00:00.00 Dave Hello everybody. My name is Dave Jackson and you're listening to tales from the backlog. This is a video games review podcast where each week I'm joined by a guest to bring a game out of the backlog play it and discuss my guest today to talk about iron lung. Are friends of the show. The co-founders of the duckfeed.tv podcast network hosts of such wonderful shows as watch out for fireballs bonfireside chat abject suffering and too many to list at the beginning of one podcast. They are back from their trip to the bottom of the blood ocean Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross welcome to the show guys. Oh shit I shouldn't have assumed I'm sorry gary hell yeah. 00:35.89 Kole Ross Thank you very much for having us. 00:39.21 Gary Thank you I'm still in the blood ocean I've got wifi in the blood ocean and that's not a metaphor That's not a gross Urban dictionary thing Wifi in the blood ocean. Um. 00:43.81 Kole Ross Um. 00:50.92 Dave Yeah. 00:51.28 Kole Ross Euphemism now. 00:56.30 Kole Ross Now. 00:56.72 Gary Yeah, hi. Thanks for having us. Um. 00:58.80 Dave Of course yeah, um, want to give you guys the customary time at the beginning of the show to ah to talk about this stuff that you do and where people may have heard your voices before. 01:09.57 Gary Ah, yeah, we are duckfeed.tvapodcast network that primarily talks about video games but talks about many different pop cultural artifacts been going on now for more than a decade. Um, our flagship show is called watch out for fireballs which is a games club podcast but then we do several other shows comedy shows. We do bonfireside chat about the soulsborn games. We do a general video game show in the form of the level where we're doing a recap show about breaking bad which will resume on the strike ends Hopefully by the time you hear this that is true. We just done a whole lot of stuff. 01:41.80 Dave Um, yeah. 01:45.90 Gary And yeah. 01:45.18 Kole Ross Um, now any number of shows for folks who like ah ah, general media kind of things. 01:52.13 Gary Um, yeah. 01:52.27 Dave Yeah, yeah, like I said at the top the um the shows that I guess would analog most with tails from the backlog are watch out for fireballs which is ah similar to this show but much more story focused than the show usually gets I mean sometimes breaking up long games into multiple episodes. Which is a smart idea that I should find a way to adopt on this show because I'm an idiot um and also Bonfire side chat you know I've talked about multiple souls and from software games on this show and I just got to say for people out there who do not know about Bonfire side chat it is I think it's the best show for. 02:28.40 Dave Souls play along type material. Um, it's on the Patreon for you guys now which I'm a proud subscriber to because it's that show alone is worth the five bucks but the earlier souls games. You know the dark souls stuff in Bloodborne that's still open to the public right. 02:43.89 Kole Ross Yes. 02:46.76 Dave Yeah, so highly recommended. 02:46.82 Gary Yes, yeah, that is ah that showing is ah for people who are not familiar is area by area explorations of of those games and then also going into souls likes from software games that came before dark shoals. 02:51.92 Dave Yeah. 03:03.40 Gary And kind of inspired it things like that. Um, yeah soundtracks we do a lot of kind of special topics things but it's it's everything dark souls souls born Eldon souls eldon born blood Eldon 03:03.78 Dave Yeah. 03:12.47 Dave Right? Haven't changed the name yet to incorporate the Eldon terminology. Yeah, and you guys have a couple of shows like I was thinking about this game iron lung today and you guys have. 03:19.60 Gary They haven't they keep saying souls born. 03:30.60 Dave By my count at least 3 shows that this game could appear on for being a horror game for having a movie adaptation upcoming. So no matter what you like duck feed's got something for you. So like I said today's game is iron lung. 03:45.89 Dave It is a first person horror game developed and published by David Symansky for pc and switch in 2022 imagining like cozying up in bed after a hard day and playing iron lung is to relax right. 03:56.10 Gary really happy to have an opportunity to play this. This has been on my 2 play list for a while and this is a great excuse to play it. 04:08.63 Dave Hell yeah yeah, love it. Um, for people out there who have not played iron lung the spoiler policy for this episode is the same as all episodes of the show. We're not going to spoil the story for you. This is a very short game. It's fairly light on Upfront story but we're still not going to spoil stuff. That's best left experienced for the first time until the spoiler warning. So if you check down in the show notes you'll see a timestamp for when that spoiler wall is and you can jump out at that point if you don't want to be spoiled. So in case people have not played Iron Lung we have prepared some elevator pitches to try to get you to play this I say it is a somewhat cozy but mostly stressful submarine trip to the bottom of an ocean of blood How about you guys. 04:57.80 Gary I mine I forgot to do this in advance. So I had one but it was spoilery that I like better and I'll share it after the Spoiler wall um the ah but ah, creeping dread as a navigation puzzle is what I put. 05:03.48 Dave Ah, right. 05:03.87 Kole Ross Um, now. 05:09.55 Dave Mm. 05:11.27 Kole Ross No, and for me I put ah about as minimal as a horror game could be to great effect. 05:18.57 Dave Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, this took me 1 hour to play this is something I don't think is going to like differ for a lot of people unless you spend a ton of time digging in the computer logs about an hour for you guys right. 05:29.26 Gary Yeah. 05:30.10 Kole Ross Yeah, yeah. 05:33.31 Dave Which made it an easy pitch to to come on someone else's podcast and talk about nothing beats a 1 hour game right? Um, so we'll get started with our histories with iron lung what put it on our radar. Why did we want to play it. 05:37.65 Kole Ross Not at all now. 05:49.10 Dave Um, maybe our history with David Symansky because he has another high profile game as far as indie games go with Dusk so I will turn it over to you guys when did you first play this if you played it before why did you want to play it. 06:03.20 Kole Ross Ah I'll start with that I played it shortly after it came out I do horror game streams on weekends. Ah, and ah this was a pretty obvious pick not just because the yeah like you know the the pitch for it is kind of immediately arresting. Ah but also because I enjoy. 06:07.10 Dave M. 06:20.19 Kole Ross Ah, Davis is Mansky's work not just dusk which we had previously covered on watch out for fireballs that was my first kind of exposure to him but like ever since then especially with his connection with the dredx p collective ah working putting out those collections. 06:23.93 Dave Who. 06:36.65 Kole Ross He has had a couple of entries in those that have been very good I think one of them is horse factory ah, the other one that is especially good that I enjoy is Squirrel Stapler which just today it was announced that that is getting a ah kind of a stand a standalone release on steam which is real cool standalone and expanded. 06:48.69 Dave E. 06:53.48 Kole Ross Um, yeah, so I kind of I like this creator and kind of the scale of project that he is putting out in the horror game space. So it was kind of a natural fit. 07:01.42 Dave I Thought you were going to say you know I've got you know movie adaptations on the mind. So I thought you're going to say Squirrel Staplers got an adaptation in the works too. Yeah, nice, How about you gary. 07:11.30 Kole Ross Ah, it would be pretty messed up. That's me, it's like a horror hunting game I like it quite a bit now. 07:12.26 Gary And yeah, ah the I mostly know this crater from Twitter and Dusk you know from new blood kind of boomer shooter stuff. Um I like. 07:20.99 Dave You. 07:27.39 Gary Indie horror stuff I don't keep up with it as much as cold does. Um I just generally like source engine era looking visuals and then when I started following Dave ah Semansky and um the the person making gloom would who's Roger Dylan Rogers 07:42.15 Dave Um, right? yeah. 07:44.11 Kole Ross Um, ah Dave Ashri don't right there? yeah. 07:47.10 Gary Yeah, yeah, Dylan Rogers and Dave Auchre that whole crew following them on Twitter and just really liking what they think about video games how they talk about video games and what they like about it. The idea of a 1 hour long encapsulated experience that gets in and gets out and does something very elegant with very few mechanics is very appealing to me. It's it's becoming a cliche at this point that like I want you know shorter games with worse graphics for more money. You know that that tweet but that is true like most most people I know actually do want that and this is a great example of that love to see game more games like this. 08:21.15 Dave Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um for me personally I played Dusk you guys actually put it on my radar because I'm I don't have any history with the boomer shooters and stuff like that. So I play dusk basically on your recommendation. 08:22.50 Kole Ross Um, yeah. 08:37.86 Dave Fell off of it after a while but I enjoyed a couple hours of it. You know how it goes but I what I did love about it was the the visuals and just like the overall vibe of it. You know? Um, so when I heard about iron lung I was interested. But. 08:56.70 Dave I'm on the podcast talking about Iron Lung but for a while this was a game where I was like I'll never play that because it looks way too scary. Um I'm a very recent convert to horror games and so this game has a reputation for being really tense and scary and so it was just like you know I actually bought it. 09:03.43 Gary Um. 09:15.17 Dave It's $6 full price on steam. So I bought it I was like I like this developer I will buy it. Maybe I'll play it someday. But here I am playing it this this was when I'm putting together the the games for the October schedule a 1 hour game fits in really nicely for a podcast schedule. So. It was a curiosity buy at the beginning and then you know here I am playing it. This was all before the announcement of marketlier making a movie and before the titan sub thing that made this game spike in sales. So. 09:51.18 Kole Ross What a what a weird little like coincidence curse that happens. It's been interesting watching watching him ah like kind of like process that like there have been interviews with with ah David David about that. 09:54.90 Dave Yeah. 10:06.44 Kole Ross Um, and ah I would not know how to feel about getting a financial. Ah you know a financial boon or a profile raise out of something like that. Yeah. 10:15.73 Dave Yeah, right, it's it's got to be something that's really hard to process. You know people died and therefore I make a bunch of money. Not my fault but you know. 10:25.69 Kole Ross New Ryan right? I just I turn turns out a bunch of people willing willingly went and did this thing that I have said you know David has said like oh it's the scariest thing I could imagine I just decided to make a game out of it now. 10:38.30 Dave Right? 