@@SavageGreywolf Yeah, but Daedalic getting the contract for a big name IP stealth action-adventure game would be like Sierra getting contracted to make an Assassin's Creed game. Bit out of their wheelhouse, though I understand while they jumped at the opportunity.
The thing is, the original idea and intention for the game genuinely was for it to be a classic point-and-click adventure game, but with modern graphics. For reasons beyond human comprehension, some git in management decided near the very very end of the development cycle that it should instead be a stealth rpg action adventure game, and to not delay the release of the game to accommodate such drastic changes to the game. The result of such a dramatic genre shift so incredibly late in development with zero shifting of the deadline was… predictable to say the least. It's a broken game for a very, very good reason.
Actually, poisoning the guy doesn't get Halligan suspended; that happens after Halligan gets reported for breaking into some old guy's estate. (Said old guy is the villain, but the point still stands.) And bizarrely, the game's deuteragonist-someone who isn't a member of Scotland Yard and is a mere civilian-gets tasked with being the messenger on behalf of Halligan's boss.
If I recall correctly, a halligan is a crowbar-like tool used by firefighters to violently break through doors. Someone thought they were being clever there.
The homeless man is never seen onscreen again so there is no confirmation that he actually did survive. We just have to take the writers word and not question that he is gone
@@strawbellebelle Oh yeah, that's right. Poisoning the homeless man only gets Halligan's boss to threaten him with having to wash the police cars. And not, you know, attempted murder.
On Mystery of the Druids, and the homeless guy: he actually doesn't die, in fact, he ends up telling the police about the man who introduced himself as Detective Halligan and poisoned him so he could rob him. Halligan faces zero consequences for this. This is then followed by a puzzle where Halligan's boss demands he investigate the case, but refuses to let Halligan use Scotland Yard's database to investigate the case. So Halligan has to trick his boss into signing a database access form via having him sign a request for stationary (apparently Halligan keeps breaking his pencil sharpeners too) with the database request beneath a sheet of carbon paper beneath the stationary request. But the carbon paper is too big, so Halligan has to cut it to the size of the sheets of paper. The only cutting tool in Scotland Yard belongs to Lowry (Halligan's floating colleague, who hates him, because Halligan is Halligan), who refuses to lend his scissors to Halligan because Halligan will inevitably lose or break them. So Halligan has to use his office phone to call Lowry's phone and then play back a message from their boss (demanding Halligan report to his office) so Lowry thinks he's being summoned by the boss. Halligan then uses this opportunity to steal Lowry's scissors to complete the puzzle solution. And in case you're wondering: a later puzzle results in Halligan breaking Lowry's scissors when he uses them to finish cutting an opening in an electric fence. (He started the job using a pair of garden shears, which he stole from a gardener who ran away in panic after Halligan set fire to a shrub, for no reason other than stealing the garden shears. The garden shears are later used in a puzzle that is both even more sadistic than the stuff with the homeless guy, and yet one of the most logical puzzles in the game.)
Also, the phone call that you make with the change in the attached puzzle is to the building that's RIGHT NEXT to the phone box. And yea, the sadistic final puzzle is to get the main villain to swear a Druidic oath that you and your partner won't come to any harm as a result of his plan.. and then RUN YOUR PARTNER THROUGH WITH THE SHEARS.
@@PunctualGuy_ I just preferred the fact that Halligan spends the entire second half of the game carrying (in his pocket, apparently) a fishing rod with a bucket full of raw sea salt on the end.
Said garden shears "puzzle" is one of the very last puzzles you do in the game, too. Followed by a final puzzle that requires an item that you thought was a red herring. (but you literally can't miss, so it's not a "SCREW YOURSELF AND NOT KNOW IT" puzzle) I'm being vague, since those puzzles happen at the very climax of the game, and I don't want to spoil the ending for people who actually want to play through it. Or, at the very least, go into MandaloreGaming's video without knowing how it ends, because it's a rollercoaster.
The other irony is that on sadistic puzzles he left out the one he played on stream, in Mudlarks where your character needs to escape from a quarantine tent containing people who are mostly immobile in bed, and, you know, in QUARANTINE. The solution? Yank some electrical cables to reveal the gangbar and toss a glass of water onto it to SET FIRE TO THE FREAKING TENT.
The audience reaction when he changes the slide to the homeless beggar in _Mystery of the Druids_ is one of the most appropriate reactions I've ever heard
The Elastic Band in Operation Stealth is even worse than what's mentioned in the video. It's on a screen where you have to go the wrong way, and the item doesn't do anything when you hover over it with the mouse (like every other item in the game does). You need to examine the seaweed, then move not-Bond close to that, and click on one of the few pixels of what makes the rubber band (if you miss, you'll get the "there's something odd with the seaweed" message).
@@rolfs2165 Not so much hatred as it was a mixture of incompetence and insecurity. Due to technological limitations, these games were incredibly short and could be completed in an hour or two if you knew the solutions to the puzzles and got lucky, so they'd pad them out with frustrating and obtuse mechanics to delay you for as long as possible to create the illusion of length. Some companies, especially Sierra, did this so you'd call their obscenely charged pay per minute Sierra Hint line to squeeze more money out of you.
Fun things to know about Hopkins FBI; Hopkins gets shot during the early hours of the game and dies. He wakes up in purgatory (which looks like a sci-fi airport terminal). Hopkins finds a machine that'll send him back to earth, and has to dress up at a woman to distract a guard. This machine ends up being part of the plot. They licensed music from 60s bands The Troggs, Blue Magoos and Rare Earth. Near the end of the game you suddenly get put into a first person shooter segment while in the bad guy's secret tropical underwater villain lair. I would highly recommend the Retsupurae playthrough. Also, MandaloreGaming's video on The Mystery of The Druids for a deep dive into the craziness there.
There's so much else about Hopkins FBI to complain about, but one thing that always croggled my pyramid was seeing a description saying "Bernie Berckson, an infamous serial killer and terrorist who has killed some 50,000 people with nuclear bombs..." ...He's used MULTIPLE nuclear bombs and has kept the death count below a hundred thousand? He must have been TRYING to keep casualties low, right? And that's not very serial killer of him! But that goes by the wayside next to all the other things to complain about, when it comes to Hopkins FBI.
Another puzzle in Mystery of the Druids is a soft-lock one. You have to get some salt from a screen you arrive to in a new chapter. If you leave that screen before getting the salt, you have soft-locked yourself. Getting the salt involves trapping a ship's captain best friend, a cat, and then (figuratively) throwing it on a fisherman so you can steal his most prized possession, his fishing rod. All so you can get some salt. In a port city. In the middle of the day. Instead of asking the captain or anyone else to borrow some salt.
Halligan does not murder the homeless man, it's actually better. he files a complaint with scotland yard because you gave him your name and title and the police chief reprimands you (but doesn't take you off the case yet) you can return to the homeless man and speak to him, where he gets mad he almost died and you respond by bragging how good your cocktail was. I think the part where you frame a man for stealing a library book so the police take him away so you can use the computer is a little better, as well as the ending which is so amazing and requires so much context i don't want to spoil it. Also the puzzle itself is getting the woman on the phone to actually speak with you, which requires calling her by her name. This is a thing that happens more than once in the game. Retsupurae and Mandalorian both have pretty good videos on them (mando is the summary, retsu is a riff on a full playthrough)
Dude he talked like three times. Sorry your only interactions with people are through a screen but it really is nice to say words to people with your face
@@houseofcrazyman865 Yeah no, he was constantly making comments even when they weren't acknowledged - and besides, this is a presentation, not a round table or sit down chat. You're not really supposed to be interacting directly during a presentation unless prompted by the presenter (like when Stuart asked the audience to guess).
