little bit of a minigame to see if I do. You always predict it. You have a premonition, if you will. Yeah, so this one I wrote down as a different kind of mature.

or a different kind of adult, a different kind of mature slash adult. This was not on my bingo card for you. And the reason, so kind of, you know, it relates to my second one somewhat too, but the thing that. both is cringy, but also I appreciate is that it isn't a game, like we talked about Resident Evil quite a bit, right? And especially the later ones, you know, really revel in the gore and kind of that side of the horror.

And because of the subject matter here and because of its influences, they're doing pretty like it's ham-fisted and not delicately done and things that the show does better, much better. at least they're dealing with topics and, you know, storylines that are mature M rated stuff. And. Definitely problematic in many cases and cringy, but also I just applaud that there aren't a lot of games that do this stuff, you know, and that they chose to go after.

these sorts of themes and topics and storylines, regardless of execution and how they ended up, you know, whether they were successfully done or not, at least they did it, you know? And of course, again, the show is the reason they did it. but it's pretty bold move to say, I'm going to, I watched Twin Peaks. I love that show. I'm going to make a game like that. When Twin Peaks is already a different kind of bold move. It's like you based your whole thing.

on something that's super bold especially on tv at the time so i just wanted to hand it to him on that and kind of I wish there was a better handled version of this game out there. Yeah, no, I don't disagree. And I'll reorder mine a little bit just to kind of echo.

mine that kind of talks about that i mean it's not exactly the same thing but it it is it's touching on that a little bit which is you know leaning into the quirk um and for me the quirk here is not necessarily the quirkiness of this place and characters it's the quirkiness of video games in 2010 you know with the the you know the facial animation being where it was and like the limitations of development you know and this was not a game that i'm sure had an immense budget right so

people i'm sure were pretty stretched pretty thin to get everything in it that is in it i think that's why all this sort of jankiness comes in it's just like it was not a game that had the budget to support its vision um And so a lot of things feel very first drafty, unfinished, or just not compelling, which includes the combat, which we didn't discuss, but we sort of mentioned it earlier in the series.

But the fact that they lean into some of the limitations and just make that part of the strangeness of the experience, I think is a really good.

solution to those problems and i you know i see this i mentioned this in particular something i would take away is because i see this happen in indie games a lot right it's like they have huge constraints um and that becomes a big part of how they approach their problem solving right you know and we've done a lot of indie games this year and so that's much on my mind um and so leaning into the quirks of like you know what we can't really do

you know, a realistic looking smile. So yes, we're going to, we're going to show that weird as anything smile and we're going to, we're going to hold on it. We're going to make you feel how weird that is. because at a certain point you like you kind of come out the other side where you're like you know it's like when you see it's one of those comics who just like repeat something again and again and it's like it's funny at first and then it's like this is monotonous and there's a

point at which you're like please kill me and then eventually you pass through to the other side and it's funny again like uproariously funny because it's so absurd and i don't know i appreciate that especially when it comes to you know limitations and things like that

Yeah. That's my first one. That's a good one. All right. My second one is one I've talked about before, and it does go with the first somewhat, but it doesn't have to. And it's pretty simple and easy one. It's just the concept of solving a crime, which we talked about before. And I think it's come up on Discord a little bit too.

Kind of what I meant by that too. It isn't necessarily about being a police officer. It's just it's just more about this concept of mystery, right? To be honest adventure games do it probably better than most other uh, video game genres. Um, even like you've mentioned text adventures. So I don't know, just the, I, it hadn't occurred to me until we started playing this game, how much I.

like that in an interactive medium and how much I don't get it. And yes, it is inherent to the influence of Twin Peaks, of course, because that's all about solving a crime too. But I watch a lot of that content, you know, when it comes to linear media and that kind of stuff and TV and movies. And so I love it. And it's just funny to me that.

there isn't more of it and i know there are some stuff as people are kind of starting to mention some on the discord but i for me it's a takeaway of like why isn't there more because uh they they they did an okay job in general and i've even been surprised at some things that have occurred that i didn't see coming and could have maybe so cool yeah i don't know those those yakuza lost judgment and judgment games might be

Yeah, that could be one. Combat's way better. And there's no driving. Wow, you got me there then. Sold.

uh i'm gonna go with my second one uh is and it's not a reflection on yours but the the sort of deep interconnectedness of the of this town which we talked a lot about this time so i'm not going to belabor it but yeah it is a special thing and I missed it entirely, almost entirely the first time I played it. There's a lot of the user experience that holds it back that makes it not even obvious or apparent to me.

I'll say some players, but me specifically, like that. I just didn't even get that this was going on. And although I did a couple of the side missions, I. the map was so bad that i don't even i don't think i even found that list except when it shows you after you take one so i didn't know how to go find them right and so like there's a lot holding it back um but the fact that all these little stories are there and they often tie back in.

to the main story in some way. Not always. Sometimes people will actually literally apologize and say, yeah, this doesn't have anything to do with your case, but you know, here's a, here's a reward anyway, you know, is, you know, this kind of, kind of fun. And it does make you feel like you're slowly becoming a part of the town yourself. And so I think that that all really, you know, really makes this game punch above its weight, despite all of its sort of technical flaws.