10:40.96 Gary Yeah, would it's interesting too because it's ah all that stuff is obviously subjective like everything is subjective but the ah people who did that who weren't scared of it like we'll get into this when we start talking about the game and stuff like I like this game a lot I'm not that scared of it and that's not a flex because I get very scared of video games. 10:57.35 Dave Oh. 10:59.65 Gary Um, this scenario is not my weakness you know so that that kind of idea and it's I imagine like those people in the sub like I'm like oh they I'd be fine. Put me in a small room like I love me in a small room without windows like it's my favorite thing I do it most of the time at home. Um, you know. 11:15.38 Dave That's true. Yeah. 11:17.50 Gary So it's It's just interesting to think about that ethically it's it is nuts it reads like a drill tweet like the more people who die the more money I make catching like yeah drill you know or something like that like it's It's just it's very very bleak um wolf. 11:36.92 Dave Gary you said you enjoyed the game I guess I'll go ahead and give some quick opening thoughts here too. Um I enjoyed this a lot too. It's really hard for a game. That's 1 hour long to overstay its welcome and this game doesn't you know? Um I got the feeling this this felt like a. Like a game jam type of game that just got like more polish afterwards you know, added some lore and stuff like that. But it's a very very simple premise for a game and it works. It's a good premise and keeps you on your toes keeps introducing new stuff at a good pace. It's got some cool Gremlin horror shit for its like backstory and then it's over It's a nice snack of a horror game. 12:20.67 Gary It's hard for me to think of a horror game that sustains being good for a very long time that is a pure horror game. You know like I can play 20 hours of resin evil 4 which has elements of horror. But I'm not in the market for a 20 hour horror game. 12:25.69 Dave yeah. 12:35.91 Gary You know I don't want that It's not a mood that sustains. Ah, and I'm always a little bit surprised that more horror games are not this short because it's It's such a good emotion to go with this length of things like it is even ah, a very you know something like amnesia the dark descent which I I Love you know that's like. 12:54.67 Gary 6 hours or something like that. Um still ends up feeling a little long at the end like you know that to keep showing your tricks but a certain point like you start getting it. There's only so long you can stare at strings without seeing them no matter how dark it is and I think that that's the thing that this game does that I admire more than I viscerally felt. 13:01.22 Dave Um, yeah. 13:13.62 Gary Like from a game design perspective. This is super impressive to me because of that absolute elegance and focusing on just a couple of core things. 13:13.84 Kole Ross Um, now. 13:15.14 Dave Yeah. 13:19.78 Kole Ross Horror benefits so much from compression right? You really want to you know the best horror controls your breath almost right? You know you're holding a year you know there's the buildup of tension and release you know we talk about this in our show about horror movies that we do. 13:20.11 Dave Um, right? um. 13:39.68 Kole Ross Unfilmable, but that is kind of one of the huge deals you want to just kind of really keep a tight hand on the rudder of you know you're pacing Sorry I'm mix experiment metaphors there. Um and this is incredibly compressed and on who also you know in addition to compression requires I think a little bit of discipline. 13:50.41 Gary Um. 13:58.90 Kole Ross You Want to stay focused on you know what specific? What? Lever Specifically you are trying to pull and the inventive the inventiveness of this I think is very you know Apparent. You know the cool things that it does you know with so little but a thing that really really impresses me is. That someone could have an idea you know the kernel of it of an idea for this and keep it at such a limited Scope. You know that a lesser creator would probably let this sprawl a little bit more both mechanically and narratively and especially from like a runtime perspective. 14:28.70 Dave You. 14:34.53 Kole Ross Um, and to kind of keep that scope really really in check shows a great amount of discipline that just helps the product helps the experience. 14:42.24 Gary Helps it in many ways like not just helps it in terms of focus but helps it in terms of comparison like a weird thing I thought about while playing this is that Subnautica kind of contains it in in a way like if they were to going to expand the scope of this in the mechanics too much. You would end up competing on a ground. 14:44.36 Kole Ross Yeah. Now. 14:59.78 Gary You don't necessarily want to be competing ah on not because of like overall quality but like there's a reason why there's weight classes or there's a reason why like you know the best boxer in the world is not the best baseball player in the world. You know, ah keeping this at that scale. 15:15.65 Gary Ah, keeps it in its own Arena which makes it shine really bright and not be compared to things that it you know had bigger budget and have you know, arguably more polish and kind of lofty ambition I guess. 15:28.44 Dave Yeah, that's that's why the like the the game jam type of comparison came to me because it's It's a very simple thing that it does not stray from its original concept at all. Really I mean it it iterates and gets more intense. Ah. 15:45.17 Dave It adds a little bit of complication to it and then it's just over it doesn't you know, overextend at all. So it's it's It's good stuff. We are going to come back after this I usually have music breaks but this game has ambient underwater sounds. So after we come back from that Ah, we will get into what this game is all about 16:05.98 Dave so in Iron Long. You are a prisoner piloting a makeshift submarine to the bottom of an ocean of Blood. What happened it shows you in like a. Ah, little backstory screen at the beginning. There was an event called the quiet rapture where every known star and habitable planet vanished leaving only people who are on space stations or starships Alive. So. We Do what we do and we're on the hunt for resources and where are the resources. Maybe at the bottom of this ocean of blood on the Moon. Ah so you're a convict tasked with going down in this submarine to explore an anomaly down in the ocean of blood looking for stuff. And the key thing in here that kind of sets the mood for it is ah your sub nickname the iron lung was not designed to go down this deep so they're going to weld you inside and they're going to shut the forward window. There's no time for training if successful you earn your freedom. 17:15.74 Dave That is the story that you get at the beginning of this and I got to say I don't need more of a setup for why I'm in the ocean of blood. This is pretty sweet. Oh yeah, absolutely. 17:24.73 Kole Ross It's also remarkably bleak like the world presented. You know, even outside of this is one completely without hope which makes like the you know what you are doing even more absurd on a cosmic scale. Yeah. 17:36.19 Dave Yeah. 17:38.71 Gary Comically so every planet disappears and we still have convicts. Can you imagine like there's so we're still putting people in jail yeah, like there's 7 people left but this one's got to go? yeah. 17:40.99 Dave Oh yeah, yeah, you're 1 of the 3 prisoners left alive. Yeah. 17:55.10 Dave Yeah, we're not going to waste any of the good people down in the homemade submarine. So yeah, um. 17:55.89 Gary You know, um you know it's It's a really good setup and I I was surprised that there was more backstory than than this I do I don't I don't I don't. 18:08.52 Dave Oh yeah. 18:12.38 Gary You know, resent it but I didn't think it was that even really necessary to have it. You know it's this is perfect. You know that you're the running man underwater you know and and and you're in in a windowless room get fucked and like that That's great. That's that's a really good hook. 18:25.40 Dave Yeah, yeah, this ah there was a bunch of added story like in an update after the game first released which um. 18:28.77 Kole Ross Um, yeah. 18:36.74 Dave I did not really dig into the story. Um little gameplay Spoilers I was very stressed playing this game So I was not reading the computer logs. But if you take the time to dig In. You can learn about a bunch of the the space stations and moons and stuff that are still available are still. Not available existing you know. 18:55.77 Kole Ross I I saw that that was there So I played this originally before that was added in the patch I didn't care to know more like I I trust that there's cool story bits in there but like oh like what's what's on the page you know in this. 18:56.80 Gary No. 19:02.89 Dave Yeah, you don't need to. 19:14.20 Kole Ross Excellentl You know Pc or you know old Pc share where do style text splash at the beginning is is is plenty plenty of motivation plenty of mood. Ah, you know to kind of set up what you know why I'm here and what's ah, what's kind of going on didn't necessarily need a lot of lower backstory. 19:17.91 Dave Yeah. 19:27.50 Dave Right. 19:29.61 Gary Did not want a source book. You know a source book kind of actively hurts us a little bit I think. 19:34.21 Dave Yeah I guess it kind of makes me wonder a little bit about like if they're adapting this for film like a full feature film. Are they going to try and add in a bunch of characters with backstories and stuff like that or is it just going to be someone freaking out in a submarine. 