074 - Grand Soul Story, VIDEOVERSE, & Her Story - Underplayed

Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Thank you for pressing start on episode 74 of Underplayed KZUMS
indie video game podcasts. Today we have two secret games,
followed by a review of our featured game, Her Story.

(00:28):
Here on Underplayed, we review indie games of all kinds, The
games with small budgets but bighearts, the lesser known
experiences with imaginative ideas.
I'm Bo Po, but it's not only me.There's a guy with a flow who's
on a journey. So won't you put your hands
together, please? For The Zeo Drifter, the indie

(00:48):
games Sifter, The Curse, Kraken,Mr. Disco Cola, What is going
on? I tell you what, Bobo, I'm tired
today. I'd taken a big drive recently
and I fell asleep in my car. I swear, I swear that's where I
was. But I'm back now.
By the way, is that microphone recording?

(01:11):
How are you? Did you go to Glasgow?
I'm doing just fine. My jump scaring computer screen
reflection. Those are references to our
featured game, Her Story. Not what I was expecting.
I had some options of things to say there.
I went with something maybe a little bit more unexpected.
Those are references to her story.
We're going to review her story later on in the episode.

(01:35):
Here at the top though, we have several things to talk about,
some involving content, some involving news. 1st, I wanted to
share that we can now talk aboutour vague reference to content
that we were talking about last episode.
It sounded so silly to hear it at the Twitch premiere Monday

(01:56):
nights before our Tuesday release, but then to hear it on
Wednesday after our April Fools joke that.
We played, we did an April Fools.
What did we do for April Fools? Disco.
We swapped. We did a little Swapsie Butler
where we switched places with Kate and Emily from No Small
Games. So Bo and I hosted No Small

(02:17):
Games and we reviewed the game Haven re recorded intros and
outros, all that jazz. And then Kate and Emily did the
same and hosted, underplayed andre recorded intros and outros
and even put some killer vocals on Secret Games.
Oh, it was so good. Yes, this is amazing.

(02:38):
Oh my gosh, I want to hear Kate and Jack Rodenberg sing a song
together now. You know, honestly, they'd
probably hit it off and and it would probably at least get like
two or three songs recorded. Just like they would be a great
pairing when it comes to making music.
I would love to hear that someday.
And then when, yeah, when they did underplayed, they reviewed
their featured game, Web Fishing, yes.

(03:00):
And they had to 3 secret games and if you want to find out what
they were, they're on our feet. The title is right there, but
you should listen to the. Episode anyway 2 episodes ago in
our feeds. So yeah, we had a packed week of
contents the other week. It was one of the busiest weeks
we've had in a while, I think all four of us.
But I could tell that we it was like good energy.

(03:21):
Once it was like done, we were like so excited it.
Was very good energy, Yeah. You have to do a little bit of
homework, a little bit of research, a little bit of prep
that you're not used to. You're you're editing something
totally different, yes. Yeah.
And also, like, big props to Kate for editing the episode
that they recorded for our feed.And big props to you for editing

(03:41):
the episode that we recorded fortheir feed.
Yeah. Did I get that right?
Did I get all the words correct?Yeah, I think in the right
place. All of the subjects were correct
I. Believe yes we all you both did
an awesome job. Like getting it all packaged.
Up and it was. It was worth it and the episodes
were awesome. Yeah, it was so great.
We got great feedback too. Really fun times and thank you

(04:02):
to our friends for collaboratingwith us again.
We'll look forward to whatever the next one is.
I don't know. I don't know if this will be an
annual thing because like. It's hard to do a fool's doing
the same thing two years ago, but that's exactly what people
would expect you to not do. But now that I've said that,
yeah, who knows? But with reverse psychology,
you'll now think that we won't do it anyway.

(04:22):
We'll collaborate again, but I'msure it'll look different
because our last collaboration was Christmas, so I think we're
just we're holiday friends now somehow.
Yes, we'll find another holiday.I'll, I'll think about that a
little bit more. But yeah, real quick on Haven.
We both enjoyed it and I had an awesome time discussing that
with you. We played that both kind of like

(04:42):
privately, like we both obviously knew the other was
playing it, but we didn't reallytalk about it on this show or
anything, and that was a really cool assignment to have.
Yeah, and you managed. It was like having a a secret
game from your audience because you didn't even tell like your
Twitch people that you were playing it.
No, I almost played it on Twitch, and I decided not to
actually. So I had to carve out some time.

(05:04):
And I did that in very large chunks the days before we
recorded that episode. So it was fun.
And I kept imagining what you were thinking about the game,
you know? And I guess I do that for our
show, but it felt different. It was a little bit different,
yeah. Another thing that sometimes
comes up is we record a podcast about something and then after

(05:28):
we talk about a game, new content or a new addition or
something will come out. And this just happened.
Like the epitome of this happened today actually.
So a couple weeks ago we released our Another Crab's
Treasure episode. You actually talked about
wanting physical versions. Yeah, I did.

(05:50):
And we hadn't had the physical versions announced yet.
And today we got 2 announcementsfrom Agro Crab.
One of them is for the year of the Crab update, which amazing
name, 10 out of 10 name for an update.
And then also physical editions.We're getting physical editions
for another Crab's treasure. Yes, stoked.

(06:11):
What was your reaction to hearing these two pieces of
news? Well, I actually had heard about
year of the crab like randomly early somehow, so that one I
already celebrated. But when I came in here today, I
opened up our group chat and there it was physical editions.
And you, you heard me say whoa, yes, you know, just right here

(06:33):
while. We were.
I got to see you open that message right here.
And you're like, whoa, what? Oh yeah, I know what you're
doing. So Year of the Crab is going to
be an update that comes April 21st for Steam, PlayStation 5,
and Xbox Game Pass. It's also coming to Switch soon
and it involves new Game Plus, anew Beast Jerry, new Boss Rush,

(06:56):
and more. I think you saw a new costume.
Costumes. Yeah, that's the costumes.
When I found out about it, the social media person like posted
a story about the new pretty Princess costume.
Amazing. So I love it.
I love finding costumes in that game.
And I'm actually really excited about this beast year.
I wasn't expecting something like.

(07:16):
That yeah, I'm actually excited about New Game Plus.
And the boss rush, yes. I don't remember if I actually
said this in the episode, but I remember that I wanted to say
that this game could use a boss rush.
You did say that to me, whether it was in the recording or
outside the recording. You did say that in this room, I
think. Yes.
OK, so you know that I said that, Yes.
OK. Yeah, at least you knew.

(07:37):
And I agree with you. Yeah, I agree that that would be
really cool. So very exciting stuff.
And then the physical editions, let me just check on this.
They're coming from and they're coming from.
I am 8 bit. I am 8 bit is doing those and
it's five and Nintendo Switch O very exciting.
Yes, this happens. This has happened on like 3 big

(07:58):
occasions. The last one I remember was like
Cult of the Lamb. We did the Cult of the Lamb
Eisode and they were like, we'redoing an update.
Yeah, it kind. Of and then they did another
update. Yeah, was it?
Did we know about the update of Sea of Stars or was that like a
day before or something? We that was around the same time
too. They announced the one that
still hasn't come out yet and then they also announced, they

(08:18):
announced throws of the watchmaker and the other one.
Yeah, yeah. That was all happening around
that time too, so. There's another one, but Cult of
the Lamb was the one I remember.I was just like you would.
You would, you would. And how fitting that Colts, the
lamb and another Crab's treasure, which they have
similar energies online, have done this now.
Yeah. Yeah.

(08:39):
Very cool stuff. Then also, we want to just
quickly touch on the fact that next episode we have a guest.
We're going to have Jeremy Reinek of Moon Soul Games.
He's the creator of Grand Soul Story, A2024 RPG, and he is
going to help us review Animal well.
So we have another game developer guest just like we've

(09:01):
had a few times this season, andwe will talk to him about his
game developments, how he got towhere he is now, and he will
also help us review this highly lauded game from 2024.
I'm very excited. I know you are.
Yes, I'm very excited. I'm very excited to talk about
it is my favorite game of 2024, So there will be no.

(09:21):
Surprises. Slight spoilers.
Slight spoilers, no surprises about how I feel about that
game, but always great to talk about good games with a great
guest. Then next we want to talk about
some Saturn news and you actually pointed me to this.
We talked about Colt to the Lamba second ago.
We learned of the passing of Narayana Johnson AKA Riverboy,

(09:44):
and they were the composer and audio director for Colt of the
Lamb. Yeah, I'm, I'm super bummed
about this. They just, there's a lot of
really great indie music out there, indie game music.
And if you recall, we mentioned a collaboration I did with Cater
Blossom where we, you know, picked a bunch of really great

(10:05):
albums. Cult of the Lamb was originally
on that list, but we decided to like, let's pick some smaller
games just to give them a highlight.
But it was on that list for a reason, because River Boys music
is really something special. One of his musical signatures
that stands out for me above pretty much any other composer

(10:28):
is like his percussion style, especially in the dark wood and
Nora and Anchor Deep songs. Just just the way he handles
percussion is some of my favorite.
And like I I have other like indie bands that do that, but I
haven't really heard that musical signature in games.

(10:50):
And so I'm really going to miss that.
And it is it's a big loss. Like his musical talent is
really incredible. Like even the songs on here that
don't have that, you know, sticktapping thing that I love, all
the songs in Cult of the Lamb are just really good.
So it's a really, really big loss for the indie game music

(11:11):
space. Yeah, iconic singular sounds in
my opinion, and a sound created by this very talented person
that helped shape the personality of the game.
I think without these compositions and without this
audio design, I think the game just doesn't feel quite the
same. And just a great balance of hip

(11:35):
hop beats and lighter instruments and taking music
that evokes the feeling of worship and mix and matching
that with sounds that feel like they're from the occults.
You know, you kind of need thosetwo sides of the spectrum in a
game about choosing whether you do more blessed holy powers or

(11:56):
more cursed dark powers. Really interesting.
And even like the the songs now that you're talking about, like
emotions evoked, like the songs where you're out adventuring,
you know, those create that feeling like you're being
watched because you are you're being watched by these followers
of the old faith too. So it's like really effectively

(12:18):
done. It is, and there's this uncanny
cuteness in the game. There's this nice soft, gentle
edge, but then there's somethingmorbid and dark and violence
too, and I just think that the music strikes that balance so
well all throughout. So Riverboy is gone too soon,

(12:38):
but his music will live on in our hearts and I will never
forget it. Yeah, same here.
Before we move on, if you're listening to Underplayed right
now, thank you and we love you. If you haven't already, please
consider giving us a follow and a five star rating on Spotify
and Apple Podcasts. It should only take a few
seconds and we'd really appreciate it.

