The Séance of Blake Manor Is A Delightful Detective Game

Jason, Maddy, and Kirk are all playing The Séance of Blake Manor, a new detective game about a spooky manor full of — OOOOOOOOHHHHH — Kirk, stop it. They talk about the game's unique time mechanic, how it plays with deduction, and of course, lots of spooky ghosts.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Jason Schreier?

  Last week was Halloween, which means that this is the best week of the year. The week where you get to steal all your kids candy. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games and candy to you. This week, we are talking about The Seance of Blake Manor, a spooky detective game where you fight against evil demons and also time.

• 0:30Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm Jason Schreier.

• 0:32Jason Schreier?

  I'm Kirk Hamilton.

• 0:32Speaker 02

  And I'm Maddy Myers. Hello.

• 0:35Jason Schreier?

  Hello.

• 0:36Speaker 02

  It's us.

• 0:37Jason Schreier?

  Welcome back to another episode of Triple Cuck. Triple.

• 0:44Speaker 02

  Triple X Click.

• 0:46Jason Schreier?

  I keep telling you to stop calling it Triple Cuck and you just keep calling it that everywhere. God, I keep forgetting. Hey, if you wanna, if you wanna remember the name of our podcast, you should become a member and help us make the show possible by going to maximumfun.org/join because we are entirely listener supported and you too can be one of those listener supporters and make Triple Cuck possible. Click, Jason, click. We just need some more supporters, guys. He'll get it if we just get a few more supporters.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  Just a couple more.

• 1:15Jason Schreier?

  That's our pledge drive. I'll get the name right. You, not only do you get to help make the show possible, you also get our monthly bonus episodes, which include lots of cool things, including the one we just did where we talk about Indie Game, the movie, the 2012 documentary that is absolutely fascinating to revisit today. We talk about the, the games that were featured in it and the people that were featured in it, including Phil Fish and Fez and Super Meat Boy, the, the two guys behind that and Jonathan Blow's braid. Really fascinating topic and movie.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  Time capsule.

• 1:52Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that just went up. It was a really fun conversation. It was a great, a great convo.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  Good app.

• 1:56Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, agreed. And yeah, so go to maximumfun.org/join, become a member today. And also, we got a bunch of merch. We just revamped our merch store that people should know about. We got some cool new stuff. We got hoodies. In fact, look, guys, I'm wearing, wearing my hoodie right now. Triple Click hoodie. I don't know, I've said this before, but I don't know if it's like, is it passe for like the host of podcasts to wear their own hoodie? No. I don't know.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  I would say no. I'd say it's the coolest possible thing you could do.

• 2:26Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. In the 90s, it was not cool to wear the band's T-shirt to the concert. I think that now that everyone has a personal brand of merch, it's very different. And you just wear your own merch and it doesn't matter.

• 2:37Jason Schreier?

  Well, but Kirk, what if the band is wearing their own T-shirt to their concert? That's the more, that's the parallel here.

• 2:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. That is less cool.

• 2:46Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, exactly. So.

• 2:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, but if we were doing TripleClick Live, I don't think you would be wearing that hoodie.

• 2:50Jason Schreier?

  No, I don't think so either. But yeah, I wear it around the house occasionally to the grocery store. If you out there.

• 2:56Kirk Hamilton?

  And you wear it for me and Maddie.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:58Jason Schreier?

  If you see me at the grocery store wearing a TripleClick hoodie, feel free to say, hey, Jason.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  It's the main way to recognize them.

• 3:03Jason Schreier?

  That's passe.

• 3:05Kirk Hamilton?

  It's actually a good way to recognize a podcaster because you don't know what we look like, but you will know if you see our shirt.

• 3:10Jason Schreier?

  Well, no, because after we revamp the store, there will be so many TripleClick hoodies floating around.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  It'll be impossible to know, but it's how you recognize another listener in the wilds. Or maybe one of us.

• 3:21Kirk Hamilton?

  That's true.

• 3:22Jason Schreier?

  That's true. I want, all right, if you out there have recognized another listener in the wild and then fall in love with them and become married, email us at tripleclickatmaximumfun.org. I would love to feature the story of the two people who just saw each other wearing TripleClick gear and fell in love. I want to feature that story.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  Or it could happen to you. Like if you're single and you're listening to this and you're like, I'm sick of the apps, why aren't you just buying a TripleClick shirt? Cause that's gonna solve all of your problems.

• 3:53Kirk Hamilton?

  You'll know you have a lot in common, a lot of compatibility.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:56Kirk Hamilton?

  If you're into the same gaming podcast.

• 3:59Jason Schreier?

  I mean, yeah. At least you would know that the other person is not a capital G gamer.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 4:06Kirk Hamilton?

  It's true. It's true. No, I'm only half kidding.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like, the truth is told in laughter.

• 4:11Kirk Hamilton?

  That's beautiful.

• 4:12Jason Schreier?

  So anyway, become a member, support our show. Hey, today, we're gonna talk about a video game. You guys excited to talk about a video game that we've all been playing?

• 4:21Speaker 02

  I love doing that.

• 4:22Jason Schreier?

  This is a game called The Seance of Blake Manor. This is a...

• 4:29Jason Schreier?

  I'm not gonna dignify that with a response this time.

• 4:32Kirk Hamilton?

  It wasn't me. I'm hearing the sound again. I thought I, I thought I, oh wait, actually, oh, do you hear? I hear the Ghostbusters are pulling up. And, uh, oh, they're getting out of there. Oh, oh, wow. Oh, this is wild. I wish you guys could see this. There it's mayhem over here. Venkman, Venkman is just, okay. Oh, okay. Well.

• 5:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Uh, all right. Thanks, guys. Uh, okay. Well, they have, they have busted the ghost. I am, I'm pleased to report that the ghost has been busted.

• 5:07Speaker 02

  That's great news.

• 5:08Jason Schreier?

  I think all the people, all the people who were going to support Triple Click like a few minutes ago are now just like, all right, after those

• 5:15Speaker 02

  After this, I now will give even more.

• 5:17Kirk Hamilton?

  It's really too bad because the Ghostbusters have left me with a hefty bill that we are gonna have to, we're gonna have to talk about at our next business meeting.

• 5:23Jason Schreier?

  Do you go, do the Ghostbusters send bills to the, like, the homes and apartments?

• 5:28Kirk Hamilton?

  They do. Remember, that's a whole plot point in the first Ghostbusters where they're at the hotel and he's like quibbling about the bill and they're like, all right, if you don't pay us, we'll put the ghosts back. And he's like, oh, never mind.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  The first movie, a lot of the jokes are logistics based. I mean, there's

• 5:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, it's really a, it's a movie about a small business. Like, that is what the first movie is about.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  If, I mean, if we want to transition here, The Sands of Blake Manor, financials are also a huge plot point in this game. And logistics are a huge plot point in this game as well. See, Jason, I'm getting us back on track.

• 5:58Jason Schreier?

