00:00:01.78 Dave Hello, everybody. My name is Dave Jackson, and you're listening to Tales from the Backlog. and This is a video game's deep dive review podcast where each week I'm joined by a guest to bring a game out of the backlog, play it, and discuss. My guest today is a friend of the show, a streamer, YouTube creator, host of Play Log Podcast, and he finds time to take care of all of the neighborhood cats. Welcome, Danny Bass Jr. But you may know him as CGDannyB. Danny, welcome. 00:00:29.69 Danny Yo, what's popping, Dave? How's it going, dude? 00:00:32.83 Dave Going great, man. I'm happy to have you on the show. Finally, we've been trying to get something in the works for a while now. We finally got it going today. We got a really interesting game to talk about, too. 00:00:40.41 Danny Oh, yeah, we do. I blame you for this one. I had such a, I was going to say happy week. 00:00:45.05 Dave Yeah. 00:00:47.22 Danny And then I remembered I had just finished night in the woods and that had to power through this. I'm like, man, I need to play something happy soon. 00:00:52.06 Dave ah you had a pretty cathartic week, yeah. 00:00:56.75 Danny It's been a time. It's been a time. 00:00:58.99 Dave Yeah, today the two of us are going to talk about A Space for the Unbound, which is an adventure game developed by Mojiken Studio and published by Toge Productions for all contemporary platforms in 2023. 00:01:12.78 Dave And if this is your first time listening to the show, first of all, thank you for stopping by. Here's how spoilers work. For about the first half of this episode, we're going to go spoiler free. And then afterwards we're going to warn you when the spoilers begin. You can check down in the show notes for a timestamp for when the spoilers are coming. But if you have not played A Space for the Unbound and it's a game with a yeah ah very emotional and affecting story, ah you don't want to find out what happens at the end before you play it, I don't think. 00:01:35.95 Danny Thanks. 00:01:42.20 Dave So you can listen to this for a while and then we'll warn you when spoilers are coming. so What is a space for the unbound? I say it is a suburban fantasy point and click adventure, which is firmly rooted in its Indonesian setting, while also exploring emotional and supernatural elements. Danny, what's the pitch for you? 00:02:03.58 Danny um I had put, it is a cozy in air quotes, a 2D adventure game mashed with an over the top slice of life anime. 00:02:06.75 Dave Yeah. 00:02:11.64 Danny And and maybe the over the top helps sell it, but ah the slice of life, they'd be anything. You'll have one happy day and next thing you're hit by a truck and who knows what happens. 00:02:20.20 Dave Exactly. Yeah. um I played this on PC. It took me 10 hours to get through it. And a quick shout out, I got the game as a gift from a friend of the show, Matt, aka Stormageddon. So thank you, Matt, for giving me this game. Very nice of you. ah But I played it on Steam. And mostly on Steam, although I did do some Steam Deck, it worked perfectly over there. 00:02:44.41 Dave ah Danny, how'd you play this? How long did it take you? 00:02:45.76 Danny Nice, I also played it on Steam. Matt didn't buy me my copy. So Matt, what's up with that? Though you were cool, man. What's going on here? um But ah it my steam clock says about 14 and a half hours. I know that is also like stepping away, letting it sit on the steam deck. So that's probably about four hours more than it should be. um But yeah, also played, started on on desktop, ah jumped to steam deck, docked, ran perfectly. um There was one point, I think, where I had some just loading issues, just closed and relaunched. 00:03:16.47 Danny And I just don't know if that was just the steam deck set on for like four days. And it's like, I need a nap. Let me relax for a sec. 00:03:20.59 Dave Yeah, yeah. 00:03:22.21 Danny But yeah, no, it ran great on Steam Deck, especially docked. Yeah, how about let's say about 10, 10 and a half hours. 00:03:29.02 Dave Yeah, it's ah so not ah not a super short game, but not crazy long either. It's a good, I think that sweet spot, five to 15 hours for a lot of games works pretty well. ah So how did we come across this game? We'll start out like we do every episode talking about our histories with a space for the unbound. So Danny, we'll start with you. I know you, I gave you a list of possibilities and then we finally settled on this game, um but you had already said like you'd been meaning to play it. 00:03:51.25 Danny Yeah. 00:04:00.19 Dave So how did it come on your radar? 00:04:02.43 Danny Yeah, it was um it was one of those types of games that there's always these, again, I put the air quotes on cozy, but one of those types of, I'll put air quotes on relaxing as well type of games where I'm like, I want to check this one out. It's just right now I'm playing XYZ. If I recall, I believe Kyle from 6-1, I mentioned it to him. He's like, dude, I love the game. It was really great. So it's been on my wish list. I'm like, I'll get to that one of these days. It's just, when is that cord going to get struck? And they were like, hey, but I don't know if you're interested in being spatially unbound. I'm like, you know what? We can push that because it's sitting in the cart. 00:04:35.42 Danny Uh, and then right on time for the steam summer sale where it was on sale, I would think a summer to be like five and eight bucks or something like that. 00:04:35.51 Dave Yeah. 00:04:40.51 Danny So like, you know what? 00:04:42.11 Danny Let's pull the trigger. Let's go. 00:04:43.94 Dave There we go, yeah. um I had also kind of heard about this from other friends, podcasters and stuff. I didn't like catch it through, I guess you'd say traditional marketing. 00:04:55.73 Dave I never heard of it before it came out, but as soon as it came out, it started to get praise for the story and the setting and stuff. And I think it was mostly a friend Jake at the pre-order bonus podcast who was kind of shouting this game out. Jake often has his ear to indie releases really well. So um the other thing that appealed to me was I really love games that are set in real world settings that are not like the United States, in Japan, in Western Europe, you know, I like to see those real life experiences. 00:05:24.11 Danny Uh-huh. 00:05:30.70 Dave And it's mostly coming up in indie games. And I did a whole episode about games like that. And this was one that we had kind of been like, hey, wasn’t there that game set in Indonesia kind of forget the name. 00:05:36.87 Danny Ooh. 00:05:41.89 Dave But here we are. So I've actually been to Indonesia a couple times ah traveling. So that's a little bit of connection to this setting. And I always love when people are able to tell their stories. Indie games are perfect for that. Game making tools are so much more accessible now. And I just love that we're able to get games like this with more regularity now. 00:06:05.73 Danny Yeah, you would, ah if you mentioned indie games having those like the willingness to do other things that a lot of triple A's won't, whether that's touching in different parts of the world that most games don't take place in or anything like that. um Behind the scenes, I've, you know, I've wrapped this game up about two and a half hours prior to sitting down to record. 00:06:26.41 Dave Yeah. 00:06:27.10 Danny ah So I'm like, let me, let me see what other people are thinking. So I pulled up like somebody's YouTube breakdown. And I remember the way they described it, I wish I had the phrasing, but they basically said like, The gameplay wasn't up to snuff in a way because it was like an indie game. And I'm like, well, that's a terrible way to look at it. It's an awful way to look at it. 00:06:42.52 Dave Yeah. 00:06:43.45 Danny I think stylistically and genre wise are just things that people choose to do and the best medium to tell their story, whether that's a personal one from the heart. It's a made up one that's inspired by real life events, whatever the case is. um I think it does a great job of like. I guess, blurring those lines of like, we're set in a real life situation, but all the things going on, very unrealistic, very fantasy. 00:07:04.43 Dave Yeah, yeah, for sure. 00:07:04.67 Danny And I think it all blends really well. 00:07:07.65 Dave So like that person's, I guess, critique that you had mentioned, I don't agree that it's because of an indie game, that's dog shit to me. 00:07:17.59 Danny Right. 00:07:19.56 Dave But I do kind of agree that like the gameplay is kind of what held this back for me. There's a section in the middle of the game 00:07:25.53 Danny Mm hmm. 00:07:28.27 Dave where the story is kind of trying to find its footing and the gameplay got really tedious for me. I didn't really enjoy it at all but ah I kind of liken this to like if you're watching a gymnastics routine and the gymnast starts out pretty strong and stumbles in the middle. So like their score is gonna get docked, you know, but then they finish it so incredibly that like, you don't remember what happened in the middle. 00:07:50.12 Danny Yeah. 00:07:55.74 Dave Cause the thing that happened at the end was so fucking cool. That's how I feel about this game. And so there's gonna be like a distinction, I think, between how I felt about the game right when I finished it, like where all of those memories were fresh, the frustration and boredom I felt in the middle, frankly, 00:08:11.74 Danny Mm hmm. 00:08:16.69 Dave and then like how strong it finished, the distinction between that feeling and then how I feel now. Cause I beat this game maybe three weeks ago, something like that. 00:08:27.32 Danny Okay, that's right. Remember the DM. 00:08:28.47 Dave So what I remember are the most impactful things. And like, as we get further and further away from it, that's what I'm going to remember the most. I'm going to remember basically The whole thing ah as like as one package will say and not necessarily those individual things along the way right like a more holistic memory that is really ah impacted by how this game ends. I think the ending is incredibly strong. 00:09:00.07 Dave So anything in the middle that kind of was frustrating or boring to me is gonna kind of fade as we go. ah So we'll dig into those as we go, cause we do, you know, we talk about the entire experience, but that's just kind of how I felt about it at the beginning, kind of an uneven journey through it. 00:09:08.65 Danny Yeah. 00:09:21.93 Dave And then the ending and like finding out what the story is actually about is incredibly good. 00:09:29.51 Danny Yeah, ah the way you use gymnastics as an example, um you're gonna get a lot of anime references today, so stick with me here. 00:09:34.98 Dave okay 00:09:37.34 Danny But yeah, I think around the same spot I'm probably we' talking about, that middle lull, it was one of those, we have the main story, we have the canon stuff going on and we get this filler arc right in the middle, where it's just like the characters I don't really care all that much about were doing extra tasks where I'm like, you know we did stop right before this big battle or before this big dramatic moment and now I'm just kind of, doing what is still by the end of the chapter, still pushing forward to like the narrative we're going. 00:10:00.19 Dave Okay. Mhmm. 00:10:01.32 Danny But I'm like, ah I wish we speed this up a little bit. Can we get past this part? I don't want to be here. I just want to go back to liking my characters, the people I'm interested in. 00:10:12.14 Dave Yeah, I'm ah ah bring on the anime references. They'll be for my audience and not for me. 00:10:15.11 Danny Yeah. 00:10:16.78 Dave I'm not an anime guy, ah but I will make the comparison. 00:10:20.53 Danny OK. 00:10:20.91 Dave like I was a big Dragon Ball Z fan growing up. 00:10:24.59 Danny guy 00:10:25.13 Dave And so when I think about my memories of Dragon Ball Z, I think of all the cool fights and stuff. And I don't necessarily remember how they would spend two episodes you know powering up and staring at each other. that's 00:10:37.18 Danny Screaming, getting glowy hair all the time. 00:10:38.74 Dave Yeah, that's, that's kinda how, uh, this is as, as time moves forward, but, uh, we'll put a pin in the ah discussion here. 00:10:46.60 Danny Mm hmm. 00:10:46.72 Dave We'll listen to a bit of music from a space for the unbound. And when we come back, we'll set up the story, talk about whether that and music. 00:10:55.81 Danny Words are hard. 00:10:57.33 Dave Yeah. We're just gonna, we're just gonna cut right when I said set up the story. Yeah. A Space for the Unbound takes place in Indonesia, which is the game director's home country. ah So again, we have these close and personal settings in video games, which I love. The game opens as your main playable character named Atma is helping his friend Nirmala finish the story that she was writing. They're kind of working together, creative writing, a little fun, hanging out in a trailer as you do. A rainstorm comes and Nirmala gets stuck in the rising water in the river ah that she decided to cross. Atma goes to try to help her and he's washed away as he tries to save her. 00:11:41.23 Dave During this section, you're introduced to a primary game mechanic, which we'll talk about a little bit more later, ah where you can dive into people's subconscious, kind of like ah in Persona 5 or something like that. So, ah Atma wakes up, realizes he's been dreaming. ah He's asleep in his classroom, he's in high school, and his girlfriend named Raya wakes him up. ah Raya looks exactly the same as Nirmala and the dream kind of bothers Atma because of how lifelike it felt. 00:12:11.89 Dave And so I think that the game begins with this dream sequence and then he wakes up in school. We have this high school setting. um They introduce a lot of stuff to kind of hook you in right at the beginning. Like with this opening dream and then finding out like, oh, it was a dream, but it's really similar to real life. So what's going on here? I was really intrigued by how this opened. 00:12:32.13 Danny Mm hmm. 00:12:34.69 Danny Yeah, as I'm watching this, I remember looking like that's not the girl from the cover art. So what is going on here? Oh, you know, pre prelude, whatever, starting with it. And as we have that moment, we like to wake up at the desk. I'm like, OK, so there's multiple paths this can go. And my brain's already picking it's either this, this or this. And we'll go to spoilers on what happened later. 00:12:56.53 Dave Yeah. 00:12:56.61 Danny um But it's not done like you have very similar characters. But is it supposed to be like the I lost a friend, but I found a new friend that reminds me a lot of the original friend. And that's kind of what I stuck with for the very beginning of the game. And I'm like, OK, so similar characteristics and then establishing like where this friendship is going and what relationship is going and what the two of them are doing throughout the rest of the game. 00:13:18.68 Dave Yeah, it really got my curiosity going. um i I didn't do a whole lot of theory crafting, but I was very interested in learning what is going on here. Because even before playing this, I knew that it had a supernatural element to it and like a fantasy element. So I knew that like this isn't just going to be high school kids doing high school kid things. There's going to be something cool and weird here. So I was really interested in that. 00:13:43.22 Danny Hmm. 00:13:45.25 Dave So Atma and Raya decide they're gonna skip their afternoon classes and go out on the town and do some fun stuff. And this is kind of that slice of life stuff that you were talking about earlier, Danny. 