(13:00):
And if you have a friend who likes indie games, please share
our podcast with them too. We would love that.
It is time for our secret games.In Secret Games, we each review

(13:25):
an indie game we've been playingin secrets since our last
episode. We don't discuss our picks in
advance, we keep them a surprisefor this very moment.
We're sitting down to record so we can choose any indie game we
want as long as we haven't reviewed it before.
And we will start with you, Disco Cola.
Let the mystery be no more. Reveal your secret game for

(13:45):
Episode 74 of Underplay. My secret game comes from a
confirmed future underplayed guest named Jeremy Rhinek.
My secret game is Grand Soul Story.

(14:21):
Ah, there it is. There it is.
So I I am obviously aware of this and I also remember that
Jeremy sent us a key to this game and you snagged it, but I
wasn't sure when exactly you were going to pick it for our
show. Yeah, I actually tried to pick
it last season, but you know, didn't didn't work out on the

(14:43):
timeline. It's a a JRPG style game, so as
often comes with the territory, it's a little bit longer and I
just ran out of time to play it last season.
Yeah, and this came out in early2024.
I know it's an RPG. We have done, or at least I know
you know more about the game than I do, but I have done a

(15:03):
little bit of research on the game.
I've, you know, done what I can,but I have not played it myself.
So a lot of what you say will benew for me.
Yeah, yeah. And I'm going to focus a lot
more on the, like, story and gameplay above anything else
that we might already have foundin our research when we got in
touch with Jeremy. But I'm going to read the
description from Steam just because they're like city state

(15:26):
locations that I get confused. So I'm going to rely on Steam
for this one. You are a refugee recently
landed in the turbulent city state of DuPont and seeking
passage to the distant port of Yarden where your family awaits.
Get lost in a mature JRPG adventure featuring an immersive
world, character driven narrative stirring original

(15:48):
soundtrack and tough battle system.
So yeah, when you start the gameyou are in in the midst of a
very violent coup. I think basically everyone
inside the building you are living in is being hunted and
killed. So you got to leave and you got
to leave fast, and you find yourself being harbored in Du

(16:12):
Pont thanks to our characters Elsie and Santos, and they're
going to help you get started onyour journey to Jordan, where
some of your family is living. So that's the start of the game,
as you might imagine, you know, narrative driven JRPG.
Things evolve from there. You meet different people.

(16:35):
Gameplay is pretty straightforward.
It's a JRPG style gameplay. So you explore the overworld
map, you interact with various NPCS, take main quests and side
quests. You'll engage in a JRPG style
battle. It's worth noting whenever we
talk about JRPG style games thatthis game does not have the
random encounter battle system. So you'll see each battle coming

(17:00):
and you can engage or attempt toavoid battles as needed.
While in battle you have your standard default attack.
You also have special moves thatwill cost AP and or SP.
There is also a mechanic where you can build up these like orb
things that will affect increasethe effectiveness of a move when

(17:22):
you decide to use them. I'm told that this is in a game
called Octopath Traveller. Yeah, I haven't played that.
I have. I've played the demo for that,
oddly enough, but I not enough to like remember that as a
concept. But yeah, I'm I'm familiar with
that. If I recall, that's where other
players have said that appeared.And as with most JRPG style

(17:43):
games, you can collect various items and equipment through
shops and combat as a standard, and these will increase your
stats and your ability to betterperform in combat.
And you will also gain access tovarious party members throughout
time. I'm going to go through a couple
of them real quick if that's OK with.

(18:03):
You so we'll just. Get this out of the way.
At the top you've got yourself. Of course, you are an unnamed
protagonist. You give yourself the name and
you are mostly silent. You'll be given dialogue options
from time to time. OK.
Did you pretend like it was you?I mean, I named the character
Disco OK, but I usually don't find myself inserted into the

(18:27):
silent protagonist character very often.
Forever onward. I'm just going to say Disco is
the protagonist of Grand Soul Story.
OK, that's fine with me. I do know because of a
conversation I had with Jeremy the months ago when I tried to
play it the first time, that there is a name that you can
enter that has like an Easter egg or some sort of special

(18:49):
encounter. I don't know what that name.
Is oh, he just said that there is an Easter.
Egg because I didn't tell you what I encountered a bug related
to naming myself and he was likehey sorry this is a result of
this. So there is a special name in
there that you can pick. Do you think anyone knows other
than Jeremy? I don't know, probably, probably

(19:10):
I, from what I understand, from what I've heard other players
say that have talked to him, he's pretty open with like
telling you things about the game that might seem like
secrets. OK.
You've also got Elsie, who I've already mentioned, she's a
smuggler and she has a stem addiction.
Addiction is a strong element inthis game.

(19:33):
There's stem and then there's ink.
And I think stem is like like a stimulant kind of a addiction.
So like probably analogous to cocaine maybe.
And ink is probably more like a pain sedative, kind of a drug.
That's my understanding just based on naming and context.

(19:55):
Anyways, you've also got Hashem Hakim, who is a mercenary.
You meet Jacques DuMont. He is a Sokari Mystic.
And he sort of specializes in explosives.
Like when we meet him, he's in his like temple and he almost

(20:15):
accidentally, or maybe on purpose, I, I can't exactly
recall, but he almost blows the temple up.
You meet Sullivan, who is sort of like a revolutionary and has
a past with Elsie, which is one of the more interesting story
points. I've already mentioned Santos,

(20:38):
he's kind of just like a grumpy old dude smuggler as well, so he
works with Elsie a lot. And then we've got a couple
other smaller characters that show up a bit later.
And these are all in different locations?
Or are some of them in the same?Some of them are in the same
location but no people join yourparty all at the same time

(20:59):
really. As I recall, maybe Santos and
Elsie join your party at the same time for a moment, but
people will come to your party, leave your party, and then most
of them also have a point where they leave your party for good
if you fulfill certain conditions.
Gotcha, I have so few touch points when it comes to JRPG's
but I've been playing Chrono Trigger this year so it's you

(21:21):
know, parts of this are reminding me of Chrono Trigger.
It's reminding me of Sea of Stars in ways to, and I'm sure
those are inspirations. It's yeah, I I don't see them as
direct inspirations personally. Well I can't say for Chrono
Trigger because I haven't playedit, but as I understand Chrono
Trigger and Sea of Stars are pretty similar so I I don't see
a ton of direct. Yeah.

(21:42):
Straight line. And that that whole topic of
like what makes a JRPG, That'll be an interesting topic to
explore with Jeremy as well. We'll talk to him next episode.
But yeah, it's a JRPG, like if you've played one, you kind of
for the most part maybe know what you're getting into.
You know, maybe you're more of the like creature collector one

(22:03):
like I am where it's like Digimon and Pokémon where you
kind of it's more about the collecting of the monsters.
But in in general, most of the gameplay is, is what you would
expect. So things that I like about
Grand Soul Story, for me this time, my favorite thing is the
music. Jeremy, the creator of Grand

(22:23):
Soul Story, actually has a really strong background as a
musician. Hell yeah.
And his chops really shine through in this game.
Every song I heard was really solid.
Even when I had trouble finding the time to start this game, I
was kind of checking out the music and finding some really
great stuff. So that was helping to maybe get
get the ball rolling a little bit.

(22:44):
So I really appreciate the music.
I think it's all very good, and I don't know if this is the
style he usually plays with. It's my understanding that he's
more of like a jazz musician, but I don't know that for sure.
But regardless, I think he did agreat job.
He nailed it. Generally, I like the setting of

(23:04):
the world. You go to a lot of different
kinds of places. You see a lot of different kinds
of things. But I think most specifically
all the things I saw kind of makes sense in proximity to each
other. Like it makes sense that there's
this giant mine surrounded by various kinds of like villages,
neighborhoods that each have different economic vibes.

(23:27):
So you have like a slum kind of area.
You have just like a city apartment area very near the
mine. Because obviously those people
probably work in the mine. That's probably a big source of
of the income for that region. And this isn't like Sea of Stars
or Chrono Trigger where a lot ofit is super time bendy and

(23:47):
science fictiony, where we just have this excuse to go to all
these different places. So that can make it a little
more challenging maybe to figureout logistically where should
these places go. And it makes.
Sense, yes, but in that sense itis more grounded too.
And all of those places are neara dock so that you can transport
your trade from the mine, you know, out to sea and, and, and

(24:10):
all that. So all of that makes sense and I
really appreciate the thought that went into that.
I do like the boldness of the game.
I've played some gritty games atthis point, including games that
have stories to tell with addiction.
But most of the time it's more in the realm of like a singular
person struggle and it's usuallywith alcohol.

(24:30):
This is more focused on the video game representation of the
real world opioid epidemic that we're facing.
And even then, even though I have played these grittier
games, at this point, I haven't really seen these topics
explored as much in the JRPG style of game.
Usually it's some sort of fantasy element or some

(24:52):
existential threats to the fate of the world that still exists
in this game, but there. Are real world problems.
Going on exactly. Does this require a content
warning for some people? Would you imagine?
I mean, potentially, sure, yeah.I mean, there's topics of drugs
and addiction. There are police States and, you

(25:15):
know, extrajudicial murders in the game.
So I would say if those things bother you, that would be the
content warning I would provide.It sounds like not necessarily
the same topics explored in Dujana, but maybe the the depth
of of content that might be upsetting for some people as

(25:36):
something like Dujana where Dujana had explored a lot of
different mature themes, but nothing that was overly
upsetting. Right, there's a.
Game that upset us at the end because of like the broad story,
but then it touched on lots of smaller topics too.
Yeah, yeah. And the way that it was depicted
is like, I, I think the, the drug addiction part of doujana

(25:58):
was like, these people turned into spiders because they did
drugs. Or something.
I don't remember if that was. Exactly.
Yeah, there's some some something lost there, something
that gets a little fantastical. And like even in this game,
because it's like RPG Maker 16 bit style graphics and most of
the character sprites are reallysmall.
Anything that would otherwise begory or there's even nudity in

(26:21):
this game, but it's you can't. You.
Can't tell you can't see anything except just like a
human shaped wash of Peach colored skin essentially.
So, so I don't know, I wouldn't content warrant on that kind of
stuff, but it's it's there. Fair, Yeah.

(26:42):
And then there are like these side quests, they're usually
like fetch quests. But the resolution for some of
these were at times like, more interesting than the main story.
Like I reunited someone with their lost dog.
I had to get involved with an unrequited love.