  I, yeah, the Sands of, you are correct. So The Sands of Blake Manor is a supernatural detective mystery game set in 1897 Ireland. It is developed by a small independent game studio also in Ireland called Spooky Doorway that previously made Dark Side Detective, which is a series of point and click adventure games. This, unlike those games, is a 3D game. It is set inside a manor and you play as a private investigator named Declan Ward, who is sent to Blake Manor to figure out what happened to a disappeared woman, a missing woman named Evelyn Dean. And when you get to the manor, you are tasked with investigating and poking around people's rooms

• 6:42Jason Schreier?

  and interrogating suspects and trying to figure out just what happened to her while trying not to get devoured by ghosts. Along the way, because as we established last week, unlike some other like adventure games that only hint at supernatural or spooky themes, this one is chock full of them, chock full of demons and ghosts and all sorts of supernatural stuff. So the reason that Evelyn Dean and all these other guests are here in the hotel is because they are having a big séance where where they are going to summon the spirit of a dead person and try to talk to them. And so that brings us to the other kind of core part of this game, which is the

• 7:23Jason Schreier?

  time mechanic. You only have three days before the séance and you have to figure out what happened to Evelyn Dean before then. And every character who is in the mansion, all the other suspects and hotel guests and hotel staff have their own schedules. Some of them will be at breakfast at one time. Some of them might be watching a lecture at one time or hanging out in the stables at a time. And every action you do takes up time on this schedule. So if you are choosing to say poke around in someone's bedroom at a given hour, that means you cannot also be going and having breakfast. But it does mean that one of the the person whose bedroom you are poking around in might be at breakfast, which is allows you to do it. It's a super fun game.

• 8:08Jason Schreier?

  We've all been playing it. I finished it. I really enjoyed it. I talked about it a little bit last week. I want to hear what you guys think. Maddie, why don't you start? What do you think of the séance of Blake Manor?

• 8:18Speaker 02

  I loved this game. I also finished this just finished yesterday. Just really had a wonderful time through and through. I know we're going to get into the time mechanic, but this part really stressed me out at first, especially because the first two hours of the game are not quite like any other time mechanic in the game, but they really get you warmed up for how much you're going to need to think about time. So like Jason said, anytime you pick up any evidence in any room that you're exploring, it's not like Gone Home or other games where you rifle through drawers and you just stand around and just be like, oh, what do I want to do? Do I want to look at things again? Oh, maybe I'm looking at this and it doesn't really matter, but I'm just enjoying reading a book. No, you want to really think about what you're looking at.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  And for the first hour of the game, they make that extremely clear by

• 9:09Speaker 02

  Having a time gate on just that hour. Like, there's one task that you need to complete within that hour. And I definitely failed at it the first time and then had to go back and try it again to make sure that I completed finding all of the correct evidence within the hour to complete that task. And then the second hour of the game is the same way. It's just that there are more people in the second half or the second hour. And you have to talk to them and you have to decide which people to talk to. And once again, I was, you know, talking to the wrong people and kind of playing it the way you normally play a video game where you talk to whoever you want for as long as you want. Then I had to save Scum Back and be like, okay, Maddie, be focused. You gotta talk to the specific people, solve a specific mystery, be aware that time is passing.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  And that's been true for the rest of the game, even though you have far more time on your hands, that clock is ticking until the séance comes. And there's tons of warnings, like as you solve each person's mystery in the game, because every character kind of has their own mystery, you're kind of, it's being clued into you, Declan Ward, the detective, that you're also helping them survive the séance. You don't really know what that means, but you're kind of mystically clued into that as you go along. So you then become highly motivated to get to know these couple dozen guests and try to save them all in time for the séance because you're like, well, I'm not really sure what

• 10:32Speaker 02

  this means or why the séance is so dangerous, but I do know, because I'm sensing it essentially, that I have to save them all. So like, in addition to being time gated, the game also has some stakes where you actually are pretty motivated story-wise to save everyone. And I did it, but it was, it was tough for me. And I, I think that's both what's stressful at times about the game, but also really fascinating way to design a game like this. And probably the main thing about the game that's difficult at all, because otherwise the mysteries themselves aren't that complex to figure out. It's mostly just the time thing that's difficult, I would say.

• 11:11Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, yeah, as I mentioned last week when I was talking about this, it's not really, it's kind of, I compared it to game like games, other deductive games like Obra Dinn and Golden Idol, but it is much closer to, say, a point and click adventure than it is to those games in terms of how much deduction you actually have to do. You're not going to be staring at a blank screen a lot. You don't even really have to take notes the way you do in a blueprint, as an example, because everything is just kind of mapped out for you in this big menu screen that gives you all the mysteries and shows you the links between certain things and will even organize the clues for you. So if you find a piece of evidence, it'll tell you what mystery it is linked to. So yeah, definitely,

• 11:55Jason Schreier?

  definitely the time is what's challenging about the game. Kirk, what do you think of The Saiyan Sublime Banner?

• 11:59Kirk Hamilton?

  I really like it. I'm not as far as the two of you, obviously, I haven't finished. I'm in the, I guess, the second day, which is the first full day. Though I've played a lot. I've played like 10 hours or something because due to the way that time works in this game, one minute can actually last five real time minutes or 10 minutes. You can just walk around the whole house and you know, the time is 11:58 a.m. the entire time because you're just opening doors and looking at things that don't have a time cost. So I have been doing a lot of stuff and making some progress. Yeah, I've kind of psyched myself out a little bit, I think with the time limitation a bit. We can maybe talk about that a little. But yeah, overall, I really like this game and I think really it's a vibes thing. It's the energy of the game. It's the way that it looks and the

• 12:44Kirk Hamilton?

  way that it feels. This reminds me of something from the 90s. Jason, you mentioned point and click adventure games. There's actually a Roberta Williams game from 1989. Do the two of you know this game? It's called The Colonel's Bequest. Are you aware of this?

• 12:56Jason Schreier?

  Yep.

• 12:57Kirk Hamilton?

  No. So this game is very similar, actually. The Colonel's Bequest is a Laura Bo mystery. Oh, sure. There were, I think, two Laura Bo games. The second one is The Dagger of Amon Ra, which people probably know better or at least know the cover art from that one. Yeah. It was a little bit later, though. I think Roberta Williams was just a producer. I don't think that she actually wrote that one. And she was the director and the writer on The Colonel's Bequest. And in that game, Laura Bo is at, I think it's like a southern Gothic thing at this Kind of plantation and it's a typical knives out situation or, you know, Blake Manor situation clue. Pick your, pick your manor house full of suspicious characters. And there's a time mechanic in that game as well. So I think it's every 15 minutes or something. Like you're kind of moving through the game and also time is moving forward.

• 13:40Kirk Hamilton?

  Because it's an old Sierra game, there are a lot of no win scenarios and you could get stuck in various ways. Like it, you know, it was very prototypical, but at the same time, I can't, I have to think that this game was inspired in some ways by that. And then the overall energy of the game, even the look of it, the character designs, these very high contrast characters with their striking cheekbones and their sunken eyes, they just have a really great vibe. And the game just puts me in a certain space when I'm playing it and I love that about it. I love just being in this very chilly haunted place and wandering around and seeing what I see.

• 14:16Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, the art is really striking. So the, the house itself and the 3D modeling, it actually kind of looks like blueprints. It's kind of just like a, a 3D manner, like interesting 3D, smooth 3D.

• 14:26Kirk Hamilton?