00:13:54.54 Danny Yeah, it is. 00:13:57.70 Dave Going out, helping some neighborhood cats. They go see a movie together. um They go, you know, get some snacks and stuff like that. And this slice of life stuff continues for a little while in the game. um But it's an early point of emphasis like Atma and Raya hanging out. They decide to write down their bucket list of stuff that they want to do together. ah it's It's a really cute ah opening. And like you said, it kind of gives you that sense that this is a cozy and relaxing game. And it is for a lot of it. Like there's there's no 00:14:38.32 Dave There is combat, but it's not like combat combat, you know, like video game combat. 00:14:40.87 Danny Yes. Yeah. 00:14:43.05 Dave There's a little kind of timing-based combat minigame, we'll say. But for a lot of it, you are, yeah, you are just going around town, doing some cozy stuff, helping some cats out, buying snacks. 00:14:48.38 Danny Yeah, super simple. 00:14:56.49 Dave They go see a movie, stuff like that. um You learn eventually that Raya has reality altering superpowers. This is that fantasy and supernatural element to it. ah So after they see the movie, in the movie, there is a quote, a cat wonderland. So Raya creates this so that they can go experience this, but something goes wrong. This is like the big fantasy supernatural hook to it. ah The cats turn up and yell at them to get out of this dream world because, quote, the end is near. And so we have this looming apocalyptic event now. ah When they get out of the theater, things have gotten weird in the real world. The evil cats are out there. It feels like Raya's dream world and the real world are blurring together. ah Raya uses her superpower to fix things. 00:15:51.58 Dave But the strain of this makes her collapse, and then a big crack forms in the sky overhead. And so I was hooked by that opening where you have a dream very close to reality. And then this is the supernatural hook. And I was like, OK, I'm all the way in after this. This is the last plot that I'm going to give in the non-spoiler part, ah by the way. This was a very interesting as like you know this all happens within the first hour of the game. 00:16:25.98 Danny Yeah, it's ah they start early, right? years You mentioned they ah they leave school to kind of be like, let's just go do some things for fun. But that all kind of stems from the one teacher, like the super hard ass, just like, hey, we need those like career aptitude tests filled in. We need to know you're in high school, you got to have your whole life figured out right now. 00:16:41.30 Dave Yeah. 00:16:43.92 Danny So make sure you turn that into me, um which is just like that, all right, we need to get out of here. We need to go do something else more fun. 00:16:50.02 Dave Yeah. 00:16:50.13 Danny And I think the first instance you see that Raya has some kind of magical ability is like, Hey, go to the store. We found this cat, and we went to buy some cat food. And you're like, I don't have any money. She's like, did you check your pocket? And there's this little twinkle and he reaches like, huh, I guess I do have money. 00:17:00.43 Dave Oh yeah, right. 00:17:03.71 Danny Okay. And you're like, Hmm. All right. And at this point I'm like, Oh, she got a little something. So she's just like some sleight of hand craziness, like magical sleight of hand, not 00:17:11.82 Dave Yeah. 00:17:14.11 Danny world manipulating powers or whatever, like it's something simple. um And then, yeah, we get to the theater and all this like cats and the employees like hunched over the counters, ready to pounce and do everything. I was like, OK, um, that's not normal for a movie theater worker. 00:17:28.74 Dave Yeah, this should not be happening. 00:17:29.55 Danny You shouldn't be doing that. 00:17:30.53 Dave Yeah. ah yeah and So Raya has her powers. Atma has his powers. He uses this book, like we said, to kind of dive into people's subconscious and help them out. 00:17:38.41 Danny Hmm. 00:17:42.73 Dave So both of our main characters have these superpowers, basically. So again, I'm not going to talk about anything else that happens plot wise. You just know like there's this looming apocalyptic event. ah These worlds are kind of blurring together. ah We're not sure what's going to cause the apocalyptic event, but the cats say the end is near. So, you know, it's coming. So ah you mentioned something that I thought was really good about this game and kind of introducing some themes that the game touches on ah this idea of teenage life since they are high school characters and the game does begin with one of their teachers having them fill out these aptitude tests and they talk about how 00:18:05.77 Danny Thanks, cats. 00:18:27.75 Dave You know, they feel pressure to do well and have their life figured out. Just like a lot of teenagers feel that pressure to have everything figured out when you're 17 years old and stuff like that. So the game does touch on that. It touches on bullying. ah It touches on loss and grief throughout the game. There is a content warning on the game startup screen for these things and for suicide. So as that is something that if you are sensitive to those things, ah please be wary of that because it's ah it's a thing that happens in the game. um So it is a game that touches on these real world themes and then goes into some very, very heavy and sad things. I think we we hinted at it at the beginning, but ah this game this is a game that brought tears to my eyes several times throughout 00:19:20.83 Dave playing it for different reasons we'll talk about in the spoiler section. But how did you think the game handled these themes? 00:19:24.91 Danny okay 00:19:29.27 Danny I think ah especially with indie games now, there's a lot of games that will either fully send into topics like this or they're like, hey, we're going to remotely mention it. 00:19:36.94 Dave Yeah. 00:19:38.49 Danny So just know ahead of time, like something's going to come up. 00:19:39.63 Dave Mm-hmm. 00:19:41.21 Danny So you kind of have this entire spectrum of how intense it's going to be. um And I think progressively as you go through the game, you see some of these themes like really kick off ah again with like a ah Raya and like kind of her family situation like that gets really intense at some points It's kind of like a super major point that'll come up later um The bullying starts very much just like yeah loser in high school, but then that gets more intense So like if for any reason it's like oh, that's the highest is gonna go like it will get a little more intense It's a lot um but I think it's handled very tastefully. 00:19:56.64 Dave Yeah. 00:20:04.03 Dave Yep. 00:20:15.16 Danny It doesn't feel like it's done for like a We just, let's just make a bad character do bad things like anyone who's seen a weird comparison. 13 Reasons Why, like there's some intense things in there that I'm like, I don't think we needed to go that far. 00:20:27.36 Dave Uh huh. 00:20:30.94 Danny I think that's a little bit much. 00:20:32.02 Dave Uh huh. 00:20:32.79 Danny ah Anyone with the bathroom stall scene I'm talking about, that was kind of crazy. Why'd we do that? um So, yeah, no, this doesn't do anything to that degree, but I think everything that happens is setting up for like why this character is upset, why this character is in the mindset that they are. But yeah, I mentioned this again right after playing Night in the Woods. I've come to the point in my life where not all games are fun, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy them. And I think things like. 00:20:57.76 Dave Oh yeah. 00:20:58.44 Danny Last of Us 2, Night in the Woods, where I'm like, this experience was something I enjoyed. Was I happy the entire time? Absolutely not. I also cried a lot more at the end. I have a selfie ready for whenever this goes out, like, hey, the new episode, I'm going to retweet. I'm like, I blame Dave for this moment. And then there's just like the tear running down my face and contemplation. I'm like, damn, we did it. 00:21:19.49 Dave Yeah. 00:21:20.40 Danny Yeah, no, these themes, they're there. They're very prevalent. But I say good time, not a good time, but 00:21:27.26 Dave Yeah, but ah but valuable. and you're in good company because we, on this show, I say we, it's it's me, but like the guests that I bring on too. I think we're all pretty much of a like mind that um video games don't have to be fun. 00:21:38.13 Danny The royal way. 00:21:42.76 Dave ah That was a thing, you know, decades ago, but nowadays video games have a lot more to offer. And if they're giving you a window into somebody's story like this, ah then there's value there too. 00:21:51.34 Danny Yeah. 00:21:54.53 Dave And I do agree with you that the heavier themes, ah including um depression is another one I mentioned. I didn't mention earlier, but that's a heavy one in the game too. 00:22:02.78 Danny yeah 00:22:06.02 Dave And I think that that stuff is handled really well, especially when ah especially when considering how other can other characters interact with characters that are very depressed. I thought that that was really good in this game and and really well realized ah and intelligent in that way. So I agree. I think that it starts out with that kind of happy-go-lucky slice-of-life adventure that you're going on. And it progressively gets deeper and darker as you go. And then the ending is very, very powerful, I'll say. um Which leads into, I think, my biggest critique about this game, which I mentioned earlier, ah which is that I think this game takes too long to introduce what it's actually about. 00:22:58.29 Dave ah And it takes too long to get 00:22:58.50 Danny Okay. 00:23:00.81 Dave This is going to sound harsh, but ah we're recording and I can't think of a better way to say this, but it takes too long to get to the point, in my opinion. 00:23:08.74 Danny Okay. 00:23:08.90 Dave um the like We get inklings that something's up, but then we will go like three, four, five hours 00:23:09.13 Danny Now I see it. 00:23:19.02 Dave doing things that are not really related to what this game is ultimately about. And if I'm thinking about somebody who's playing this and is more likely to put a game down, um i I would guess that a lot of people are not going to get to the end. ah if they feel like If they experience this story with the same peaks and valleys that I did, But they're not driven to finish the game like I'm driven to finish most games that I finish or play regardless of whether I'm podcasting or not. 00:23:49.76 Danny Mm. 00:23:50.33 Dave I think that there was a point where I would have put this game down if I had a different relationship with finishing games. And I do think that it is just like I said, it sticks the landing incredibly well, but it's pretty back loaded as far as what I would call the important stuff. And I guess your mileage is going to vary whether that slice of life is how far that's going to go for you ah before we get to that end. 00:24:20.33 Danny Yeah, I definitely ah see that like in myself as well. If if this wasn't, hey, I got to get this done for the podcast, I got to play this, I could easily have seen like a time where I'm like, I think I can put this down for a couple of days, go play something else, something a little bit happier or something to just like then cycle back into this. um Like I mentioned earlier, it's definitely that middle chapter lull for me. um 00:24:42.11 Dave Yeah. 00:24:42.55 Danny I think as someone who enjoys their occasional slice of life where I'm like, whatever goofy events are taking place, like I'm here for it. I'm along for the ride. um I thoroughly enjoyed the backtracking and running around the map where I ran into someone. They're just like, man, I lost my dog toy. My dog got away and I can't get him to come back. So I'm like, let's go find where that is. Then you run into the bully who's got the dog toy. I'm like Cool, cool, cool. He's like, you're not getting this back unless you get a cigar. I'm like, oh, I did talk to that guy that I'm running back up the street. And he's like, here you go, kid. And then chain reaction event after event. 00:25:12.67 Danny Like I enjoyed that. 00:25:13.56 Dave Yeah. 00:25:14.42 Danny And I think even though those were still kind of steps away from the story, I was still invested in that gameplay loop. um Whereas again, back with like chapter three, there are these you go into these persona ask like my palace type deals to deal with people, but none of the information needs there. So you have to go back out. And then that backtracking is very just like, ah annoying I'm like, I don't want to do all this. Can I just get this narrative point out of the way? Especially like I said before, it doesn't relate to our characters, our two main characters directly. It's like by proxy, like two, three tiers out. 00:25:45.61 Danny So it's like I'll get through this to get through it. um But yeah, outside of doing it for a concert or anything, I could definitely see that being the lull in which I'm like, let's see if I get away from this or not. 00:25:57.15 Dave Yeah chapter three was the part ah for me too and it's exactly like you said there are so like when I say it takes too long to get to the good point or the good part or get to the point you're introduced to what like the main thing becomes 00:25:59.22 Danny Hmm. 00:26:17.14 Dave And then chapter three comes along, you know that there's this very important thing that you should be working towards. And the game is not letting you progress towards that. You're off doing, like you said, the secondary tertiary, whatever the fuck the word is for fourth level, ah quadrutiary. 00:26:27.17 Danny Yeah. 00:26:34.54 Danny Quadrutiary. We made that up. We don't know if that's real. 00:26:35.97 Dave There we go. 00:26:37.32 Dave That's a $95 word. 00:26:40.65 Danny yeah 00:26:41.59 Dave you're off doing those things and they're like they're kind of related, but they're not. They're not related to the most important thing. 00:26:47.56 Danny Yeah. 00:26:49.40 Dave They're not related to what I want to be doing. So like you said, when you get into those backtracking adventure game puzzle loops where you're like, I need this thing. So I got to go out of this level of the dream and go over to this part and get this thing, but it's locked. So now I gotta go get a key. Then I take the key back, I unlock the thing, I get the item I needed, I go back into the thing. And this is like two or three hours of this. And like, I'm not making any progress toward finding out what's going on in the story. 00:27:13.82 Danny Yeah. 00:27:19.24 Dave It's just, it feels like... I don't want i don't want to say it feels like filler because you're learning about characters and stuff like that. But it's not what I wanted to be doing. 00:27:26.22 Danny Right. 00:27:28.96 Dave And so I do think the pacing is pretty rough in that middle section. And that's exactly what I had written down in the notes too. 00:27:35.14 Danny For sure. 00:27:37.19 Dave So I'm glad you brought that up. ah But as we said, so like, 00:27:50.59 Dave Hold on, my brain just completely emptied out. 00:27:52.16 Danny Yeah, the thoughts are percolating. 