(27:03):
And that resolution was really fascinating.
So some of these sciquests are super rewarding.
So I recommend seeking those outand and finishing as many of
those as you can. And then this seems like
something that would be a dislike for most, but you're
often faced with choices that have little or maybe no impact

(27:24):
on the story, like moral choices.
So you might find an unhoused family that's asking for money
and you could give it to them. But one of the other family
members might mention that, hey,you know, my mother, who is the
one asking for money, is suffering from an addiction.
And this can happen at times when, like, money is really
scant. And like, basically the whole

(27:47):
point of the game is to get money.
Like, you are getting money so that you can move to Urdin,
right? Like that's essentially your
goal. It's that idea right there.
Just that part is giving papers please.
Too It is, it is a little bit like that and you just, you
don't know what to do a lot of the times when you're faced with
these decisions like making whatis obviously the morally correct

(28:11):
decision ultimately rewards you in the end.
But to my knowledge there's no like strong reward.
So that choice is just for you. And you've talked about similar
choices in other games where maybe there isn't an actual
reward or benefits for upgradingyour character or getting

(28:31):
compensated in an alternate way.You're just doing it because the
game is offering it to you. And I think you've mentioned
that you like that in in other games.
Yeah, it's, it's like a, it challenges me.
It's, it's forcing self discovery upon myself.
And I, I, I really like being challenged with some of those

(28:54):
decisions just so that I can learn a little bit more about
myself because I don't always, Idon't always know.
And when the stakes are low in avideo game, because it's not
real life, it's easy to make a choice.
But when the benefits or costs of a choice are nebulous, it
really is just like up to your soul, your vibe at that point.

(29:17):
And I think I would be caught off guard with some of these
moments. I wouldn't expect them to come.
And then here we go. I'm supposed to get to this
place and I now this might mean I can't quite get to where I
need to go, but I feel this pressure to do what I feel is
right. Yeah, yeah.
And that that can be hard, you know, and sometimes it's hard to
make the quote UN quote, right choice because sometimes you

(29:39):
found like a stash of money somewhere and there's no person,
there's no face in front of you to say no to.
And so you're faced with that decision in different
circumstances. And so there is still like a
quote UN quote, like morally correct thing to do, but you
never know. Wow, that's fascinating.
Yeah, As for things I don't like, I've made it known in

(30:05):
multiple past episodes, but in general, I don't like the look
of things made in RPG Maker. I do think that Grand Soul's
story put in a little extra effort compared to some others
I'm familiar with. I can still tell this is an RPG
Maker game and then you add to this that certain elements of
visuals are also made using AI. It just isn't my favorite game

(30:26):
to look at. Other visual things too like the
battle Sprite seem odd to me. There's this term I learned back
when I used to do a Sprite comicand it was either Sprite mixing
or bit mixing. Either way, when you use sprites
of one style and put them next to sprites of another style,
it's really off putting. And the battle system does this,

(30:49):
which also happens to be some ofthe elements derived from AI.
So while I appreciate that I cantell what my enemies are because
they're sprites are more upscale, I think I'd prefer to
lose that fidelity for the sake of a matching style.
Yeah, it's two styles that couldwork perfectly fine on their
own, like separately, but we're just seeing them side by side

(31:11):
and that causes something that'ssometimes a little jarring.
Right, exactly. Yeah.
It just, it doesn't, it doesn't look good together.
I think there needs to be more party members capable of
healing. Generally it's just Elsie or
items. So you're, were you going down a
lot in this game? Well, this game is rough, like

(31:34):
just the battles themselves are rough and you, you really this
this is even after like rebalancing the game too.
Jeremy went back and rebalanced the game.
The game's still pretty rough, so.
It's supposed to be hard. It's supposed to be hard, OK?
And Elsie's pretty much the onlyone that does any healing
naturally. Otherwise it's pretty much items

(31:56):
and it costs a turn to use items.
Additionally, kind of on that topic, I don't really understand
AP and SP and what the difference between them actually
is. Most of your special attacks
require a cost from both, so because both are required in
most cases, I don't really understand like what they are

(32:20):
and why what I do will recover maybe AP or SP sometimes but not
the other because I just I just don't fully understand the
concept of what they actually are.
People who've played other JRP GS might have encountered
similar systems. I haven't played enough to feel
familiar with that kind of thing, but it could be out there

(32:41):
somewhere in other games. Too potentially.
There is one thing that I do want to commend that I haven't
seen in a lot of JRPGS in this game.
You can spend your turn basically in defense mode and it
will recover. I want to say API, don't know if
it's AP or SP, but it will recover that.

(33:04):
Whereas otherwise if you just did like a plane attack it would
stay the the same or just you know, stay empty.
And that the only other game that I have played that has done
that is Digimon World 2. If you spend your turn
defending, it will heal your magic points to some degree so

(33:24):
that you can then use special moves again.
And I actually really liked thatmechanic in Digimon World too
because it it didn't force me torequire items.
I could recover my MP and then still attack eventually.
Yeah, it means you don't get stuck like totally messed up
because you're not near a merchant or not near something
that can you can farm to get thething that you need to keep

(33:46):
attacking. Yeah.
So I do appreciate that that wasin this game and I wouldn't mind
seeing that in more RPGs. Not that I plan on playing a
ton. Of them, right?
They take up your time. You've got to play other games.
Another thing is that I usually,while I usually know my ultimate
goal, and that ultimate goal involves getting a lot of money,

(34:07):
I still find myself pretty directionless.
Like I don't know exactly where to go and how to get as much
money as I need. And this is in part because of
my next complaint, and I alreadymentioned it.
Even after balancing, this game is still really hard for me when
it comes to RPGs. I like spending an extra hour or
two just maybe grinding for a little while, in part because I

(34:31):
want to explore every corner of maps to make sure I found
everything, but also to over level a little bit.
I don't like trying to think 10 turns ahead in RPGs just to
barely make it out alive or use pretty much all of my items that
I started with. That kind of game isn't fun for
me, and not only do I find that most enemies are in that

(34:54):
difficulty range, but there aren't really opportunities to
grind much either, at least not early on in the game.
So because I don't really want achallenging experience, it is
once again clear to me that GRPGstyle games are going to be
rarely for me unless they have Digimon, especially when most

(35:15):
GRP GS include. My next complaint is that the
game is just too big. It is shorter than most GRP GS.
But we know you and I and all our friends, we pretty much all
enjoy the shorter game basically.
Yep. There are people who seems like
GRP GS are their thing though. There are tons of people, like

(35:36):
most of the most of the people that I play Digimon cards with
are JRPG people. Like they love all the big
Persona games and all those games.
Like that, I follow a couple Twitch streamers where it's
pretty much all they play. Yeah, it's fascinating.
It's just such a different worldfrom what we're used to.
It's, it's a really I, I have anopen mind for a lot of games and

(35:59):
I wish that I could play more JRPGS, but I just can't.
But yeah in general I think whatremains true is that most JRPG
style games, especially the longer ones are not for me.
That being said, this game was done by a solo dev and that dev
took a lot of swings and I thinkdid a commendable job in most

(36:20):
aspects. Similar to a praise I gave to
Ghost Song, the supporting cast adds a ton to this game.
Someone that wants an affordableand gritty version of a 16 bit
style GRPG are much more likely to get something out of this
than I did. The music is a solid listen in
or out of the game, so I'm goingto give Grand Soul Story 7 point

(36:43):
O out of 10. Nice, that's actually what I
guessed. I don't usually try to guess
your score, but. I always try.
To guess, I know. Amazing.
And yeah, you took this key for this game a while ago.
I don't know if I have any questions other than just like
what was what was the journey like of playing the game when it
comes to your play sessions and and how long did you play the

(37:06):
game total? Yeah, so I played for probably 8
hours late last season and then maybe 6 more hours early this
season, and then just the rest within the last week.
OK, so. So it's very far apart.

(37:27):
But all together quite a lot of hours.
Yeah, yeah. Cool.
Well, yeah, I don't have any questions.
We're going to talk to Jeremy about Grand Soul Story next
episode. Bring those up then.
Yeah, definitely. So we'll learn more next episode
about just the process of bringing a JRPG to life and
about JRPGS in general. Where can you play Grand Soul

(37:48):
Story? Grand Soul Story is available on
Steam. I I did hear that there was talk
of maybe a Switch port coming, but I did not look too deep to
confirm that. OK, it is time for my secret
game. My secret game is called Video
Verse. I haven't heard of this but I

(38:40):
love the name. I I was first drawn to the game,
I think because of the name, andI heard good things about it,
but I didn't know what it was about.
So I'll tell you what it's about.
So Video Verse is a 2023 narrative adventure game.
It was developed by Kin Moku, which is the developer name of

(39:01):
Lucy Blundell, and it was also published by Kin Moku.
The game Synopsis from the SteamStorefront reads quote.
Relive the days of the early Internet and dive into this
fictional video game era where the Kin Moku Shark gaming system
and its online social network Video Verse were still popular.
End Quote. So you can already tell there

(39:22):
that Lucy Blundell is using the developer name of Ken Moku in
game as a video game company, which is kind of cool.
So you'll hear that a couple times while I talk here, but
this game mostly takes place in the year 2003.
You play as Emmett, a German 15 year old boy who interacts with

(39:43):
his friends within video verse and video verse is this social
media platform that takes place on a game console called the
Kinmoku shark. So the Kinmoku Shark is a hybrid
device. It plays video games but it's
also connecting to video verse. Where this?

(40:03):
Rudimentary social media platform takes place and it has
this camera attachment that Emmett and his friends can use
to share video of themselves while they type chats to each
other and in video verse. You can browse and post to
forums, you can private message people, and you can receive

(40:24):
friend requests. Emmett is an aspiring artist and
avid gamer, and he bonds with other users over a game called
Feudal Fantasy, which has a dedicated community on video
verse. And Emmett has several friends,
just like what you did with Grand Soul story.
I'll, I'll briefly talk about the the side characters.