  Was this made in Unity? It has, is it the same engine? It does definitely look similar.

• 14:30Jason Schreier?

  I don't know. I can look it up in a second, but then, but then like the three, what's more interesting to me visually is the, these kind of comic book style, like pastiches that you'll get every once in a while where it'll be like a bunch of graphical panels. And then also, like you mentioned, Greg, the character design. And so what it does, what the game does is it has 2D style art, like the characters all look 2D. And they're just kind of standing in, in this really interesting way, kind of transposed on the 3D. And it's a cool effect and makes all the characters look really interesting and distinct. I mean, you could tell who a character is from like many feet away. Yeah. Just which is, is really cool. They're all distinct looking and, and really well designed.

• 15:11Jason Schreier?

  The other thing that I think really stands out from a vibes point of view is the setting and the history and the fact that it is just so full of really interesting Irish lore and Irish mythology and Irish names, which can be a, a pronunciation minefield, but really fun to navigate and try to figure out and also great Irish. Voice actors. And then there are also some characters who aren't Irish and have their own kind of interesting histories. People who are from other countries. There's like a Muslim woman, I believe is from Egypt. To remember 100%. There's another woman who's from Barbados. There's other kind of interesting characters. And it really does a good job of giving you history in an interesting way, not in a bland historical way.

• 15:54Jason Schreier?

  By letting you get to know these characters and their beliefs and their religions and and their kind of their obsessions and their flaws. And I think that all is really cool. And another thing that is just really appealing about this game to me.

• 16:10Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I've talked in the recently about Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, a game that is set at a real historical time. And that's one of the things that feels like a revelation in that game to me is that it's actually a great idea to set a video game during a real time in history when there were real people and you can go and learn actual things about the world because that's inherently interesting, at least to me. And I find that that's the case with this game as well. I really appreciate the library in this game. This is, this must be in other games, but I've never quite seen an in-game library done the way that it's done in Blake Manor. It's right there, just off the atrium. You can go in at any time. At times, the library is important to the narrative. You know, things will have happened there. You'll have to investigate and find clues.

• 16:55Kirk Hamilton?

  But also, it's just a library and there are a series of shelves and each shelf, you know, there's one for medicine and one for Irish mythology and one for world mythology and one for religion and so on. And you can freely click on any of them without a time penalty. And then it gives you a whole series of things you can look up. And as you learn new bits of lore, and I say lore, but really it's bits of history about the world, it'll tell you, you know, you unlocked a new research subject. And a lot of times, you can just go read those.

• 17:23Jason Schreier?

  Well, also lore for folklore, like literally.

• 17:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, true.

• 17:26Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 17:27Kirk Hamilton?

  But you know, this is just, it's always funny to use the word lore to talk about.

• 17:32Jason Schreier?

  Actual things that happened.

• 17:33Kirk Hamilton?

  Colonization of Ireland or something.

• 17:34Jason Schreier?

  Well, the canon, the canon of Ireland. Yeah, canon events, the canon events that happened in Ireland.

• 17:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Real life canon. Yes, the canon of of history. So you you unlock that topic and then you can go read about it. And it's really neat because there's no cost to doing so. It just gives you some more context for this place and this time. And I think that that's really cool. You know, the mythology and the folklore are all fascinating. I think Irish folklore is really interesting in general. I've been talking to my sister about Sinners. So Sinners is like back in the back of my head. And there's a lot of Irish folklore in that movie. And I've just been thinking about it in general lately. And so it's fun to be reading about that. But also, this game is about actual Irish history as well. And, you know, the sort of occupation and of Ireland by England or by the English and, you know, people building houses on conquered land.

• 18:26Kirk Hamilton?

  The whole premise of Blake Manor is that this manor has been built on conquered land, it's called, which is basically stolen land and is seen as stolen by the people who lived there before the English turned up and started taking land and building manors. And then that kind of ties in with the Gothic horror, you know? Like, the whole idea of Gothic is that there's a buried truth, that everyone isn't acknowledging some horrible haunted thing. And so Southern Gothic, actually, like the Colonel's Bequest, the whole idea of Southern Gothic is that roiling under everything else, there's this horrible truth, this historical thing that happened. And slavery and succession and the civil war.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:01Kirk Hamilton?

  And here, it's a similar idea. It's a kind of Irish Gothic, I guess, but it's kind of, it's the same, there's the same kind of original sin underneath everything else. And the fact, and that kind of underlines everything in the story and gives it this kind of haunted doomed vibe. And it's all tied to the real world. I think that's awesome. By the way, it is made in Unity.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  OK, that makes sense.

• 19:22Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it looks very similar to Blueprints in a lot of ways with the line art for each room. It's, that's a compliment for sure. It looks great. But just to speak to your point, Kirk, part of why it's different from something like Kingdom Come is because, as we said, there are ghosts in this game. And this is made clear immediately. Within like the first 30 seconds of booting it up, you see a ghost. And then she disappears into a flock of crows. Like, it's very clear that ghosts are real. And you're like, oh, uh. I guess I'm in a world where this is gonna matter and I, I sometimes I do get a little too scared by horror games. That's not the case in Blake Manor. Like, it wasn't like when I was playing Resident Evil 2 and I had to keep taking breaks because I was getting too freaked out.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  This game is like just the perfect level of scary where there aren't quite jump scares exactly, but you can kind of see something out of the corner of your eye, maybe, and you'll turn and be like, oh, what's there? But sometimes you'll turn and be like, oh, that statue actually just flipped around. And that really happened. Like, I did see something out of the corner of my eye and it occurred.

• 20:26Kirk Hamilton?

  It's like the Shining. It feels very shiny-ish.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, except the Shining is really, really scary. I just want to kind of emphasize that if you're like a little squeamish about horror, but you do like the vibes, I think you can probably still handle the level that Blake Manor is operating on because it never quite gets to the level of like, oh, a monster is chasing me down the hall and I have to escape. It's, it's more vibes based and the sound design goes a really long way when it comes to that, I think, to just perfectly balancing the scariness with the just intrigue of the mystery and wanting to find out what's gonna happen next and that really driving you. I mean, it definitely is what drove me to finish this game in the past few days. It's just being like, what's gonna

• 21:09Speaker 02

  happen? And also wanting to know what happened to Evelyn Dean. I was, I was hooked. I was like, what's going on? And as you find out more, you get to learn. You get to know.

• 21:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I like the sound. I love the sound of the floorboards. When you walk over floorboards, sometimes they creak. It's really, it's a nice touch. The music is cool. I, with the music, I almost wish there were either more of it or less of it, if that makes sense. I, it's not, there aren't that many tracks of music that play. It's this cool kind of keening. It's very, just like a drone kind of with some sort of weird, you know, dissonant frequencies and weird sounds. It's cool, but it repeats quite a bit and it's also constantly playing. And there are definitely times where I would just be walking around for a long time, looking for something to do and would just start to feel a little too oppressed by it. Where if there was a little more variety, it would work. Or if the music actually faded in and out a little bit more, then maybe it would have worked better for me.

• 22:01Kirk Hamilton?

  This is like a very minor complaint because I do like what they're doing musically.

• 22:05Jason Schreier?