To be fair to the Mystery of the Druids: it goes far to justify that puzzle by establishing how much of a failure as a human Halligan is. Nobody lends him phone money because he owes debts to every single coworker bar one, who actually owes him, but is on vacation
Great talk, I do hate the people in the crowd who feel like we're all here to hear their remarks throughout but that's always a trouble with these. Fun talk!
This is why, for example, Linkara prefaces his live presentations with something along the lines of "you're welcome to shout things out but this is going on the internet so if you say something dumb, unfunny or annoying, you're saying it in front of thousands of people" Not that I think a disclaimer like that would have done anything about the guy is this video though...
@@Jayfive276 yeah it's a small thing but it does irk me for some reason! Ashens always handles it well but you'd think the fact it's called a "Talk" and not a "Conversation" would be enough of a hint that 3rd row Steve doesn't need to exclaim "WOW" or "OH MY GOD NO WAY" every 3 seconds but here we are! It's one of the main reasons I could never go to a digitiser or cheap show live event, love the show, love the comedy but I'd be sat there with a face on me waiting for the crowd to stfu 😅
I don't want to be too harsh on them but there is a sense like they feel Ashens is talking specifically to them. It's a small crowd so maybe they thought they could interject more and Stuart kinda plays into that.
@@ZealotOfSteal Agree, I have gone to some small conventions and this is normal. They are letting Ashens talk more than they are, in a good ratio. It's also not his first talk at this specific festival and if it bothered him I think he'd preface that. Honestly, he is a very nice presenter. he specifically picked kids (who seemed very excited) in his "Terrible old games you've probably never heard of" talk to come up and play; must have made their day.
About a month ago I found a whole roll of tenners on the ground outside Ardrossan ferry terminal in Scotland. I handed them in. A few days later I was rewarded for my good deed by catching that disease that we can't mention on RUclips.
One thing not mentioned about the Mystery of the Druids entry - Halligan's office is in Scotland Yard in London. The phone box is in Oxford. Every time you travel back and forth between the office and the phone box, you need to drive from London to Oxford! Are there no phone boxes in London!?
And STILL nobody has solved Hareraiser. Even the person who purchased the golden hare from the crook who conned it from the original puzzle master wasn't given any kind of 'solution'.
Ah, just in time for another new Ashens lecture-form video. Incidentally, Dark Side of the Moon Logic was the title of a classmate's presentation on programming in college. He got a 76%. Still a better score than Gollum.
@@Jamhatproductions I think that guy was there for one of the other talks too because I remember this being a thing before, though to be totally honest it would feel kind of rude telling him to shutup, I wouldn't feel good about it, mainly because I suspect he might be.... I honestly can't think of a nice way to put it, so I just wont. The odd thing thrown in is funny though, like how the guy on the first front cover reminded me of a certain disgraced 1970's radio DJ. Plus the guesses for the puzzle things were some funny ideas, but talking over people is a bit much.
@@LyingSecret you can say Autistic if you want, I sort of guessed that. Honestly yeah if I were there I wouldn't of said anything but god is it frustrating when you're trying to listen.
i can assure you that this isnt a spectrum thing. years of attending uni shown that a _lot_ of people have a lot of things to say and dont mind bringing lectures to a grinding halt just to say what they think about what they heard please dont try to associate _other peoples_ unwanted behaviors to medical diagnostics
I like that you didn't even pick the most batshit puzzle from Druids. My personal favorite is when you throw magic salt on a building to make it explode into ruins.
Great presentation, as always! I wasn't aware Daedalic had stopped producing games though, so that was a bit of a shock, but I appreciate the edits (Bruce Force gave me a laugh).
When Mystery of the Druids came up I couldn’t decide whether it would be the phone puzzle or the ever elusive salt puzzle. Still great choice. Thank you for spreading awareness of Detective Halligan’s wild ride.
Billy and The Magic Rat sounds like it would've made for a great Humongous Entertainment Point and Click Adventure Series. You play as Camden, New Jersey Child "And Wizard in Training" Billy Gabagol and His Pet, an Enchanted Norwegian Brown Rat Named Squeekers. As they go on wacky, wizard adventures and learn a thing or 2 about friendship, life, and 5th Grade Level School Subjects.
There's always one guy in the audience who thinks that everyone else in attendance wants to listen to what they have to say. In reality, everyone, including the person giving the talk, just want them to shut up.
predictions before I watch the video: - the accursed goat - cat hair moustache to impersonate a man who doesn't have a moustache - murdering a homeless man to steal his change
Guessing on a Gabriel Knight 3 puzzle being talked about here is too easy of a prediction. Only just started on the video but my money is also on GK3. Edit: No Sierra Games, and a specific shout out for no for goat and moustache puzzles? Booo!
I love Ashens talks. They’re always topics that on the face of it I wouldn’t really care about, but he always makes it so interesting I sit through the whole thing
As for the pure ethanol, it’s not poison (any more than ordinary booze is, of course; the dose maketh the poison, after all) - it’s exactly the same alcohol as in booze. Adding four parts 100% ethanol to six parts apple juice, if we were to speculate about the proportions in the puzzle, would just make apple juice with 40% ABV.
Industrial ethanol has other stuff added or left in due to lower standards as it's not intended for human consumption. You don't know how much methanol and the like is in there, although you can drink meths I really wouldn't recommend it. The closest you'll get for human consumption is grain alcohol at 95% and I wouldn't recommend drinking that either after having it forced down me in Russia
@@JSmith19858 Yes, but when it’s specified as 100% ethanol, we can’t make the assumption that it’s industrial ethanol with its safety additives and things. And particularly with lab-grade ingredients, it’s important that the contents match the label - if there’s methanol in it, it’d be in negligible quantities.
@@JSmith19858 Two key distinctions to note here: “industrial” is not the same as “lab-grade”, and “not an instantly lethal poison” is not the same as a good idea.
I think trying the _Gobliiins_ series as a small child left me permanently primed/scarred by its timing puzzles, the goat in OG _Broken Sword_ was nary a problem for me. Here's a moon logic puzzle from _Fear Effect_ I hate: We have to rotate a dial based on a poem being read aloud (by a little girl with a thick Chinese accent) combined with some (barely visible and half off screen) scratch marks. Irritating enough, but then you notice the dial has multiple indicators. You see, after each line of the poem the girl rapidly ages, with each age being a numbered indicator around the dial. A few problems: 1) we had no clue her age *could* change, as we don't see that happen until she reads the poem's second line, 2) we have no clue only one indicator is used at a time until the connection between her ages and the numbers on the indicators is made, and 3) she'll repeat the first line until we've blindly guessed* which indicator to turn to correctly. * also, wrong guesses costs us health, and this part of the game is combat-heavy to boot
It is unfortunate because nobody wants to dislike that guy, but it is a near inherent reaction when you've paid to be there and it isn't going to last all day- even as just a viewer at home too. At the end of the day it is considered rude regardless of how cool or nice the guy may be otherwise. Video games attract all kinds of people and personalities and I don't think it is unlikely that personality would reappear for these talks. A decent number of people who enjoy games (enough to go listen to a speech about it lol) are outcasts in some way and really want to connect. He handled it nicely though. He laughed with the guy a bit, but also committed to continuing a sentence even though the guy clearly wanted to say more of whatever he had to say. so maybe there should be a big loud announcement at the beginning to stfu fr. Seems fair.