(40:45):
We have Marcus, who's Emmett's longest best friend.
There's Lorena, who is a more recent friend who shares some
interests with Emmett. There's Zaylor, who is a bit
more immature. He's kind of a Jackass.
Just just in this trailer I'm getting like not quite Kunio

(41:05):
vibes Kuno. Kuno.
From Oh yes, it's not not quite there.
Good, Good call. Back.
I love that. Yeah.
And like, you never hear these people's voices other than
Emmett. Emmett, there's a narrator voice
that will sometimes speak in interstitials, but you're really

(41:26):
just reading these people's texts that they type.
There's also Nobu, who's an older user in his mid 30s.
There are many more characters you talk to in the forums, but
those are some of the ones that you private message quite a lot.
But there's one very important other user you get to know, and
their name is Vivi. And Emmett becomes very

(41:47):
interested in Vivi. Vivi becomes central to the main
story of this game. And I will refrain from saying
more about them because that's for you to discover new players.
And so I'll, I'll keep those details sparse.
And then as the end of the year 2003 approaches, Kinmoku

(42:08):
announces that Videoverse will be sunsetted to make way for
Ocean Online, which is their newsocial media platform on their
next console, the dolphin. So the shark and Videoverse are
going away. They're being outdated by the
next console and the next onlineservice.

(42:28):
This is something we see all thetime in video games.
The next consoles coming up and all these old users of the old
platform, they start to have these conversations about do we
get the dolphin? Do we get the new system?
Are you getting the dolphin for Christmas?
And this kicks off a more unstable social media

(42:49):
environment in video verse, where there becomes less
moderation, there's more bullying and harassment that
crops up. And as Emmett, you talk to your
friends, you choose whether you report posts that violate the
community rules. You learn more about Vivi.
And you're supposed to just figure out what you want your

(43:10):
future to look like once video verse shuts down.
I'll talk a little bit about video versus construction.
Like when you're using the sharkin this game, this is basically
using a system within a video game.
For a vast majority, you're looking at this one bit style on

(43:30):
a, you know, digital interface. You have a home page where you
can see your friends and you canchange your color theme.
You have a communities tab whereyou can go to all the different
forums to discuss games, off topic conversations, you can
share and react to arts, and youcan discuss the game Feudal
Fantasy. There's also a chat feature

(43:50):
where you send and receive DMS and that's where a lot of the
storytelling takes place. Emmett also has this desk space
that changes with each chapter of the game and there are 8
chapters. Every time you start a chapter
you can look at your desk and sometimes the items on your desk
change. They tell a little bit of story.
You have a notebook where Emmettlogs tips that he finds on video

(44:13):
verse as well as words of wisdom.
You have a calendar that tells you what day of the year it is.
You also have A to do list that keeps track of people on video
verse who might need your help, so you can consult that if you
want to see what open threads you still have with some of your
acquaintances. And so this game is all about

(44:33):
logging into the social media platform, chatting with people,
liking and sometimes reporting posts, and soaking in a story
about coming of age and fandom and technology and online
relationships over the course ofthe 8 chapters.
So this is a story focus game. You can think of it as a visual

(44:56):
novel with some freedom and how you respond.
So Emmett will get several options of what to say sometimes
and you can choose whether he ismore compassionate, sometimes he
can be more cocky or sometimes he can be a little bit more
neutral or rude I guess. And what I liked about Video
Verse is that honestly, as a narrative first experience, this

(45:20):
game kind of blew me away. I really love the interface in
this game. I think it is intuitive and
immersive. There are only a handful of
areas to explore and think about, and you start to
understand a loop in each chapter where you can DM people,
you can check unread messages, you can post to forms, but you

(45:42):
never know what you'll read or who you'll hear from next.
I also, presentation wise, just love the music by Clark Abboud.
This is LO fi 8 bit music that is really relaxing and beautiful
throughout and it's within the world of the game.

(46:03):
It's actually the music the characters are listening to
while they're using their shark devices when they're in video
verse. So it is diegetic, I think is
the term. And then there's everything
video verse makes me think about.
The themes of the story make me think about so many things.
Disco and a lot of things that touch our lives.

(46:26):
A lot of ideas that we interact with as content creators and
gamers and podcasters and streamers.
A lot of topics are explored here.
Some of them are how tech and entertainment can be so central
in forming bonds with strangers.This game made me think about
the importance of games. I feel like this game sees games

(46:50):
for everything they can give to us.
Both just the games themselves and also the fandoms they
creates, the communities they creates.
It shows us how delicate our online friendships can be.
There are friendships in this game that you think are totally

(47:10):
solid, and sometimes they can break.
Other times people can become friends that you never expected
to become friends. So I found that to be powerful.
There are lots of words of wisdom injected into this game.
I think this game has tons of morals to take away.
You might not take away anythingnew that you've never thought of

(47:33):
before, but it there are good reminders in this game and
Emmett learns from that. And in the shoes of a 15 year
old boy, you know, this is a character who's learning a lot
of these ideas for the first time and then applying them.
And then so I think a lot of themessages of the game are just
just wonderful. And then this game gives you
plenty of chances to be unkind in what you say, but it also

(47:55):
gives you so many chances to be kind.
And so the game is presenting the player with choice after
choice after choice of how do you respond to someone's posts
about something. Every time someone posts
something online, that is an opportunity for you to say
something nice, and that's how Itried to play Emmett in this

(48:20):
game and it made me look for ways to make this place happier
as it's degrading because the moderation is going down in this
place. I felt like I had this
responsibility. Not everybody might play the
game that way. People might beeline it more to
the DMS that you need to have toprogress the story, but it feels

(48:44):
like there's always a little bitmore you can do.
You can take the extra step in trying to improve the
communities of video verse. So I took every chance I could
to do every optional post, everyresponse reply, and I found that
incredibly fulfilling. I also think this game
accurately portrays online behavior in ways I've never seen

(49:07):
before, like people will show mannerisms.
For instance, Vivi, one of the main characters of the game,
they will tend to say, yeah, butthey'll they'll spelled out like
YEH, period. And there's something about that
that carries A context that saying, YEAH, exclamation point

(49:29):
doesn't carry. And so you start to pick up on
patterns of how people type things.
You get how people use punctuation and question Marks
and other forms of typing. Your your kind of.
You're kind of opening my mind right now.
Like I always, especially in recent years, have like
considered myself really good atpattern recognition.

(49:52):
But I wonder if that has to do with like spending all my
Internet time in like MSN Messenger and on like Mega Man
forums and just like picking apart people's written text.
Maybe that's why my pattern recognition is so like
heightened? I bet you will pick up on things

(50:13):
in this game if you play it. You'll everybody in this game
has a brand to how they speak. There are tertiary characters
that you don't direct message, but you'll see them in the
forums all the time and they each have a particular way of
speaking. And it's all so diverse and it
shows so much character and personality with every single

(50:33):
person. I'm just so impressed with the
writing of this game. Other online behaviors I noticed
people can leave you hanging. You'll respond to people and
they won't respond to you. And that might seem like the
game is a little unfinished, butI think that's reflective of how
that's real life. That's real life.
There's tons of real life moments in here.
And you can leave people hangingin this game too.

(50:56):
People will disappear from the forums and sometimes come back
and you'll wonder where they went, and around the time when
you're wondering where someone went, someone in the forums in
the game might also write a postwondering where someone went.
And I got goosebumps a couple times because of that.
There's also storytelling, not in what is said, but how things

(51:17):
are typed. You'll choose something for
Emmett to type sometimes and he'll type them out and then
delete them because he has hesitation.
And there's storytelling in thattoo.
This game also makes me feel frustrated at bullies and
trolls. I think this game really
skillfully recreates that feeling of being bullied or

(51:38):
being in an ugly place online. And I was always re evaluating
my boundaries for what was reportable.
Because you can report any postsin this place.
You know, you can report things because they have spoilers or
spam. You can report things because
they share personal info or because they have profanity.

(52:01):
Or maybe someone just isn't being kind or helpful.
And you as the player can choosehow much you want to report.
And there are incentives for reporting people.
You might get a theme for your shark console.
You might get a different color theme.
If you report enough people successfully, Yeah, Can Moku,

(52:21):
the game creator will like send you, they'll DM you at a new
theme. And so, yeah, I was always
thinking about what are my boundaries for how to report
people. You can also add likes to every
single post in the game if you want.
You can choose what to like and what not to like.
So there's a lot of customization with each

(52:42):
playthrough. I had a few things that I would
minorly complain about. One of them is just that
sometimes interactions aren't asback and forth in the forums as
I'd like. Typically you can respond to a
post and sometimes people will respond to you, but often you

(53:02):
can't respond to that response. And you'll try, but Emmett will
say, oh, I don't have anything more to say to this person.
But often I would think, oh, I wish you would say more to that
person. They don't leave them hanging.
So sometimes the conversations can only go so deep.
And then Emmett's access to people's profiles and friend

(53:25):
requests is pretty limited to you can only receive friend
requests and you can only do so sometimes when you do the right
actions with certain people in this online space, they will
befriend you and then you have this new person you can direct
message, which is cool. I just wish I could sometimes
dig into people's profiles, do alittle bit more studying on the

(53:46):
side characters. You can do a little bit of it,
but I just wish there was a little bit more depth.
Those are pretty minor complaints though, because video
verse has many things for many people, in my opinion.
It celebrates the magic of gamesand the gifts they give to us.
It reminisces about the early Internet while showing us what's
timeless about it. It gives you a lot of freedom in

(54:08):
how much you do and what exactlyyou say.
And it does all of this with a pretty flawless presentation.
So I'm going to give this a 9.5.That's what I guessed, baby.
And it's playable on PC, which is the version I played Mac and
Linux. This blew me away.
I don't think enough people haveplayed it.
It's probably in the running formy underrated game of the

(54:30):
season. It's so good it.
Seems like a pretty easy pick for that, frankly, but wow.
OK, so I don't have a ton of questions.
I think I, I think I get it and I think I want to try it out.
I guess I'm more interested in like anecdotal stuff.
Like what? What were you doing on the

(54:51):
Internet in 2003? Oh, IRL, well, I'm thinking
about how old I was. This was like, I mean middle
school, not a whole lot. I mean, I remember using instant
messenger. I remember using instant
messenger in middle school and Iremember just that's how you

(55:14):
would meet people who were in your class that you didn't have
a lot of classes with. Sometimes.
I don't know if you ever messed around with instant message
systems. Oh yeah, like I was on MSN
Messenger like every day for a couple.
Hours, yeah. And I had like a handful of
friends that I would just, they're all who I would talk to
every night, but I wasn't in huge chat rooms or anything.

(55:37):
And then I remember my first social media profile that I can
remember was Zanga. Did you have a Zynga?
I did have a Zynga and I actually I mentioned a Sprite
comic earlier in this episode and that's where I had my.
Sprite comic initially was. Zynga and I will never tell you
what it was called. So.