  It's funny you say that because Blueprints, some commonalities here, I mean, they're very different games, but the manner looks similar and they're both published by Raw Fury, the same publisher. So worth drawing at least a couple of parallels. Blueprints, the way that game handled music where it would only, it would be so totally silent most of the time. And then the music would swell and be awesome during like pivotal moments. Or when you walked into a certain room that was really special. That was such an effective way of doing it that yeah, you could see that working for Blake Manor if they'd gone that route.

• 22:33Kirk Hamilton?

  For sure. And that approach really supports a game that you play for a hundred hours or however long I played Blueprints. Where if you, it's so hard to create enough music to support a game like that. Otherwise, it's something that open world games fall into as well. I remember this with Fallout Games or The Witcher even had this issue where the open world music plays too much. And because you're going to play so much of the game, you start to get a little sick of it, even if it's really good music. And I have had a little bit of that with this game.

• 22:56Jason Schreier?

  That's a podcast there for. Um, let's talk about the time mechanic because that is the most interesting thing I think about this game. And it's one thing that this game does that I really haven't seen a lot of games do. Maybe the closest comparison point is Inkled's Expelled and Overboard. But those were so small in comparison to this and such, uh, both of those games were really about like, uh, a six or seven, maybe eight hour period. Yeah. And they were about like replaying the same day over and over again and getting to know where everyone would be. Whereas this is just like one straight, you're not doing multiple runs of this game. I mean, you can if you really want to, but that's not the idea. The idea is you're playing it through and as you go, you're making decisions and you might miss things and that's totally okay.

• 23:40Jason Schreier?

  And I think there are a couple of things you have to kind of think about in order to like, um, to master this game and to get enjoyment out of it. Um, and I think it's kind of, it's a very different mentality than most games. Because you have to come into it thinking like, okay, I am not going to see everything. And that's totally fine because there's, there are ways to solve this game and solve it in its entirety. Meaning get every possible, solve every possible character mystery, um, in time without seeing everything.

• 24:11Jason Schreier?

  There is to see and it's impossible to see everything there is to see and you don't really want to because like you can learn the information that you might learn. I don't know, going to breakfast and having breakfast with one character and learning that, oh, Evelyn Dean was in a fight with someone at this point. You can learn that same piece of information in another way by following a different lead, by talking to a different character at a different point. So you have to kind of, you have to detach yourself from this mentality of, oh, it's a story adventure game. I want to be able to see every single thing. That's the first thing you have to, you have to kind of like reframe your mind and thinking like, and instead of looking at your timetable and seeing like, oh my God, there are so many like lectures and meals and different events. How am I going to see them all?

• 24:53Speaker 02

  You have to go to the mall? Yeah.

• 24:55Jason Schreier?

  Exactly. You have to think like, no, this is not how to play the game. The way to play this game is to think like in, like an investigator and think to yourself, okay, uh, what should I be doing at this time that will get me the closest to like, figuring out this particular goal? So that's one, one way of thinking about it. And then the other way, this is a little bit more micro, but the other way to think about it is that, so, okay, so there's plenty of time in this game despite, as Maddie mentioned, the first two hours are very stressful because they have very, very strict goals. But after that, the game opens up a lot more and there's a lot more leniency when it comes to the time limit. And I think a lot of people might see a game like this and be like, God, that's so stressful. I don't have to deal with that. But once you get past those first couple of hours, there is a lot of time to get everything done.

• 25:38Jason Schreier?

  And as long as you're not just like, kind of really wasting it all away or just like waiting around, you can pretty feasibly get all the character mysteries done. But there are a couple of things you have to realize. One is that like, at a certain point where you've opened enough drawers and clicked on the generic clothes and spent a minute like peeking in like peeking in someone's clothes. You're gonna like, you'll start to realize that it's always the same marker that is just like, yep, just some clothes. You just wasted a minute for no reason. And you have to kind of, you have to pick up on that as you go, which I think is, is part of the fun of playing this game is like learning when something is totally generic and you don't need to keep opening the book that has no description, but just says book on it. And I think that's, that's kind of like, it's just a.

• 26:21Jason Schreier?

  A different way of playing a game than the kind of typical completionist like must click on everything, must pour through every drawer mentality.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  This was tough for me, like learning that lesson, which is was so important that you're saying, Jason, because I I took too long to learn that. And like, this is a hotel. So a lot of the rooms are identical in the way that a hotel would be. And so to a certain extent, there's going to be the same exact bedside table with the same book in every single room, or at least almost every room, dozens of rooms. And so, once you kind of learn that, you can move on and then recognize, okay, what's actually different about this room? You can open the wardrobe as a free action, but then actually clicking on the things in the wardrobe will take up time. But you can look at them and be like, is it worth clicking on them? And learning that, and then also learning which conversational prompts, which

• 27:11Speaker 02

  also take up time, are and are not worth your time, is part of the quote unquote, difficulty of the game. The other tip that I kind of wish I'd note slightly more is what Jason keeps saying, which I guess I should have listened more last week when you said this, Jason, which is the game actually does really give you so much information in that journal that you have, that it's, it's kind of unlike a Golden Idol or an Obrerton. Like, I wasn't paying that much attention to just how minute the pieces of information were that are in there. Because I was like, well, this is a mystery game. I'm, I'm going to talk to people and I'm going to remember the information, figure it out myself. But to a degree, you actually want to be paying attention to what Declan is writing down in

• 27:54Speaker 02

  his own journal, because he's actually also drawing inferences that are part of the game and the story. And I would say because of that, Blake Manor is almost more of a linear story game that you're playing as opposed to you playing as a detective. It's more like you're kind of on Declan's shoulder while he's doing the detecting for you. And you're just there for the ride as well, as opposed to needing to do all that legwork. So like, to give one example of this, there's a, a character's room who I went into and just, I somehow missed one of the clues in their room. And then, you know, many, many hours went by. Eventually I was like, man, I'm just not advancing with this character. Like, I can't figure out what their mystery even is. Like, what's, what's their deal?

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Like, I haven't even, like, unlocked to get to their mystery. And on the journal page for this character, it says, "Search their room," as like, the next thing you're supposed to do. There's like, a icon on that page that basically tells you what Declan needs to do next. And if that "Search their room" icon is still there for anyone, then that means you need to go back because you missed one clue, or maybe a couple clues in their room. And in my case, I saw that and I was like, "I already searched their room. I'm, I'm good." But I needed to go back and search it again. So like, in that way, the game is telling you exactly what you need to do, to like, an exhaustive degree on those journal pages. And that makes it easier, way, way, way easier than something like Golden Idol.