00:27:52.80 Dave Yeah. ah Yeah. So as we said at the beginning, this is an interesting game to ah critique because when we're talking about the experience of playing this game and and everything that the game puts on the table for you and has you do, a lot of this, like we've said, this this middle section, I don't think is very good and it's not really additive to the game. yeah It harmed my experience with it. but then when the game finally opens up and allows you to know what this is actually about and then goes through that sequence of this is what this game is about, this is what this story is about, this is how these events unfold and how it concludes, all of that is so, so good that with time and when I don't have the the critic's hat on, 00:28:46.97 Dave I will look back at this story and be like, I love what this story did. I love what this story is about. ah It's just the experience of getting to that was a rocky road, we'll say. 00:28:58.98 Danny Yeah, that'll be the if I would ever replay. That is why I'm at this part. That is the one you're like, let me how do I power through? Because I could easily see something I'll typically do depending if it's less narrative heavy. I'll often have some kind of show or podcast or something playing as I'm powering through. 00:29:15.00 Dave Mm hmm. 00:29:15.41 Danny but This is someone so dialogue heavy. It is like, let me focus up. um I could see in a case where you have to replay. I'm like, cool. Let's throw on something on Netflix now because I'm ready to just knock this part out. And then once that's done, again, full focus on the game. That's a very just secondary kind of I could do without it, but I gotta get through it. 00:29:28.95 Dave Yeah. 00:29:33.29 Dave Yep, yeah, I can see that. um I don't think this is a game that I'll replay. I think I'm happy with um just experiencing the story at one time. And I don't replay a lot of games anyway, so that's not really a dig at this game in particular. 00:29:45.65 Danny Sure. 00:29:46.12 Dave ah But ah the other thing I think I want to mention about the story is that Indonesian setting, this suburban Indonesian setting, um this is fairly different to areas in Indonesia where I've traveled and um So I'm interested to like experience in quotes, these these places. um And I liked the like little bits of culture that even I with my outsider's perspective could ah 00:30:09.09 Danny Hm. 00:30:21.48 Dave i could see and feel, I think, ah with how tight knit this community is and how people know each other, how they speak to each other. um Characters are memorable, I would say. And ah there there is this like, this feeling of community, I think, in this place that I could feel. And so I did enjoy this setting. you know It's one thing to have a game set in a place, but it's another thing on top of that to make that place feel like its own character in a way. ah The way that you know if you play the Yakuza games, the neighborhood of Kamurocho is like its own character, basically. And I did get that feeling from the town here. um How did you feel about that? 00:31:07.77 Danny Yeah, I am someone far less well traveled. This is going into it. This was very much like my first instinct in any kind of action movie where you have like the villain or the hero who's trying to get out of the job, like hiding away somewhere quiet where it's like no one in the US government is going to find me here. Like it was that kind of smaller type neighborhood. 00:31:28.42 Dave Yeah. 00:31:28.41 Danny Um, but seeing that, like you said, fleshed out and be like, Oh, here's, uh, these characters I mentioned earlier with like the shopkeepers, like you want the cigar, but everyone kind of felt like they were having those. ah Good to see you again. yeah How the family, yeah. How good the kids are. 00:31:40.62 Dave Yep. 00:31:41.32 Danny Good. Like. There was a pre-established world here where these people already knew each other, saying that out loud and as we got further, and I'm like, Oh, interesting. Hmm. Let's establish some things. Um, but yeah, like you, you're seeing people that you as the player don't know, but you as Otten or you as Raya, um, you're like, okay, yeah, I had this conversation before like, Oh yeah, we worked on a project together last year. Like, Oh yeah, we have an English class together and, um, these characters exist with pre-established relationships. Um, and that was really cool. 00:32:09.64 Dave Yeah. 00:32:10.56 Danny I like that. I'm not being like that. Oh, it's nice to meet you. I've gone to school for 12 years. Like they're not meeting them as I'm meeting them there. It's almost like hey, Danny, nice. Let me introduce you to my friend in this game here. 00:32:21.92 Dave Yeah, yeah, exactly. It does treat you as like the player and like the newcomer to this city. It does treat you with respect in that way where there's no characters that are like, oh, hi, ah George, my best friend of 11 years. Do you remember when we did this thing in elementary school? There's nothing like that. ah So that's ah that's a good observation there. Um, it's also set in, uh, I believe it's set in the nineties. So we do have a little bit of that, like throwback setting too. 00:32:53.46 Dave Like there's an internet cafe, uh, kids are not carrying cell phones around and stuff like that. 00:32:55.64 Danny Yeah. 00:32:59.39 Dave So it's kind of cool to hop in the time machine that way. 00:32:59.56 Danny And boys. 00:33:03.13 Danny Yeah, yeah. 00:33:05.56 Dave So, um, anything else about like the story setting, anything like that that you want to touch on before we move on? 00:33:12.27 Danny I don't think so. I think I think the spoiler stuff is where I'm like, all right, it's time to unpack and see all this. 00:33:16.71 Dave Yeah, for sure. Okay, so let's listen to a bit of music. We will come back and talk about audio visuals. Audio and visuals. 00:33:30.71 Danny See ya. 00:33:31.64 Dave First thing you'll notice, I think, when you boot up a space for the Unbound is the pixel art, I think, is gorgeous. It's bright. It's colorful. ah When you are doing that little opening scene, you will get introduced to both types of, ah like, the art that's portrayed. You have, like, the regular side on ah view, adventure game style view. But then you do have these short, um Very lightly animated cutscenes, we'll say, but like these full screen pixel art cutscenes that are really, really nice. 00:34:01.31 Danny Thanks. 00:34:06.38 Dave So I think that this game is really, really good looking. 00:34:10.87 Danny Just gorgeous. I think there's a stigma with Pixar and indie games because Pixar is so nostalgic where you think NES, SNES, Sega Genesis type areas were like, oh, this is when we were working with resources that we had. um But seeing just the cutscenes you mentioned, these full stream ones are immaculate. There's some amazing set pieces where you're like dialogues happening. By the way, look up and then you're seeing what You mentioned earlier, like the cracks in the sky. You were seeing all these different ah assets come into play or or powers or characters doing their thing. You're like, wow, this is gorgeous. Pixar just doesn't get enough appreciation sometimes. 00:34:50.29 Dave Yeah, that attitude is that attitude that like pixel art is old or something like that. That should have died in like the late 90s. 00:34:59.78 Danny Easily. 00:35:01.97 Dave When I think about some of my favorite games, like visuals, a lot of it is pixel art and a lot of its modern pixel art because you I mean, the cool thing about pixel art is there are no limits to what you can draw and put on there. 00:35:10.88 Danny Hmm. 00:35:18.27 Dave And I think this game takes advantage of that, too, because we said we have that supernatural, that fantasy element to it. And as you go on and on in the game, it does get more wild, more trippy, more um you know, apocalyptic in ways and those more imaginative settings and scenes later in the game are really visually striking too. And it's just, you know, pixel art can bring whatever you have in your head ah to life and big credit to the artists who worked on this game because it's gorgeous when you're just walking around the town. And then when you get into that supernatural stuff, it's really well drawn up there too. 00:36:04.92 Danny Yeah, beautiful. I love it. 00:36:09.09 Dave Also, again, shouting out that setting in the 90s suburban Indonesia, ah the designs of the houses, the kind of open air design of like the shops and stuff like that ah really enjoyed just, you know, this, you want these settings to look authentic and 00:36:20.78 Danny Mm hmm. 00:36:27.65 Dave Of course, I'll defer to the game director because that's where they're from. ah But, you know, with my limited experience in the country, this is, you know, this is what houses and temples and, ah you know, convenience stores and things like that. This is what my memory of them looks like, too. ah So always cool to see things that you're familiar with in the real world put into video games. um You know, so many games that we play are fantasy worlds and stuff like that. So seeing the real world represented is very cool too. 00:36:57.23 Danny Yeah. 00:37:01.98 Danny Yeah, very like a small type setting. And again, it grows as you progress. 00:37:05.52 Dave Yeah. 00:37:06.94 Danny But as you mentioned, in any other game, you're talking castles, ah giant craters in the earth, outer space. um But having such a supernatural story take place in such a very mundane setting. 00:37:18.09 Dave Mm hmm. 00:37:18.61 Danny um Yeah, it feels so bizarre, but it fits really well. 00:37:23.15 Dave Yeah, for sure. Suburban fantasy. Yeah. ah Music in A Space for the Unbound is credited to three people and um apologies in advance for my pronunciation. So ah Mazdito, Bakhtiar, Christabel, Anora, and Bambang, Iswanto. Those are the three people credited. ah Please send all of your complaints to Danny about my pronunciation. 00:37:48.05 Danny Yep. 00:37:48.96 Dave ah The music I think is really good. um You have the nice piano and strings based ah energetic stuff as you're going around town, when you're in the school early on in the game, it sets the mood. Like we said, when you're in the beginning, you have that, that carefree, we're skipping school slice of life stuff. And the music kind of reflects that I'm hanging out with my girlfriend, skipping school, this is fun. And then later on, when things get more serious, the emotional music carries that emotion really well, too. 00:38:25.79 Danny Yeah, there's ah the track in the schoolyards, the one that I say six to do the most. I couldn't sit here and hum it. But the moment I hear it, I'm humming along. 00:38:33.35 Dave Yeah. 00:38:33.64 Danny ah But there's a whole section of the game where you're setting up for the school festival. 00:38:36.50 Dave Yeah. 00:38:36.56 Danny So you're running in and out of hallways and classrooms. And this song is playing on loop. And I remember just bopping my head the entire time to then like the the the end credits esque song or like the final ah chapter five ending like there's a Vocalized song and I'm like that one hit different that was like it's such a pretty song that I'm like that's got to go on a playlist somewhere That was that was immaculate Yeah 00:38:52.01 Dave yeah 00:38:58.09 Dave Yeah, this ah this happened to me several times in games, so like a lot of games will have ah music without vocals throughout the entire game, and then they'll throw one song with vocals at the end credits. And there's something about that thinking about near automata. especially. And this one too, the end credits song is called Within the Dream. um And it has vocals and stuff. 00:39:20.05 Danny o 00:39:21.24 Dave And so as you're processing it, as you're processing what happened at the end, and then this song comes out, sometimes that song with vocals can just break the dam. ah And like, you're just, you know, crying your way through the credits, which is what happened with me at the end of this game. 00:39:32.83 Danny Mmhmm. 00:39:39.42 Dave ah Because they like we said, the ending is really powerful. And then, but like, you're still experiencing it as the thing is going. And when you finally have time to sit back and think about what happened, and then something about the vocals kicking in, it just does something for me. So big shout out to that song called Within the Dream. 00:40:00.29 Danny I gotta pull it up now so I have it in the dream space for the unbound. Got it, okay. 00:40:08.45 Danny um Yeah, no, you mentioned it being like the thing that breaks the dam. I have a... I'm not one that retains information if I don't read it aloud. So there's moments like if I'm not reading that dialogue, I'm missing important points, right? 00:40:23.86 Danny So as I'm reading this, I'm putting my whole acting chops into this and I'm like, sad moment. Let's put that gravel in the voice. um There's a character in here that might be the coolest fantasy character I've ever seen in pixel art form and I'm going to love them forever. um But like, I'm doing a voice for this character. I'm like, I'm going to grab a toss. And I'm like, I'm putting this whole energy into it. 00:40:42.86 Dave Yeah. 00:40:44.85 Danny um And then like, as I'm doing the sad moments, I'm like, why am I doing this to myself? Well, I should be ah I should be an actor, dog. I'm really good because I'm crying over here. 00:40:53.96 Dave There you go. 00:40:54.10 Danny And yeah, then this song kicks in. I'm like, OK, there's there's the there's the floodgates. We're done. We're done here today. 00:41:01.14 Dave Yeah, so overall, ah visuals, music, there's no voice acting, it's all reading. And I think it has the like the boop-a-doop-a-doop-a-doop-a-doop sound effects when dialogue's going on the screen. 00:41:11.22 Danny Mm-hmm. 00:41:13.55 Dave I don't love that, but it's it's not it's not, I guess it's not loud enough in this game to ah to really bother me. ah So overall, good, good visuals, good music, um you know, from that perspective, everything supports the story and the setting and the emotions that you should feel. 00:41:36.13 Danny Yeah, I think if you're a Minecraft player out there, some of the sound effects are very reminiscent. I think that the doop-a-doops for dialogue is very like, if you were to rapidly play something in and out of your inventory, I'd be like, they stole that from Minecraft. 00:41:41.33 Dave Oh, okay. 00:41:47.88 Danny Walking on dirt is a very Minecraft crunchy noise. 00:41:48.11 Dave Oh, okay. 00:41:50.92 Danny So um' I'm sure they're not directly ripped, but like my instinct, they're like, oh, that's Minecraft. 00:41:53.96 Dave Right. 00:41:56.54 Dave Yeah. 00:41:56.58 Danny That's not like Minecraft. 00:42:02.57 Dave Gameplay in a space for the Unbound, we mentioned earlier, is the old school point and click adventure style, or where you click to move around on the screen, you talk to people, you're gonna pick up items to solve simple puzzles, or kind of set off this like this domino effect of, I got this key so I can get this person, they'll give me this item, which will help me do this thing over here, and so forth and so forth. um at their best I think in this game they are simple ah not very complex I mean so for example in that first chapter you're building a shelter for a cat and you need to go out and get ah you know a piece of sheet metal you need to find a bowl for its food ah you need to find a pillow I think 00:42:50.16 Dave So you go out, you do some tasks to get those items. You come back, you build the cat shelter. That's what I mean by simple. um I don't think that these are great, but I was engaged. 