19:53.20 Gary I I don't man I don't know enough about I don't know my Mark application tables well enough to to know whether that that guy is going to do well by it. But there's a version of it that's like moon that I would really like and then there's a version of it that's like the adaptation of world war z. 20:05.14 Kole Ross Now. 20:11.78 Gary That would get like sprawling out of control and get real stupid and I just I don't know enough about the market plier to know which one he's leaning towards ah I. 20:21.74 Dave Yeah, me either. Apparently he's done some film stuff on Youtube that people seem to enjoy. But I've never watched any of it. So yeah I got nothing. Um I guess we'll see if we see if you look at the runtime and it's like 2 hours 40 minutes then I'll be like uh-o. 20:37.57 Kole Ross Nope shouldn't be longer than the game. 20:37.68 Gary Yeah. 20:39.40 Dave Yeah, um, the the 1 thing that this backstory did kind of give me from like a I guess story but into gameplay perspective is like the fact that they're like hey your sub's not designed to go down this deep. Um, it's It's it's going to be bad so it gives you like this sense of urgency when you're moving from spot to spot or at least it did for me. 20:58.17 Kole Ross Yeah I mean and also like that is very important you because like it's one of the first I don't know if this is spoiler but 1 of the first things that you see is as you are lowering the portal closes right in order to be in order to pressure seal kind of setting up. You know the information scarcity that we're going to talk about when we talk about. 21:17.20 Kole Ross What you have to navigate with right. 21:19.90 Gary Um, and then showing you the o two meter as well gives you that sense of urgency and scarcity that is an illusion but a fun illusion. You know. 21:23.73 Dave Yeah, yeah, um the I guess the other thing about this is that the design of the inside of the sub looks like they literally pulled these pieces of metal out of the trash and like put this thing together to put you down in the blood ocean. 21:43.42 Gary Yeah, yeah, it's it's got a ah in is you know? Basically what happened you know now. 21:48.58 Dave Yeah, yeah, probably it's probably in the computer log the construction of the iron lung. Yeah so in Iron Lung Ah the gameplay is you moving from node to Node. Um, on this map that you have or throughout the ocean you're moving from spot to Spot. You're tasked with taking pictures that's your mission. It's like ah a survey mission. Basically um and we talked about this in the beginning of the show a little bit but the thing that this game really does is it takes away. So much of your information and your control so that you're basically I mean you're piloting in the dark because there's no windows you probably couldn't see outside even if there were windows in the blood ocean right? But you you have so little information. To go on when you're moving from spot to spot and your controls are so like you can go Forward. You can go backward. You can change the angle at which you're driving. That's about it. 22:50.71 Gary You're driving around ah an underwater Jill valentine it. It is. You're basically piloting a Kings field at the bottom of the ocean. Um, ah. 22:59.39 Dave Ah, yeah. 23:00.70 Kole Ross Ah, a Kings told at the bottom of the ocean with with an interface that like yes, you are you know it's 3 d first person and you're doing a little bit of moving around in the ship but like fundamentally when I call this stripped back. Like it feels a little bit like you are trying to play a horror game through a t I e 3 graphing calculator. 23:14.18 Dave Yeah, it's the type of interface that would work on anything that a game has ever run on right? you have you're pressing a button to move forward or backward. You're pressing a button to turn and there's a screen showing your coordinates and that's that's all you get. 23:32.73 Gary Yeah, and it's doing ah a real classic horror trick and horror game trick which is taking away sight. You know, obviously that people are scared of the dark. That's the number 1 site that or number one sense that most people rely on you know who who are able as such um, you know and we need it. 23:48.81 Gary You know I think about something like ah papa Sangre or that other ios game that ah the yearwalk maybe is the name of it. Um, where it's yeah there, there's and there's another one too. There's ah, a silent or ah rather ah black, No graphics entirely sound based. 23:53.60 Kole Ross Yeah, now that was more of the graphical adventure. Yeah, your walk was yeah. 24:07.10 Gary Horror game for ios. It reminds me of it's just scary not to know what's out there. You know and in this game. It's interesting because so much of it is depending on your imagination if they actually showed it I watched a a motter who put in windows on the sub. Ah, it doesn't do it doesn't help. 24:25.71 Gary It doesn't make it makes it really not scary ah to just you know, see some plants out there navigating by the coordinates. Um is both like a little puzzle that you're doing and just just taking one sense away from you does all the heavy lifting for this. 24:37.16 Kole Ross You know it's important to say that like you have a map but it is just showing the contours of the canyon that you are in down there. It is not showing your relative position instead. It is just a chart that shows where the walls are. 24:42.70 Dave Yeah. 24:56.92 Kole Ross And then there's a grid that shows you know, like roughly what X and Y coordinates are are there So you know part of the stress of this is keeping a mental map roughly of you know, ah where you are at at any given time. Um and also understanding your speed and not understanding. How. 24:59.23 Dave Yeah. 25:15.93 Kole Ross Big your sub actually is in relation to the space that you are going through. 25:19.38 Gary Now. 25:20.94 Dave Yeah, you've you've got ah a radar that kind of pings when something is near you like if you get close to a wall. It will start beeping faster and faster but like it tells you Yeah, you're near a wall but how near are you who knows you could run into that wall anytime if you take you know if you just. Press that button one second too long you know and because I'm stressed playing this. It is really like I got into some situations where I'm like creeping like a click Click Click You know we're moving up like half an X coordinate at a time. 25:55.98 Dave While something's beeping trying to because there's like some pretty narrow places you have to squeeze through you know. 26:01.38 Kole Ross And just you get into these situations where like okay do I have to do an Austin powers 94 point turn to get out of this um and like how is it that everything around me is pinging that there's a collision about to happen now. 26:07.13 Dave Ah. 26:09.99 Dave Yeah, exactly So I already said this this was stressful for me. It was not the claustrophobia aspect of the game that was stressful for me. It was the lack of information and the fact that I'm so focused. 26:15.68 Gary Yeah, um. 26:29.55 Dave On that one spot on the screen where like the coordinates are that anything that happens whether I crash into a wall or hear something outside. That's scary to me, especially crashing into the wall because it's ah it's a big noise when you're focusing really hard. You know. 26:47.81 Kole Ross Know and you know how much it matters when you crash into a wall. You know any horror game. Ah you know will live and die by how it communicates and artfully exaggerates the stakes of what's going on. You know here that is a that that is a huge you know, kind of lever on which this does succeed because like. 27:05.64 Kole Ross You know you have you have a pretty fair amount of like health like you can bounce back from stuff but it sells it audio and visually that like hey this is a really bad you know mess up that you had ah you know yeah, get get getting into this. Yeah. 27:15.23 Dave Boo Interesting I never crashed I never hit anything at less than the speed that would instantly kill me so good to know that that's possible. 27:15.57 Gary Yeah, yeah. 27:23.96 Kole Ross Um, oh yeah I know. 27:24.16 Gary I also didn't yeah yeah I didn't bump into things either. Ah, but once I figured out what was going on. You know I I just played cautiously through through that. Um I think I think Kole is are right when you're not knowing how big your sub is I'm sure it's playing tricks. 27:33.80 Kole Ross Now. 27:33.32 Dave Yeah. 27:42.22 Gary With it. It's actually more generous. You know that than it seems. But yeah had a similar thing. It does want you to focus in on that I think that that's one of the tricks that's doing is making you focus in on that navigation. Ah there and then it's just having you listen to a spooky soundscape. 28:00.34 Gary Like every once in a while. There's an actual you know identifiable sound that is a thing but a lot of it is just the creepy ambiance. Um, it's worth thinking like I like this game a lot. It's worth saying that This is entirely a dread piece. Um, you know you are it is going to live and die on how much. 28:03.10 Dave Yeah. 28:20.16 Gary Joy and emotion you extract from atmosphere because that's that's its trick. You know that's what it's doing um you want to be in the slow burn where you're jumping at sounds and if you can't hear yourself in that mind space like I didn't find this that scary I think part of is it and might have just been you know daylight with a cup of coffee. 28:38.18 Dave Oh yeah. 28:40.30 Gary You know second thing I did in the morning and just been like oh this is fine. You know cool like I would have brought my phone I have the best games I have a jousting game on my phone have a meieval game on my phone I had the best games on my phone I could just hung out in the sub all day and been fine. It just didn't ah didn't affect me like it's something where you do had to bring a little bit of yourself to it. And you do have to play along with it to a degree I think to to get that horror generation. 