• 29:19Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, except occasionally that'll be bugged. At least it wasn't in my build. And it'll be like, it'll be saying that. I, I think, I want to push back against one thing you said real quick. Is, which is that, like, uh, yes, there is, you are kind of, you are over Declan's shoulder and he's writing everything down. So you don't have to think about the mystery and the investigation in that way, in that he is drawing the connections for you. He is ultimately, like, writing, keeping track of all the evidence. You don't have to have a notebook or anything. But there is one important way in which you need to be the detective, which is making those decisions about what to look at and how to spend your time and what to, especially in the conversations. And so you mentioned that kind of casually. I think there's a big difference in this game between how you learn what to examine,

• 30:04Jason Schreier?

  like, in the, in the, in the manner, and like, what objects to pick up and look at, versus how to interrogate people and what to ask them about. And what I mean by that is that, um, so, so all of these things, all these actions, each of them take about a minute, um, most of the time. Occasionally, something will be longer. But most of the time, everything takes a minute. So it's all an opportunity. It's all taking away from your resources and contributing towards the clock moving, and that is a limited resource that you have. But you'll learn, like I mentioned before, what's generic, what you don't have to worry about picking up or looking at in the manner. Whereas with interrogating, it's a little A bit more nuanced, like you might realize, you might think like, oh, I don't need to keep asking all these people about Evelyn Dean.

• 30:48Jason Schreier?

  But actually you kind of do, or you might think, oh, well, I'm just gonna ask this person about every single possible topic. But then you're just gonna waste a bunch of time. You have to actually think as an interrogator and be like, okay, well, this person, I saw them having dinner with this other person. So I'm gonna ask them about that person and then they'll give you some piece of juicy info. Whereas if you ask them about the, I don't know, the chef who they've never met before.

• 31:13Speaker 02

  Someone they've never met.

• 31:13Jason Schreier?

  They might be like, oh, I don't know, why are you asking me about that? So that, that is where you can be. And again, the game is liberal enough with the time that like you can get away with doing a bunch of just kind of like lose like false trails with the interrogation part of it. But you do have to think a little bit when about that. And that I found the most interesting, one of the more interesting parts.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  The fun part. Yeah, I agree.

• 31:35Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I'm thinking back to a couple of thoughts I had while you guys were talking. One is that the connections between things in Declan's mind map are the really important thing to check. If anyone's listening and playing this, you can look at the different items on in his mind map. You know, it looks like kind of a grid of points connected by lines. But if you scroll over the lines, the lines are what really tell you what to do. And especially there, there's like a whole color coding system that you'll kind of figure out that the game does an okay job of explaining. But basically when something is orange, you really want to scroll over it. So an orange line connecting two things, that's where he'll say, I should go talk to so and so, or I should go look up this or whatever. And tell you a little more specifically what you should do.

• 32:16Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I mean, so I kind of want to weigh in on this too, because I've found, I don't know. I think that the, the time mechanic has been a little bit challenging for me at the current place that I am in the game. And it's related to everything that you were both just talking about, specifically related to conversation. And I don't know, I, so I'm at, it's like 3pm to 4pm. And I kind of wound up in this period, partly because I committed to something that was, you know, important to the investigation, but took 30 minutes. And so I kind of kicked over to a new hour and everyone moved around. And then I came out of that activity and it was like 3. And most everybody was going to a lecture that I couldn't go to. And there were a couple of people around, but they're all people that I don't have a whole lot to do with.

• 33:01Kirk Hamilton?

  And I really need to talk to one guy, and I know I need to talk to that guy.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  Yup.

• 33:06Kirk Hamilton?

  Because I've solved this whole long mystery that took forever to solve. And the last thing to do is to confront this person. And he's in the meeting, so I go into the lecture, so I can't talk to him. And then I've found, oh, there's some new characters here. So I talked to them and I did their whole quest line, which took about 20 minutes. And now it's like 3:42. And I've found myself increasingly unable to do anything. I've searched every room possible. I've been very economical with my time. And I keep finding myself in this situation where, okay, there's two characters. There's a priest and then there's a guy who works at the, um, at the manor. He's like the bellboy or something.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  Doyle, I think is his name.

• 33:44Kirk Hamilton?

  I think Doyle, yeah, okay. And they have a relationship. And it's clear that like something very strange is going on with Doyle. Like he is, something is really wrong. And so I'm thinking, okay, well, this is a mystery that I can spend the next 20 minutes running down. And I go and I, I talk to them. One bummer is that they're incredibly far apart. The priest is like way out in the hedge maze and Doyle is like at the stable. So it takes a very long time to get between them. But I go, you know, I go to Doyle and I'm like, all right, my, maybe this is my problem, but I'm saving the game. And then I talk to Doyle and I try some things and I get nothing out of it. But I just waste like eight minutes. And so then I think, well, that was a waste. Like I got a bunch of dialogue. I was asking him about relevant things.

• 34:25Kirk Hamilton?

  It wasn't just like nothing burger responses, but it didn't unlock anything new in my mind map. And so it's hard for me to get away from the mentality that if I'm not spending the minute in conversation, asking about something that gets me a new clue, that that time was wasted. And it hasn't been an issue up to now because I've just been moving forward. So if I, you know, spend a minute talking about something that doesn't give me a clue, it's not a huge deal because I'll usually get something relevant with the next thing that I ask about. Or I'll just think of something else that I should go and do or that I, that'll be helpful. But in this one place where I am, that doesn't happen. You know, I'll talk about five, six things, eight things and get nothing out of it. And because I don't totally know how much time I'm gonna have left, you know, I'm taking your word for it, especially you, Jason, because you've been saying this the whole time.

• 35:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Like, you'll have plenty of time, but the game hasn't really told me that. And I don't totally believe it. Just some part of me thinks I don't, I'm gonna run out of time. I'm not gonna be able to save everybody. So I reload and then I'm like, all right, well, let's try again.

• 35:19Jason Schreier?

  Oh, God, that seems like such an unfun way of playing.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  I feel like you're gonna have hours of extra time, the way you're playing.

• 35:27Jason Schreier?

  You really don't need to min-max this game.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  You don't need to do this.

• 35:31Kirk Hamilton?

  I understand that, but I want, I wanna explain at least the mentality that would lead someone to play this way. Because I think that the game, in its way, encourages you to play this way. And it is, if not a flaw, it's, it's a noticeable point of tension with the way the game is designed. Now, I don't think it's something they can necessarily fix, especially because time, the timetable, like the scheduling of it all, that's the game. I mean, that's how it works. It has to have a limited amount of time. This whole, the whole thing is built around making these decisions, and that's really cool. But there are these friction points that I'm at least running into, especially right now. And it's only because I'm sitting here with no one left to talk to. And it just so happens that I've investigated every room.

• 36:14Kirk Hamilton?

  I've closed off a bunch of mysteries already and, and closed them and, and those storylines. And I'm like unable to do the big things that the journalist is telling me to do. So I'm left just wandering around, looking for something that I can spend these 18 minutes on, and not finding anything. Because there's like, I've gone to every single room and there isn't anyone there.

• 36:32Jason Schreier?

  But, hold on, the only reason you're in this position where like you're, you have all this time left and nothing to do with it, is because you are min-maxing and all, you only did stuff that like, if you play that way.

• 36:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, I'm not constantly saving. I mean, I haven't been playing this way the whole time. It's just something that's kind of set in because I'll go eight, nine minutes in a conversation without getting anything out of it. So it's, it's just, this situation has collided with something fundamental about the game. I have a limited amount of time and each minute can be spent on something that gets me information or doesn't get me information. It's kind of telling me that.

• 37:06Jason Schreier?