00:42:57.99 Danny Yeah. 00:43:02.39 Dave It's simple enough, not frustrating. It's fine. I'm very drawn along by the fact that Raya made money appear in my pocket. So I need to know what's going on. So I'm cool with that. ah We talked about earlier though. I think there's a point in the game where these get too complicated to backtrack II and I don't mean complicated as in like I don't know what to do I mean complicated as in there are too many steps and it takes too long to do each step especially when you start nesting subconscious within 00:43:30.33 Danny Yeah. 00:43:34.56 Danny Yep. 00:43:37.14 Dave subconscious and stuff like that you have like multiple worlds you're hopping between. um I did not like again, this is in that chapter three section, the ultimate like the ultimate version of these adventure game puzzles I did not enjoy. 00:43:54.19 Danny Yeah. Yeah. I mean, with the chapter three ones for sure. I mean, I've already mentioned how those just kind of drag at a point. There's a few puzzles later that I think just get convoluted because they're within rift after rift. We're doing these space dives, right, of going into one. 00:44:07.51 Dave Yeah. 00:44:08.84 Danny But then in that space side, there's another space dive, which is fine. But then you're getting three, four layers deep. um There's even one later and I don't know if you struggle with it, but there's like the pipes you have to like so select which wheel goes which one you have to move the water and everything. 00:44:21.09 Dave yeah 00:44:22.44 Danny I got pissed after first and I'm like, where there's a walkthrough. Where's it at? Like, cool. Wheel, wheel, wheel, turn out. I'm done with this. 00:44:28.86 Dave Yeah, so within those, so there are those like adventure game item puzzles, but there are also more traditional puzzles to like, follow the path of the pipe. And you can only, ah you can only use a couple of these pipe junctions to get the water from point A to point B. 00:44:38.34 Danny Hmm. 00:44:46.06 Dave There are puzzles like that too. um So Again, it's just like this this was compounded because I was also frustrated with the story during this part so it's like neither part of this is carrying me through. 00:45:00.10 Danny Yep. 00:45:00.68 Dave It's just that I trust that I'm gonna find something cool about the story once I get all this stuff done, so I'm gonna keep doing it, but I am not happy about what's going on right now. 00:45:06.71 Danny Hmm. 00:45:12.67 Dave ah So there was that. um The one thing that I will say is that throughout the entire thing, even during the puzzles that I thought were not additive to the experience, we don't get into the randomness of puzzle solutions that something like a Monkey Island or something sometimes get into where it's like, you need to interact with this object in the world and the key item doesn't make any fucking sense. It's just like a random thing that's like a joke and you're like, I would have never figured that out. 00:45:42.09 Danny yeah 00:45:46.69 Dave That never happened in this game. That was always very clear where it's like, I went here, I picked up a crowbar. I know exactly where I'm going to need to use this crowbar, you know, stuff like that makes sense to its credit. 00:45:55.41 Danny Yep. 00:45:59.44 Danny Yeah, that's funny you mentioned that because where I thought I had to use the crowbar was not correct. And then I stumbled, I'm like, oh, shoot, now use a crowbar. 00:46:03.93 Dave Okay. 00:46:07.14 Danny Then I can get it okay. So I missed the step in between those. 00:46:08.65 Dave Yeah. 00:46:10.84 Danny ah But I was like, got the crowbar back to where I need to be. Not where I need to be. Oh, shoot. 00:46:14.92 Dave Yeah, so so let me ask you a question here because this is something that I was um I've been thinking about as Disco Elysium got this on my brain in the first place and then recently playing and doing the podcast about 1000 times resist 00:46:15.40 Danny Now what? 00:46:18.60 Danny Yeah, yeah. Okay. 00:46:30.57 Dave got me thinking about this too. Both of those games made clear decisions to cut gameplay when they thought it would not be additive to it. Disco Elysium has no combat. ah They had a combat system and they cut it because they decided the game would be better without it. 00:46:46.00 Danny Yeah. 00:46:46.03 Dave And I think they were right. 1000 times resist has almost no gameplay. You're just walking around talking to people. 00:46:52.86 Danny Mmhmm. 00:46:53.51 Dave I kind of think this game would be better without these adventure game elements. I would rather just go from screen to screen, maybe do a couple of space dives and like some simple things, but like there's a point where this is a puzzle game and I don't think that part's very good. ah So it got me thinking like, Sometimes people decide that less gameplay is actually better for their game and it so it sounds counterintuitive, but I do think that this game probably should have scaled this stuff back. 00:47:27.01 Danny I think to some degree, yeah, I can agree with that. Like I mentioned earlier, there's the moments of like, I enjoy that I ran into someone who mentioned an item that I'm like, I don't know what that I said with anything to then three, four people later to be like, Oh, I do know where that guy is. Let me run back there. Or like, there's a broken down truck. 00:47:41.55 Dave Yeah. 00:47:43.06 Danny He's like, I need someone to inflate my tire. I'm like, I got to figure that out. And then you run to a guy you 've never seen before. I'm like, that's not a tire shop. That does not look like a tire shop, but I know where I need to go. I'll be right back. 00:47:53.31 Dave Yeah. 00:47:53.56 Danny Like I do enjoy those. um 00:47:55.50 Dave Okay. 00:47:56.21 Danny Though I do totally see these moments of like um I ran into this character like, oh, no, we gotta get back to the school. And the school was on the other side of the map, which this easily could have been a snap of like, narratively, we're just back at the school. We could do that. But instead, I have to run through four to five different alleys. And if something would happen there, like I'm interrupted by the bully or a character like, quick, something's wrong with your mom or like something impedes a story there that is still also a story, I would totally get it. um But the ones where there's nothing that is really stopping me or getting in my way, it's just I have to walk from point A to point B. 00:48:30.04 Danny I think that could definitely reduce and shorten some of the padding that's in the game. um But yeah, I think back and forth there are ones that I'm like, I could totally imagine if they took this puzzle out or this, go find these items. And then other ones, I'm like, I kind of enjoyed those. So I wouldn't mind meeting in the middle of that. 00:48:45.06 Dave Yeah, yeah, I definitely didn't. I mean, to be clear, I didn't hate doing every puzzle in the game for sure. 00:48:52.03 Danny You guys heard him. 00:48:52.58 Dave There's just that one section that is just puzzle after puzzle after puzzle. And I'm just like, what are we doing right now? um 00:48:58.19 Danny They were the worst. 00:49:00.19 Dave Yeah. 00:49:00.87 Danny You already asked for a steam refund from Matt. 00:49:02.86 Dave via ah From Matt, yeah, Matt, give me 10 bucks. 00:49:04.69 Danny yeah 00:49:07.06 Dave So the other thing is that um when the story does kick into high gear, and you know we do the last couple chapters, there are almost no puzzles. So it's almost like the people who made the game were like, we shouldn't have puzzles. 00:49:17.23 Danny Yeah. 00:49:24.06 Dave The story's going. And that makes me wonder why we needed to do that middle section 00:49:25.65 Danny yeah 00:49:29.10 Dave the way it was, but, you know, yeah. 00:49:30.74 Danny No, that's fair. I see that now. Now that you mentioned like and that being beat for beat, we just kind of and that's only really interrupted with a couple of little combat things, which again are so minimal. You're doing these like hell divers type deals, like hitting the couple of buttons in the combat over. 00:49:42.08 Dave Yeah. 00:49:45.20 Danny um But yeah, even thinking about, yeah, the end there where it is just the story is running. Now, I think I'm a little more on your side with that. I can see that or like ooh that did hit really hard where I could just go and do the important part. 00:49:54.82 Dave Yeah. 00:49:57.25 Danny Yeah, for sure. 00:49:57.43 Dave Mm hmm. It's, you know, when the story is going all story, um it it really does do some great stuff. You mentioned those combat mini games, and this game is full of, we'll say little ah QTE or timing based things. The one you'll probably do the most is the kind of street fighters stand in, you have to know to press the buttons that are shown on the screen in the time limit. And then you have to do a little timing minigame to block attacks from the opponent. And there's quite a bit of this. I thought these were fun. I don't like that I don't mind QTEs in the right situation. And I think that this game actually does a good job of putting these in to mix up what you're doing 00:50:44.91 Dave gameplay wise. And, you know, the music is really good during those fight scenes. So that's fun. The way it's all presented, you know, the side on um sometimes you're fighting things that are very visually cool, we'll say. ah So I thought these were pretty fun, ah despite being very simple. 00:51:03.32 Danny Yeah, um I could take him or leave him. I don't think they overstayed their welcome. I think there were these struts that were like, oh, I had a fight like two hours ago. 00:51:08.01 Dave Yeah. 00:51:10.87 Danny Oh, yeah, I have to do this again real quick. They weren't always just slapping your face. um But also because they were so simple, I could easily see that just being replaced with like two lines of dialogue would really take almost the same amount of time to read these two lines. I already did my input and won this fight. So um yeah, like I said, take them or leave them. They're fine. I don't know if you have any hatred towards them. 00:51:31.08 Dave Yeah, I don't think this game would have been worse if it didn't have these. ah you know like If you didn't fist fight anybody in the game, I don't think this would be a worse game or story, but you know teenagers will scrap from time to time. 00:51:35.15 Danny Yeah. 00:51:43.35 Danny Start swinging. 00:51:44.70 Dave Yeah, so these aren't bad. And there's other little mini games throughout the game. There's a section that has a little ace attorney type courtroom testimony, cross-examination mini game. So this game does wear a lot of its, I don't want to say like gameplay influences, but like the games that inspired the creators, they do have little references in here for sure. And they're pretty good. 00:52:10.71 Danny Yeah, they're awesome. One that's right out of their own pocket in chapter two, I think it is, where you run into the movie theater and there's someone outside playing the violin. She's like, I forget the song from my ah my boyfriend, which leads into like a chain of different like musical events that you do throughout. 00:52:27.30 Dave Mm-hmm. 00:52:27.52 Danny um That's actually from the team's first game when the pass was around. 00:52:31.55 Dave Oh, okay. 00:52:31.80 Danny Um, which is about this girl who's dating an anthropomorphic owl. It's kind of weird, but they're kind of a hot couple, but, um, she's like, I can't, you know, remember my boyfriend's songs when you introduce it to her. I haven't played that game in a couple of years. So I don't know if it's a copy paste of the song, but the moment you go in, I'm like, her outfit looks familiar. And then you release this owl from the cage. I'm like, that's exactly what that is. so That's really cool. I love that. 00:52:54.86 Dave Nice. Yeah. 00:52:55.63 Danny I have no idea if the rest or anything related as I look here. Yep. The Raven monologue. Yep. So all these like musical events are references to like the team's other games or at least Toge ones. I don't know if they're specifically Mojiken, but. Yeah, that was so that was a fun little exciting thing for like the indie guy like, oh, look, it's like my plane. I love that. 00:53:14.18 Dave Nice. So ah overall, I think gameplay is, we'll say, a mixed bag. 00:53:22.13 Dave It ranges from, hey, this is kind of cute. This is kind of cool. You know, bouncing around, doing the little button combo street fighters stand in and compounding what I think is the slowest part of the story. You always want gameplay and story to work together. And I feel like in the worst part of this game, gameplay and story hold each other down. So that's not what you like to see. 00:53:45.84 Danny Yeah. 00:53:48.11 Dave But overall, you know, big range, we'll say. 00:53:52.75 Danny Yeah, it's always hard, right? When you're like, these are the things I didn't like or I want to critique them a bit and outside looking in like that can sound so terrible. And the amount of times I've had to be like, just so we know, I still love this game. I may not have loved this part, but it's a lot easier to talk about things you didn't like or even hated. 00:54:04.07 Dave Yeah. 00:54:08.38 Danny I really like this thing. It's awesome. You should experience it yourself um And as I sit here, I'm like, yeah, I didn't love this part. This part was slow um I still like grand scale walk away with like a great experience in this um So I always so its like double back. I'm like just because we didn't like it doesn't mean we didn't like the whole package. They're just that this could have been quicker. 00:54:25.81 Dave Right. 00:54:26.82 Danny This could have been nicer Yeah 00:54:27.49 Dave it's the It's the nature of what we're doing here. we're are We're critiquing the entire thing. So if there are things that are it didn't hit well ah for us, we'll talk about those too. And then I think when we get to the spoiler section, there's going to be a large chunk of that where we're talking about things that are excellent. I just can't talk about them right now. ah So, but it is, you know, it's important to talk about, especially in these narrative heavy games, what does it actually like to play these games? Because if the game is asking you to do something, then that something should be additive to your experience. 00:55:02.16 Dave And that wasn't always my feeling with this game in particular. 00:55:05.08 Danny And for sure. 00:55:06.21 Dave But I think that the thing that a lot of people are going to take away from this game is not the puzzles or the little combat minigame, they're going to think about the story. So um we can get into our kind of wrap up section here before the spoiler section, where if you have any kind of thoughts in summary, ah let's get those. But also, Danny, what kind of person would you recommend play a space for the unbound? 