28:58.23 Dave Um. 28:59.98 Kole Ross Now and. 29:02.94 Dave There is a there is a bit of ah, a cozy feel to the inside of the sub because ah at least I got the impression even though I'm stressed about crashing into walls or like. I Don't know what's going to happen as I'm playing I don't know if something is going to bump the sub or something like that. So you know, despite all of that I kind of did get the sense of security that if I need to just take a second and like. You know, look at the map for a couple like a minute or so and like plot out. Okay I'm going to go here then here then here then here to get around this turn I'll be Fine. You know. 29:37.49 Kole Ross Now Now it's a it. It is a ah puts you in a space where you can choose to make room to like reduce the amount of like tension that you have um, it's going to work audio and visually to try and keep you in that spot. But. 29:54.58 Kole Ross You know it is You can you can exert the will to ah you know pause and reorient right. 29:58.48 Gary Now. 30:00.72 Dave I was I did find myself again like fairly stressed out when moving from spot to spot when I was focused on those coordinates and did you guys play oxenfree. No okay, ah Gary. You remember. 30:11.21 Kole Ross No. 30:13.89 Gary Um I played oxenfree 30:17.34 Dave Tuning the radio in oxenfree and like just kind of waiting till you hit the right frequency that gave me some tension in oxen free because sometimes like bad shit will happen as soon as you hit that frequency and again I'm ah I'm a horror games wimp so that kind of stuff will will really get me. This was like the. 30:19.96 Gary Yeah. 30:34.94 Dave Grown up much more stressful version of that like when you get to the place where you're going to I don't know what's going to happen when you get to the place you need to angle up a a picture to take I don't know what that picture is going to be of I don't know if it's going to be. You know it takes a second for the picture to develop and when it pops up on the screen could be anything there. 30:54.64 Gary It It pops up with a loud noise to yeah, it's it's that that that's the the to me the more successful trick of this game as opposed to the building dread of just moving around is I've taken I know I'm at the place I'm taking a picture. Ah. 30:54.83 Dave So like I backed away. Yeah. 30:56.79 Kole Ross Um, yeah. 31:10.17 Gary I Felt relatively safe inside the sub I would felt like a page turn reveal almost when you would show the picture um to the point to where the most this affected me was hitting the print button and then backing away so I wouldn't be looking at it straight on and then creeping back up at you know to look at it. 31:20.61 Dave Yeah, me too. 31:27.74 Gary And and you know like a lot of the time. It's just some plants. Ah yeah, you know and but it does that in service of when it's not just plants. Okay, ah. 31:29.00 Dave Yeah. 31:34.14 Kole Ross I was ah I was always taking pictures like it. Yeah, like it what it was like no like notty I was using that as extra data you know for like what like what I was you know pointing at um so you know like if I if I thought that right? Yeah I was roughly in a place where like okay. 31:34.19 Dave Yeah, where you okay. Okay. 31:52.35 Kole Ross Do I need to like go right to get around this you know I would actually use that as a navigational aide as well and you can see cool like additional stuff as you as you are doing that. There's no like film limitation or anything and you know on there that would probably be a pretty cool way to do like a challenge run of this if you wanted to. 32:10.94 Kole Ross But yeah I I use that as just another tool. Yeah yeah, well what I love is the fidelity of the camera that you have It's a it's a game boy camera. 32:11.70 Dave Interesting yeah me too. Yeah. 32:11.24 Gary I mean it would be That's the challenge Run I did in that case because I just use the the I only took pictures of the hotspots you know which is the the goal of the game is to hit all the hotspots. 32:26.80 Dave Right? Yeah, which is why I didn't use it as a navigational tool because I took the first picture I was like oh this is like you said a game boy camera So how much help is it really going to be when I'm trying to find my way. 32:41.85 Dave You know through a narrow passage or something like that. 32:43.66 Kole Ross No. 32:45.33 Gary It's have you seen? Ah, they somebody has gone through that that modern Youtube gone and shown the images not through the game boy camera filter which is really interesting as well. Like it's just kind of neat to see the game boy camera filter is a really strong artistic choice I wouldn't trade it. 32:51.00 Kole Ross Now. 32:51.19 Dave No. 33:00.70 Gary But I think it's interesting to see both side by side. No. 33:01.64 Dave Yeah I guess another thing that kind of led to a little bit of tension for me while playing is the fact that like we said you do have a map but the map has like some smudges you can't really zoom in on the map to see like okay is that is that wallet. 33:19.17 Dave X 4 77 venty seven or four eighty you know you can't get that granular level of detail and there were some sections where I wished I could you know because I there are a couple of passages where I crash into the wall multiple times. Luckily there's a pretty friendly autosae. In there and it it never takes you that long to get back to a place where you died but that added just a little bit extra for me of like I and I like a good paper Map. You know in a game like literally your character pulls out a map and looks at it. But that means that. I have again less information than I wish I had you know. 33:55.71 Kole Ross Yeah yep, Ah, the the the the map and their choice to make it ambiguous I think is important to the overall thing as well. 34:00.61 Dave Yeah I mean that the the sub is a real piece of shit. Why would they give you the world's greatest map you know, um another thing that I really like about this is the the sound design which we've talked about a little bit. It's it's not. It's not. 34:06.65 Kole Ross Oh yeah, yeah. 34:20.80 Dave Quiet like the the ocean's not quiet if you're underwater, It's not perfectly quiet I think they they got that down really well. Um, even if you're hearing stuff that is not and doesn't sound immediately threatening there is stuff and I don't I don't know about you all. But I don't want it near my sub. 34:38.85 Gary It's threatening because it's a question Mark you know because you can't see it. You don't know what it is and you also you it's impossible not to bring in context of knowing this is a horror game going into it. You know so you have certain and that's I think that's a candy piece of design. You know I think that's on purpose. Um. 34:47.17 Dave True. Yeah. 34:55.19 Gary You know when you're talking about going through and feeling like something was going to pop into the sub or jump your sub you feel that the whole time in part because of that atmosphere. It's building but in part because of the context you're bringing it and that plays into those sounds as well like you hear these weird you know, groaning metal and and sounds outside the thing that are literally nothing. You know it. It's It's a magic trick but you don't know that you know and until it's not nothing. Yeah now. 35:17.11 Dave Until it's not nothing. 35:19.17 Kole Ross Ah, ah, ah, but um, ah ah tit to the sound design as well. I think that's pretty important for selling the um, how just how shitty the submarine is to because that metal groaning. You know that's pressure. You know you're seeing the you know the like the the the drips coming in. 35:31.90 Dave Um, ah yeah. 35:38.82 Kole Ross Um, and ah just kind of a constant low level reminder if you are susceptible to the claustrophobia of this or just you know if the actual situation brings you a good deal of attention kind of kind of constant low level reminder of how precarious things are for you. 35:56.15 Gary Ah I from context I'm I'm realizing you guys didn't find the big daddy that fixes the up you can find down there. Okay, it's actually this is buzz marketing I'm sorry for the spoiler this is this is a bioshock 3 buzz marketing. There's a big daddy down there. They'll fix your sub. Ah. 35:56.51 Dave Kole how did you sorry. 36:00.00 Kole Ross The no, no yeah. 36:02.78 Dave Ah, no I wasn't taking enough pictures but that's where they are. 36:13.16 Kole Ross Okay, you werere gonna ask me something. 36:13.22 Gary Yeah, and. 36:16.63 Dave Yeah I just going to ask you because ah Gary said that he he was not particularly affected by you know tension or scares in this game while I very much was so where did you fall on that. 36:27.37 Kole Ross This is going to sound like a flex and I really do not mean for it to be that way I I don't I do not get scared by horror games like I Ah I appreciate the I appreciate the spooks on a ah. 36:31.62 Dave If ah. 36:33.86 Dave Okay. 36:41.10 Kole Ross On an intellectual level an aesthetic and and an an aesthetic level. It's been.. It's it's it's kind of rare that something will you know really give me Ah yeah, like and yeah I'm susceptible to jump scarce. You know, sometimes occasionally other times like no sale. This right here. A O is like oh I was more just appreciating the cool stuff that they were doing more than actually feeling a ah you know any any claustrophobia. Ah, as as as it went. So Sorry if that me sounding like way too above it all or whatever. 36:59.61 Dave Mean. 37:09.92 Dave Yeah, now it's all good, especially like if even if you say that if you know the scary stuff doesn't work on you. The fact that you can see what they're doing and why it is still good. You know that's that's the mark of a good horror game right? yeah. 37:26.52 Kole Ross Um, yeah, yeah. 37:28.53 Gary It's different. There's different ways to appreciate. You can appreciate something viscerally and like analytically you know this and we're also me and Kole are definitely the outliers on this game like if you look up things on this game. There's scariest game ever made applets. 37:31.50 Dave The hit. 37:33.77 Kole Ross Um. 37:40.25 Dave Yeah. 37:43.17 Gary Being applied to this. Ah so we are the outsiders on that now. 37:43.79 Kole Ross Um, dumb. 37:48.14 Dave Which is why I was so hesitant to play it for a long time because that's this game's reputation and it it was not that bad. It was not the scariest game I've ever Played. Um partly because it was over in an hour. There was a part that made me scream out loud and go motherfucker out loud. And my wife had to come in and see what was wrong I just playing video games just having Fun. You know? um, but and then every time I crashed into a wall was like a mini jump scare you know because I'm super focused on those coordinates and then suddenly bam you know. 38:06.80 Kole Ross Um, a. 38:08.56 Kole Ross So it. 38:14.85 Kole Ross Now. 38:20.98 Gary You. 38:22.34 Kole Ross Now. 38:22.70 Dave That worked on me too. So Um I Guess the other thing about what's going on when you're playing is that as you might expect with the the premise that you're piloting this you know Artisan submarine down at the bottom of the ocean shit starts to go wrong. As as happens in every sci-fi game set in space ever. Um, did this add any sort of tension for you. All. 38:52.82 Kole Ross There's mechanical tension to it because I had no idea how much I was responsible for the state of things I was trying to like get a glimpse under the hood of like what this information what I was supposed to do with that information other than just you know process it as a you know increase an increase of the pressure. 