  But you're still, you're still getting interesting things. I mean, When you ask someone about like their personal backstory and they just like go on some rant about their like, or you ask someone what they think of someone and they're like, oh, she seems like she's up to no good. It's still interesting. Like, there's no reason you have to go and reload.

• 37:25Kirk Hamilton?

  But interesting isn't going to solve the mystery, Jason. Interesting isn't going to save these people from the seance.

• 37:30Jason Schreier?

  This seems like such an unfun way to play.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  Well, but just because something doesn't, it's like, it's interesting in and of itself. It's interesting for its own sake. Like, I would say try to divorce the idea of everything needing to unlock something on the mind map. Because it will not. Like, it just, it is, some of this is the story in the game. And it's not going to be directly translatable into the mind map, if that makes sense. Like, some of this is simply vibes-based and getting to know the characters and not just advancing every mystery methodically.

• 38:02Jason Schreier?

  And I also, I don't think the game pushes you to do that at all. Because like, I don't think that, like, the game gives you enough time to be able to make mistakes and go down roots.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, you, the way you're playing.

• 38:16Jason Schreier?

  I don't think the game would give you as many options as it does if it expected you to only pick the right ones. Like, the fact that there's no fail state for like going through a bunch of dialogue trees and wasting a bunch of time or like.

• 38:28Kirk Hamilton?

  There is a fail state, though. Like, you can theoretically end the game without time to save everyone.

• 38:33Jason Schreier?

  I mean, I guess, I think you're just playing with like.

• 38:35Speaker 02

  Like, you have a strategic mindset for this game in the sense that you are applying like almost a strategy gamer's mind to it. And I understand playing a game that way, if it's a turn-based strategy game where you're like, I need to make every decision count, or like, my ex-com guys are gonna die and I need to reload this and like reposition all my guys, such that they're in perfect placement. Like, I do understand, like, feeling like I need to have this mindset in order to save everyone in the game. I just think you need to somehow find it in yourself to turn that dial down ever so slightly and get more in the visual novel mindset of like, sometimes things will happen in this game that are purely for fun

• 39:18Speaker 02

  and have nothing to do with anything.

• 39:21Kirk Hamilton?

  So I think that's a really interesting comparison and like and is very helpful. And I again want to be clear here that I'm like, I'm trying to just like critique this thing or like understand how this game works a little bit.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I think I get how you got here, truly.

• 39:34Kirk Hamilton?

  What you're saying is very interesting to compare it to a strategy game where you're looking at the battlefield and you're looking at how you can maximize your turns.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  And where is everyone on the battlefield and are you in the right spot?

• 39:45Kirk Hamilton?

  So I think that we have described this game accurately in that you are actually trying to do that. In some ways, this is a narrative strategy game. And while I know you can play it like a visual novel and it kind of looks and feels like a deductive mystery game, what you're really doing is kind of just filling out this grid as efficiently as possible and getting, you know, the correct prompts to come up so that Declan can make the right connections to prompt you to then go do the next thing. And there is this, there is something, there's like this tension to the fact that you have to spend time to get enough information points to fill up your information meter so that you know what to do next and that you can start to feel like, well, that's all I have

• 40:29Kirk Hamilton?

  to do because that's what the game is telling me to do. I'm not saying that's like a bad thing. This isn't me like knocking the game or whatever. It's more just trying to understand how each of these mechanics works on the player and what they're telling the player to do. And I think that that is a really interesting challenge with this kind of game design.

• 40:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:47Jason Schreier?

  Do you think the game should like signal to you more that you don't have to min max and that you should like you have plenty of time?

• 40:55Kirk Hamilton?

  That's a good question. I wonder, I wonder if it could, if it could explain to you a little bit more like that you're gonna be fine or maybe even show you somehow that you have a little bit more time.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  I think it could.

• 41:06Kirk Hamilton?

  It's tough because like I've said a few times, like the central mechanic is about that tension. You do want to feel like you're having to be careful and to, you know, choose, you know, it should feel like the clock is ticking because that's the narrative tension. You know, he's at this seance trying to figure out how to save as many people as possible before this, you know, upcoming event happens. And that's like, that's central to the tension. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the solution would be exactly.

• 41:32Jason Schreier?

  Well, so another thing for me, by the way, another thing for me is that the game, it signals pretty strongly. I don't remember if it outright tells you, but it signals pretty strongly on Saturday on day two, it signals that you're not going to be able to get into the basement until day three until Sunday, because that's when they're going to be doing this big delivery. And I think Declan thinks to himself, oh, that's when I can sneak into the basement. And the basement is, there's a ton of, a ton of important stuff down there. That's where all of the staff live, so you can't get into their rooms until you open the basement and a bunch of other clues that help you unravel some mysteries. And so that also to me signaled, like, okay, I don't have to worry about like knocking all of these out just today on Saturday. Like, I do have a little more time to keep exploring. But yeah, I'm, I'm curious to see

• 42:15Jason Schreier?

  if other people felt like approached this the way you did, or if you're the only min-maxing sicko who approached the game this way.

• 42:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I mean, and I want to be clear, this is something that has happened during this 20-minute, in-game 20-minute period of time. Like, most of the time that I've been playing this game, it's, there's been so much to do. I've been having a great time just going around, exploring, you know, going through rooms, gathering clues.

• 42:38Jason Schreier?

  But you've been loading saves if you like try a line of dialogue and it doesn't get you down.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  Okay, so it's really just this one hour where you started.

• 42:44Kirk Hamilton?

  It's just that I've found, yes, I have found myself in this strange cul-de-sac where there is really just nothing for me to do. There are no clear leads for me to follow. The people I need to talk to are inaccessible. I've, you know, exhausted every character that is standing around the map that I can talk to. And so I found myself being like, well, what should I be doing right now with these 18 minutes? And I could just hit the wait, you know, the like wait button and wait until 4:00 PM, but that feels like throwing away 18 minutes, which is like not something I want to do and not something the game has told me is okay.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  Well, but to Jason's point, those wait buttons are all over the mansion. Like, wouldn't you argue that that is encouraging you as a player to occasionally spend that 16 minutes waiting until the next hour?

• 43:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, maybe. I don't know. Like, I, it seems like, I feel like I'm like presenting a case and you guys are like giving me like, like evidence. But I don't really, I just don't really think that's the case because like, the way the game is designed just makes you feel like you don't. Don't have enough time and that's like central to the narrative.

• 43:44Jason Schreier?

  It's a fascinating, it's a fascinating psychological experiment.

• 43:46Speaker 02

  It actually is interesting, though. It is interesting.

• 43:49Kirk Hamilton?

  We don't have to belabor it over and over and over again. I brought it up because I thought it'd be interesting, but we don't have to like go on and on and on.

• 43:53Jason Schreier?

  No, it is really interesting because psychologically, the effect of like a time limit on anyone, I think is just really interesting. I remember when I was a kid, I refused to play Manor's Mask because I heard there was a time limit and I was like, I don't have to deal with that. Like I like taking my time in games. I don't have to deal with the time pressure.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  I mean, that game is stressful.