(55:58):
OK, I did try to look it up though when I was writing my
notes I was like I wonder if I can find my old Sprite comic.
So you you won't tell me becauseyou're embarrassed of the name
or you don't want me? You don't want me to try to find
it. OK.
Yeah. Got it.
I wouldn't try to find it. Yeah.
Can I know the name, though? I mean, oh, I guess.
I guess other people would then look for it.
Never mind. I couldn't find it though.

(56:19):
Between having it posted on Zynga and Myspace OK and never
deleting it I couldn't find it. Interesting.
Interestingly enough, I skipped Myspace entirely.
I never had a Myspace. I was going to and even on on my
Zynga for a while there. I like changed my cover art to
be like Myspace is a place for evil.

(56:39):
Stay on Zynga. You know that kind of edge Lord
crap. This game is kind of a hybrid
between like the story, the inciting incident for so many
events and conversations is thisnew system that comes with a new
online service slash social media platform.

(57:01):
So it feels like going from a game console to another game
console like, you know, the the Wii U to the Switch.
It kind of feels like that ideasgoing on, but then it also feels
like Zynga to Myspace or Myspaceto Facebook.
It feels like those two ideas are sort of converging here, and

(57:21):
that kind of really UPS the stakes because this game console
and the games you play on it, itcould just be a game console and
that's it. But that is a baseline for how
you establish relationships withpeople in this place because you
have forums for these games. So people play the games on
their shark, then they bond overthem in these forums and now

(57:44):
both of those things are threatened if you don't get the
dolphin, which is the next system.
So I I was just reminded of all these times when these platforms
are sun setting in my life and I'm trying to figure out when do
I make the switch? Do I make the switch?
In what nature do I make the switch from one platform to the
next? I I never got on the ME verse

(58:07):
but I did see some like really cool and creative stuff and then
some really like heartbreaking posts when the ME verse was
shutting. Down and I think me verse is a
is a common comparison to the idea of this game too.
If if listener, if you know of me verse if you used it, I think
that's an inspiration here. Yeah.
And I just anecdotally I wondered if on purpose they

(58:28):
chose the name Dolphin because of the whole like game cube.
The game cube like code name or whatever it may be yeah I think
kimmoku is a Nintendo analog here they their logo in game
even looks like a Nintendo's style so so.
It probably. Yeah, probably.
So really fun stuff. And then there's just the word

(58:49):
play with shark and dolphin. There's a lot that's played with
there. And then like just when it comes
to writing and how communicationhappens in this game.
This game reminded me of when I studied in a few English courses
in college. And we would talk about how we
write at a certain level, where we tend to be a little bit more

(59:12):
sophisticated in how we write sometimes.
But then we speak at sort of a lower level because it's in the
moment. We don't have that time to craft
our words, but in social media, where we write on social media
is down closer to where we speak.
But nonetheless, the sentiments are there.
And so even though the posts that are happening in this place

(59:34):
are pretty brief and simplified,you get the emotion, you get the
feelings, you get the sentimentsthat people are sharing very
efficiently. Cool, fascinating stuff.
So those are our secret games, Grand soul story and video
verse. Let's move on to our review of
Her Story. It is our featured game.

(01:00:06):
Her Story is a 2015 investigation narrative
adventure. Some might call it an
interactive film. It was developed and published
by Sam Barlow. The game synopsis from the Steam
storefront reads quote. A woman is interviewed 7 times
by the police. Search the video database and
explore hundreds of authentic clips to discover her story in

(01:00:28):
this groundbreaking and award-winning narrative game.
I'd like to speak to someone now.
You have no murder weapon, you have nothing.
And all these stories we've beentelling each other just that,
stories. So to start off, we will just

(01:00:58):
share that this game is incredibly fragile when it comes
to spoilers. So we want to warn you that we
will discuss basic plot details that you might not want to hear
if you want to experience the game unsolied.
But largely we will avoid the big spoilers.
We might refer to things vaguelythough.
It's just this is going to be a tough one to talk about because

(01:01:20):
we we don't go into full Spoily spoilers, but we will talk about
some things. Anything to add to that?
No, I think when I was crafting my notes, I was pretty careful
and I, I think I, I got it down.There is a question that I have
for you about the story that I still have a confusion on and I
don't really know how to approach that topic.

(01:01:41):
OK, if there's a way to allude to it, we can try here, or we
can just talk about it after therecording.
I don't know, but I have confusion too early spoiler for
something I have to say later. I just, you know, I don't
understand everything about thisgame, and I think that's part of
the point of what's going on. And then for story and setting,
this game technically takes place sometime in the 2000s.

(01:02:06):
From what I could tell, It's after Y2K.
They talk about Y2K, it's sometime this century.
That's all. That's all I remember.
But you're someone who's been given access to a computer with
a database of video files from 7different police interviews with
a woman from 1994. And you come to know that this

(01:02:28):
woman is named Hannah Smith, whois British.
And Hannah was being interviewedby the police because her
husband, Simon, went missing andwas later found murdered.
And your job is to use this database to search for short
clips and piece them together tolearn the story.

(01:02:48):
So I'm keeping it super vague, super basic here.
Would you share anything else? No, not really.
OK, then there's how we interactwith this computer system.
There's the gameplay part, whichis kind of unique.
Yeah. So you're you're in, you're
using the computer, you are playing with someone using a
computer and you access this database of videos.

(01:03:12):
It's already set to only access these set interviews, but you
have the option to type in a word to search for videos.
And so for example, you might type in missing and the system
will show you the first five clips in this whole saga that

(01:03:33):
include that word. So basically each video has its
transcript attached to it. And so you can search for words
that might appear in that transcript.
But from there, you'll watch those five clips or less.
And then you can opt to maybe add your own tags to a certain
video and you also have the option to add them to your local

(01:03:54):
storage collection so that you can have quicker access to a
video that you've already watched that you think might be
important or interesting later. And from there you just you try
a bunch of different keywords toget all the different pieces of
the story so that you can discover the truth.
Yeah, not what I expected this game to sort of resemble in

(01:04:17):
interface wise, but it's kind oflike One shot World Machine
edition where you're using a computer screen quite a bit.
Edit Both games happened in the same season of Underplayed which
is crazy. Oh gosh, was that all this
season? Yes, One Shot was the 4th
episode of the season and then this game is Sam Barlow's first

(01:04:40):
game as an indie developer afterhe worked at Climax Studios,
which is the studio that's created games like Serious Sam,
Next Encounter, Silent Hill Origins, and Silent Hill
Shattered Memories. So this is actually the first of
Sam Barlow's gameography that would utilize an FMV style with
others being telling lies and immortality.

(01:05:04):
Both of those games are on our featured games lists, so we're
playing the first in this It's not a trilogy, but these are
maybe spiritual successors to her story.
And this game also won tons of accolades at the Golden Joystick
Awards, The Game Awards, GDC, the IGF, the BAFTA Games Awards,

(01:05:28):
and more. Now Disco Cola, at the end of
every season we pick the line upof featured games for the next
season. And I remember I picked her
story because I had heard interesting things about it but
didn't know anything about the story and I was just itching to
finally play it like 10 years later.

(01:05:50):
And you said that you were iffy on FMV as a style of game.
And so I would normally just askyou to talk about your overall
thoughts next, but I'm curious specifically on this point after
having played her story, what are your thoughts on FM V?
I mean pretty much unchanged. Like it's still a mostly off

(01:06:11):
putting style for me. I was having a conversation with
our friend Kate about it, and I think I came to the conclusion
while I was having that conversation that there is just
like a level of interactability that is literally impossible.

(01:06:32):
And that might have something todo with it.
Because like at a certain point,everything the FMV can do is
predetermined and it can't change based on a line of code
or asking a character model to move a specific way.
It's all pretty predetermined with very little flexibility.
And I don't know if that's all of it, but I kind of came to the

(01:06:55):
conclusion that that it at leastplays a role.
The heart of the interactivity in this game is choosing what to
search in the database and then using the the limited results to
inform how you search for other things.
Maybe because I don't know aboutyou, but I was told so many
times in this game that my search term yielded dozens of

(01:07:20):
results, but it would only show me the first five.
And knowing that that influencedwhat I searched on successive
searches, I tried to search for the very specific things
wherever I could. And so I think this game in a
way, is a puzzle game. It's trying to figure out what
do I search to get what I need. And so it's a word game in a

(01:07:44):
way. It's about perceiving words and
spoken language and maybe tryingto tie words together.
And so now that we've set up thegame, what are your fuller
thoughts on? Her story, yeah, we mentioned
it. I was.
I was really dreading this game.I was not looking forward to it

(01:08:05):
at all. The FMV, generally, I don't like
playing on my PC and this, that's not optional in this
case, Secret synergy for the whole episode.
All of our games are PC only, noconsole.
For interesting, yeah. So like, it had a lot going
against it, but after a while I did still find myself having

(01:08:26):
some fun. Yeah, things that I love the
streamlined gameplay, and it's pretty passive.
I've mentioned a few times, specifically this season that I
actually really appreciate some passive gameplay sometimes.
And so I got a little bit of that in this game and that that
was a nice a nice break. Even though it was like the

(01:08:49):
mindset that I'm in when I have to play on my computer is still
like strange and I can't I just feel weird when I'm doing that,
but I still it made more sense. It was almost like I was
catching up on news on YouTube or something.
Oh, OK. It was.
I was kind of able to force myself into that headspace A.

(01:09:11):
Lot of it is watching, you know,and not playing.
It's hard to call this a game that you'd like play because
some of the clips are a minute or two long.
And some of them are like 2 seconds.
Yeah, exactly. So you can't always, you know,
take your hands away from the mouse and keyboard.
Right. I like that I get to use my
listening skills most of the time when I am gaming.

(01:09:32):
I kind of alluded to this, but Iam like absorbing news or some
other content like I'm catching up on no small games or
something while I'm also gaming.But this kind of forces me to
listen because details can matter and tone and inflection
will have implications. Sort of going back to what we
talked about in video verse, butin vocal speech.

(01:09:55):
So I, I have to listen and I canbe a pretty attentive listener
when I have to be. It's just rare for things in my
world to really command that great amount of attention.
Like I I can usually focus on half, focus on three things at
once, you know? Right.
You're very good at dividing your attention and that sounds

(01:10:17):
like maybe it would be a mess, but you do it so well.
I can't listen to a podcast and play a game always, but you've
always been a very good listener.
So I, I thought that this game would appeal to that sense about
you a little bit. Yeah, and I, I, it was nice to,
like, just have a singular focusfor a minute.
Like you mentioned, trying to piece this story together,

(01:10:40):
especially from several points in time, is actually kind of
fun. It's like a jigsaw puzzle.
It also kind of reminds me of what we very briefly said about
is the seat taken in a previous episode.
Just kind of trying to chart things out and match vibes and I
just kind of really enjoy that kind of puzzle.