Huh? I don't even know who you're talking about, every person I heard talk in there I genuinely enjoyed hearing because it really felt like the audience was connecting to what ashens was talking about. Or were you at the event and know more about it? Like, I didn't notice anything rude or unpleasant about anyone from the audience at any point.
Monkey Island 2 crossing the waterfall was the first thing that sprung to mind when I read moon logic (water pump, monkey, piano, metronome, banana etc) 💀 I love ashens talks like this he's such a wholesome guy
Yeah I had to stop watching the cringe was through the roof HOWEVER it's clear the chap's...maybe not the most socially comfortable so it's not your regular 'audience member who won't shut up' thing. I'm more impressed how Ashens doesn't let it faze him, is actually really cool with the dude.
@@harrygreenfeld4964 maybe he's just never been confident enough to interact as part of a crowd and ashens is someone he feels comfortable with. i know i would, he's a very polite soft-spoken man
@@harrygreenfeld4964 I'm pretty sure the guy has been in the audience for Ashen's presentations in previous years (check the one about Hareraiser or the bad games one for example) so Ashen's might know who he is and know why he is being like this.
why do some audience members act like presentations like this are a 2 way conversation, you don't have to respond to every sentence just shut up and listen.
to be fair, if you measure out the right amount of ethanol and mix it with the apple juice the result won't be any more toxic than some good old cider (alcoholic kind) (provided the ethanol isn't denatured eg. with methanol). obviously Halligan didn't have the sense to do that and ended up with, essentially, Everclear with a hint of apple 👍 (or possibly something weaker, depending on the quantity of apple juice)
When he pointed out that the guy in mystery of the druids was floating in mid air, as if it wasn't immediately apparent to anyone looking at the screen, I lost it
@@elementarydrw Think he meant Peta, the animal rights group. But yeah it was massively annoying anyway. My (least) favourite was when he felt utterly compelled to announce that he had seen a RUclips video about Mystery of the Druids...
as someone who did play king's quest games back in the day, fair point on the no sierra the entire no telling you've had failed and can never finish later in the game, and it being cryptic as all hell was a goddamn staple there
As soon as I saw the Druid’s cover, I knew it was going to be the phone puzzle. By the way, he does survive, and your boss later finds out, and threatens to fire
I have to say it. I own a sealed boxed copy of Mystery of the druids. It's one of my most prized possessions. I will never open it, nor will I ever play it, but I love it regardless.
If I remember right, part of the puzzle in Mystery of the Druids is that you first have to wipe down the bottles using Janet's scarf to remove the fingerprints. I don't know whether that makes it better or worse really.
Ah, I see. You can blow up the outhouse in Runaway, because the thants behave like thermite. (Is that too many layers for a joke? Have I gone too far up my own hat? Well, it's worth a shot.)
Been watching for damn near 20 years at this point and as someone who always loved your old game coverage, and an owner of the fantastic TOGYPNHO book, I love these talks so much. Hope to come see one in person some day.
I've always thought that the developers of 90's point-and-click adventures put in obtuse, counter-intuitive puzzles on purpose in order to sell 'strategy guides' and get free advertising in the tips sections of games magazines. They almost always seemed to have at least one that made literally no sense, and back then you couldn't just google a walkthrough.
the phantasmagoria 2 one actually does at least give you a hint. when he first tries to reach for his wallet, he dismissively calls out the name of his pet rat. it still doesn't make a lick of sense though
Actual talk was great. Guy who wouldn't shut up less so. I do wonder if it is the recording makes him louder than he really was or if it would have been that irritating in person
Stuart brought it on himself by asking people to guess how you get in the explosives shed. Once you open the door, someone is always going to barge in and never leave.
@@jonothanthrace1530 There was also the 1985 Philadelphia police destruction of 61 homes in an African American neighborhood using C-4 dropped from a helicopter. The police then prevented the fire department form extinguishing the resulting fires.
Good talk. :-) I was actually thinking about that puzzle from Phantasmagoria 2 while watching the previous one, it's a similar kind of setup, where a mundane task is needlessly complicated by adding absurd steps. Phantasmagoria 2 is quite a thing. In many ways it's not a good game, but it has some heart to it. I recommend watching Spoony's (Noah Antwiler) playthrough of it, it is very entertaining. As another side note, the lead actor of Phantasmagoria 2, Paul Morgan Stetler, has a RUclips channel now, where he does talks/interviews with game industry veterans. He's also done a talk with Spoony, and they have since done several streams together.
Damn, how havent i considered how amazing an ashens video essay might be? Ashens we dont care what you want to speak about, your "on-stage" talent is phenomenal and I'd love more long form content!!
Based on what I know of it "Yeah, let's have the player trick the homeless man into giving you his pittance, it'll be fun for them!" is pretty on-brand for the devs of Mystery of the Druids.
90% ethanol is absolutely not lethal as Stuart implies, nor is it instant knockout juice like the game implies. It's not good for you because it'll really dry out your mocus membranes but in terms of toxicity it's just a bit more than twice as strong as a whiskey. Also it's extremely hard to make and keep 100% ethanol because at that concentration it's so hygroscopic that it'll suck moisture out of the air until it's at about 97%.
Let’s not forget that Stroh 80 is an 80% alcohol rum you can just buy and drink (although you’re supposed to mix it) don’t see why 90% would be so much worse. But that stuff is DEFINITELY denatured…
The bit about punching your way into a shed reminds me of Full Throttle, where "Kick the door down" is, in fact, the solution to a couple of problems. Incredibly cathartic after all the key hunting I'd done in other adventure games.
Fellow Canadian here, I too have never heard them called grandad hats. I've always called them newsie caps. I think I have heard some people call them "old man hats" but mostly as a joke.
I don't think it's _quite_ as bad as anything on this list, but one of my personal favorite moon logic puzzles is in the PS1 point-and-click adventure game Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within (which is actually the _third_ CT game, but that's neither here nor there). When you get the third and final chapter, shortly into it you'll always die when you enter a large room with a skylight on ceiling, because a suit of samurai armor comes crashing down on you out of nowhere. Yes, really. How do you avoid this? Well, you find that suit of samurai armor early in the very first chapter, and you have to examine it within a _very_ brief period of time between event flags. And then it starts chasing you and trying to kill you for the rest of the chapter. Yes, this is the _solution_ to keeping it from killing you in the third chapter. The funniest thing about this to me is that while I haven't had it happen to me, apparently the samurai armor can _still_ come crashing down even after you do this in certain circumstances, but if you remembered to examine it earlier it either misses you or the main character dodges out of the way; not sure since I haven't seen this event myself. The only defense I can offer the game here is that it has hidden collectable Hints that help you out if you find them, and if you explore a bit you can find a Hint telling you about the samurai armor _right before_ it kills you. And that's assuming you don't immediately go into the room with the skylight, because if you do that you're locked in. Oh, and I forgot to mention that you actually have to have triggered this dead end at least once for 100% completion; it counts as an "ending", so yes you have to deliberately brick a playthrough by choosing not to look at the samurai armor.