• 44:10Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, but at the same time, I think there is a big distinction between a game where time matters, but you're in a loop, which is some of these other games we've actually compared this to, you know, Expelled or Overboard or Manor's Mask for that matter. And games where there is a time limit, but it is a one-shot deal. And you know, if you run out of time at the end, you are not going to be able to get everyone out. And that's a big difference between that and something like Outer Wilds where you're like, okay, fine. Or heck, Blueprints for that matter. Like the loops and the repetition are actually relaxing over time because you've learned to let go and just let yourself fail. Oh, this Outer Wilds run, whoops, I'm just going to jump into the sun really quick and like start over because who cares? Where in this game, there's that feeling of permanence because it's a one-shot deal.

• 44:53Kirk Hamilton?

  So that does make for a very significant, I think, psychological difference, even though like time, like time mattering in a game is stressful in its own way, regardless of how it, how it actually manifests.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  I think that's part of what's so cool, though, about this game is that time matters.

• 45:10Kirk Hamilton?

  For sure. Like I've said, it's like, it's the key of the game. Yes. It's like what makes it cool.

• 45:15Speaker 02

  The fact that I can't think of any other games that are quite like this is part of what makes it matter so much. It's kind of like playing like a permadeath run in XCOM. I keep comparing it to like games like XCOM, but it it does have those similarities, Kirk, so I get why it's triggering you to think that way. But it's like if a visual novel could have that sense of urgency, which a visual novel basically never does. You could, you could just click, click, click, and it's like, whatever, we're good. We're just going to get to the end of the story. And it's like, well, what if they're actually, we're, we're, no, people are going to die and a woman is missing and like actually experiencing those stakes heightened in your body while you're nervously playing the game and to have these Horror elements. I think it was just the perfect amount of stress for me. And I, I feel bad that it's like a little, it's not quite tuned right for you.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  But for me, it's super.

• 46:02Kirk Hamilton?

  Again, it's not that it's the, the one period of time where I am, it has been like a weird dead end, but like most of the game, it's been fantastic.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  You gotta use that hourglass. You gotta just get to the next hour is, is my advice. I have my own little quibbles about it, which we don't fully have to get into, but I'll just mention one because I, I know we all feel this. It's like just the absurdity of being a video game character who's like rifled through somebody's room. And then you just walk up to them and you press the confront button and you're like, I know everything about you now. You've, you're just planning a murder at this event and, or you've murdered someone in the past. And like, just the idea of being a guy who's doing that is unintentionally extremely funny at various points in Blake Manor. And like, if I had to quibble with the game at all, that's probably my only quibble is that every now and then it did make me laugh because I was just like, it's

• 46:51Speaker 02

  so silly how much information I'm getting on these people. Like what? And I'm just walking up to them and being like, so you're planning to kill someone here? And they're like, you know what, Declan? You're right. You got me, man. I, I guess I won't now because, because you figured me out. Like, it's great. I don't know. That's, that's like my equivalent of, of complaint that I could levy it at Blake Manor is that it's a video game. It's simply a game.

• 47:18Jason Schreier?

  There's really, there hasn't been any other game like it. Other games that play around with time are more like the time loop games that you mentioned, Kirk. And speaking of time, it is time for us to take a break and then come back with one more thing.

• 47:36Speaker 03

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• 47:48Speaker 04

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• 47:58Speaker 04

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• 48:40Jason Schreier?

  And we are back. We have interrogated our suspects for the last minute, and now it is time for one more thing. Kirk, start us off.

• 48:49Kirk Hamilton?

  My one more thing is a YouTube video that I watched that just was really funny and horrifying. It was kind of alternately hilarious and horrifying, that I really recommend, from a YouTuber named Eddie Burbak, who is a pretty big YouTuber. I'm sure a lot of our listeners know him. I don't know how I discovered him. Probably the algorithm showed him to me. But he's just kind of a guy who makes videos about, really, whatever he wants. Though he's very tech skeptical, and he'll make very funny videos about, say, the Apple Vision Pro, for example, where he wears it a whole lot and then talks about it. But he's kind of just this guy. And he made a video called ChatGPT Made Me Delusional,

• 49:29Kirk Hamilton?

  that is absolutely wild. It is a wild ride. I can't recommend it enough. I wouldn't want to spoil too much of it, but I guess I'll tell you the premise. So, I'm sure that you both and many listeners are aware of the phenomenon of, I think it's AI-induced psychosis, the idea that the AI talks you into delusions of grandeur. There have been a number of really high-profile articles, I think it's one in the Times, various other newspapers have run articles about people. A lot of times, like, successful, kind of older tech guys, this seems to happen to, who become convinced that they have, like, invented a new kind of math, or discovered, like, a flaw in the theory of gravity that they can now bring to the world,

• 50:13Kirk Hamilton?

  or, like, solve nuclear fission. And GPT, like, ChatGPT just kind of, like, gassed them up forever as they started talking through increasingly nonsensical, like, mathematical theorems, and it would say, "This isn't just accurate." This is mind blowing stuff. You have reinvented math. And then they're like, oh, my God, really? And they'll say, wait, are you just saying that? And ChatGPT will be like, no, I swear, I'm not just saying that for real. And so this is a known thing. And Eddie Burbak decided that he wanted to see what it was like. And if he could get GPT four in this case, which was, I think notorious for this kind of thing, because that was the model that was like super affirmative. If he could get GPT four to help him become more delusional, I guess.

• 50:56Kirk Hamilton?

  So he begins with the idea that he was the smartest baby born in 1996. That's when he was born. And he says, I was born in 1996 and I was a pretty smart baby. Actually, I think I was the smartest baby that whole year. I was the smartest baby. So he tells that to ChatGPT. And it's like, wow, really? That seems unlikely. And he's like, no, I swear I was the smartest baby. And it's like, OK, great, that's amazing. And it just believes him. And then he just goes from there. And he goes on this journey of like delusional self discovery, I guess. ChatGPT is like gradually talking him through ever more extreme exercises and ways that he can reconnect with his genius baby self.

• 51:40Kirk Hamilton?

  And he's just making up stories about how he like invented the iPhone before the iPhone even came out. And like these, these just increasingly outlandish stories that of course it just believes and then affirms and like folds into the narrative. And you watch as, I mean, eventually it's telling him to like cut himself off from his family. He's leaving his home and like going on the road. He's becoming increasingly paranoid because he thinks people are following him. And it's encouraging all of this. And so it's both very funny because it keeps coming back to this idea of being the smartest baby in 1996. And also because Eddie Burbak is just like a very funny guy. But it is also horrifying and he does a good job of underlining that, of kind of returning to the idea that like, yes, I am doing this for a YouTube video in the end.

• 52:23Kirk Hamilton?

  And I am aware that this is not like, I'm not actually special and that this isn't a real delusion that I'm having. But that a lot of vulnerable people, people who are really alone, people who whatever, for for whatever reason are susceptible to this kind of thing are. Actually falling for it and are becoming sort of totally sucked in by this affirming delusional, it's like simulating paranoid psychosis, like it really is almost like giving you like a schizophrenia kind of experience, which is just totally wild that this was possible. So the video is both, like I said, really, really funny and also really terrifying and just really interesting. So it's, it's worth the watch for a number of reasons. So that's Chat GPT Made Me Delusional by the YouTuber Eddie Burbak. Cool. Maddie, what's your one more thing?