(01:11:00):
And we'll talk in a moment abouthow we exactly, you know, made
notes, pieced it together. Did we use a pen and paper?
You know, we'll talk about thosestrategies too, I'm sure.
Yeah, for the most part. I also like some of the twists.
I think the game is also somehowpretty intelligently designed to

(01:11:22):
keep you from accidentally discovering some of these twists
too early. There's like a certain, it's
like they were able to see the future and know some of the
choices that you might make. And I kind of got a little bit
of the same thing out of Sleigh the Princess, and that kind of
blew me away when that happened to me.

(01:11:43):
So I just, it's really cool how some devs can have that insight
to like sort of chart what mightbe a natural progression for a
player in a game where you can pick any keyword right away.
Yeah, you can type any word thatexists or nonsense and it I

(01:12:04):
don't think any results would come up.
But yeah, there are very simple everyday words that if you were
to search for them, some of themwould give you just an atomic
bomb of reveals. And I, I have an example in my
little notepad here. I circled the ones that gave me

(01:12:27):
wild results and they're, they are everyday words.
They're words you might use everyday.
Yeah, Lastly, for things I want to praise, there are details
that I love picking up on, especially if I find a
revelation later that explains some of these details I picked
up on before. It makes me feel smart and

(01:12:49):
observant. It's like, oh, this big twist is
why these two interviews are like different but the same, you
know? And it's like now I understand.
And it just it, it makes me feelso smart that I like picked up
on that the first time I saw those clips.
And then I get to the reveal andit's like I knew there was

(01:13:10):
something. Retroactively, you revisit
things when you get a reveal. In hindsight, things make so
much more sense. Yeah, it's like, it's like
trying to predict the end of themovie, which I know you don't
always do or enjoy doing. Yeah, I, I've never been able to
fully explain this, but I get socaught up in just listening

(01:13:31):
sometimes that I don't try to also in a way that's almost
multitasking mentally for me, and I just don't always have the
capacity to do that. Yeah, I just can't turn it off.
Like I don't actively always tryto predict a movie.
It's not like I'm sitting there like, OK, so if this is that and
then that is this, this is the end.
It just kind of like happens. It's like people who hear a noun

(01:13:55):
and they just automatically see the noun in their minds.
And some people don't. Their minds don't work like
that. That's just how your mind works.
Yeah, I do want to move on to stuff I don't like.
Again, generally speaking, I still don't like the FMV game
style. I'm, I'm open to trying more of
them, but this didn't shift the needle for me in a meaningful
way. Another thing, I've watched

(01:14:18):
every clip in the game now and there are still some holes in my
timeline that I can't quite fillin.
Like by the end of it, there is a person that has disappeared,
but I don't know why. I don't know what happened to
them and I also don't know how Iactually trust that they are in
fact missing. And that's kind of, that's kind

(01:14:43):
of what I was referring to earlier with like trying to not
get into spoilers. But that's that's the big
question that I still have aboutthis.
Like, I've pretty well figured out everything else I think.
And I believe some of what you're discussing there is meant
to be obscure and vague and justopen to interpretation.

(01:15:05):
I just. Don't even have an
interpretation for that is unfortunate part.
And people who like open to interpretation stories are going
to eat here, you know you're going to have stuff to chew on.
And that's not always my favorite thing either.
Yeah, there are. There are some things in here
that are like vague or like too convenient maybe, or I'm like,

(01:15:27):
oh, I wonder about that and we don't get the answer.
Those ones I'm OK with, but there's just like this specific
one, it's like I don't have likean answer.
There's like no good one. There's like 7 different things
that could have happened. And I I like that open endedness
when it's tied into a thematic question or a moral.

(01:15:49):
Like this is such a random example, but like the end of
inception, I like the ambiguity at the end of inception because
it's tied to a philosophy you could have about happiness and
life. That that's something really
profound to me. And, and in investigation
mystery stories, I don't always like it as much because I just

(01:16:11):
want to be on a on a ride and I want to enjoy the ride and then
I want to get off the ride. I don't want to like wonder how
the ride ended. I don't want to feel like I
blacked out for the last 10 seconds of the ride and then I
missed the climactic answer. Yeah, it's like, it's like at
the highest peak of the roller coaster, I'd, you know, I
sneezed or something, and then I, I saw the end.

(01:16:33):
I'm like where? What happened back there I
missed? It and the camera on the ride
caught you just as you're doing.That, yeah.
Face. I mentioned the local storage,
it it allows you to revisit clips, but I I think it's an
imperfect way to revisit clips. Like early on when I'm playing

(01:16:54):
the game, I'm saving a lot of stuff because I don't really
know the full scope of the game yet.
And then I'm getting like, Oh, Ishouldn't be saving all this
crap. I there's tons of stuff.
But then when I'm in that phase,I may, you know, brush by a clip
that, you know, seems insignificant.
But then I get to a revelatory clip later, I'm like, oh, I wish

(01:17:18):
I knew how to get back to that clip because now that really
matters. And I have to try and rack my
brain with for like what was a very specific word used there
and I can't. Can't always read.
This can't remember that there are, it'll be lost to me.
There are over 200 clips in the game.
A lot of clips. A lot of clips.
And like you said, some of them are just a couple seconds.

(01:17:40):
It might be the woman just asking for a coffee at the
beginning of an interview and then it cuts and then other
times it's 2 minutes of talking.Sometimes it's playing the
guitar and singing a song. But yeah, you just so that kind
of bums me out. And just if you happen to store

(01:18:01):
everything in the local storage that was important, you're still
having to scroll through and kind of like look at the
thumbnail and be like, is that the one?
Yeah. Maybe.
It all kind of gets jumbled because the preview thumbnail
for every clip is the woman sitting there pretty much and
there are 7 different interviews.

(01:18:23):
So she has different outfits, she has different ways she does
her. Hair and so that you kind of
have to, that's about all you get to rely on for like
deciphering one clip from another.
I was going to get to this a little bit later, but for the
stored clips I abandoned that feature because it was getting
overwhelming. I was saving a handful of clips

(01:18:44):
and even that was a hard to juggle.
You can rearrange them. I couldn't find a way to delete
them from stored clips. It feels like a permanent
decision. I don't.
Remember, I didn't, I didn't. Like I said, I also abandoned it
so I just didn't even bother with it after a while.
Well, you I could rearrange them, so I was trying to make a
sequential timeline or I was trying to group them up in the

(01:19:07):
timeline according to the topic.So if they talked about a crime
of some kind, I'll just say I tried to put those together.
If it was a clip that was about something that was intriguing
but I didn't understand it yet, I tried to put that next to
other clips that were intriguingthat I didn't understand yet.
So I had these little categories, but it was super

(01:19:29):
unofficial and it got into this jumbled mess and I, I stopped
after I added like my 8th clip. I was like I can't manage this
anymore. I had about 15 in there before I
realized I was just overdoing itover using it.
And then I was like, whatever, I'll just, I'll just rely on the
keyword. System and it's always staring

(01:19:49):
you in the face. That timeline of saved clips is
always underneath the search results, so it feels like the
game wants you to use it and I just didn't feel compelled to.
Yeah, same. And then just a minor complaint
here in the performance emphasison certain words or certain
lines would have just a bit of an odd delivery or maybe have

(01:20:11):
like body language that felt strange or?
Maybe less authentic, Like I said, super super minor
complaint, but it does stand outwhen pretty much the rest of the
performance is quite solid. But there were at times where
that was the case. And sometimes the game structure
itself justifies why certain words would be emphasized in a

(01:20:32):
way that sounds weird because itdoes draw your attention to it.
But it does take away from that performance asect.
Oh, I see what you're saying. It's like an unnatural way of
speaking, and it's like you see the seams of it.
It's like, I know why you're doing that.
You're catering to someone who might have found this clip a
little bit earlier than I did tohelp guide them along.

(01:20:54):
It's not completely holding people's hands, but it's
becoming approachable enough that the game will work for.
This game has to work for everybody who tries the
different combinations of words.And so at a certain point, they
have to deliver the lines in a way that give you those bonus
clues if you're extra. Perceptive like I'll I'll

(01:21:15):
deliver a fake example that doesn't appear in the game.
Maybe she'll be telling a story about a lumberjack or like like
we were talking about a lumberjack, but then she'll say
a lumberjack, but she'll she'll like put an unnatural emphasis
on it the way. You just did that with your eyes
and everything. Yeah.
Yeah, so accurate. And that happened in the game.

(01:21:35):
I was like, well, I mean, as a performance that's odd, but it
it serves a purpose for gameplay.
And a lot of those moments will happen right at the end of a
clip because they want to end ona on a memorable note to give
you an idea of what to search next sometimes.

(01:21:56):
But yeah, it's very intentionally chopped in that
way too. Not just like the way those
words are delivered, but that word, that emphasis is going to
be in the very last sentence to for dramatic effects.
So at the end of it, this is this is something I was
dreading. The FMV kind of game is still

(01:22:17):
pretty off putting to me. However, after starting the game
and playing it for maybe like 45minutes, I did find myself
enjoying the hunt for the story.I also took notes IRL.
I brought my notebook here too and I was taking notes on names
of people, places, certain unusual words and that was fun

(01:22:38):
it for me. It was a great exercise and
careful listening and then when you work in audio every day, you
sort of like learn these nuancesof inflection and tone and how
they carry intent or just vibes overall.
So I I get to use my daily skillset to get a little bit more out
of this game than other people might.
Cool. Again, the FMV style is still

(01:23:00):
not appealing to me regardless. And eventually, once I got the
main bullet points of the story,I did become less interested in
the finer details and timeline and I just became more
interested in collecting all theclips.
So for me and all those reasons,her story is a 7.5 out of 10.
All right, I honestly didn't expect you to like the game

(01:23:24):
necessarily. I thought there was a chance.
So I'm glad that you had an overall good time.
I did. I did still have it took a
minute, but I did eventually start to have some fun and like
starting to take notes and like they got me to pull out a pen
and paper that was just laying there so I bet there.
I bet there haven't been like too many games in underplayed

(01:23:46):
history that have made you pull out the pen and paper.
Nope, not a ton. Amazing.
I I love that just by itself because I did the same thing.
And coincidentally this year I've played lots of games that
have required me to use just this little notebook here.
Like this is all from this year.These notes are from Crow
Country. OK.
OK, these are from Mist. That's still from Mists.