38:57.51 Dave Here. 39:03.64 Dave Yeah, yeah. 39:10.47 Kole Ross Ah, that was being you know, put put on me in the situation as I as as I went along. Um you know again looking at this as a magistrate. It is a very good bit of misdirection. 39:22.82 Gary Know I basically expect things to get worse in in the games of this nature. You know in general like I was expecting it to just keep getting worse I'm also like though like I enjoy ah most like bleaknesses I don't usually need like a happy ending for thing for this kind of genre fiction. 39:25.80 Dave Yeah. 39:27.55 Kole Ross Um. 39:37.69 Kole Ross No. 39:39.97 Gary You're not like the happy ending obviously but I don't really need hope spots or anything like that so that didn't affect me too much. But again I think I'm the outlier on that. Yeah, or yeah. 39:46.90 Kole Ross Down. 39:49.66 Dave Yeah, um I will say the the 1 time that it really like was working was did did either of you have a fire start in the sub it. It might be you know? ah a planned or designed thing but you know a fire started I actually had to go put out the fire. 39:56.88 Kole Ross Toward the end. Yeah. 39:58.62 Gary Um. 40:07.60 Dave And I kind of wondered like what if I just let this burn am I going to die during this or is the sub going to break open or something like that. But that's probably the biggest example of like oh shit something went wrong I actually have to fix it. 40:15.66 Kole Ross Um. 40:18.57 Kole Ross Now I I put it out because I was always taking pictures and the fire got in between me and the the button to take them. Yeah, you don't want to miss and if you don't want to miss an Insta opportunity. 40:21.19 Gary Um, yeah. 40:26.34 Dave Oh it got in between you and your passion. Yeah yeah, this just won't do yeah. Ah. 40:29.32 Gary Classic shutterbu had to had to do it pecker over here. Yeah yeah Sunday fun day with this dumb blood ocean. Um. 40:42.10 Kole Ross Ah, no coffin please just wet wet blood. 40:45.18 Gary Um, like ironed coffin Please Iron Lung please. 40:46.76 Dave And ah yeah, um, is there anything else about like in the non-s spoiler part of the experience of playing Iron lung that you guys think is noteworthy that we should bring up here. 40:58.85 Kole Ross To that point about needing to put out the fire at that one point to go take the picture I do like that you have to relinquish the controls to you know to? you know to get to go and do that which does feel a little bit like hey if there's anything that I need to respond to. 41:07.76 Dave M. 41:16.92 Kole Ross Um, and you know maybe that is going to be a ah you know something I'm going to regret having done at that particular point I think that is a good decision to make you have to turn away and specifically face away from any information about what you have in order to reveal that. 41:21.17 Dave You know. 41:29.67 Dave If something does happen I'm going to have to run over and press the single button to slowly move away from whatever I'm trying to escape from. 41:32.93 Gary Um. 41:36.37 Gary Um, yeah I don't know that I have anything else that isn't ah spoilerly spoilery and not all that much left either in kind of general you know because it's a pretty simple game which is to its credit again, but it's. 41:38.72 Kole Ross Um, now. 41:48.51 Kole Ross Now. 41:54.47 Gary There's not ah in the best possible way. There's not tons of depths to this. You know there's not too much to talk about which is fine because I again I want shorter games that look worse and and for for you know we're by people are paid more ah, very much. Yeah. 41:56.76 Dave 1 42:05.66 Kole Ross Um. 42:06.14 Dave Yeah, fair enough. So I guess this is a good opportunity to kind of give some quick wrap up thoughts and just answer the question. What type of person. Would you recommend Play Iron lung. 42:08.17 Kole Ross Now. 42:22.44 Gary A good question. It's such a small ask right? like it's an hour and six bucks so ah you know that's ah that's a movie that's that's renting a movie on on ah smart Tv like that's not too much money but ours not too much time I think that if you are interested in atmosphere. 42:25.20 Dave Oh yeah, ah. 42:34.90 Kole Ross Um. 42:39.19 Gary And you're interested in doing a lot with a little in terms of game design I think you'd really like it and I think it's worth it. Ah because it is asking So little of you. 42:43.60 Kole Ross Are. 42:50.39 Kole Ross Now. Ah I would recommend it to folks who maybe have you know it's hard for me not to project. But like if you you want to see something new something actually like really unique and then the horror space. You know, especially like indie horror you know which most most of it is now. Um this that that this is different. There is a huge amount of novelty to this that is not just you know flashlight house walking around and exploring unity assets or you know aping. Um you know Salan Hill kind or resident evil like there's joy to be found in that but like. 43:16.44 Dave Yeah. 43:24.95 Kole Ross This actually is something new under the sun. Um, at least as far as I'm aware and that is really really that kind of novelty is really really attractive. 43:32.55 Dave yeah yeah I agree this like Gary said it's a really small ask of people so it's an easy recommendation unless you're just like I don't want to play horror games then yeah, don't play this obviously but everyone else I mean. 43:48.89 Dave Six bucks it goes on sale for like two bucks from time to time and it's an hour long everyone out there is always asking for shorter games. So here you are here's a shorter game. That's worth your time. Um, yeah, so ah before we get into spoiler stuff. We'll do a little bit of housekeeping once again. 44:08.19 Dave I'll turn it over to you guys to tell people where they can find all the duck feed stuff. 44:13.24 Kole Ross Yeah, all of the shows are listed out at duckfeed.tv and you can go and subscribe to the individual ones. Um, ah you know, just pick your poison like we said at the beginning the most similar show to this would probably be watchhop for fireballs. We have over 400 episodes of that at this point because we've been going for. Ah so so so long we really appreciate if you went over there and took a look ah usual disclaimer is like if you are looking at stuff ah find a game that you know. 44:32.97 Dave Have a. 44:43.28 Kole Ross Not a game that you are especially in love with because we oftentimes we're not ah we we are not exclusively positive. We may. Yes, yeah yeah, yeah, um, so that is the way to you know, kind of kind of see the the the the Breadth of what we do. 44:48.62 Dave Who. 44:48.70 Gary Where you're not cheerleading. That's not the idea behind the show. 45:01.60 Kole Ross And I'll let gary do the Patreon stuff. 45:03.91 Gary Yeah, and if you want to support us and get a bunch of bonus stuff you go to patreon.com/deckfetv we have a bunch of bonus shows on there. So if you like horror stuff. Um, we do a show called them film mobile about horror media. Um, once a month. 45:17.36 Gary That has been going on for a long time started covering lovecraft adaptations and then expanded. Um, we think that's real good and that's you get all of them the way we design our Patreon is you can back port so you give us $5 once if you want to listen all those episodes. Ah at at a time and then de patronize. Ah. 45:35.90 Dave I Think that. 45:36.14 Gary We're helpless to stop you? Oh no, ah you know what? whatever will you do um, feel free that is the design. 45:38.37 Kole Ross Um, know? yeah and and I alluded to those horror game streams I do stream it twitch.tv/duckfeetv if you're interested in watching me, you know, very frequently on weekends. Play games of this kind ofcope. 45:53.81 Dave Yeah yep, recently in air quotes by the time people hear this I would tuned in to watch you play a little bit of amnesia the bunker which is a game that I I like horror games a bit more now but I still I think I'll stick to watching other people stream that game. But it looked cool. Oh hell Yeah, awesome. Look forward to that. Um, again, a big recommendation for everyone to check out whatever shows you know Premise appeals to you with duckfeed they have so many shows that you'll find something. 46:12.89 Kole Ross Now we are covering that on woff and ah yeah I Love that game. It's really good. No. 46:30.58 Dave Ah, watch out for fireballs obviously and again for all the souls fans out there. Bon fireside chat top shelf stuff. You'll find a link down in the show notes for duck feed stuff so you can go click around while I'm talking about myself for the next minute. So. If you would like to support this show. The best thing to do is obviously to tell a friend and leave a rating and review if your platform allows that it's really helpful. We have a lively discord server full of actually weirdly full of iron lung sickos. So if you want to come in and talk about iron lung this week. We would love to have you. If you would like to support monetarily patreon.com/realDaveJackson will get you some bonus content. You can vote on games to appear on the show and stuff like that and I do another show. That's not about video games. It's called a top 3 podcast we do lists which is fun. So. We are going to take a break and when we come back, it is spoiler time for iron lung 48:37.43 Dave All right, We are back and it's time for spoilers for Iron Lung I wanted to kind of continue the discussion about the way that the game creates some unease as as you play and we touched on it. People who are listening really hard probably figured out or heard that we said that a lot of that stuff that causes you to feel pressure when you're playing is fake the fact or least I think it's fake I Think if you just sit in the sub for a while you'll be fine right. 