00:55:38.23 Danny There's a lot of people when I go back and I put my air quotes on cozy, right? I think there's a specific type of game you see when you think cozy. You think I want to be happy. It's going to be goofy. But I think cozy can really be anything that brings you joy as long as I guess I guess if you want to call Doom your cozy game, go nuts. I don't know. um But I. 00:55:58.09 Dave Bloodborne is my cozy game. 00:55:59.66 Danny Listen, not a, well, I don't like Souls games, so I won't say it's not a bad one, but I'll let you be a good one for you. um But ah I think people who love just a good story, I think like we've mentioned the gameplay there, these mechanics, the fighting and stuff, they're all very simple. And sometimes they're a little long in the tooth. 00:56:14.91 Dave Nah, not really. 00:56:14.99 Danny Like I don't think there's any kind of skill gap or skill check in this game. If you just want something to sit back and explore the story, right? You can just do that. So I think anyone who's ready for a really deep narrative, something that's gonna make you feel something this weekend, um That's the kind of person I think should check out Space for the Unbound. 00:56:33.74 Dave Yeah, agreed. If you value storytelling in video games, then I think this is one that you should play with the caveat that I do think that you have to play the entire game to get the good part of what this game story is doing. I don't think that, I mean, I think the game starts out with a good hook. And then it just takes a long time basically to the last chapter to finally reveal what it is actually about. 00:57:05.97 Dave And when it does that, it's really good. So if you go in with that knowledge that it is coming. 00:57:08.29 Danny yeah 00:57:13.42 Dave The good part is coming and I got reassured by some people in the discord server when I was playing and I was like, Hey, I'm a, I'm like seven hours in, I am not feeling this game. And people are like, well, you're close. So just trust us, trust us. 00:57:26.76 Danny Yeah. 00:57:26.93 Dave So everyone out there listening, you can trust Danny and I that. 00:57:27.00 Danny Yeah. 00:57:31.95 Dave what's coming is worth it. So ah that is who I would recommend, play a space for the unbound. Also, you know, like I've mentioned several times, if you value seeing other people's experience, maybe hometowns or home countries, that are unfamiliar to you and your experience. There's great value in video games that do that to give you a more well-rounded view of the world and different experiences that people have. And there's you know I feel like this gets worse, the discourse around this thing where it's like, well, this isn't set you know in America, so I don't give a shit. like You see that kind of sentiment out there. 00:58:14.04 Dave Uh, you know, the main characters aren't white, so I can't identify with it. These are real things that I've read. People say about video games and it's just such total horse shit. 00:58:23.53 Danny Mm. 00:58:23.57 Dave So the value that you get from seeing a game set in suburban Indonesia and the kind of culture and community there, you'll learn something by playing this game about that kind of place. And I think that there's great value in that too. So I want to shout that out, uh, one final time here. 00:58:44.81 Dave So before we get into spoilers, let's do ours ah let's do our plugs and we'll start with you, Danny. I mentioned at the top, you stream, you make YouTube videos, you host a podcast, you do a lot of stuff. So tell people ah more about what you do and where they can find you. 00:59:01.87 Danny Absolutely. Yeah. We stream on Twitch on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Users are checking all kinds of indie games out. um At the time recording, timelines are weird. We're playing through Dungeons of Hinterberg. Me and a couple of friends are doing Chain Together over the weekend. We're loving the indies. We're always checking them out. ah Meanwhile, on YouTube, typically we'll do any kind of reviews and recommendation videos. um I just finished both my reviews for Arranger, a role-puzzling adventure, as well as Valley Peaks. um Those are both great games. You want to hear some more about that. And then, of course, we do have the Play Log Podcast, which is me and my buddy Tofr, aka Play Nice Kids. 00:59:35.18 Danny um We're covering whatever indie news is going on, what indie games we've been playing. And we're starting a monthly book club. Like I mentioned earlier, we just did Night in the Woods. um We also announced this past week that we'll be doing Kentucky Route Zero, a game I've never played. So I'm excited to finally jump into Kentucky Route Zero. 00:59:48.85 Dave Ooh. 00:59:51.68 Danny um And we have a few down the list that we're going to get back to. um Yeah, we are just two guys who love to talk about indie games and found out that no one around us is doing that. So we're like, we need that friendship circle to do it. So you and I are talking about indie games. 01:00:05.86 Dave And I love the focus on ah indie games. I've tuned into your streams many times. I love the vibe on your streams. You just have a great attitude and it's a fun place to be and hang out and chat with you as you play through the games. So I recommend that. And if you want to check out that book club on the Playlog podcast, by the time this episode comes out, I don't know what your release schedule or cadence is like, but Kentucky Route Zero is probably going to be over by the time this comes out. 01:00:33.14 Danny Oh, yeah. 01:00:33.77 Dave So, uh, people can, you know, that's the beauty of podcasts and YouTube content and stuff if you don't have to be right on it. 01:00:34.98 Danny Fair enough. 01:00:41.61 Dave You can, uh, you can play and catch up with those things as you go. So, uh, Kentucky route zero is a super interesting game. So I'll be interested to hear what you all think about that. 01:00:51.14 Danny Mm hmm. 01:00:51.20 Dave Um, yeah. 01:00:51.84 Danny I'm excited. It's at my PlayStation for a minute and I'm like, do I do PlayStation or do I steam? 01:00:54.63 Dave Yeah. 01:00:55.94 Danny We're going to find out, but we're going to lock it. 01:00:58.71 Dave Yeah. So, uh, good stuff and highly recommended, and I'll put a link down in the show notes so you can check out Danny on Twitch. You can check out the YouTube channel and you can check out the play log podcast. All highly recommended. 01:01:11.55 Danny Oh, shucks. 01:01:13.53 Dave So ah for myself, you can support this show the way that we always say. Ratings and reviews are very helpful. So when people search for podcasts about A Space for the Unbound, they might find this one and future episodes of the show. So you can do that on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podcast Addict, and the podcast is also on YouTube. So if you like to listen to podcasts, on YouTube, whatever they turned Google music into the podcast is there too. 01:01:42.37 Danny Hang 01:01:43.91 Dave ah You can listen to my other podcast called a top three podcast, which is a simple pitch. We do the top three lists and draft topics. It is a comedy show. It's a good time. You can join the Discord server if you'd like to join the community. 01:02:00.88 Dave It's a very friendly place. And there is an invite link down in the show notes. We would love to have you in there. Come talk about a space for the Unbound. Whatever other games you're playing, what movies you're watching, share pictures of your pets. Please share pictures of your pets. ah So that's the Discord server. It's a good place to be. And last but not least, if you want to support the show monetarily, you can do that at patreon dot.com slash real Dave Jackson, where you'll get some bonus episodes. You'll be able to vote in polls for what games I do on the show and a bunch of other treats. So that was a lot of talking. I'm going to catch my breath. We're going to listen to some music. And when we come back, it's full spoiler time for a space for the unbound. 01:03:20.97 Dave Alright, Danny and I are back in its full spoiler time for a Space for the Unbound. And as usual, this is not going to be a linear walk through the story. We're going to talk about things that you learn in the last chapter of the game right now. So for real spoiler time for Space for the Unbound. So The game is kind of told in reverse. You're kind of left, ah we'll say the game picks up at the midway point, basically. You're missing all of the backstory, and then you're going through like the events of the game, but you don't really know what you're actually doing. You're just kind of like grasping at threads as you're going. Atma doesn't know what the hell's going on. He's just doing his best, basically. 01:04:10.40 Danny Mm 01:04:10.57 Dave um What you end up learning about is the backstory with Raya and with Nirmala and with Atma, the real Atma. So starting with Raya here, and this is one of the things that we talked about, I think this game does really well, if you have a character that is going through it. And it takes a long time to get to that point. But once we do, we just realize just how bad of a place Raya is in and what's going on here. 01:04:35.98 Danny hmm. 01:04:42.44 Dave So before we talk about what's going on in the actual game itself, Raya's backstory. So Raya was new in town. ah The girl that you meet in the kind of dream sequences named Nirmala, that's also Raya. Raya's full name is Raya Fitchri Nirmala. So, um, at some point, she, I think, decided to change the name that she goes by. A lot of people do this, right? Like when you're a kid, you'll go by your middle name and then, you know, you're an adult, you change. Actually, I want to be called this. So, um, a couple of things that are, uh, 01:05:24.04 Dave affecting Raya. Her dad is the absolute worst. um He is an abusive piece of shit. And her mom is just trying to do the best she can. 01:05:30.99 Danny Terrible human. 01:05:36.70 Dave Like, you know, you get the sense that like her mom is not a piece of shit. Her mom is fine, but she just can't do a whole lot. She's going day by day too. It's one of those where her dad is such a piece of shit that her mom can't help Raya the way she wants to because her dad is affecting her that much too. so You get that. um One of the times that you learn this is After you get the high score in Future Fighter, which is the Street Fighter arcade game, um there's a scene where Nirmala 01:06:14.93 Dave Wishes that someone would say a teacher would say something nice to her so that her parents would feel proud ah For once because her dad is just constantly like you're such a disappointment. 01:06:21.47 Danny Yeah. 01:06:24.75 Dave We spend so much money on your school You are worthless all of these things So yeah, once once you get through that like the scenes that take place in their house are they're pretty pretty tough Yeah, me too 01:06:38.98 Danny I, I ah luckily come from a loving family where this has never been something that I have to deal with on a personal level. um But that is always so tough to see because I feel like there's, ah stigma sounds like the wrong word, but there's this expectation that like parents are there to love their kids. 01:06:51.08 Dave Yeah. 01:06:57.56 Danny And I know that's just not the case sometimes. And seeing it reflected in a video game where like this girl wants, she's trying to be creative, she wants to write stories and work on art um and the dash is like, 01:07:00.40 Dave Yeah. 01:07:09.29 Danny Why are you failing math? You're a disappointment. You suck. I can't believe we gave birth to you. You're embarrassing me in front of everyone in town. And like he's just berating her for existing. She takes one breath wrong and she's just getting locked in her bedroom. And it is so rough. And I feel so bad for her when this is first revealed at the beginning of the game where it is Nimala. 01:07:26.92 Dave Yeah, with Nirmala, yeah. 01:07:28.14 Danny Yeah. And you're like, oh, I got to sneak in the house to get the magic wand. And then it's like it is Ryan. I'm like, oh, fuck. I hate this. I hate this so much for her. 01:07:36.82 Dave Yeah. Um, and she, she can't like to follow her passions. It's that kind of classic story thing where like she wants to, she wants to write. She wants to draw her dad like that. That is a waste of time that you're not doing that. Uh, you need to, you know, work to get a real job and stuff like that. 01:07:54.16 Danny Mm. 01:07:54.73 Dave So there's that clash there. so ah She has no refuge at home. um And this is more important as we learn more about her because ah she's also bullied at school. ah The character Eric, who's the bully in the game, um did bully her and ran over a cat that she was taking care of with his motorbike and killed her. um There is an upperclassman who Raya likes looks up to, ah but does not like being compared to. And like Raya makes a mistake organizing that festival, and they take control away from her, and they say, like you know Lulu did it way better than you. 01:08:37.62 Dave so there's that um her friend maron is um It just, it felt to me like one of those things were like you have your friends in elementary school and middle school, and then you just, you grow apart from some of them as you get older, people get different friends. 01:08:56.46 Danny Yeah. 01:08:58.27 Dave But Raya didn't make new friends when Marin did. So Marin made new friends and hung out with them. 01:09:03.50 Danny Yeah. 01:09:06.33 Dave Raya didn't make any new friends. So she felt abandoned by that, which was also very tough to see once you learn what's going on. 01:09:17.18 Danny I hate some of these characters and like it's so weird because it's not always there. Sometimes it's not their fault. I think Marin is a weird one where I think you're right. 01:09:23.10 Dave Yeah. 01:09:24.70 Danny That is just drifting apart. But I think something that's heavily implied throughout the whole thing is that Marin wants to do creative things. naal i want you to do creative things, but one of those has parents who are buying her 48 packs of crayons so that he could get art lessons. 01:09:39.66 Dave Yeah. 01:09:40.95 Danny Wow. Nirmala has a dad who doesn't approve of these things and she runs away from home so she can just go and do some doodles on things like overdue rent paperwork that she has on the table. Like they're two very different lives. So seeing Nirmala with this level of envy of like, I wish I could do half yeah ah a fraction of the things that you're allowed to or like, are your parents are proud of you doing and I just can't. And I think that's kind of after Nirmala goes through so much of seeing what she can't have, eventually just like maybe if I'm just not around the things that I'm jealous of, I'll just feel better or hopefully I'll feel better. 01:10:05.42 Dave Yeah. 01:10:17.23 Danny um I think that's the rough one with Marin, whereas Eric sucks. 01:10:19.64 Dave Yeah. Also, I mean, Marin's not completely like guilt free because there is that part where, uh, Raya is getting bullied, like super hard and Marin doesn't step in to help out her old friend. 01:10:25.71 Danny Oh, sure. Yes. 01:10:33.70 Dave Uh, cause I, if I remember right, I think it's her new friends that are bullying, I think. 01:10:39.92 Danny Yeah, they're all kind of blank faces like characters, so I can only like them. 01:10:42.33 Dave Yeah. 01:10:44.28 Danny ah Towards the end, there's another great moment with Raya that I love where she talks about some of the other characters. That's a Lulu thing. um But yeah, I could totally see that in the world of kids, kids suck. 01:10:51.44 Dave Yeah. 01:10:55.73 Danny Kids are terrible human beings. We should even call them that. um But they're not thinking I'm hurting someone's feelings. They're just like, I'm having fun. The people around me are having fun. And even though Marin sees that distress in her old friend, I could see both the fear of being the one to be like, hey, stop doing that. And not to say it's excusable, not to say it makes it okay. 01:11:14.75 Dave Right. 