There was an infamous Polish adventure game called Teen Agent (Agent Mlíčňák) filled to the brim with absolutely illogical and deeply frustrating "puzzles". The Discworld game was completely sensible and rational in comparison to this atrocity. It is worth checking out as an example of a game made just to "merrily" grief the players.
There was an adventure game from the early 90s called "Dreamweb" where, after a certain point, the solution to almost every puzzle was "shoot it with a gun". It sounds like a joke, but it was 100% serious.
Jesus Christ! If that guy wants to give a presentation so badly, he should put HIS OWN BLOODY PRESENTATION TOGETHER!!! 😠 In the future, I hope that you have disruptive people like that escorted out.
Fun fact! The guy who played Curtis in Phantasmagoria 2 runs a RUclips channel. He talks to people who made and started in old games. It’s called “conversations with Curtis” if you’re interested.
10:41 They didn't even proofread the text here "You "will" discover an elastic band at the bottom of the seaweed." Also, the guy in the blue t-shirt is the sort of guy that would tell you the entire plot of a movie whilst you're watching it for the first time and act completely obliviously when you tell them to shut it. I only know this as my friend is just like this guy. With the "The Mystyery of the Druids" I remember seeing this on game shelves and at first glance it looked like it was going to be a medieval adventure or RPG. Who would have thought by that cover alone it was going to be about a Scotland Yard detective shunned by all his own colleagues, solving a murder mystery, but having to use a payphone by stealing coins from a homeless man by giving them ethanol mixed with apple juice?
Ashens positively anticipating The Lord of the Rings Gollum might be the funniest part of this whole video.
I mean in fairness Daedalic had made good games before.
@@SavageGreywolf Yeah, but Daedalic getting the contract for a big name IP stealth action-adventure game would be like Sierra getting contracted to make an Assassin's Creed game. Bit out of their wheelhouse, though I understand while they jumped at the opportunity.
@@ryandean3162Or them trying to make a third person RPG action adventure. They could call it Mask of Eternity
@@TheOriginalElkstone Yeah, King's Quest: Tomb Raider didn't go over very well.
The thing is, the original idea and intention for the game genuinely was for it to be a classic point-and-click adventure game, but with modern graphics.
For reasons beyond human comprehension, some git in management decided near the very very end of the development cycle that it should instead be a stealth rpg action adventure game, and to not delay the release of the game to accommodate such drastic changes to the game.
The result of such a dramatic genre shift so incredibly late in development with zero shifting of the deadline was… predictable to say the least.
It's a broken game for a very, very good reason.
The homeless man doesn't die; he actually reports Halligan, who gave the man his name before poisoning him, to the police and gets him suspended.
Actually, poisoning the guy doesn't get Halligan suspended; that happens after Halligan gets reported for breaking into some old guy's estate. (Said old guy is the villain, but the point still stands.) And bizarrely, the game's deuteragonist-someone who isn't a member of Scotland Yard and is a mere civilian-gets tasked with being the messenger on behalf of Halligan's boss.
If I recall correctly, a halligan is a crowbar-like tool used by firefighters to violently break through doors. Someone thought they were being clever there.
The homeless man is never seen onscreen again so there is no confirmation that he actually did survive. We just have to take the writers word and not question that he is gone
@@mattymerr701You do have the option to talk to him before the Breaking and Entering incident.
He dislikes you.
@@strawbellebelle Oh yeah, that's right. Poisoning the homeless man only gets Halligan's boss to threaten him with having to wash the police cars. And not, you know, attempted murder.
Ashens has a doctorate. With it, he stages talks to gripe about point and click adventure puzzles that irked him as a child. Wish I had that job.
Hey now, Runaway came out in 2001, so he's griping about point and click adventure puzzles that irked him as an adult, too!
Does he?!
A doctorate in what? Expired food?
@@John_Locke_108 A doctorate in psychology. Which is why he makes RUclips videos now. /s
@@LordDragox412 Cool.
I enjoy that in Mystery of the Druids you play as a character whose defining feature is that all his coworkers hate him
JUSTIFIABLY hate him. Halligan is a sociopath.
Never has there been better written characterisation than Halligan in any form of media. He's the most hateable human in exisitence.
@@dcflake5645 He gets the job done though, and saves the world. He's a hero. An anti-hero. Such a great role model! /s
Halligan is amazing, what a hero
On Mystery of the Druids, and the homeless guy: he actually doesn't die, in fact, he ends up telling the police about the man who introduced himself as Detective Halligan and poisoned him so he could rob him. Halligan faces zero consequences for this.
This is then followed by a puzzle where Halligan's boss demands he investigate the case, but refuses to let Halligan use Scotland Yard's database to investigate the case. So Halligan has to trick his boss into signing a database access form via having him sign a request for stationary (apparently Halligan keeps breaking his pencil sharpeners too) with the database request beneath a sheet of carbon paper beneath the stationary request. But the carbon paper is too big, so Halligan has to cut it to the size of the sheets of paper. The only cutting tool in Scotland Yard belongs to Lowry (Halligan's floating colleague, who hates him, because Halligan is Halligan), who refuses to lend his scissors to Halligan because Halligan will inevitably lose or break them. So Halligan has to use his office phone to call Lowry's phone and then play back a message from their boss (demanding Halligan report to his office) so Lowry thinks he's being summoned by the boss. Halligan then uses this opportunity to steal Lowry's scissors to complete the puzzle solution.
And in case you're wondering: a later puzzle results in Halligan breaking Lowry's scissors when he uses them to finish cutting an opening in an electric fence. (He started the job using a pair of garden shears, which he stole from a gardener who ran away in panic after Halligan set fire to a shrub, for no reason other than stealing the garden shears. The garden shears are later used in a puzzle that is both even more sadistic than the stuff with the homeless guy, and yet one of the most logical puzzles in the game.)
Also, the phone call that you make with the change in the attached puzzle is to the building that's RIGHT NEXT to the phone box. And yea, the sadistic final puzzle is to get the main villain to swear a Druidic oath that you and your partner won't come to any harm as a result of his plan.. and then RUN YOUR PARTNER THROUGH WITH THE SHEARS.
If you're going to list every terrible puzzle in Mystery of the Druids, you may as well just post a walkthrough. The entire game is bonkers.
@@PunctualGuy_ I just preferred the fact that Halligan spends the entire second half of the game carrying (in his pocket, apparently) a fishing rod with a bucket full of raw sea salt on the end.
Said garden shears "puzzle" is one of the very last puzzles you do in the game, too. Followed by a final puzzle that requires an item that you thought was a red herring. (but you literally can't miss, so it's not a "SCREW YOURSELF AND NOT KNOW IT" puzzle)
I'm being vague, since those puzzles happen at the very climax of the game, and I don't want to spoil the ending for people who actually want to play through it. Or, at the very least, go into MandaloreGaming's video without knowing how it ends, because it's a rollercoaster.