(01:24:12):
And then we've got her story notes.
And then just recently I have notes for Is this game Trying to
Kill Me? Oh yeah.
And then notes for We Were Here Together.
Lots of puzzle games. I had some notes for inscription
and papers please so both from the season but I don't think
there are a ton of examples fromprevious seasons.

(01:24:34):
Wow, cool little synergy this season.
But yeah, for my thoughts, I, I align with you on so many
things. I, I think a lot of this is just
going to be repeating what you said, but just like I was saying
WTFA lot in this game, I really liked Viva Siefert's
performance. I think it's so crucially

(01:24:54):
central to making this an intriguing, baffling, shocking
carnival ride of drama. She has to balance so many
emotions and moments with precision, and I thought she did
so masterfully. There are those times where she
has to be a little bit more melodramatic, like you
mentioned, and I guess that didn't pull me out as much.

(01:25:15):
I appreciated it as someone who might not always be the best
listener. So I found that I was hanging on
every word that she was saying. I was like, what are you going
to say something that I've heardbefore?
And if I, if I hear it again, I might know, OK, this is really
important. I've got to just write that down
and, and know that that's maybe more important than I thought it

(01:25:37):
was at first. But she would mention names and
mention places that I hadn't heard yet.
And I would always perk my ears up because of how she was
telling the story. There were moments that got
under my skin. There's a there's part of this
game where when you find an important piece of footage, you

(01:25:59):
will see your reflection on the computer screen momentarily.
And that scared me so much the first time and every time after.
It was creepy. There are music cues that go
along with these times too, and I got goosebumps from those.
I I remember my first music drop, I'm like, oh, I found
something cool. Yeah, it's this nice way of the

(01:26:22):
game telling you, hey, you're making progress.
And that was reassuring because it feels so open-ended.
Sometimes it feels like you've got this database of hundreds of
clips. Am I doing this right?
And so those music cues are telling me, yes, you're, you're
learning. And that's also what this game
is about. It's a puzzle game with words.

(01:26:42):
That's one way you could think about it.
It's also just about listening and learning and sometimes
searching for those keywords is this series of domino effects.
And that's a thrill when you really get going.
You I had a sequence of I found someone's name and that led me
to searching for a place, and then that led me to searching

(01:27:03):
for a noun and I felt momentum acouple times in the game.
And so that is really powerful when you notice those sequences.
Every player will potentially discover things differently
though, and that's exciting to me too.
This is something I love in games.
I love when two different peoplecan play a game and have a

(01:27:25):
different journey of discovery. That is definitely possible in
her story. But you know, I think you can
stumble across some pretty enormous revelations without
trying too hard. I I do largely agree with you
that I think they were really thoughtful in building out this

(01:27:45):
story in a way where you can't get everything spoiled near the
starts. But I think it is possible to
get some some big things spoiledI or not spoiled, but just maybe
learned a little bit too soon. And I feel like there was one
thing that I learned way too soon.
I. No, I agree with you.
And it, it is related to like the last interview and I had

(01:28:08):
this like probably in the first third of the game, maybe even
first quarter. Like I there's one big reveal
there that I had pretty early. It might be the same one I'm
thinking of right now. Yeah.
To me, it's like the big one. Yeah.
I mean, there are several big ones, but it's like the one I
always think back to. But I guess when I got to it,

(01:28:32):
for me it was just like a jarring thing to hear.
And it's like, did I hear that? Do I?
Am I I'm misunderstanding something?
Yeah, when I heard it at first, I have all of the basic early
story things to compare it to. And so I start hearing it, I'm
like, wait, wait, wait what? Slow down, wait, what?

(01:28:55):
So it was super jarring. And that's one of the early
clips that I favored it, right? Because I'm like, what does that
mean? So that was one of my 8 clips
that I did save. And so that was, that was
central to how I understood information going from that
point. So yeah, I, I still didn't know
what was going on. So that is to the game's
credits. It's just, I think sometimes you

(01:29:17):
can stumble across enormous revelations, and I feel like I
feel a little guilty about that.Maybe I wasn't embracing the
spirit of the game in the way that they wanted.
But I guess I'll also take it. I'll.
You know, I'll. I'll take it.
It. It made for an interesting,
shocking moment. And I love the shocking moments
in this game. But yeah, there are just twists

(01:29:39):
and turns and developments that are so memorable.
There's so many memorable moments from this game and.
I think I still have the. It's been like, it's been, it's
been like 3 weeks since I finished this game now and I I
still have the storyline pretty well laid out in my head.
Yeah, it's pretty memorable. And I've thought back to it.

(01:30:02):
I've thought about, because she's being interviewed 7
different times, she has to talkabout many parts of her life.
And I think about all these phases, Yeah, I imagine what it
looked like to make each of these things work in her life.
And it's stranger than fiction, but it is fiction.

(01:30:22):
You know, it's like one of thosestories that you'd see a docu
series about on Netflix or something.
Like, holy crap, this is real, but it's fiction.
So they managed to make a crazy enough story that it seems like
it should be real, but it's actually fiction, if that makes
sense. And then I get to some things
that I don't like. I don't necessarily know when I

(01:30:45):
should be done looking up terms in this game and I think that's
maybe the point. But I had a pretty uneven
experience where the 1st 2 1/2 hours I was constantly learning
and I got to the quote UN quote end of the game and I still had
video files that I hadn't seen yet.

(01:31:06):
And I spent another two 2 1/2 hours just searching term after
term after term. And I'm just trying to do the
completion of the game, which I feel like is the only task I
have left for me. I didn't get credits or anything
yet. And So what am I left to do but
to just keep this game open and search for things?
And I had a tough time because you get scraps.

(01:31:29):
I mean, you get little pieces here and there.
You do. Get to a point.
And when I'm using the database checker, which is the feature
that lets you see how many clipsyou have left, I would see
strings of empty clips, meaning like and they're they're
sequential, they're in chronological order.
So I see a line of 12 clips thatare blank and I go.

(01:31:51):
There's something I'm missing Something?
There's like a whole interview I'm missing.
I eventually had to look up how to find some of these clips
because I couldn't do it all myself.
I couldn't find all 200 plus andall those were unexciting and
unfulfilling. Most of them were I I think I
missed the same chomp and it waslike.
So I was led by this carrot on astring and it didn't lead to a

(01:32:14):
place that I I thought it was. So that's why I say it's uneven
because so much of this game I can do by myself, but the game
is making me think that there isa gold mine of stuff that I
still haven't scene. It's really not that great.
Yeah, I so when I got the optionto end the game, which I had to
Google by the way, is like, whenis this game over?

(01:32:36):
Like, I don't understand. I did have to Google that.
But once I like had the option to end it, I was like, I still
have a couple more questions. I'll do a little bit more
searching. And I got to a point where I was
like, I know that this person did this thing, like, and that's
I guess the point of the interview, but also like, I know

(01:32:59):
I'm missing a lot too. So it's like I'll just end the
game and then I'll come back. OK, that's that kind of sounds
like parts of what I did too. And also just the way the story
is told, it can be disorienting in a way that I feel a bit
overwhelmed. That's more of a me problem.
Some people are just going to take this in better.
I think it's supposed to disorient you though, and the

(01:33:23):
game is fully embracing that, sothat's kind of cool.
But yeah, I also didn't use the stored clips and the user tags.
I thought those were just strange features that didn't
seem appealing. I didn't see the appeal of them,
so I didn't use them. They just don't fit my play
style. But overall, her story was a
shocking wild ride. The excitement did fizzle out a

(01:33:43):
bit by the end of my play time, but this was unlike any other
investigation experience I've had, so I'm going to give this
an 8 out of 10. I enjoyed it quite a lot.
Cool, great time with her story.I had a fun time streaming this.
Streaming it also might have divided my attention a bit.
That can happen. Sometimes with a game like that,

(01:34:05):
though, you like you, there's a lot of potential to get more out
of it when you stream something like that.
People were reacting to moments the same way I was.
That was reassuring. That was validating.
OK, good. Good.
Yeah. And then some people would say
like, oh, I have an idea for something to search, but I don't
want to tell you. And so that made me a little

(01:34:26):
self-conscious. I want to talk about this
performance by Viva Seifert and any touches we noticed.
Again, avoiding spoilers, but did you pick up on any other
performance touches? There's just certain details
that convey different mindsets and so you'll you'll pick up on

(01:34:50):
those details eventually. Most of them for me were visual,
but eventually I would start to like understand what mindset our
our character is in just just based on certain visuals,
certain certain ways that they speak but not as much in that
arena. But that's also kind of like

(01:35:13):
maybe the strength of the performance is that despite
these different mindsets, it's apretty consistent performance
throughout. Yeah.
Does that make sense? No, it's striking a balance.
Yeah, it's giving you clues, butit's also making you question
whether you should read into that clue.
Yeah, as much as you think the game wants you to.

(01:35:35):
And so you start playing a mind game with yourself.
Can I, can I say we're doing a really great job of avoiding
spoilers right now? Like we're doing awesome.
Yeah, Because I think we're conveying the points.
I'm, I'm understanding what you're saying 100%.
And I think if you've played with you, yeah, I think if
people have played the game, they'll understand too.
Yeah, Yeah. That was a great way to put
that. Yeah.
And I love how little touches will seem insignificant.

(01:35:58):
And then in retrospect, like yousaid, you'll go back and you'll
think, oh, that's why I've been hearing about this so many
times. Like, for instance, she'll talk
about how she takes her coffee. That's a little clue that will
lead to something. And it will do that time and
time again. And I love stuff like that, you
know, because there are those filler clips, There are those

(01:36:21):
clips where it doesn't give you anything.
Not everything's supposed to give you an answer or a path
forward. And so at first I thought the
coffee was doing that. Yeah, a lot of there are.
I would say at least half of them are probably like filler or
at least don't have anything revelatory, but there are a lot
more that you think are nothing burgers that will have just

(01:36:45):
something hidden in them. Yeah, And I found that there was
a piece of the story sometimes told twice in different clips.
And I think they're just puttingan extra bread crumb next to a
different tree in the forest because I might be next to this
tree over here. You might be next to that tree
over there. But we'll each find a breadcrumb

(01:37:07):
that will then lead us here in the middle.
So that that was appreciated too.
Love that there might be clues that women might tend to pick up
on more often than men. I, I just get that sense that
maybe there's a deeper level of the performance that's doing

(01:37:29):
this. Sometimes I don't know if you
agree or it's hard to agree. Yeah, it's hard to agree on
something that. We have potentially you'd not.
Pick up on So yeah, I unfortunately I don't have an
opinion for you on this. One OK, I kind of got this sense
from some of the people in my chat.
OK, and see that's that's another way that playing this

(01:37:51):
game, a game like this on Twitchcan be reward the experience a
little bit more, enhance the experience a little.
Bit more, yeah. So is interesting.
I I want to talk to more people about the game.
It's one of those games where you want to talk to people about
it right after you play, too, yeah.
You've mentioned this already, but while being vague, are there

(01:38:12):
certain keywords or strategies that you found useful?
Well, this is where I just want to show you my notebook here.
So what I first started doing, which I think is, is pretty
intuitive. Here's here's our ASMR.
Yeah. That was really good, actually.