01:11:14.83 Danny But like, I can see why she wouldn't step in at that point, but doesn't make it better. 01:11:19.30 Dave Yeah, I think that like Maren's new life she was the newcomer to that group. That was the feeling that I got. So it's like, you know, she made a choice and it's probably not right. 01:11:27.09 Danny Yeah. 01:11:32.68 Dave It's not the only choice. 01:11:34.47 Danny Hmm. 01:11:34.69 Dave But that's, you know, being a teenager is rough and trying to find someplace that you belong can be tough. So it's a nuanced character with Maren that I thought was really nice. 01:11:46.63 Danny Yeah. 01:11:47.99 Dave um Same thing with Lulu and Eric. Like you, I think they introduce them in different ways. Eric's like a piece of shit when you first meet him. He's the worst. 01:11:59.85 Danny God. 01:11:59.89 Dave and then you don't like I didn't like coming around to loving him or anything like that, but it is more nuanced than he's presented at first. 01:12:06.74 Danny Sure. 01:12:11.33 Dave And then Lulu, you get introduced to in a way that you might like her. and She was another one where I kind of finished out this backstory thinking like it's not Lulu's fault that people are comparing Raya to her. It's not her fault that people wanted her to do the job of organizing the festival again because she did it well the previous year. 01:12:28.82 Danny Yeah. 01:12:36.79 Danny Right. 01:12:36.87 Dave like Those things are not her fault, but in Raya's eyes, Lulu is presented as this villain. This is the person I want to be, and they're taking me out and putting her back in. 01:12:48.47 Danny Yeah. Yeah, I think ah Lulu appears to be like the innocent one. She hasn't done anything. She's just like she's done the other thing, right? Silent everything. She's like, hey, last year we did this. um Can I go to this person and get some help? Like, oh, you're only doing that now? Lulu had that done months in advance last year. 01:13:05.37 Dave Yeah. 01:13:06.05 Danny Or like, why can't you? Why are your grades bad? Lulu's grades never drop below this. And like every time, like in that whole chapter, you see someone mention Lulu and she breaks down like again, stop bringing it up. um And then like for like the end where you're having like this motivation, like she's kind of conquering each one of these people, like talking to them, this is what I felt, talking to them, this is how I felt. 01:13:26.43 Dave Yeah. 01:13:26.52 Danny um There is that scene where Lulu in herself is just like, why can't you be like me? You'll get like, I'm me, I do it right. You'll never be like me. Her friends are backing her up in that same kind of little argument. And I was like, damn it, Lulu. I thought you were like, yes just innocent enough. I'm like, damn it, she did it too. 01:13:42.42 Dave Yeah. 01:13:42.66 Danny I can't stand her. 01:13:44.19 Dave So these are like the three kinds of villain characters that are introduced. um And I say villain in quotes only Eric is really presented as a villain. 01:13:48.90 Danny Hmm. 01:13:53.89 Danny Yeah. 01:13:54.17 Dave um They're introduced and ah in this like dream world that's constructed. ah They are just like 01:14:05.70 Danny Hmm. 01:14:06.93 Dave a wrench in the gears for what Raya wants, and she just tries to remove them from it. We'll get to that in a second. 01:14:13.34 Danny Yeah. 01:14:13.95 Dave So ah to recap, what's going on with Raya? Her home life is terrible. Her school life is terrible for all of these different reasons we mentioned before. And then the biggest thing is that she had a friend or a boyfriend, I'm not sure, um named Atma. I'm going to guess it was a boyfriend because that's in her ideal world that she creates. Atma is her boyfriend. So ah Atma died in a river flood just like the opening cutscene. That was not a dream. 01:14:44.82 Dave That was real. That happened. 01:14:46.53 Danny Yeah. 01:14:47.59 Dave And after that happened, um the grief combined with all of these other things that would make her you know depressed and ah just having a terrible time, all of this like compounds. um So what this game is, and what Raya's superpower is, is it's not a superpower. The whole thing is taking place in her mind as she's in the hospital after what's inferred to be a suicide attempt. 01:15:20.25 Dave um And part of it is because after the game is over, she wakes up in a hotel or a hospital room, but also she's the only character that would have committed suicide. 01:15:27.54 Danny Yeah. 01:15:32.56 Dave And there's that content warning at the top. So if you're keeping track, I guess, so that's what happened. 01:15:35.02 Danny yeah 01:15:39.54 Dave So That's all of these things and like if someone's listening to this and they and they're thinking like, wow, this game must spend its entire runtime going through all of these things that happened to Raya and all of that. That's not how this game goes. 01:15:57.64 Dave And so all of these revelations that we learned aside from Raya's dad being a piece of shit, all of these are in like the last two chapters, mostly in the last chapter. 01:16:12.50 Danny right. 01:16:12.66 Dave So this is what I meant in the non-spoiler section where this game takes, in my opinion, too long to get to the point, like the emotional core of this game is unavailable for most of it. And I, I wanted to get your thoughts on like, How did you feel about the way that this was all laid out? It's so back loaded with what the actual important stuff is. 01:16:39.97 Danny I think the way my brain was taking the information, right? I was very much like, at the moment, here's what's relevant to me. And like that first chapter where you're like, this is Eric. Eric is the villain of this chapter. He's the one we have a problem with. We go through why Eric caused problems, where Eric runs over Admiral, or the cat, and like that's a big problem for Raya and like what that turns into. Ultimately, that being the first like real shock value moment of the game where, 01:17:06.51 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:17:07.35 Danny ah you make this bucket list and one of the bucket list items is to eat like a whole cake, the whole ah Black Forest Quito, right? 01:17:14.30 Dave Yeah. 01:17:14.55 Danny And you go and get it before you get the ingredients, you get them to, we call a lot of people grandpa. I don't know if we're just, Atma has a thousand grandpas or if like, it's just at a term of endearment, local type deal. 01:17:23.25 Dave Cultural thing. Yeah. 01:17:24.12 Danny Okay, cool. I figured, but just in case you're like, nah, dude, a lot of grandpas out there. Um, But yeah, you get this cake, Eric's like, no, I gotta apologize to her. He knocks you out, takes the cake, and he's like, I'm going to apologize for both the cat by getting her hurt like her favorite dessert, um which just makes her even more pissed off. 01:17:41.94 Dave Yeah. 01:17:45.00 Danny So she literally just obliterates this guy like just in this dream world, just force choke, pull pops into nothing. 01:17:48.12 Dave Yeah. 01:17:51.93 Danny And this is the first time Atma's like, did you just kill that guy? 01:17:53.82 Dave What the fuck? 01:17:56.45 Danny And like, yeah, and I'm so locked into this, or I'm like, this means something for someone. But I think at this point, they're almost villainized and seem too strong, but we'll say like villainized Raya, like she, she's the problem. 01:18:09.05 Dave Oh, yeah, she's the villain for like, I would say chapter three and four, at least she's presented as the villain, you have to stop her. 01:18:15.17 Danny Yeah. 01:18:18.71 Danny Right. 01:18:18.80 Dave You don't know why you don't know what's motivating her to do this until the end. But she is the villain for a while. 01:18:25.38 Danny Right. 01:18:26.91 Dave And I thought that was, um I guess, the one the one thing during those middle sections that I was thinking was, this is an interesting narrative thing they did, where your girlfriend and your partner main character that you're going through the events of the first couple chapters with, now she's the villain in the story. And I thought that was interesting. 01:18:46.37 Danny Yeah. 01:18:47.53 Dave And that's not necessarily the case, but it was what I thought at the time. 01:18:52.35 Danny Yeah, but I think in the way they choose to establish like that, right? Where they do make her the villain and you're kind of chasing after her and you're like, hey, she likes she'll typically walk by you until she doesn't. 01:19:02.00 Dave Yeah. 01:19:02.49 Danny So then you replace her with Lulu until her end comes, then you replace her with Maren until her end comes. And this entire time, like in my brain, we're going for the direction of like, this is our villain to then be like, let's turn around and find out what really happened. And I think that's kind of where the misdirect goes. Because again, you're playing as Atma the entire time, which again, isn't a real person. He's what a real person is. 01:19:25.62 Dave Right. 01:19:27.05 Danny But our atoms are like imaginary friends. He's called an imaginary friend multiple times by Marin to kind of make up for this lost friend that she had when she was younger. 01:19:33.73 Dave Yeah. Yeah. And I wasn't clear. if before the suicide attempt, if she had this imaginary friend or um because because the Atma that we play with that does all the memory hopping and stuff is like a physical representation of her memory of Atma, there the the person, um which is, you know, a lot of games that deal with grief will 01:19:50.79 Danny Yeah. Right. 01:20:03.85 Dave come to the conclusion that the memory of that person is always with you, that that person is not totally gone. 01:20:04.63 Danny Mm-hmm. 01:20:11.16 Dave um And that's, you know, instead of like that being something that comes up in conversation or a conclusion in this game, you actually play as that memory, trying to help ah Raya as she recovers, we'll say. 01:20:22.59 Danny Right. 01:20:27.60 Dave um So this all takes place in this game world where It is a mixture of Raya's inner turmoil and then her fantasy world, basically. So she wants to create a world where she and Atma can go through and do the things on her bucket list without any of those negative outside forces ah messing it up. So that's why, like, 01:20:59.60 Dave when Eric becomes a part of it and he starts to fuck things up because it's it's her memories of him doing something bad and then apologizing like you said like sorry I killed your cat here's a cake you know that pissed her off so that negative memory then becomes a character in her dream world same with Lulu where like Lulu is not really doing anything bad in the dream world but she's there and Raya doesn't want her there and 01:21:10.19 Danny Hmm. Hmm. 01:21:26.44 Danny Yeah. She's an obstacle to her happiness. She's just like, stop existing so I can be like, just happy because I'm always going to be compared to you. 01:21:30.47 Dave Yeah, exactly. And so that's what happens with Eric , with Lulu and with Marin. She basically reaches that same point with all three of them where she's like, you cannot be here. This is my dream world. ah So she turns them into monsters, um which I think is just kind of the way that she sees them. 01:21:49.05 Danny Right. 01:21:55.36 Dave She sees them as monstrous people. 01:21:55.95 Danny right 01:21:57.97 Dave And then she, like you said, snaps them out of existence in the dream world. 01:22:02.85 Danny Yeah. 01:22:04.10 Dave And again, that first time that happened to Eric, I was like, holy shit, she killed that guy because you think this is the real world at that point. 01:22:07.89 Danny What? 01:22:11.10 Danny Right. 01:22:11.93 Dave Yeah. So um I think that this game It's either on the steam page or it's like, it's not a secret that they're trying to keep that there's something supernatural here. 01:22:23.70 Danny Yeah. 01:22:23.82 Dave So I think that bait and switch is really good actually, where they're like, Raya and Atma have superpowers, but that's not, it's not superpowers. It's all a dream world anyway. 01:22:32.59 Danny Hmm. 01:22:34.16 Dave And you can make anything happen in your dream. 01:22:34.68 Danny This is her storybook. 01:22:36.30 Dave Yeah. 01:22:36.65 Danny Yeah, because the whole thing is writing a storybook as a kid and like, uh, Taylor's into where, uh, the two, the one character splits into two, where you have Raya, who is the ah North Princes, I think it is. 01:22:37.34 Dave Um, yeah. 01:22:48.73 Danny And they're both space princesses that one is like, I'm happy here and I don't want to leave my place. 01:22:49.47 Dave Right. 01:22:53.59 Danny Well, at the same time I'm lonely, so I want to find new friends. So Rai is the princess that leaves to go find new friends, but that is her shedding that creative part, the the part of her that has the connection with Atma, the thing that's kind of dragging her down and making her like the odd one out that everyone's bullying um to then move on to her new life, which is still no better. 01:23:09.34 Dave Yeah. 01:23:13.57 Danny um But then you see those come back together and you even have a Basque, the first cat who is like, Such a badass looking character. I love this fantasy version of ask. 01:23:21.70 Dave Yeah. 01:23:24.35 Danny But yeah, with them being turned into monsters, Adam is even like, why why is she doing that? He's like, oh, we're not doing that. That's what they look like. She's just taking off that shield. These are monstrous people. They're the bad guys. 01:23:35.57 Dave Yeah. 01:23:35.85 Danny yeah I'm just she's just showing everyone else what they actually are. um And that's that misdirection between her mindset and what's actually going on. 01:23:40.34 Dave Yeah. 01:23:45.91 Dave Yeah. And that the way that it ties in that story that they wrote, where the events of the story loosely follow the events that are happening in, you know, Raya's real life story, ah where I think that having her change names, and they say like, push away Nirmala. So it's like, basically, the person I was before Atma died, 01:24:11.34 Danny Yeah. 01:24:15.13 Danny Yep. 01:24:16.97 Dave that person's gone. And taking with it all of like the childlike or childlike you know joy and ah curiosity and creativity and all of these things. And all I have left is this like this person I became after this event. And that's like part of the healing process is getting Nirmala back with Raya at the end. 01:24:41.85 Danny Yeah. 01:24:42.59 Dave um Pretty interesting how it's, again, like they, there are a lot of things up in the air. And so you would go through a lot of this game and be like, I don't know what's going on with the story. I don't know what's going on with her making people disappear. I don't know what's going on with her and why she's doing the things that she's doing. I don't know if this is the real world or not. 01:25:02.71 Danny Yeah. 01:25:02.79 Dave Uh, And then, and all of those things come together in the last chapter and when they come together and you realize what everything means, it's really, really good. Um, I just wish that, like, I wish that it didn't all come at hour nine, you know? 01:25:18.74 Danny Yeah, I think because I mentioned already we were like my brains at the moment. I'm thinking, where's this going to go? But I guess I don't think back to where I'm like, this was problematic because it slowed down my experience for XYZ outside of the courtroom slow down missions. um But again, if in a world where I would go back and play this knowing what the end is, knowing how this game wraps up and like where it's going to be. 01:25:34.74 Dave Yeah. 01:25:41.95 Danny I think both will be in the spot where I can kind of analyze, like, interesting. I can now see this is something that I wouldn't have noticed the first time around. 