Like I said, we talked a lot about that, so I'm not going to go into it further. Yeah, the Nick and Olivia one once he's in prison. I don't know if you did that one. I haven't gotten there yet. So I won't, I won't. It's coming. It's coming. So, you know, I can't be spoiled on this game, but. Yeah, but it's, that was a good one to your point of it integrates you into their relationship and you become kind of a messenger for him while he's in jail.

But then there's also kind of a cool mechanical reward for the game that I appreciated, which I did not see coming. It was like, oh, wow, this is great. Thanks, Nick. You're kind of a jerk, but... Now maybe you have a heart. I forget the name of the equivalent character in the diner. Oh, Hank. Hank, yeah, exactly. He's a jerk. He's very Hank.

But he's the reverse story of Hank. He goes to jail rather than coming out of it like Hank. Yeah, right, right. So it's totally different from Twin Peaks, I guess is what I'm saying. Yeah.

They just found a way just to twist it enough where it's like, oh, I see what you did there, which is a segue to my final one perfectly is the. Direct influences with a twist or a direct influence with a twist. I put it down as a takeaway because I guess to some degree... I'm going to say mine too because it's the same. If you're going to be inspired, be inspired by something great. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I'll just go ahead and...

And put it out there and let you discuss and I'll chime in so we can. Yeah, no, I think, yeah, that's maybe a better way to put it. But I, you know, it, I give it a lot of. Grace because it's based on Twin Peaks, you know, like if it, I don't know how to, how else to put it, but it's like, I forgive, I forgive a lot because I, and it's definitely weird and additionally weird because I'm watching the show at the same time. So.

how they recommend that for people who really want to deep dive. But it's like it gives it more credibility or something, right? Because it is based on an influence. And for a takeaway for me, it comes down to...

maybe we should be doing more of this. And I don't mean like a game based on an IP because you have the IP and you're going to make a SpongeBob game because it's a SpongeBob game. I mean like... like sweary did here where clear influence not a direct ip game not trying to copy the show or the movie or anything like that but it's in the space enough to where you can appreciate it

And, you know, I'm sure that I just can't think of any off the top of my head. I'm sure there's plenty of examples. Gilmore Girls game that's not even Gilmore Girls. Yeah, yeah. Well, and there probably are those games out there. There may be, you know, and there probably are spaces that I don't play. Yeah, yeah. But so, yeah, I don't know. It just makes me think about... embracing that maybe a little bit more, you know, in, in, in the future and what, where do your influences come from?

Yeah. And there's the obvious ones, obvious ones like D and D talking and yeah, there's a Star Wars or whatever. Right. And alien. There's an alien. There's a bunch of things that are like, okay, we know you and blade runner, you know, we, we know every designer. writer, whatever in games has seen these five things. Can we see other things? Well, the one that comes to mind that that's in the, that's definitely a little on the nose for this game, but, um,

And there were some games in its height. There were some games that I think were trying to be influenced by it. Trying to think of a good example. But X-Files, I feel like, is in the space where it's so rich. It could be doing so many things. You have a tabletop campaign about that. So you see that. probably the same value. I'm prepared to license that to you. Fair enough. License it to yourself in a way.

All right. Well, that is our, those are our takeaways. You know, I threw mine in there at the end. I have nothing further to add to that. I think all of that was well put by you, sir. So we will move on and get to the outro quickly here. We love to get your reviews. And we also get email at devgameclub at gmail.com. You have one quick one, more of an announcement to read.

this week. Yeah. A bookend announcement for another, another, um, charity event. Uh, we got an email from Artemis who's one of our community members. Uh, subject is extra life. Hey folks, it's my 13th year of doing Extra Life. Wow, that's impressive. I'll be playing Cult of the Lamb on November 15th for 12 hours starting at 11 a.m. Eastern Time. All donations benefit McMaster Children's Hospital here in Hamilton, Ontario. And those who donate $50 can get US dollars. Yes, 50 US dollars.

can get a hand-crocheted one-up mushroom hat thanks to Angie Nash. Wow. And then there's an Instagram. And then also Art's Twitch channel is artimage84, by the way. So yeah, so please support more charity work, this community. is amazing when it comes to charity work, art, noises, and the upcoming defeating games. So, yeah. Thanks, Art. We are on the web at devgameclub.com and my co-host here twitches at twitch.tv slash.

Tim Longo Jr. with a JR at the end. Where he is soon going to be finishing all the games. I believe you were going to, let's see, it says here, restart Final Fantasy IX from the beginning. Wow, that's ambitious. Good luck. I don't know what I'm going to do.

about that game and as you've heard many times we have a fan run discord there's a link in the show notes our intro and outro music was written and performed by kirk hamilton commissioned by friendly cast aaron evers and our logo the discord our merch store all by Mark Garcia. Have fun digging up bones around town this week and good night. Good night.