(01:38:34):
Yeah, it's. Really nice.
The first thing I started doing was just writing down general
facts. So I started writing about
characters like Eric and Diane. Yeah.
I've got like Rockington Arms and who the owners are.
I also eventually started writing down the bosses and and

(01:38:59):
his wife. And then eventually, oh, there
were 271 clips. OK, I, I wrote that down as a
note. Good Lord, I know.
It doesn't seem quite like that many, but I know it did seem
like a lot. Then I'm writing down questions
that I'm speaking out loud and Iwas like I should just write

(01:39:19):
that down so I have question marks in my notes.
Then my next phase of note taking was making a page for
every name and then writing all facts related to that person.
I think maybe that's more where I started because I had that for
some people. I see a little, yeah, I wanted

(01:39:41):
to go back to that clip, but then I think I did find it.
I was like, I don't know what todo with this.
But I thought I would need to use it later for something.
That's kind of what I did with like inscription.
Anyways, we're being vague here.You guys can't even see what?
We're doing, we're talking abouta part of the game that uses
numbers and a rhythm. Yeah, that uses numbers.

(01:40:01):
I'll just say that. Yeah.
And then the last phase of my note taking was.
Writing down words and then crossing them out when I
searched. Them Yep, this is my page for
that. Yep, Yep, I have all these on
this page. I have all these on this page
and then I have all of these on these two pages.

(01:40:22):
Oh yeah, you got a lot. It basically looks like the
ramblings of someone losing their mind.
So in mine, I want to show you Iwas referring to this big
revelation. Yeah, so my first page I kept
devoted to Simon. I didn't write anything else on
there. It's just facts about Simon.

(01:40:42):
So my second page is just like I'm still starting to take notes
about like bosses or locations pretty early in the game.
So right here at the top of my third page is when I find out
about this big revelation. Yeah, the.
The very top line. So I I did find it pretty early.
According to where it is in my notes, yeah.

(01:41:04):
I'll show you the word that led me to a big atom bomb revelation
or just moment this word that's circled.
Interesting. Yeah, very mundane word.
Right, right. Like that's a word that you'd
use any day. And it was far from the first

(01:41:25):
thing I searched, but you know, pretty early on and it gave me
that thing, so. It is a word that you could
potentially think to search if you're just typing out crime
investigation words. Yeah, 'cause I know, I know.
And then there were words that Ididn't search for for far too
long and I want to point this isso big.

(01:41:50):
I want to point to two terms that I did search eventually,
but I should have searched for them way sooner this word.
OK, I there's a similar word that I waited a really long time
to search. For OK and then this word.
I didn't search for that for waytoo long.
Wow. Really.

(01:42:10):
Yeah. OK, so I was in the dark a
little bit about something, but.Then you know that second term.
I don't know if I searched that one specifically, but I searched
a lot of words related to it. I did too, but the genius of
this game too is that it's not like a clip from the testimony
will use all of the related words to a term in one interview

(01:42:32):
segment. So you have to be thorough
sometimes and I appreciate that.Yeah.
But yeah, otherwise, like I got maybe 1/3 of the way through the
game and then eventually it was just like, I'm typing any word I
maybe just heard and haven't typed before essentially.
When I got to the end phase and I'm just trying to find all the
clips, I'm trying to get completion by myself.

(01:42:53):
I was searching for words like where that the, you know, AI was
just it was. Desperate.
It was desperate so I would havegotten them all on my own.
Used a guide. Same same.
I didn't use user tags at all really.
I started to but ultimately found it pretty useless and it
was like essentially tagging things that actually might

(01:43:16):
muddle up later search results anyway so.
And I just thought if I'm going to do this, it's going to be an
all or nothing thing. And if it's going to be an all
thing, it's going to be tedious.And you just, you don't even
know like like I mentioned earlier, like you don't even
know what's significant when you're starting the game to some
things or just they matter more than you think.

(01:43:39):
So and then it's too late. Yeah, OK.
And then similar to this topic, moments that were profound or
shocking, maybe using broad illusions to reference things.
Not sure if we'll keep this in the episode because it might be
hard to do this, but there's a person with a name that starts
with F I'll just say that they they are involved early on in

(01:44:03):
the story. That was wild.
That was like where the game started to be wild for me when I
learned what happened with them.And then there's a noun.
Now, I don't know. I don't know if you remember
this specific moment, but there's a moment with this noun

(01:44:25):
that made me like, throw my notebook because it was so just
out of left field. Yeah, for me it was.
For me it was less about the object and more about who was
cooperating in that. Moment, yeah, no, the idea of
it, what was happening with character, plural characters.

(01:44:46):
Yeah, that, that was the part I was like, I don't know about
that, but. There's a lot, there's a lot of
moments that are profound or shocking for me.
I'm more focused on ones that I'm like this, this is what is

(01:45:09):
said to have happened. But maybe given the
circumstances, and I'm thinking of, if this is too spoilery, I'm
thinking of something that happened with Hannah's parents.
And it's like we have what is told to us and what the likes,
you know, official facts are. But given the circumstances,

(01:45:32):
there could be a lot more going on there.
And I'm like, if you take that and add it to the big question,
the big hole I have in my story,it paints one particular
character in a different kind of.
Light, like, is that done for more than one reason?

(01:45:55):
And that thing could be its own game.
That could be its own story, youknow, and it's just kind of a
footnote in this game. Yeah, I think I know what you're
talking about. Do you think I am know what
you're talking about? Here's an edit point for you, Bo
I I think it is possible that and then also.

(01:46:19):
Yeah. I mean, I was thinking about the
of what you were talking about of the.
Parents but like. Or are they or?
I'm glad you also had that potential thought.
Or is she? Yeah, crazy.
Anyway. But yeah, I don't know.
There were a lot of shocking moments.

(01:46:39):
I think one of the most memorable clips to me is, I'll
just say a clip regarding a birthday and just the way that
that story, that part of the story was told.
Was really profound. Yeah, that was so good.

(01:47:00):
There are thematic ideas with mirrors and windows in this game
that I think are very thought provoking, and there's even a
game that you can play on the computer.
I didn't play this. Did you open it?
I looked at it. OK, but what that's doing is

(01:47:21):
clever too. I just really appreciate all the
touches and you can see things for what they are in the
surface, but then if you think about thematically what they
might be referring to, there's depth there too.
I just, it's cool. It's really cool.
It's very thoughtfully put together.
I don't know if I can allude to anything else without spoiling

(01:47:44):
it so, but yeah, I agree with you there on on that point.
And then we kind of alluded to this, but like ending the game
and and when did we decide that we were done?
It sounds like we both went for completion.
That's not where I like quote ended my game at first.
Like I did roll credits because I felt like I put myself in the

(01:48:07):
mind of an investigator. And in that mindset I was like,
I have what I need to create a timeline and to bring charges or
convict or do or do none of that.
And so like, I feel comfortable rolling credits now.
At a certain point you get a prompt to end the game.

(01:48:27):
Which I didn't understand. That's what that was at first.
Neither did I, and so I didn't even get to the point where I
felt comfortable doing that because I didn't know how to do
it. I didn't know like that I had to
do it a certain way. So unfortunately I didn't do the

(01:48:48):
necessary basic experimentation to do it properly.
So I had to look up how to do that.
And I actually thought for a second, oh, this game doesn't
end. It's just kind of this computer
that I can choose to shut off. That's the story.
And it could kind of be like that, but there's just more I

(01:49:09):
didn't know how to do. Yeah, eventually I went back
because I was like, I mean, I still have questions and I found
the database checker like prettylate.
And so I, I chose to end the game and I was like, OK, I'm
going to come back. I'm going to keep the database
checker open and, and go through.
And like you said, you had that big chunk of like 12 interviews

(01:49:32):
at the bottom that you're like, oh, there's something there.
And so I went through for like maybe an hour trying to get as
much as I could on my own. And then I was like, it's guide
time, baby. I I'm done.
I found a guide that just said what keywords to search to get
every sequential clip. And I did that and some I must

(01:49:53):
have missed one or two because there were like 3 clips I still
hadn't seen at the end. And so I that used a different
method to get those last three clips.
OK, yeah. And I had pockets of three and
four clips here and there too. So I had such high hopes for the
quote UN quote post game of like, what bonus, what bonus

(01:50:15):
info will I find? And there just wasn't as much
there as I expected. But I'm really glad we played
this. It's very unlike other games
we've played and reviewed for this show.
I feel it's certainly unlike other games I've played.
Yeah, it I, I was impressed. Yeah, it's an impressive feat.
I think of storytelling and I hope to play more games by Sam

(01:50:38):
Barlow in the future. We have two more on our featured
games lists, and I've heard verygood things in particular about
immortality. OK, that's the one I don't have.
OK, so we'll see if we get to that relatively soon, but that
is our review of her story. You can play it on PC, Mac,
Android, and iOS. Disco Cola rated it a 7.5.

(01:51:02):
I rated it an 8. That's the end of this episode
of Underplayed. You can find more of our
episodes at kzum.org/underplayedand on common podcast platforms
like Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Our music was composed by Jack
Rodenberg. Our art comes from Oni Mochi.
Check out our show notes where you can find and follow us
across social media. Underplayed is on Blue Sky,

(01:51:23):
Instagram, and Threads. You can also find my links down
below, and I stream a variety ofindie games on Twitch.
And I am at Disco Cola in all ofmy social media platforms, and I
stream when I can, which has actually happened a bit more
often lately, but summer's coming and so it should be at
least once a week. Nice.

(01:51:44):
Next time we'll have two more secret games to review, a
developer interview with Jeremy Reinek of Moon Soul Games, and
our featured game will be AnimalWell, a Metroidvania developed
by Billy Basso. Until then, everyone keep on
play.

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074 - Grand Soul Story, VIDEOVERSE, & Her Story

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}074 - Grand Soul Story, VIDEOVERSE, & Her Story