The other irony is that on sadistic puzzles he left out the one he played on stream, in Mudlarks where your character needs to escape from a quarantine tent containing people who are mostly immobile in bed, and, you know, in QUARANTINE. The solution? Yank some electrical cables to reveal the gangbar and toss a glass of water onto it to SET FIRE TO THE FREAKING TENT.
The audience reaction when he changes the slide to the homeless beggar in _Mystery of the Druids_ is one of the most appropriate reactions I've ever heard
The Elastic Band in Operation Stealth is even worse than what's mentioned in the video. It's on a screen where you have to go the wrong way, and the item doesn't do anything when you hover over it with the mouse (like every other item in the game does). You need to examine the seaweed, then move not-Bond close to that, and click on one of the few pixels of what makes the rubber band (if you miss, you'll get the "there's something odd with the seaweed" message).
Wow, they really must have hated their players …
@@rolfs2165 Not so much hatred as it was a mixture of incompetence and insecurity. Due to technological limitations, these games were incredibly short and could be completed in an hour or two if you knew the solutions to the puzzles and got lucky, so they'd pad them out with frustrating and obtuse mechanics to delay you for as long as possible to create the illusion of length. Some companies, especially Sierra, did this so you'd call their obscenely charged pay per minute Sierra Hint line to squeeze more money out of you.
Fun things to know about Hopkins FBI;
Hopkins gets shot during the early hours of the game and dies. He wakes up in purgatory (which looks like a sci-fi airport terminal). Hopkins finds a machine that'll send him back to earth, and has to dress up at a woman to distract a guard. This machine ends up being part of the plot.
They licensed music from 60s bands The Troggs, Blue Magoos and Rare Earth.
Near the end of the game you suddenly get put into a first person shooter segment while in the bad guy's secret tropical underwater villain lair.
I would highly recommend the Retsupurae playthrough. Also, MandaloreGaming's video on The Mystery of The Druids for a deep dive into the craziness there.
Retsupurae, rest in peace.
There's so much else about Hopkins FBI to complain about, but one thing that always croggled my pyramid was seeing a description saying "Bernie Berckson, an infamous serial killer and terrorist who has killed some 50,000 people with nuclear bombs..."
...He's used MULTIPLE nuclear bombs and has kept the death count below a hundred thousand? He must have been TRYING to keep casualties low, right? And that's not very serial killer of him!
But that goes by the wayside next to all the other things to complain about, when it comes to Hopkins FBI.
A fucking inflatable fucking bracelet!
An excellent reference.
suprised Stu didnt take that route honestly
Another puzzle in Mystery of the Druids is a soft-lock one. You have to get some salt from a screen you arrive to in a new chapter. If you leave that screen before getting the salt, you have soft-locked yourself.
Getting the salt involves trapping a ship's captain best friend, a cat, and then (figuratively) throwing it on a fisherman so you can steal his most prized possession, his fishing rod. All so you can get some salt. In a port city. In the middle of the day. Instead of asking the captain or anyone else to borrow some salt.
yeah, that fishing rod was the one I was expecting the most.
I love that Ashens appears to be 80s UK gaming in human form sometimes.
Sometimes? The man behind Vinny the Vole is permo’d from licking a SID chip in 1983
He's a misogynist.
"...and then they made Shaq-Fu."
As classic Ashens would say, "A fitting punishment!"
In the remaster of Broken Sword the lead character breaks the fourth wall now and apologizes to the player directly for the infamous goat puzzle.
Halligan does not murder the homeless man, it's actually better. he files a complaint with scotland yard because you gave him your name and title and the police chief reprimands you (but doesn't take you off the case yet) you can return to the homeless man and speak to him, where he gets mad he almost died and you respond by bragging how good your cocktail was. I think the part where you frame a man for stealing a library book so the police take him away so you can use the computer is a little better, as well as the ending which is so amazing and requires so much context i don't want to spoil it.
Also the puzzle itself is getting the woman on the phone to actually speak with you, which requires calling her by her name. This is a thing that happens more than once in the game.
Retsupurae and Mandalorian both have pretty good videos on them (mando is the summary, retsu is a riff on a full playthrough)
Mandalore also has a full playthrough, just not on his own channel. Someone edited the streams and it makes for a fun watch!
Theres always that one guy .. who wont STFU. I cannot fathom Ashens patience whe giving a presentation.
That's Interrupting Man. He's a villain, go get him!
Dude he talked like three times. Sorry your only interactions with people are through a screen but it really is nice to say words to people with your face
@@houseofcrazyman865he talked for the entire video, even up till the druid game
@@houseofcrazyman865 Yeah no, he was constantly making comments even when they weren't acknowledged - and besides, this is a presentation, not a round table or sit down chat. You're not really supposed to be interacting directly during a presentation unless prompted by the presenter (like when Stuart asked the audience to guess).
@@n.s.mcmahon6180You have to inflate your inflatable bracelet while he is talking.
To be fair to the Mystery of the Druids: it goes far to justify that puzzle by establishing how much of a failure as a human Halligan is. Nobody lends him phone money because he owes debts to every single coworker bar one, who actually owes him, but is on vacation
I was wondering about that, if it serves as characterisation then that's actually pretty funny
Great talk, I do hate the people in the crowd who feel like we're all here to hear their remarks throughout but that's always a trouble with these. Fun talk!
This is why, for example, Linkara prefaces his live presentations with something along the lines of "you're welcome to shout things out but this is going on the internet so if you say something dumb, unfunny or annoying, you're saying it in front of thousands of people"
Not that I think a disclaimer like that would have done anything about the guy is this video though...
@@Jayfive276 yeah it's a small thing but it does irk me for some reason! Ashens always handles it well but you'd think the fact it's called a "Talk" and not a "Conversation" would be enough of a hint that 3rd row Steve doesn't need to exclaim "WOW" or "OH MY GOD NO WAY" every 3 seconds but here we are! It's one of the main reasons I could never go to a digitiser or cheap show live event, love the show, love the comedy but I'd be sat there with a face on me waiting for the crowd to stfu 😅
I don't want to be too harsh on them but there is a sense like they feel Ashens is talking specifically to them. It's a small crowd so maybe they thought they could interject more and Stuart kinda plays into that.
It's a small scale talk. Completely nornal behavior for the ones I've attended.
@@ZealotOfSteal Agree, I have gone to some small conventions and this is normal. They are letting Ashens talk more than they are, in a good ratio. It's also not his first talk at this specific festival and if it bothered him I think he'd preface that. Honestly, he is a very nice presenter. he specifically picked kids (who seemed very excited) in his "Terrible old games you've probably never heard of" talk to come up and play; must have made their day.
There's always gotta be that one guy in the audience of a presentation that just cannot shut up.
At least Stuart is good enough at improv to keep it flowing regardless.
I don't disagree, but I kinda feel bad for him, since now his slightly inappropriate behaviour, got blown significantly out of proportion.
Especially with the type of crowd attracted to talks related to computer games!
The way he kept interrupting made me assume he was a friend of his. Really annoying to me for some reason.
@@andrewmorrice9139Nah! Just your average basement dwelling computer game playing geekiod! ;)
Ooh! A new talk, that's even better than finding a tenner on the floor.