49:10.26 Gary My understanding is is all fake. Ah you are never in danger until the fire or the end of the game and everything else is scripted. Ah. 49:10.30 Kole Ross Yeah, yeah. 49:10.58 Dave Yeah, right? So like you pass a certain point on the map. The blood starts rising from the floor stuff like that. Yeah. 49:22.55 Kole Ross Down. 49:24.84 Gary Yep, there are certain things I don't think it's map based I think it's based on how many checkpoints you've taken pictures of because the finale will always happen at the finale where you can't outsmart it by like going to the other side of the map and taking pictures of the end first. Um, but as far as I know that is. 49:28.79 Kole Ross Now. 49:30.31 Dave Um, yeah, that's true. Yeah. 49:39.33 Kole Ross Um. 49:41.65 Gary Those are the articulation points on which your choices of how you experience the game will change what happens. 49:45.79 Dave Yeah I kind of had a feeling this wouldn't be the type of game where like you're taking too long oops your so your sub exploded try again or something like that you know. 49:45.96 Kole Ross Now. 49:56.94 Gary Yeah, yeah. 49:56.99 Kole Ross Yeah, kind of kind of runs counter to it a little bit like I think that would be a little bit too much. Actually you know, um and keeping the ah the this the the things where. Complete failure and reloading ah are the stakes down to just the navigation and making sure you don't run into stuff I think that is a that that that that is a much better Thing. Ah. 50:16.22 Dave Me. 50:23.18 Kole Ross Ah, yeah, it's a very smart decision because like what do you? What do you do? if you like run out of oxygen and runoff time. Do I start from the beginning again. Do you when you reload a checkpoint does it give you like 20% more oxygen like that would just be like way too much to manage and you can feel like it's a cheat that the oxygen meter doesn't matter. 50:27.00 Dave Right. 50:42.77 Kole Ross But I don't know I've got bad news about video games if you expect it to be if you expect every game to be completely honest with what actually matters and the information that it conveys. Yeah. 50:46.83 Gary Um, it it. 50:51.26 Dave Ah. 50:55.10 Gary There's not a lot of room for interesting fail states when the consequence of your failure is death ah in this scenario when you know it it is something that would just happen to you. Ah, you know, even with the generous checkpointing. It just wouldn't be very interesting. 51:01.54 Dave Yeah. 51:09.57 Kole Ross Now. 51:11.70 Gary So like you can make a game like that I think you could probably design a game where it is about keeping your oxygen level in your fuel and having a certain amount of Hall Stability again. But again like what does that do that Subnaka doesn't you know as ah as parts of somenatka doesn't do ah you know you're given more tools but that is because the game is built around it. 51:18.37 Kole Ross Now now. 51:28.88 Kole Ross Yeah now. 51:30.88 Gary This is a much more akin to a walking sim than anything else like this is a narrative experience. There are levels of interactivity to it but you are walking in a way that obfuscates your senses its tense walking is how your your tank controlling your your sub. Basically. 51:31.81 Dave Yeah. 51:41.66 Dave Yeah, yeah, very awkward walking from place to place. Yeah I was going to say that this because this is all an illusion. It's it's more of a cinematic experience than. 51:41.90 Kole Ross Um, yeah. 51:59.34 Dave Like can you imagine if they were like here's your toolbox you just burst a pipe you have to go fix the pipe and then you took too long fixing the pipe now your Oxygen's running low or like the blood is up to your shoulders or something like that. Yeah. 52:13.22 Kole Ross Yeah. 52:13.44 Gary Or play this mini game like here's a pipe thing play pipe dreams here's ah, here's a fire thing play like do do some be jeweled match three to to put 10 tip but the you know it would be awful like it would it would absolutely be immersion breaking like. 52:17.16 Dave Yeah. 52:24.91 Dave Um. 52:24.92 Kole Ross Ah, yeah. 52:28.20 Gary For this game to work as it does. It is exactly as interactive as it can be and needs to be and you know it would not work So like you do end up having these events as you move through. You have the fire start. You have ah the sounds outside the feeling of things like brushing up against your sub. 52:32.20 Kole Ross Now. 52:45.43 Gary Ah, things like that that are really effective and cool and creepy. Ah it is you don't you didn't do it. You know it was just something that was going to happen to you along the movie along the guided tour. Basically. 52:46.37 Kole Ross Um. 52:46.50 Dave Yeah. Um, right? Yeah, you also have a couple of instances where like I think this is a little like. 52:57.40 Kole Ross Um, yeah. 53:05.31 Dave Concede to help the players out a little bit but where you'll go to like a really far off node to take a picture and when you take a picture it will warp you somewhere else which is helpful again like I don't have to drive my ass all the way back. But also. 53:11.97 Gary E. 53:20.10 Dave What the fuck was that why did I just jump across the map. 53:22.17 Kole Ross Um, now. 53:24.29 Gary Um, and and there's no to any of those like a lot of those questions. There are not answers. You know to them which is part of what you know the other kind of big half of spoiler stuff that's in this is the the visual logs the computer logs you can get and like. 53:27.84 Dave Yeah, yeah. 53:39.69 Gary It's so interesting that so much of it is non-conclusive and just like yeah there are creepy like Cyclopian cities and Monster bones on the bottom of the ocean. Ah, but there's so much sourcebook stuff explaining the current geopolitical climate of the space federation. 53:55.87 Dave Ah. 53:56.23 Gary Thing There's a real weird kind of dichotomy to that like I I largely feel like those logs are kind of subtractive and I got the sense of how bleak and like grotesquely you know, capitalistic The world was purely from the premise. Ah you know there's a part later on where you get. Um. 53:56.40 Kole Ross Um. 54:10.21 Kole Ross Now. 54:15.48 Gary A you find a log and it's somebody finding out like you know when you find the other sub and it's like oh that one was um, you know actually manned by scientist. Yours is a death trap. They don't want you to come back and I'm like no shit like that. There's no, there's never been other running man where they want you to come back. 54:28.47 Kole Ross Um, yeah, now you know. 54:30.33 Dave Yeah, ah. 54:34.45 Gary You know this is this is as old as time this this trope you know I would rather have just been allowed to feel that as opposed to being told it and they do half of that perfectly. We don't know exactly what the blood is. We don't know what lives here. We don't know what gets us in the end. 54:45.70 Kole Ross Um, now. 54:52.44 Gary You know any of those things. There's not really answers to them. But if you want to know you know what? what? the you did what how they pick choose time like what how they chose a nude calendar. Ah, there's multituddeness. You know there's a hole in carta on the sub for it. 54:52.86 Kole Ross No. 54:59.47 Dave Um, yeah. 55:05.70 Kole Ross Now I almost feel like the note that you find on the floor of the sub back by via log is a little bit too much like it's a good line This is like hey this isn't an expedition. This is an execution you know like just ok but that they want to kill you. They don't want you around. 55:16.61 Gary In. 55:18.83 Dave Um. 55:23.39 Kole Ross If they get useful data out of it then yatsi you know, but like I don't know again, It's not stuff that is not inherent in the you know and and and the premise that you get in and the opening and and the opening This is such a spare product and there have been so many meaningful cuts that I just want there to be more. 55:24.41 Gary Yeah, yeah. 55:40.16 Dave The. 55:40.60 Gary Is it. Ah, it also kind of underlines a little bit of silliness like this can't be the cheapest way to execute somebody no matter how crapp this stuff is like if you if you told you could just put it in the ocean like they don't even eat sub. You know know. 55:42.91 Kole Ross Ah. 55:45.46 Kole Ross No, no, no yeah yeah, yeah there there I mean you stab a guy like you know you don't have to send them to the blood like you they've they've got the blood right in them. 55:45.69 Dave Yeah, no, you're in space. You could just throw them out the window. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. 56:00.54 Gary They they're full of it. Yeah I got carry on blood with me all the time I Yeah don't have to chuck my blood when I go places I Just you know in the idea like well we're going to build a sub because the off chance they'll get some pictures and we can recover it is just a little like a little bit strange like I I. 56:02.19 Dave Um, yeah, ah. 56:03.67 Kole Ross Yeah I. 56:14.23 Kole Ross No no. 56:19.75 Gary Not looking for realism in this future sci-fi thing. But I think that by adding all of that realism to the lore stuff they encourage that kind of thinking like if this is a society that has thought so much about all of these different things and there are geopolitical kind of Wars being waged between these different moon colonies and everything Then why are they doing this. 56:36.16 Dave Mean. 56:39.53 Gary Very sci-fi almost like allegory like idea you know on top of it. 56:42.39 Dave M. 56:44.36 Kole Ross Now it's It's the the the overall law feels a little hat on a hat I shouldn't make this comparison because we're out of the ah we we're not on our show where it is a simpsons reference safe space but we make this you know I've I've used this comparison quite a bit. 56:56.42 Dave Separate fifth. 57:01.29 Kole Ross You know it is the you know this is not a snowman this is a man made out of snow when you know when Mr but when Mr Burns is going crazy in the and and the cabin after an avalanche right? and like oh just see describes you know like ah yes, we have got all these feet of intestine and any all these bones or whatever and then it. 57:03.77 Gary Yes. 57:17.99 Kole Ross The camera cuts and reveals. He just made a snowman like Homer did right? So that's a lot of it if it feels like they're just trying to give all this preamble for this stuff that is not connected to anything. It's a lot of it's a lot of ah effort that went end answering questions that I don't really have. 57:20.20 Gary A. 57:21.92 Dave Um. 57:34.51 Dave Yeah I I didn't dig in I watched a little bit of market pliers. Let's play earlier today to see a little bit of those computer logs and I was like yeah I don't think I missed it when I was playing I I went back to the computer I typed a couple of like. 57:37.10 Kole Ross Yeah. 57:53.33 Dave Words in there and the computer is like I don't know what that is sorry you get nothing and I don't have you know old timey Adventure game brain. So I was like okay, fair enough I'm going back to the controls. 