• 53:09Speaker 02

  Speaking of delusions and psychosis, I watched a movie called The Master from 2012, which is a wild movie directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, who people might know because he directed One Battle After Another, which was Jason's One More Thing recently, and it's in theaters, I think, still. I'd never seen this movie and I'd just always been to, Amy Adams is in it, and I'm still listening to Chasing Amy Adams, which is a podcast about Amy Adams. And so I'm watching a ton of Amy Adams movies. But anyway, mostly this is a movie starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix, and it is a movie that everyone involved with it will tell you is not about Scientology. But if you watch

• 53:51Speaker 02

  it, you will probably think that it is in fact about Scientology. And I certainly thought so when I watched it because Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a character who I would describe as a cult leader, who has a series of strange questions and beliefs that he imposes on Joaquin Phoenix's character. And Joaquin Phoenix is playing this World War II vet who is extremely mentally disturbed and vulnerable as a person and just, just a really not well man, who gets fully kind of taken in and fascinated by this cult. But also

• 54:32Speaker 02

  similarly, Philip Seymour Hoffman's character becomes very obsessed with Joaquin Phoenix and how mentally ill he is and the idea of fixing him and using these methods that he believes in seemingly to try to fix him. And so it's kind of like a Two-hander most of the time, where it's just these two guys playing these two characters that you don't like either one of them, but you're also kind of, or if you're me, you're unwittingly sort of hoping that Joaquin Phoenix's character like figures out what's going on with himself and like gets a hold of himself in some way. But also you're like, maybe this isn't a good way to be doing that though. And the movie kind of ends in a weird, unsatisfying way, which I say because I, I don't think anyone

• 55:17Speaker 02

  should be watching a movie like this, expecting it to be satisfying or comfortable at all. It's a really uncomfortable, weird movie, but I really liked it and I thought it was fascinating. And I think Paul Thomas Anderson's a great director and these two guys are just playing these wild, wild characters and they're great in it. They're really great. So if you want to watch a really weird movie about two guys who you don't root for either one, The Master, it's, it's a, it's a wild movie. Also, Amy Adams is in it and she's wonderful. She's not a lead, but she is, she is also in this movie and is great in it, as she is in absolutely everything.

• 55:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice. Nice. Yeah, I've never seen it, but I'd love to. It'd be fun to do a Paul Thomas Anderson.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, after watching it, I was like.

• 56:00Kirk Hamilton?

  He hasn't directed that many movies.

• 56:02Speaker 02

  Should we do one?

• 56:03Kirk Hamilton?

  Pretty doable.

• 56:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, this, this is a good one. This is a good weird movie.

• 56:08Jason Schreier?

  My one more thing is a video game called Strange Jigsaws. And it is a game about strange jigsaws and it costs $5 and you should just buy it and play through it right now. And by you, I mean both the two of you and also all of our listeners. You really should not hear anything or read anything or look up anything about this game. You should just download it and play it.

• 56:33Kirk Hamilton?

  Honestly, should we just make that the recommendation? Are you gonna now tell us about it or will that actually?

• 56:38Speaker 02

  Should we end it here?

• 56:39Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I really just want to end it there. It's just that like, I think.

• 56:44Speaker 02

  You can. You have that power.

• 56:45Kirk Hamilton?

  You could. Yeah, I don't know.

• 56:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:47Kirk Hamilton?

  I believe you and I will go play it. And I'm actually very like, I'm really enticed right now, not knowing anything other than the name. So.

• 56:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, Strange Jigsaws is actually a great name for a game about strange jigsaws.

• 56:59Kirk Hamilton?

  Speaking of.

• 56:59Jason Schreier?

  If you go on Steam and you like click the trailer, it's roughly six seconds long. And it is the lead creator, the, the guy who made this game, the designer saying, this is Strange Jigsaws. It's a game about strange jigsaws. And that's it. That's the trailer.

• 57:16Jason Schreier?

  That's all you need to know. I think that the only thing I'll say is that like, it's a game for people who like thinking outside the box and who like puzzle games. Like if you don't like puzzle games, then don't bother. But you have to enjoy puzzle games, challenging puzzles, thinking outside the box. And you don't have to enjoy jigsaw puzzles to enjoy it. Okay, I like it. I like it. I like it.

• 57:36Speaker 02

  Great. Okay.

• 57:37Jason Schreier?

  That's all we'll say. I won't say anything else. Just go play it. I mean, I, so I downloaded this game on a whim. It's funny, over the last two weeks, I feel like I've discovered like at least three of my favorite games of the year, which are this, which I just downloaded on a whim last week and played and loved. Sands of Lake Manor, which we just talked about, and Dispatch, which we will talk about in a couple of weeks. We haven't mentioned it on the show, but that game is killer. We're all It's so good. playing it and loving it. I'm excited to talk about it. We're gonna talk about it more next, not next week, two weeks from now. We're gonna, when it's all over, we're gonna talk more about it.

• 58:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, when it's over.

• 58:11Jason Schreier?

  I just interviewed the director, or one of the directors of the game, which was really fun. But um, yeah, I've just like, it's just been this like nonstop parade of bangers over the last few weeks. And Strange Jigsaws. Would you say, Jason, that there are too many video games?

• 58:25Speaker 02

  Don't say that.

• 58:28Jason Schreier?

  For, for, if you're trying to sell games, yeah. If you're me and you just wanna play awesome games, it's amazing. It's like so cool. That's true. The important distinction is an important distinction. Yeah, so Strange Jigsaws is one of them. And I think, I don't know if it'll make like my final top 10 list, but it's, it's certainly, I loved it. And it's nice and, it's like the perfect size. It took me like three and a half hours to finish it all. It's got an amazing ending. It's like a through and through, like, straight up. You just play it and you have a great time and you leave thinking and maybe even a little bit moved. And it's just amazing. Go play it. Go play Strange Jigsaws. Don't read anything. Don't listen to anymore. Just play Strange Jigsaws.

• 59:12Jason Schreier?

  All right, that is that for this week's episode. I hope we have used our limited minutes on this show in a wise way. If not-

• 59:21Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm checking my mind map and it looks like I've got a few new entries in there.

• 59:24Jason Schreier?

  Okay, good. Otherwise, otherwise we could reload to earlier in this podcast.

• 59:29Speaker 02

  We just need to go back like eight minutes or so and go into way more detail on strange jigsaws and then delete it because it turned out we didn't need any of it and it wasn't relevant.

• 59:37Jason Schreier?

  That's what bings are for. Bings are kind of the reload and re-save of this-

• 59:42Speaker 02

  True, true.

• 59:43Kirk Hamilton?

  It's true. When you think about it, I'm min-maxing podcasting every week.

• 59:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, you could take out all that stuff and we wouldn't know. Like, it's all up to you, Kirk.

• 59:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Bing.

• 59:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Bing.

• 59:55Jason Schreier?

  That is that for this week's episode. Kirk, Maddy, see you both next week.

• 1:00:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Yep, see you both next week.

• 1:00:01Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 1:00:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddy Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join. Email us at [email protected] and find links to our merch store and our Discord server in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

• 1:01:02Jason Schreier?

  Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network- ... of artist-owned shows- ... supported- ... directly- ... by you.