01:25:46.87 Dave Yeah. 01:25:48.05 Danny But also, I'm like, man, it does take that hop, skip and a jump to get from introducing the bad guy, the villain to them being like, no, the villain is just troubled or or this, that and the other other people were were seeing who are the villains are misunderstood or whoever you want to interpret, you know, the the way they treated Raya and everything. So. Yeah, I think the first time through, I'm less affected by it being so back loaded because I think I. In a movie, it's a lot to do without giving a lot of those hints of what's going to happen. How do we end up here? But in a five chapter game where you're now unpacking everything in the end, getting all emotional, seeing why these guys are bad, but also why it's still kind of Raya's issue to deal with or what she's unpacking at the same time, um I guess folded, unfolded fine for me. 01:26:40.77 Dave I guess if you did replay it, you would catch all those bits of foreshadowing that when we're playing it for the first time, there were a lot of things that came up where, you know, like ah there'd be like a little bit of dialogue at the end of a chapter, you know, it shows like a ah screen of just like the sky. And then a thing will come up that says like, you know, I'm sorry, I'm trying to be a good person. 01:27:00.43 Danny Yeah. 01:27:05.47 Dave You're like, I don't know who that is. I don't know who they're talking to. And then okay moving on I guess so if you did replay it you would probably have a better idea of what that is it doesn't change the fact that. 01:27:11.45 Danny Yeah. 01:27:18.88 Dave You don't really know what the game is about until the very end and you're just kind of floundering I think for a while but i'm not to say that there is no foreshadowing or anything before that so. 01:27:21.15 Danny Uh huh. 01:27:28.41 Danny Yeah. 01:27:31.52 Dave What's going on in the story here is that Raya has created this dream world ah where she can just kind of live out the life that she thinks that she wants, which is doing these things on the bucket list with Atma, but, um, I think what they, let me restart that, but. 01:27:51.83 Danny Yeah. 01:27:56.30 Dave the dream world becomes more and more unstable as you go. And you are told that it's because there's a transgressor, that's the word that they use in the game, where I thought at the time, I thought, okay, there's like, like Giygas from Earthbound is coming, like ah an alien or something is coming that's gonna like shatter the world, it caused the apocalypse or something. This is before you know, it's a dream world. I think what they meant by that is our Atma that we control. um Because by helping Raya through the healing process as we end up doing, that is what breaks this world. And so we have like, 01:28:40.01 Dave an interesting thing, I think, where this coming apocalypse ends up being necessary. Like, this is a good thing that's going to happen. 01:28:46.43 Danny Mmhmm. 01:28:48.00 Dave But all the characters that inhabit this world think that this is a bad thing. Raya doesn't want this dream to end. She wants to just live here forever. ah So there's a part of this game where you're treated as the invader, I guess, ah because you're not you're going against this wish to have this dream world continue. um And I think like, part of what is going on with Raya is that they she needs to 01:29:22.19 Dave not like to face her past or like defeat her past or something, but she needs to accept that this happened but basically. 01:29:30.03 Danny Right. 01:29:31.33 Dave And that, you know, them putting on like the defenses for you, Atma's the transgressor and stuff shows me that when this game begins and for a while, Raya's not ready. And that's part of the journey that you go on. 01:29:47.24 Danny Yeah, I'm wrapping it up and trying to piece together how it all plays out in what is dream? What happened to Raya? How is she in this hospital bed like piecing that all together? um I kept thinking about again, the misdirection of like we're playing as Atma Atmos, the hero, which they call him in the game, but he's like our playable character for like 99 percent of this game until like that final walk towards the end of like recovering from everything Raya has been through. 01:30:06.02 Dave Yeah. 01:30:13.02 Danny But I can't. decipher whether it is a, this is the dream that she has no control in, everything's happening, just like when you dream. And you might have that little moment of like, in my dream, I fought the bad guy and whatever, or if it's more of a childlike wonder playing with her own toys. And if that's the case, Atma being like the hero, the one that she's playing with, wanting to decipher and fix her problem, wanting to save the princess and be like, here's what's going on with me. My hero is going to do that. But that would imply that she obviously knows that she has a problem and there's a character who the entire time is like, hey, everything's going to be OK. 01:30:50.51 Danny I'm here with you. But like we can't stay here. This is like we can't stay here being like 01:30:53.65 Dave Yeah. 01:30:56.15 Danny wake up, like go back to real life. um So trying to figure out how much is just the state of a dream like she's just living through. What is up? Well, up to a certain point, a better world for her um or that she knows what is reality, um even though she wants to escape it in this dream world. Atmos is still the person trying to get her back there. So I like piecemealing both of those, like which one's a little more accurate to it. 01:31:18.98 Dave Yeah. 01:31:23.57 Dave Yeah, I think the first one you said is where I kind of land on it where this is a dream that she's having and 01:31:33.31 Dave kind of to me seems like when you have a dream, like you said, like it might start out where things are cool. I'm having a dream where I'm doing something nice. And then like something happens and you're not in control of the dream, you're just there. 01:31:47.05 Danny Hmm. 01:31:47.21 Dave And that happens to Raya several times. 01:31:49.97 Danny Right. 01:31:50.09 Dave And there's a bunch of times where she kind of snaps the dream out and you like you know wake up later when things get out of her control and she realizes Even in this dream world, she can't control what's happening. You know, Eric is there. He shouldn't be here, ah stuff like that. So it makes me think that this is more of like a natural dream, maybe lucid dreaming in a way, but not totally in control of what happens, ah which is why she tries to reset it several times throughout the story. 01:32:16.35 Danny Sure. 01:32:25.83 Dave Uh, like, okay. 01:32:25.89 Danny With crazy and crazier stuff. 01:32:27.70 Dave Yeah, that didn't work. Okay. Now, yeah, more, kind of like more desperate, like you'd like the last dream where she's like this big blue, like goddess looking, uh, figure like that's like, okay, this is, this is my new dream world. We're not just doing my bucket list. I'm the God of this place type of thing. 01:32:46.86 Danny Yeah. 01:32:47.98 Dave Yeah. Um, 01:32:49.11 Danny And then even the couple steps ahead of that, right? Where she's just like, on the bucket list, we want to launch her own fireworks. And you're like, she's going around town that entire chapter trying to find someone like, do you have fireworks? 01:32:55.09 Dave yeah. 01:32:58.97 Danny Oh, you don't sell those anymore? Blip, you're out of my life. Like, ah oh, you thought you could buy some today? 01:33:01.85 Dave Yeah. 01:33:03.54 Danny Last minute? I don't think so. We're closed. I have to go find my son, whom you murdered in the last chapter. And like, snap them out of existence, right? 01:33:07.76 Dave Right. 01:33:09.49 Danny To end the chapter, it's like, you know what? Fine. I'll do fireworks. And then that crack in the sky is just shattered open with a giant meteor that comes down and explodes. And we're like, well, That escalated like the last chapter. 01:33:19.92 Dave Yeah. 01:33:20.05 Danny you killed a kid, which is not great. Put that out there. 01:33:22.45 Dave Yeah. 01:33:22.97 Danny Not great. But now you just like new to the city again for Adam to wake back up at the desk. Like that's the re-reoccurring thing of like we start a new day at this desk where we're having our introduction to the story. 01:33:31.16 Dave Yeah. 01:33:33.58 Danny He's like, oh, shit, another crazy day. I hate this. 01:33:36.67 Dave Yep. Yeah. Always waking up back there. Yeah. So, Atma's like the realization is that Atma is a memory and he's there to try and help her along the process. 01:33:46.20 Danny Hmm. 01:33:50.20 Dave I want to listen to a bit more music and then I'll come back and talk about that process. 01:33:58.07 Dave So the process of Atma helping Raya, I think is 01:34:03.80 Danny you 01:34:04.66 Dave really excellent in like the nuanced ways that they talk about how to help somebody that is very depressed, somebody that might be suicidal, right? It seems very intelligent to me, the ways that Atma interacts with her once Atma realizes what's going on. um The ways that he interacts with her and the ways that they portray her feelings and what she's tried and things like that. So we already talked about how she kind of distanced herself from her past because she, Raya, blames Nirmala, her younger self. She blames Nirmala for Atma's death. 01:34:48.32 Dave So she banishes Nirmala from her character, her consciousness, basically. um you know And ah one of the other things that I liked really early on, once you realize that this is what's going on, is a lot of I don't want to pin this all on games, but a lot of media when dealing with depressed people will say, oh, well, you should try being kind to yourself and ah stuff like that. 01:35:16.97 Dave And like, you know, I've said that to people too. Like if someone's down, you know, try not to beat yourself up, be nice to yourself. And Raya says, I've tried that for so long, it doesn't work. I can't be kind to myself. Nothing is helping, which I thought was very well realized that she is not at this point where Daily positivity journaling is going to help her. She is beyond that at this point. 01:35:39.86 Danny Yeah. 01:35:43.37 Danny Yeah, it's ah rough, right. And again, coming right off of talking about like night in the woods, not being very depression heavy. um My partner Topher is very open about, you know, having a depression and relating to this game so much where I always like to double back and make sure that I don't you know, step on toes and impede on anyone or I'm like, I understand that. 01:35:56.13 Dave Yeah. 01:36:03.84 Danny Like you have depression. I could never relate. I could only sympathize. Right. And I know as a potential person, people pleaser, I don't want someone to feel sad. I want to be like, yeah, just feel better. And I realize that is probably the worst thing you can hear. That is probably so frustrating. We're just like, you don't think I fucking tried, of course. 01:36:21.65 Dave Yeah. 01:36:24.12 Danny And I'm like, I'm sorry. I would double back like what? What do you want me to say? You just want me to be here? Which is kind of what Atma does at the end. You have this, he wants to encourage her and then you kind of have this new person, personification is the wrong word, but you're in her childhood house. 01:36:31.74 Dave Yeah. 01:36:38.57 Danny She's locked in a room and you keep going up there and she's like, leave me alone, leaves. You give her some time, go back up again. A few more conversations, leave me alone. Eventually you're like, I'm just going to sit in the chair until she needs me. And then time will pass by for you. 01:36:49.67 Dave Yeah. 01:36:51.43 Danny And you have a conversation again, wait in the chair again until she's ready. And I think she had for Raya having that comfort of like, I don't need you now. I don't want you now. But the comfort of having him when she's ready for him. I'm like, cool. 01:37:05.00 Dave Yeah, 01:37:05.48 Danny I like the way that was kind of played out. 01:37:08.17 Dave 100%. I really like that they could have done any number of fantasy things where you fight your demons or you, you know, you. We've already had so many supernatural things and they could have done literally anything to any scale, but what they did was they put it on this superhuman level at the end. 01:37:22.65 Danny Hmm. 01:37:32.37 Dave When things are really important, they say, like you said, ah Atma goes up and says, hey, do you want to talk? And she says, no. And he goes, okay, I'm leaving. I'm available though and like slowly she talks more and more but she always hits a limit and she's like okay that's all for today and he's like okay I'm not I'm not pushing I'm available though I'm always available ah which I thought was just really nice because as you said like your your tendency you want to try to help people and 01:38:05.60 Dave My tendency also is to want to try and help people talk through what's going on because that often helps me and it's taken me a long time in my life to realize that that's not what you should start with. 01:38:11.45 Danny Yeah. 01:38:21.47 Dave because that's not what works for everybody. And it might work for somebody in this situation, but not this situation. 01:38:23.53 Danny Uh-huh. 01:38:27.62 Dave So I just thought this was a really intelligent thing for the writers to have Atma do ah in this situation, ah to just be there. Literally, sometimes that's all it is. He's just available. 01:38:41.83 Danny Yeah. 01:38:41.95 Dave yeah So that was um really good, in my opinion. 01:38:45.03 Danny Uh-huh. 01:38:48.02 Dave um When Raya does open up, she talks about basically how she sees everybody out there. um you know She's in her bedroom, so looking out the window. She sees people that look happy and stuff, and she asks Atma what makes him happy. um Apma says that it's the ordinary things that make him happy. um So, you know, again, keep staying grounded in this ah this situation, not being like, I love when I can go to a ah baseball game or something like that, you know, um very ordinary things that are that are making him happy in that situation. 01:39:30.83 Dave ah So she finally kind of opens up and and tells him like, 01:39:30.84 Danny Yeah. 01:39:37.46 Dave I created this world because I just want to be with you here. ah She's alone. She's scared. She needs this person back and he's dead. So the only way is to kind of fabricate this world where she can spend time with him. And part of the thing is to kind of talk her into like This might feel good right now, but this is hollow. It's not, this isn't real. um And at a certain point, ah another thing I thought was really good about this process is that 01:40:15.69 Dave Atma does all he can to help Raya, but at a certain point, she needs to go by herself and ah he leaves and she has to go on and she's really scared. 