What about a £15 note?
What about a Greggs coupon?
Except an Ashens talk is worth more 😅
About a month ago I found a whole roll of tenners on the ground outside Ardrossan ferry terminal in Scotland. I handed them in. A few days later I was rewarded for my good deed by catching that disease that we can't mention on RUclips.
@@bewilderbeestieTyphus
The last slide should have been "It is now safe to shut off your computer."
Man I love those talks. They make me really miss your "Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of" Series.
One thing not mentioned about the Mystery of the Druids entry - Halligan's office is in Scotland Yard in London. The phone box is in Oxford. Every time you travel back and forth between the office and the phone box, you need to drive from London to Oxford! Are there no phone boxes in London!?
No, the Doctor needed a lot of spares for the Tardis 😅
That bald guy in the blue shirt need to learn to button it. Stuart is a lot more patient than i am
If only those half-hairless twins would be quiet for a minute or two...
A bit over-familiar.
Sorry about the autism, I have to guess from personal experience.
Stuart seems like he still can't embrace the nought to 3 sad onion look.
It still throws me for a loop whenever I see Onion!Stuart in a thumbnail.
Ohhh man I was just watching the old ones about Hareraiser and terrible old games, awesome to see a new addition!
Literally, Ashen’s talk about Hareraiser is my favorite talk of all time ha
And STILL nobody has solved Hareraiser. Even the person who purchased the golden hare from the crook who conned it from the original puzzle master wasn't given any kind of 'solution'.
Ah, just in time for another new Ashens lecture-form video.
Incidentally, Dark Side of the Moon Logic was the title of a classmate's presentation on programming in college. He got a 76%. Still a better score than Gollum.
Great talk :D
Also that one guy in the crowd.....we get it, but it's not your talk mate, shhhhhh.
That dude in the crowd was being so annoying, just shut up and let Stuart talk!
@@Jamhatproductions I think that guy was there for one of the other talks too because I remember this being a thing before, though to be totally honest it would feel kind of rude telling him to shutup, I wouldn't feel good about it, mainly because I suspect he might be.... I honestly can't think of a nice way to put it, so I just wont.
The odd thing thrown in is funny though, like how the guy on the first front cover reminded me of a certain disgraced 1970's radio DJ. Plus the guesses for the puzzle things were some funny ideas, but talking over people is a bit much.
@@LyingSecret you can say Autistic if you want, I sort of guessed that. Honestly yeah if I were there I wouldn't of said anything but god is it frustrating when you're trying to listen.
I may be wrong, but I've seen people do that who seem to be a bit autistic. Not always being correctly social.
i can assure you that this isnt a spectrum thing. years of attending uni shown that a _lot_ of people have a lot of things to say and dont mind bringing lectures to a grinding halt just to say what they think about what they heard
please dont try to associate _other peoples_ unwanted behaviors to medical diagnostics
I like that you didn't even pick the most batshit puzzle from Druids. My personal favorite is when you throw magic salt on a building to make it explode into ruins.
Great presentation, as always! I wasn't aware Daedalic had stopped producing games though, so that was a bit of a shock, but I appreciate the edits (Bruce Force gave me a laugh).
"They're making an adventure game featuring Gollum!" Oh. Oh no.
When Mystery of the Druids came up I couldn’t decide whether it would be the phone puzzle or the ever elusive salt puzzle.
Still great choice. Thank you for spreading awareness of Detective Halligan’s wild ride.
Someone should have told Tweedledum and Tweedledee to pipe down.
Billy and The Magic Rat sounds like it would've made for a great Humongous Entertainment Point and Click Adventure Series. You play as Camden, New Jersey Child "And Wizard in Training" Billy Gabagol and His Pet, an Enchanted Norwegian Brown Rat Named Squeekers. As they go on wacky, wizard adventures and learn a thing or 2 about friendship, life, and 5th Grade Level School Subjects.
FINALLY ANOTHER ASHENS TALK, WE'VE BEEN POWED BY BLOGGO HIMSELF
Well that one guy was having a good time
Who’s giving the talk? Ashens or the guy in the blue T-shirt???
There's always one guy in the audience who thinks that everyone else in attendance wants to listen to what they have to say. In reality, everyone, including the person giving the talk, just want them to shut up.
I think Blue Shirt may be a bit... special?
Ah, the perils of parasocial relationships with RUclipsrs.
@@liamprincetech Yeah, guy was probably on the spectrum and didn't grasp the "audience participation is a one-time deal" thing.
Flashback to Computer Science lectures.... neurodivergence is a hella of a drug
predictions before I watch the video:
- the accursed goat
- cat hair moustache to impersonate a man who doesn't have a moustache
- murdering a homeless man to steal his change
That last one is a bit mysterious... and kinda druid-like.
Guessing on a Gabriel Knight 3 puzzle being talked about here is too easy of a prediction.
Only just started on the video but my money is also on GK3.
Edit: No Sierra Games, and a specific shout out for no for goat and moustache puzzles? Booo!
Lol
Mystery of The Druids and Limbo of The Lost are cheating
You got the bum murder puzzle correct!
I love Ashens talks. They’re always topics that on the face of it I wouldn’t really care about, but he always makes it so interesting I sit through the whole thing
As for the pure ethanol, it’s not poison (any more than ordinary booze is, of course; the dose maketh the poison, after all) - it’s exactly the same alcohol as in booze. Adding four parts 100% ethanol to six parts apple juice, if we were to speculate about the proportions in the puzzle, would just make apple juice with 40% ABV.
Industrial ethanol has other stuff added or left in due to lower standards as it's not intended for human consumption. You don't know how much methanol and the like is in there, although you can drink meths I really wouldn't recommend it. The closest you'll get for human consumption is grain alcohol at 95% and I wouldn't recommend drinking that either after having it forced down me in Russia
@@JSmith19858 Yes, but when it’s specified as 100% ethanol, we can’t make the assumption that it’s industrial ethanol with its safety additives and things. And particularly with lab-grade ingredients, it’s important that the contents match the label - if there’s methanol in it, it’d be in negligible quantities.
@@awmperry feel free to post a video demonstrating it. I mean, you go first
@@JSmith19858 Two key distinctions to note here: “industrial” is not the same as “lab-grade”, and “not an instantly lethal poison” is not the same as a good idea.
I think trying the _Gobliiins_ series as a small child left me permanently primed/scarred by its timing puzzles, the goat in OG _Broken Sword_ was nary a problem for me.
Here's a moon logic puzzle from _Fear Effect_ I hate: We have to rotate a dial based on a poem being read aloud (by a little girl with a thick Chinese accent) combined with some (barely visible and half off screen) scratch marks.
Irritating enough, but then you notice the dial has multiple indicators. You see, after each line of the poem the girl rapidly ages, with each age being a numbered indicator around the dial.
A few problems: 1) we had no clue her age *could* change, as we don't see that happen until she reads the poem's second line, 2) we have no clue only one indicator is used at a time until the connection between her ages and the numbers on the indicators is made, and 3) she'll repeat the first line until we've blindly guessed* which indicator to turn to correctly.
* also, wrong guesses costs us health, and this part of the game is combat-heavy to boot
Loved the talk but that one dude in the audience... Well... Enough said.