57:56.18 Gary In. 57:56.43 Kole Ross Um, you know. 58:02.72 Kole Ross I fired it up and typed help and then it said query not understood and I was like this is bullshit. Yeah. 58:03.40 Gary Um, yeah. 58:08.63 Gary Yeah, yeah, this is at a computer. Yeah. 58:09.70 Dave Um, ah, um, kind of along those. Ah the mystery. There's the things that you're taking pictures of again with the fidelity of the game Boy Camera. Um. This is ah a part where I think they did leave a lot like to the imagination in a really helpful way like I put a couple of the pictures in my my notes stock here and they are just like what if this was a bad picture of a squid or like an up close of half of a spider crab or something like that. Just enough to give you the sense that there's weird shit out there but nothing more that which is great I think. 58:47.90 Gary E. 58:51.28 Kole Ross Now the the the ah the things that work for me are when you run up and start finding the anomalies that are clearly constructed right? You know. 59:00.17 Dave Yeah. 59:02.97 Kole Ross Um, and you know they the the archways or the monuments or you know what have you that is more interesting to me than like this is the remains of you know, a very large creature that could be out hunting you ah you know and get from taking pictures of stuff as you're trying to navigate you know, like the coolest moment to me. 59:05.24 Dave Man. 59:12.50 Dave Yeah. 59:22.47 Kole Ross Was when you were working your way towards the north part of the map and you had to pass through like a very narrow. What what seemed to be just another very narrow channel in the Canyon and if you take pictures you can see like there's a gateway like this is Acyclopian City that something out there had built and you know the thing for me was like. 59:32.76 Dave Um, yeah. 59:40.41 Kole Ross This felt a little bit less like an expedition to you know, find resources or whatever but more dislike to maybe find something that could possibly answer you know or something that might be related to why these quiet rapture happened and you know. Why this didn't go away in that. Yeah. 59:58.99 Gary Yeah, yeah, and and once for me at least like once I saw that was what was happening like oh there's ancient cities on the bottom of the ocean like that that Shorthand kind of did you know a lot of work for me like I've read a lot and played a lot of media that that deals with that. 01:00:08.28 Kole Ross Now. But yeah. 01:00:13.69 Dave Yeah. 01:00:18.40 Gary Um, it kind of put a little bit of a bounding box for me and that's through no fault of the game like everyone has to be exposed to their tropes for the first time you know, ah by something for me I was like oh it's really a ah you know oh you know we we're doing day gone. It's it's it's stay gone. Okay, we're day gone. 01:00:24.90 Kole Ross No. Um, yeah, yeah. 01:00:38.70 Gary You know, um. 01:00:39.13 Dave Yeah, just just seeing that picture kind of gave me that same feeling like oh there's you know manmade or someone made this down here I don't need any more details That's good enough I'm yeah yeah, it. It's additive at that like very basic level I think um. 01:00:48.38 Gary Um, yeah. 01:00:50.19 Kole Ross Dip cool and. 01:00:57.90 Dave Kole. Did you find anything else cool with the camera. 01:00:57.83 Kole Ross That was the big one that ah that that ah, um, passage that you found there that was like the big you like Eureka moment from it. Ah, most of the other stuff that I found like I I know that there are very particular things that you can see you can catch like glimpses of the thing that is kind of harassing you. You know, swimming around you I didn't necessarily catch any of those. Um it was more just ah, kind of using it again seeing walls seeing proximity. You know, ah discerning what I could from the extremely deaded images. Yeah. 01:01:16.46 Dave Um, yeah. 01:01:28.70 Gary Yeah, it it makes it very the control scheme specifically makes that kind of a pain in the ass to hunt for stuff in a way that I think is additive. You know like if you were going to try to get make a complete map or draw a version of this you spend so much time faring between you know. 01:01:29.82 Dave Gotcha. 01:01:37.10 Kole Ross Down. Are. 01:01:47.92 Gary Moving by literal degrees and taking pictures that it would just I think that it doesn't want you to. It's discouraging that I'm not saying like you know your exploratory stuff. Coal was bad I'm saying that like actually trying to be completionist about it and see everything is fairly contrary to the spirit of what it wants you to do. 01:01:49.89 Kole Ross No yeah. 01:02:02.44 Kole Ross No I wasn't even like going out of my way and especially being exploratory. This was just a way to get any more information about the situation and trying to orient myself. Um, like I I am happy that those other things that you can find exist. 01:02:12.99 Gary M. 01:02:13.13 Dave Mean. 01:02:20.80 Kole Ross Not because I feel any compulsion or I have can even imagine the person who would have a compulsion to fight and go and explore everything and see it. But it's just like it increases the chances that you're going to find something really cool by accidents. Um and like that particular moment I think is you know, valuable enough to put that stuff out there. 01:02:36.40 Gary Yeah, yeah, it feels like there should be more hidden stuff under there. You know it's got that sense to it even though from like looking around it doesn't seem like there's that much more you know it'd be. It'd be a real fun and cheeky thing for him to for Dave to do to? ah. 01:02:37.53 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:02:38.76 Kole Ross Now. Down. 01:02:55.54 Gary Just to add something you know, ah down there part way through like you know? Yeah yeah, you know did yeah like a language or something say like that. Yeah. 01:02:55.95 Kole Ross You know? Oh yeah, yeah. 01:02:58.20 Dave Ah, just ah, a little tiny Update here's a temple or something like that. Yeah yeah. 01:03:04.52 Kole Ross Have it shift around. Yeah, just ah, all you need is just a few glyphs right? like this is something now. 01:03:11.73 Dave Yeah, yeah, Um, so I guess building up to the ending here. Um, there is a cool thing leading up to the ending where your radar has been really really reliable for a while Now. At at least telling you where the walls are and then if you turn away from the wall. The little blip disappears so you can trust it until suddenly you can't trust the radar because there's something right in front of you all the time now. I Wonder what you guys thought? did you think the radar is busted. 01:03:33.65 Kole Ross Now. 01:03:40.99 Gary You know. 01:03:48.63 Dave Or did you think there's something in front of the sub. 01:03:51.94 Kole Ross Or now. 01:03:53.99 Gary Ah I thought that there was anomalous stuff going on I tied it into the teleport thing that happens to you as well. Ah, something you know, whatever other worldly force that is happening here is fucking with my instruments. 01:03:55.61 Dave You know. 01:04:08.93 Dave That's what I thought. Yeah. 01:04:10.75 Kole Ross It's it's I am satisfied with any explanation actually like it just kind of underlines. The absurdity of it like it kind of doesn't matter what it is practically for you as the as as the player you know it means that's you know this thing that you were relying on is now. 01:04:12.92 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:04:26.97 Kole Ross You know, just it is not giving you operative information. There's literally nothing you can do about it. Yeah. 01:04:32.69 Dave Yeah, yeah I agree I don't need to know the answer. But um, the fact that it could be multiple things like plausibly multiple things is cool. 01:04:41.50 Kole Ross Um, now. 01:04:42.26 Dave Ah, and the fact that that thing is always fucking beeping for like the last fifteen minutes of the game added a little bit of tension for me personally. So I guess we're we're up to the ending now and gary almost spoiled this in the elevator pitch earlier. 01:04:45.83 Gary 8 01:04:48.30 Kole Ross Yeah. 01:05:00.33 Dave Ah, we have in my baby horror game game or opinion one of the best jump scares I've ever experienced. Yeah. 01:05:06.52 Gary Yeah, it's really good. 01:05:07.54 Kole Ross It's so good I love it so much people hate it. They're like this is incredibly polarizing. Um, yeah, yeah, no like ah like ah ah Dave had gone. You know like done like polls like hey like what do you? what? you on Twitter are like what do you think of. 01:05:14.51 Dave Um, what? ah. 01:05:24.23 Kole Ross You know the end day like was it too sudden like was it too much or whatever and it was. It was very polarized and I was like how did you expect it to end. Yeah, like what what should stand in its place. Yeah. 01:05:33.21 Gary Or what else would also work. You know if this if this isn't It has the cadence of a joke almost like that. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's It's the the game. It's like a shaggy dog story like. 01:05:34.91 Dave Um, yeah. 01:05:41.58 Dave I. 01:05:42.75 Kole Ross And oh I love it exactly precisely I I laughed out loud when it happened? Yeah yeah. 01:05:50.66 Gary The game is tricking you along this entire time building up this tension to just literally surprise you It is the the most most well- earned jump scare in a game. Ah. 01:05:54.84 Kole Ross Oh yeah, yeah, it's I mean I just say it's it just like literally like you know it's like it's like a screamer video right? It's a screamer video in game form. It spends the you know this ah this hour and a half this hour getting you to lean further and further in and then. 01:05:59.40 Dave Yeah. 01:06:04.76 Gary Yeah. 01:06:13.30 Gary Yeah, like the commitments you know to the bit is just really wild. You know that does it. It's it's the only yeah taking a picture of the eye also functions as such. There are a lot of little miniature jump scares but you can play this game in a way where this is the first sudden shock you get. 01:06:14.80 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:06:14.99 Kole Ross Flats you back? Yeah yeah. 01:06:21.69 Dave You know. 01:06:28.85 Dave Yeah, if you don't hit a wall. This might be the first big thing. Yeah. 01:06:31.22 Gary And then yeah I love that idea and the confidence of a dread piece until it's not and then fuck you credits you know the speed of it in the edit of it is very important to you I think. 