Because of people like him, I recommend changing them from "talks" to "listens".
It is unfortunate because nobody wants to dislike that guy, but it is a near inherent reaction when you've paid to be there and it isn't going to last all day- even as just a viewer at home too. At the end of the day it is considered rude regardless of how cool or nice the guy may be otherwise.
Video games attract all kinds of people and personalities and I don't think it is unlikely that personality would reappear for these talks. A decent number of people who enjoy games (enough to go listen to a speech about it lol) are outcasts in some way and really want to connect.
He handled it nicely though. He laughed with the guy a bit, but also committed to continuing a sentence even though the guy clearly wanted to say more of whatever he had to say.
so maybe there should be a big loud announcement at the beginning to stfu fr. Seems fair.
I want to dislike that guy @@adm69420
Huh? I don't even know who you're talking about, every person I heard talk in there I genuinely enjoyed hearing because it really felt like the audience was connecting to what ashens was talking about. Or were you at the event and know more about it? Like, I didn't notice anything rude or unpleasant about anyone from the audience at any point.
You didn;t notice that one single guy who kept talking over and over during this and other talks ashens has done before?@@godslaughter
Oh no, Operation Stealth introduced the world's first quick time event!
Monkey Island 2 crossing the waterfall was the first thing that sprung to mind when I read moon logic (water pump, monkey, piano, metronome, banana etc) 💀
I love ashens talks like this he's such a wholesome guy
i get it's an intimate gig and there's a bit of audience interaction but that one bloke needs to know when enough is enough...
I'm kind of jealous, actually. He seems to genuinely think Stuart is there specifically for him, it must be a nice way to live!
@@evillttlimp he thinks he's his best friend
Yeah I had to stop watching the cringe was through the roof HOWEVER it's clear the chap's...maybe not the most socially comfortable so it's not your regular 'audience member who won't shut up' thing. I'm more impressed how Ashens doesn't let it faze him, is actually really cool with the dude.
@@harrygreenfeld4964 maybe he's just never been confident enough to interact as part of a crowd and ashens is someone he feels comfortable with. i know i would, he's a very polite soft-spoken man
@@harrygreenfeld4964 I'm pretty sure the guy has been in the audience for Ashen's presentations in previous years (check the one about Hareraiser or the bad games one for example) so Ashen's might know who he is and know why he is being like this.
Never a dull day when a new video from Ashens pops up! 😊
Please do some long form content for the channel like this but without people in the crowd being annoying.
why do some audience members act like presentations like this are a 2 way conversation, you don't have to respond to every sentence just shut up and listen.
They have aspergers. Please be understanding.
I really enjoy listening to you talk about old obscure video games.
This is great! Omg if I could have attended classes like this in college, I would never have lost the battle with my ADHD and dropped out.
to be fair, if you measure out the right amount of ethanol and mix it with the apple juice the result won't be any more toxic than some good old cider (alcoholic kind) (provided the ethanol isn't denatured eg. with methanol).
obviously Halligan didn't have the sense to do that and ended up with, essentially, Everclear with a hint of apple 👍
(or possibly something weaker, depending on the quantity of apple juice)
I made it about 25 minutes before I had enough of the loudmouth in the audience who thought this was a personal conversation.
When he pointed out that the guy in mystery of the druids was floating in mid air, as if it wasn't immediately apparent to anyone looking at the screen, I lost it
made it to 26:42 before i had enough as well 😂
or he's farted@@fatboyvladimir1555
"if someone told that to Peter, I would swear". Mate, who gives a fuck? Who are you? Who is Peter? Why do we need that information?
@@elementarydrw Think he meant Peta, the animal rights group. But yeah it was massively annoying anyway. My (least) favourite was when he felt utterly compelled to announce that he had seen a RUclips video about Mystery of the Druids...
2:25, you'd need to harness the power of the Bruce Force Scythe
The Bruce Four. Scythe.
as someone who did play king's quest games back in the day, fair point on the no sierra
the entire no telling you've had failed and can never finish later in the game, and it being cryptic as all hell was a goddamn staple there
As soon as I saw the Druid’s cover, I knew it was going to be the phone puzzle. By the way, he does survive, and your boss later finds out, and threatens to fire
I have to say it. I own a sealed boxed copy of Mystery of the druids. It's one of my most prized possessions. I will never open it, nor will I ever play it, but I love it regardless.
If I remember right, part of the puzzle in Mystery of the Druids is that you first have to wipe down the bottles using Janet's scarf to remove the fingerprints. I don't know whether that makes it better or worse really.
I'm a simple woman--I see a new academic lecture from Ashens and I click.
0:40 - Thanks Canada. Thanada.
Good thing I looked around me before posting that, myself!
@@ArtsMyth1967 Oh very droll!
Ah, I see. You can blow up the outhouse in Runaway, because the thants behave like thermite.
(Is that too many layers for a joke? Have I gone too far up my own hat? Well, it's worth a shot.)
Been watching for damn near 20 years at this point and as someone who always loved your old game coverage, and an owner of the fantastic TOGYPNHO book, I love these talks so much. Hope to come see one in person some day.
I've always thought that the developers of 90's point-and-click adventures put in obtuse, counter-intuitive puzzles on purpose in order to sell 'strategy guides' and get free advertising in the tips sections of games magazines. They almost always seemed to have at least one that made literally no sense, and back then you couldn't just google a walkthrough.
the phantasmagoria 2 one actually does at least give you a hint.
when he first tries to reach for his wallet, he dismissively calls out the name of his pet rat. it still doesn't make a lick of sense though
I'm surprised the rat went for the granola bar. There was already A LOT of food already under the couch.
The cam rip is ok, but I'll wait for the blu-ray release.
6:43 "Because, we've got an inflatable bracelet, and we know it's going to be usele- ful..."
Brilliant lol.
Actual talk was great. Guy who wouldn't shut up less so. I do wonder if it is the recording makes him louder than he really was or if it would have been that irritating in person
I cannot stand audiences who decide they're part of the show. No self awareness.
Yeah, the one guy who talks constantly is insufferable.
Stuart brought it on himself by asking people to guess how you get in the explosives shed. Once you open the door, someone is always going to barge in and never leave.
That guy was talking way before that though, and has done it at other talks too@@eeresponsible
@@LyingSecret I'll give someone a tenner to edit him out so I can watch it without cringing 😂
Nerds.
Take a shot of whiskey every time blue shirt guy makes a comment and you will be comatose by the 26 minute mark
In fairness, I would absolutely believe the FBI would hurl around firebombs willy-nilly.
That's more an ATF thing.
@@jonothanthrace1530 There was also the 1985 Philadelphia police destruction of 61 homes in an African American neighborhood using C-4 dropped from a helicopter. The police then prevented the fire department form extinguishing the resulting fires.
Good talk. :-) I was actually thinking about that puzzle from Phantasmagoria 2 while watching the previous one, it's a similar kind of setup, where a mundane task is needlessly complicated by adding absurd steps.
Phantasmagoria 2 is quite a thing. In many ways it's not a good game, but it has some heart to it. I recommend watching Spoony's (Noah Antwiler) playthrough of it, it is very entertaining. As another side note, the lead actor of Phantasmagoria 2, Paul Morgan Stetler, has a RUclips channel now, where he does talks/interviews with game industry veterans. He's also done a talk with Spoony, and they have since done several streams together.
One of these people really loves their own voice
Damn, how havent i considered how amazing an ashens video essay might be?
Ashens we dont care what you want to speak about, your "on-stage" talent is phenomenal and I'd love more long form content!!
There are videos of a similar type from Ashens on the Norwich Game Festival channel
There aren't enough @@PixelReaper
@@JoeZUGOOLA agreed. They are great
I was thinking that while watching the video. His style of speaking seems like it would lend well to that kind of content
Based on what I know of it "Yeah, let's have the player trick the homeless man into giving you his pittance, it'll be fun for them!" is pretty on-brand for the devs of Mystery of the Druids.
90% ethanol is absolutely not lethal as Stuart implies, nor is it instant knockout juice like the game implies. It's not good for you because it'll really dry out your mocus membranes but in terms of toxicity it's just a bit more than twice as strong as a whiskey. Also it's extremely hard to make and keep 100% ethanol because at that concentration it's so hygroscopic that it'll suck moisture out of the air until it's at about 97%.
Yeah, he's mixing it up with the similarly named methanol.
Let’s not forget that Stroh 80 is an 80% alcohol rum you can just buy and drink (although you’re supposed to mix it) don’t see why 90% would be so much worse.
But that stuff is DEFINITELY denatured…
@@icannotbeseen in a lab you might not want denatured alcohol so it might be pure, but from what I've heard, lab/medical spirit doesn't taste great
The bit about punching your way into a shed reminds me of Full Throttle, where "Kick the door down" is, in fact, the solution to a couple of problems. Incredibly cathartic after all the key hunting I'd done in other adventure games.
I love these talks. They’re brill, mate. I still watch your one about that treasure hunt game
for some reason a talk like this is much more entertaining than a simple essay, loved it
Some people don't realize that a presentation isn't a discussion.
I'm a Canadian, and I've never heard them called "Grandad hats". As Zod is my witness, they WILL be if I can make it happen.
Grandad just looks like a Yeti.
Fellow Canadian here, I too have never heard them called grandad hats. I've always called them newsie caps. I think I have heard some people call them "old man hats" but mostly as a joke.
Im from nova scotia. We just call them hats
Newfie here - they're 'salt & pepper hats' around here.
Also, remember - as Canadians we're *nice*, not *kind*...
I got my wisdom teeth removed today and I've been in a lot of pain since. This video is just what I needed to cheer up. Cheers!
Hope that heals up quick! The recovery sucked when I got all mine taken out
The dolphin-tuna can thing almost makes a weird bit of sense if you're aware of the furor about dolphins getting caught in fishing nets as bycatch.
that guy interrupting to provide his special expertise as a guy who "watched something about it on youtube i think"
Honestly, nearly every puzzle in Mystery of the Druids should be on here. That game is just madness from start to finish.
why is ashens talking over the presenter, that guy in blue is trying to give a talk here.
I don't think it's _quite_ as bad as anything on this list, but one of my personal favorite moon logic puzzles is in the PS1 point-and-click adventure game Clock Tower II: The Struggle Within (which is actually the _third_ CT game, but that's neither here nor there).
When you get the third and final chapter, shortly into it you'll always die when you enter a large room with a skylight on ceiling, because a suit of samurai armor comes crashing down on you out of nowhere. Yes, really.
How do you avoid this? Well, you find that suit of samurai armor early in the very first chapter, and you have to examine it within a _very_ brief period of time between event flags. And then it starts chasing you and trying to kill you for the rest of the chapter. Yes, this is the _solution_ to keeping it from killing you in the third chapter.
The funniest thing about this to me is that while I haven't had it happen to me, apparently the samurai armor can _still_ come crashing down even after you do this in certain circumstances, but if you remembered to examine it earlier it either misses you or the main character dodges out of the way; not sure since I haven't seen this event myself.
The only defense I can offer the game here is that it has hidden collectable Hints that help you out if you find them, and if you explore a bit you can find a Hint telling you about the samurai armor _right before_ it kills you. And that's assuming you don't immediately go into the room with the skylight, because if you do that you're locked in.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that you actually have to have triggered this dead end at least once for 100% completion; it counts as an "ending", so yes you have to deliberately brick a playthrough by choosing not to look at the samurai armor.
I've been waiting for a new one of these for a while, so this was a wonderful thing to wake up to! Another great talk, Ashens!
Audience members: it's time to give it up. Just shave your heads and move on with your lives.
There was an infamous Polish adventure game called Teen Agent (Agent Mlíčňák) filled to the brim with absolutely illogical and deeply frustrating "puzzles". The Discworld game was completely sensible and rational in comparison to this atrocity. It is worth checking out as an example of a game made just to "merrily" grief the players.
I remember playing that, although not in any detail. I think I liked it overall, though. Though I'm also fairly sure I used a walkthru at some point.
32:40 i mean, dangerously incompetent police is the most grounded, realistic thing in that game.
I can’t wait to watch the presentation of that one guy in the audience where Ashens speaks through the entire thing
Stuart is very patient with these obnoxious audience members.
Audience was waaaay too loud for me in this one.. still a great talk from you stuart
Detective Halligan walked so Disco Elysium could fly.
I would absolutely love to see a point and click adventure where an alternate method of solving ALL of the puzzles involves punching.
There was an adventure game from the early 90s called "Dreamweb" where, after a certain point, the solution to almost every puzzle was "shoot it with a gun". It sounds like a joke, but it was 100% serious.
Didn't Disco Elysium have that?
Jesus Christ!
If that guy wants to give a presentation so badly, he should put HIS OWN BLOODY PRESENTATION TOGETHER!!! 😠
In the future, I hope that you have disruptive people like that escorted out.
Fun fact! The guy who played Curtis in Phantasmagoria 2 runs a RUclips channel. He talks to people who made and started in old games. It’s called “conversations with Curtis” if you’re interested.
I was pleasantly surprised to see Phantasmagoria 2 after the starting announcement that there would be no Sierra games.
I always love these Ashens presentations, would really like to see one live someday :o
10:41 They didn't even proofread the text here "You "will" discover an elastic band at the bottom of the seaweed."
Also, the guy in the blue t-shirt is the sort of guy that would tell you the entire plot of a movie whilst you're watching it for the first time and act completely obliviously when you tell them to shut it. I only know this as my friend is just like this guy.
With the "The Mystyery of the Druids" I remember seeing this on game shelves and at first glance it looked like it was going to be a medieval adventure or RPG. Who would have thought by that cover alone it was going to be about a Scotland Yard detective shunned by all his own colleagues, solving a murder mystery, but having to use a payphone by stealing coins from a homeless man by giving them ethanol mixed with apple juice?
I always love these videos, even if they are an extreme rarity
Aha, an OFFICIAL version of this! I've seen a version of this somewhere else, but it's nice to get video pure from the source...
Filthy pirates
That guy in the audience is really annoying
I think he's present on previous Norwich Games Festival presentations that are on RUclips.
I think he's just a little too close to the microphone. I appreciate how into the talk he is.
I thought he was fun.
I thought that too, can't tell if the microphone is picking him up too much or If he's just loud and annoying
he was on the old NGF ones and made just as many pointless comments on those