01:06:31.30 Kole Ross Um. 01:06:33.49 Kole Ross Now. 01:06:44.82 Dave Yeah. 01:06:46.62 Kole Ross Yeah, and like what what you see to like it's very quick but like this thing just takes a he takes a chop. He takes a bite right? This big fish that ah that that that decides to ah to end you. 01:06:51.37 Gary You know. 01:06:57.85 Kole Ross And again underlining that absurdity which I think is just one of the biggest you know assets that this has they could have decided to do that whenever I wanted to right? There was nothing. You could do about this. You know the game was right from the start right? yeah. 01:07:03.38 Dave Right. 01:07:08.23 Gary Yeah. 01:07:10.32 Dave Right? But the the timing of it. The fact that for me personally I had a hard time getting to the last note I died a couple of times my radar is going fucking crazy the the floor is full of blood. Um I finally get there and I'm like. And line it up perfectly and it's it doesn't wait to press the button. The timing is so fucking good like you take 1 step and bam. 01:07:30.19 Kole Ross Nope. Ah. 01:07:31.20 Gary Um, yeah, yeah, it's ensuring that you're facing it because it knows what you're going to be doing you know? Yeah, ah. 01:07:36.97 Kole Ross And I love it I Just have I was just get to say I love it. That's say it is one of the best punchlines and games. 01:07:39.70 Dave Yeah, it's good and cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good to hear that from ah from people who play tons of horror games and you you both of you said that you know. This game and a lot of other games. Don't scare you very much because I'm like super susceptible to jump scares. But I'm learning the difference between good ones and bad ones little peak behind the curtain next week or not next week two weeks from now on the show I think is dead space we're doing next week yeah 01:08:04.23 Kole Ross You know. 01:08:15.84 Dave And I didn't think that dead space was very scary because I don't think they do jump gears well at all besides the first one you know because it's the same thing over and over and over again. The fact that this game. 01:08:16.60 Gary Um. 01:08:26.89 Kole Ross Um. 01:08:28.60 Dave Had a bunch of little mini scares along the way with me crashing into walls and stuff like that and then this big fuck you jump scare at the end was just yeah, excellent. 01:08:36.35 Kole Ross Now. Yeah yeah. 01:08:36.37 Gary Know it's a to me like good jump scares are ones you laugh at ah like if you laugh afterwards that's good if you literally think I'll fuck you afterwards I Yeah I usually don't like it that much you know I I want to be I want to be kind of courted with them. 01:08:40.62 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:08:46.26 Dave I mean. 01:08:54.23 Kole Ross Yeah, yeah, it. 01:08:56.31 Gary You know I want to be teased. Ah, you know with them and and it's just it's bad ones are when you know they're like screamer videos. Ah where it's just there's no buildup and just like I thought I was going to see a cat and said it's a guy named mass screaming oh jokes on me, you lied. Yeah, you know. 01:09:09.13 Kole Ross Are. 01:09:14.27 Dave Um, yeah, and yeah. 01:09:16.30 Gary But a clever ruse you lied. Um, you know, got me ah that kind of shit sucks. The thing The reason why this one is so good is because there's so much work arguably the entirety of the game is in work of courting you for this one moment. 01:09:25.83 Dave Um, yeah. 01:09:28.17 Kole Ross Um, now and it's and it's also the last thing right? like when you get a jump scare you know and jump scares are called Chiefs because it are called cheap just because it is a physiological reaction. 01:09:31.14 Gary Ah, you know and that's that's just a beautiful thing to have happen. Yes. 01:09:35.30 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:09:44.86 Kole Ross Sudden New Stimulus you're going to have a reflexive you know, kind of response to it right? Um, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't use them but when you run into a jump scare in a horror game. It's like it suddenly puts you on edge and not like good on edge. But it's like okay this is something that it sees fit to deploy. 01:09:45.68 Dave Right. 01:10:01.38 Kole Ross Maybe for no reason at all just because something interesting hasn't happened for a while. The fact that it is the last thing that happens and leaves you with that impression I think is such a good use. It's probably like the ideal use for that kind of for that kind of scare. 01:10:04.20 Dave No, my. 01:10:12.20 Dave Yeah, yeah, the the player might inadvertently jump scare themselves along the way but you've got one really really good one and like you said basically the whole game is just leading up to this because there's. 01:10:16.40 Gary Um, yeah. 01:10:26.47 Kole Ross Yeah. 01:10:30.63 Dave Unless you get scared by things kind of bumping up against the side of the sub. There's nothing else that's designed to really scare the shit out of you like that and this was one of those like I said before the spoiler break. This is the moment where I was like ah motherfucker and then like afterwards I was like all right that was that was good. Mr. Zaansky. 01:10:33.82 Kole Ross Um. 01:10:36.38 Kole Ross Now. 01:10:42.38 Gary New new. 01:10:45.22 Kole Ross Yeah, gary when when when when when we were talking about the elevator pitches. You said that your initial one was um, spoilery. 01:10:50.90 Dave Third. 01:10:54.39 Gary Oh it is It was basically ah the best built up jump scare in games I think it was ah which is my actual spoilery elevator pitch for it. Um, it's not you know there are other elevator pitch or other ah jump scares I Love there are like a great many games I like more than this. 01:11:03.67 Dave Um, yeah. 01:11:13.38 Gary But in terms of that singular unit of buildup and payoff for the singular unit of jump scare I think this maxes out the meters. 01:11:19.91 Dave Yeah, even as someone who I mean this one was really good I don't I still I don't say that I enjoy even a good jump scare very often. This one was so good that I was like yeah I hats off this was great. 01:11:36.54 Gary It's not the kind of thing you can be like I'm looking for good jump scares. How can I What has some good jump scares in it because it's It's very subjective and it's also a thing where I you know some ways like I like them or I hate jump scares it depends so much on execution. 01:11:40.28 Dave Yeah. 01:11:53.18 Gary Like I'm always kind of surprised by that that attitude of just enjoying or disliking them. You know and I've seen it go both ways. Yeah yeah, and that you know that that could be like like Mario Ragtime anything could happen jazz or like you know Ben folds farting into and eighty eight keys. 01:11:54.18 Dave M. 01:12:01.44 Dave Um, yeah. 01:12:11.95 Gary About abortions. Unlike whatever like that could be anything. It's ah it's very general. You know it's a tool like you You don't like ah cheese because you don't obviously don't want to ah you don't just like cheese in general because you don't want a slice of a craft on your ice cream. You know. 01:12:15.86 Dave Um, yeah. 01:12:29.42 Gary Like cheese when it's properly deployed and it's part of a composition. 01:12:30.85 Dave Yeah, the the other thing with this this final scare is that I knew it was coming like I had read that there was a jump scare at the end of the game because me being the the newbie to horror games that I am I go on Reddit and I type how scary is iron lung. 01:12:38.32 Gary Oh m. 01:12:50.37 Dave And then I read what people say and some people were like it's actually not bad except there's a jump scare at the end and even knowing that it was coming the fact that it was still as unexpected as it was you know set up perfectly with this timing that I didn't expect still got me really Good. So. Even with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really great. Um, after that happens you get another text screen that that tells you. What's going on after your sub explodes so they say the expedition ultimately raised more questions than answers. Yeah, satellite images showed pieces of the Sm 13 scattered all over the bottom of the trench as though it had been torn apart by some huge beast. The wreckage cannot be. Reached at this time. No photographs have been recovered the stars Shine pale as Bones. The moon is a lifeless corpse. Its ocean a gaping wound the Universe. What's left of it is dying but somewhere in the void. There must be hope like I don't know what that means like what. 01:13:58.50 Gary I What are you based on that on them. Yeah source. Well. 01:14:01.35 Dave Where is the hope in this scenario. Um, yeah. 01:14:11.41 Dave Yeah. 01:14:16.87 Gary Yeah I I would again I would have liked more minimalism for this. It makes me wonder you know earlier when we were talking about the narrative stuff being added to this feeling like a solution to a problem that didn't exist I half wonder I and I should probably just ask ah the crater. But I half wonder if it's the opposite I half wonder if it's a world and story bible stuff that came first and then decided to throw it in like it wasn't you know they had the idea for this world. You know this this vision of being on a sub in an ocean of blood and then eventually said no no, we don't have to make it a narrative thing. Let's tear it. Ah, you know pair it back pair it back but we have all this stuff. So let's throw this in there. You know I wonder if it was that as opposed to answering our literal question. 01:14:54.20 Dave Um, yeah. 01:15:04.81 Gary Yes, yeah I just because it really reads like a story bible stuff and this reads like the back copy of a ttrpg. 01:15:05.54 Dave Right? yeah. 01:15:11.97 Dave Yeah. 01:15:21.13 Gary Like this literally is like the pitch on an in like a 6 page a you know it I o tabletop roleplaying game. Um, now. 01:15:30.16 Dave Yeah, this especially the stuff you read in the computer gave me the feeling of like it's something I.