01:40:22.33 Danny Yep. 01:40:26.56 Dave And she talks about how scared she is to go ah kind of be around these things that caused her these, these traumas in the past. um So I thought that was a nice touch too. 01:40:39.28 Danny Yeah, that was definitely what I was balling. I was just sitting here sniffling while I'm reading all this dialogue because Adam acknowledges like I'm not real. You know, I'm not real. And though he hits her with the I'm always there for you, like in the most emotionally supportive way you can be. 01:40:51.14 Dave Yeah. 01:40:56.59 Danny Obviously, he literally cannot be there for her. He is dead. He is just like this figment. So this is that opportunity to kind of ease her into like, hey, I'm going, I'm here again. You can't see me. You see him fade away. and Like I'm here, but I'm not. 01:41:12.39 Dave yeah 01:41:15.15 Danny And she walks through this tunnel alone and interacts with all the things that are in Peter, right? Until you get to like that fourth one, which is like, ah dad, what are we going to do with that? How like this is when I really need some support. 01:41:25.03 Dave Yeah. 01:41:26.59 Danny And when you get that like emotional support and you think it's mine it's like, oh, it's not Atma, it’s somebody else. And maybe we'll start from the beginning of the track before we get to that. But ah Yeah, I think they handled that really well to establish like what she will have to do moving forward, not having actual asthma. So. 01:41:46.35 Dave Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So it's that - Rukey is going nuts out there. So it's that. that character going through grief and that kind of realization that that that person that that she lost is there in a way, ah but it when it comes down to like actually, I guess, taking that step, that's gotta be her. But he's there for everything that he can be there for ah in that way. 01:42:20.18 Danny Mm. Yeah. 01:42:24.28 Dave So Raya, kind of it's presented in the game as she's walking along this path. talking with the characters that have caused her trauma in the past. um So she talks with Eric, she talks with Lulu and Marin. The characters kind of come to a bit of an understanding. They don't fully forgive each other, which I think is great and very well realized. 01:42:49.50 Danny Yep. 01:42:50.70 Dave Like you don't have to forgive everybody. And ah there that's not how people work. People are not just going to forgive each other. um in every situation. So that's good. And then the last one with her dad, which I thought was great. She doesn't forgive her dad. She tells him to fuck off and that she's gone off. 01:43:06.77 Danny Yeah, it's... 01:43:10.02 Dave She's going to live without him. And her mom is there to help too, like you said. 01:43:12.94 Danny Yeah. That one felt, I don't know why, I don't know if I have some deep rooted something I got on pack on my own, but that one felt really good. 01:43:22.04 Dave Oh, yeah. 01:43:22.10 Danny That one felt so good. Because it was this, she is, again, with Eric, like he's apologizing. And then like, later, as we go through the epilogue, there's a little more of that like, you know, kind of where we're at with their apology and whether he's ready to say it or not. um And then I met with Lulu, I took a screenshot, hold on, ah she had said, You don't get to decide my value. I'll be whoever I want to be. And I'm like, fuck, that felt good. 01:43:47.06 Dave Mm hmm. 01:43:48.13 Danny That's really good. But yeah, watching her kind of come to terms with all these people like I'm better with you. Hey, we should get a drink together at some point, whatever, whatever. Then getting to that, I'm like this. I can't fathom a realistic way, but she just goes like, it's OK, dad. But she does in the way of it's OK. 01:44:02.85 Dave Yeah. 01:44:05.37 Danny Some people don't mesh. They can't intertwine even like father and daughter. 01:44:08.59 Dave Yep. 01:44:09.93 Danny So bye. And I'm like, ah and I'm getting goosebumps just thinking back to it. I'm like, that was it felt so good. Like I can only imagine again, we're looking at a screen with pixels. So like. How realistic, but I'm sure someone on the planet, right, has been through the emotional. 01:44:23.96 Dave oh yeah 01:44:25.37 Danny I say I should as if it's not realistic, um the abuse, abusive parents and everything and wishing they could have just been like, you're not a part of my life so long and how good that would feel like I was rooting from the stands over there. I'm like, yeah, get it, right. Let's go. 01:44:41.06 Dave Yeah, I mean, again, not not my personal experience, thankfully, but you know plenty of friends that I know who have cut toxic and abusive parents out of their life, and that's what they need to do in order to live their best life. 01:44:52.07 Danny Yeah. 01:44:55.18 Dave And it's unfortunate that ah that family can be that way sometimes, but it's really well represented here in the game where Some people just don't deserve your forgiveness. And the best thing to do is just cut them out and move on. And that's what she and her mom do at the end here. 01:45:09.97 Danny Yeah. 01:45:14.10 Dave um And then the last one, this is the one that made me cry is ah she talks to the cats and she apologizes for not protecting them. 01:45:20.94 Danny Yeah? 01:45:23.32 Dave And the cats say that it was their greatest honor to spend time with her, which I've had pets my entire life. 01:45:30.67 Danny Mhm. 01:45:31.17 Dave And this is what we hope for our pets, right? We can't talk to them, but we hope that they feel that way. Right. I mean, my dog likes me because I feed him and take him for walks and stuff like that. 01:45:40.03 Danny Yeah. 01:45:44.60 Dave But we just hope that, uh, we're providing the best life for our pets. And that's, uh, that's what the cats say to Raya here. 01:45:52.19 Danny Yeah. 01:45:53.72 Dave So that was great. 01:45:54.14 Danny No, it's so nice. I'm not a cat person. This game put a lot of cats in my face. 01:45:58.34 Dave Oh, a ton of cats. 01:45:58.60 Danny I'm like, I can live with it. I'm fine. Ton of cats. um But yeah, like I fell in love with Basque the moment we saw them as like silhouetted characters. Like we didn't even see them yet. And then in the final chapter, we get a full view. 01:46:07.35 Dave Mm 01:46:09.20 Danny We see the wings, we see the beak and kind of like what kind of weird chimera this original actual cat, you know, like Nimala's actual cat. um And when they're introduced to Admiral, which is like the adoptive cat that we've made this hut for, which is in this dream world and kind of what these two, both of her cats finding each other, one male, one female, um, hanging out like, Hey, I think we're done here, but don't worry. 01:46:27.15 Dave hmm. 01:46:35.43 Danny I'm going to take care of her. And she's like, you better. I'm going to scratch you. I'm like, Oh, fun banter between like these cats. 01:46:40.19 Danny Like that's great. 01:46:40.51 Dave Yeah. 01:46:41.29 Danny Um, but yeah, no, that was, that was really sweet. I liked that a lot. 01:46:45.01 Dave Yeah. And then after that, so Soraya's kind of like, I just like how they present this, like she didn't, 01:46:54.77 Dave She made peace in a way. She didn't conquer all of her past trauma. ah She just kind of faced it a little bit. Met it head on, dealt with it in an individual way for individual people along the way. And then it's time for this dream world to come down. So she has one final conversation with Appa. And Raya says that she doesn't want to forget everything that's happened here because I think she realizes at this point that this world is not real. 01:47:19.95 Danny Mm hmm. 01:47:28.63 Dave And when it's over, this Atma that she's talking to, he's gonna be gone. um Which is, you know, it's gonna be very sad for her, um but Atma says that moving on is not the same as forgetting and that he'll always be there. 01:47:34.55 Danny Yeah. 01:47:45.22 Dave And it's that thing but in stories that deal with grief, where this is the lesson at the end of a lot of those stories, that those people will always live on ah in your memories. And You know, they may not be in the room with you and you can't talk with them, but they will always be there in a way. Uh, so I thought this was interesting, did you get all the bottle caps? 01:48:10.06 Danny I dig another bottle cap, I dig another bottle cap. I missed a couple others, I was mad about it. 01:48:12.51 Dave So there's that. 01:48:15.74 Dave So there's that one scene after you get all the bottle caps, there is a memory of Atma and Nirmala looking at a bottle cap collection. And they talk about what the most treasured thing in their life is. And Atma says it's his memories because they can't be taken away. It's the only thing that someone can't take away from him, ah which is this happened way earlier in the game, but a little foreshadowing for one of the big lessons and themes at the end of the game. 01:48:40.06 Danny No. No. 01:48:46.48 Dave So ah Nirmala wakes up, Raya, Nirmala, ah whatever she's gonna go by now, wakes up in the hospital. 01:48:47.58 Danny No. 01:48:54.77 Dave And um the end of the game is like the only part of the ah real world that we see when she's back out there. 01:49:01.56 Danny yeah 01:49:03.75 Dave So what's happened at the end, a little, it's a flash forward a little bit. Raya's mom divorced her dad and they're moving away. um Raya is writing again, which her mom is happy to see. ah She asks Raya if she will write about the bad things that happened too. And Raya says that she will, that she's not ashamed of her story and what happened. And then, well, before the last part, ah one another just very nice, smart touch from the writing team ah is that Raya goes and takes a walk around town. 01:49:35.70 Danny Yeah. Hmm. 01:49:39.48 Dave She talks to the characters in real life. So she talks to Lulu, she talks to Eric, she talks to Maren. And what I really like about this is that all is not well. ah She did not forgive them. 01:49:50.75 Danny Yeah. 01:49:52.49 Dave Things are very awkward between a lot of them. And I thought this was just very real. 01:49:59.00 Danny Yeah, 1000 percent, because again, with Maren, it's a repeat of before, right? Like Maren is interning at a book publishing company. Another case of like you are still ahead of where I wish I could be. 01:50:07.20 Dave Yeah. 01:50:10.23 Danny Like I just started writing again. And I think she does a great job of not letting that gel see him. But she's like, hey, this is my boss or or someone I'm talking to. Like he implies like, hey, I could help you get publishers, you know, reach out whenever. um But you can still see those Man, she's still like umpteen million steps ahead of me where I want to be. 01:50:26.11 Dave Mm 01:50:28.87 Danny But she moves on with that really well. um I tease at it earlier, but like when she's talking with Lulu and Lou's like, hey, I'm doing great. 01:50:31.51 Dave hmm. 01:50:36.45 Danny um Becky's doing this and Shanique was over here doing this thing. And then Raya interrupts like, hey, real quick. I don't give a fuck. Like, I don't care about any of them. 01:50:45.55 Dave Yeah. 01:50:47.52 Danny And they're silent. like Oh, yeah. No, I guess that's fair. Yeah. And they're like, then there's the law. I'm like, oh, man, another good one. I can't tell her. I don't give a shit about what your friends are doing. I don't like them. 01:50:59.10 Dave Yeah. So there's a little bit of that. I guess new pep in her step, ah but it just feels very real to me that ah the fact that Raya has taken a big step in her recovery ah doesn't mean that she forgives everybody, doesn't mean that she likes everybody, and it doesn't mean that all of those 01:51:14.77 Danny Hmm. 01:51:22.11 Dave bad memories or actual bad things that those other people did to her. That doesn't mean that that's erased. All of those things are still real. 01:51:30.02 Danny No. 01:51:30.13 Dave ah So I find, I think it's likely that if the story continued, she would never talk to some of these people again. 01:51:37.99 Danny Yeah. 01:51:38.10 Dave It's just, you know, she saw them out on the street. They had an awkward exchange. And ah one of the things where it's like, yeah, let's get a drink sometime. Yeah, sure. Maybe we will. Uh, that's, that's about it. 01:51:50.45 Danny But maybe we won't. But maybe we won't. 01:51:51.69 Dave Maybe we won't. Yeah. 01:51:53.15 Danny Yeah. And then Eric's two exist. 01:51:54.26 Dave Yeah. That, that felt good. 01:51:55.58 Danny Yeah, Eric's is the, which you have like the kind of apology in the dream world. And now you're kind of back here. We have a very different looking Eric, a lot more clean cut, which another one where I kind of went back to when was the last time she actually saw Eric, like in real life, is she kind of remembering the childhood and see like, I'm going to bully you, Eric, like the running over the cat, how much, how much trouble was caused from just remembering who Eric was. 01:52:01.93 Dave Yeah. 01:52:20.65 Dave Yeah. 01:52:20.74 Danny Um, as opposed to what Eric actually did. Um, but he hits her with just like trying to say, I'm sorry. 01:52:24.10 Dave Yeah. 01:52:26.31 Danny He's like, I don't think I'm ready for that. Um, and there's part of me, I'm like, you're a little selfish for that, but also like, maybe he is, I've done a lot of bad things and I don't think I'm quite at the place to even be asking for forgiveness. And she's like, yeah, reach out when you can. 01:52:39.49 Dave yeah 01:52:41.35 Danny And again, another spot if she needs to be like, if he doesn't, oh, well, kick rocks. If he does, cool. 01:52:46.95 Dave Yeah. And um the game ends after all of those, she goes out to the bridge that Atma was on when the meteor came down. 01:52:54.06 Danny Mm. 01:52:55.65 Dave She goes out, she takes in the sights because they're leaving town. um One last time looking out at the city, she sees ah you know the sky and stuff and she says, Atma, are you seeing this? The sky looks so beautiful. And that's the end of the game. so Atma is with her, she remembers this um this journey that she's been on, we'll say, and that's the end of the game. and 01:53:22.32 Dave It's just interesting to me that like in the spoiler section here, we've had so much really good content to talk about and so much discussion about, so much really good discussion about what this game gave to us from a story perspective. 01:53:31.16 Danny Yeah. 01:53:35.76 Danny Yep. 01:53:40.26 Dave And all of this is, this is like chapter five. Most of this is in chapter five. I have not talked about really anything from chapter three maybe a little bit of chapter four going on here, but there's just, there's, I hate to bring it up again, but like it's driving it home that like so much of this game I think is really good and really important and ah really well done. 01:54:06.34 Dave And it's all at the end. 01:54:09.24 Danny Yeah, I guess I argue, right? Like, let's say we piecemeal this, we cut it into slices and kind of place it further, right? 01:54:12.17 Dave Yeah. 01:54:16.71 Danny This is bad pacing. I'll go with it. So we finished the first Eric encounter. She pops him, whatever. But we see Raya in this depressive state walking through the darkness, interacting with Eric. And we get like that set piece early, or at least we know that like maybe the the suicide attempt, we know that existed from the beginning. 01:54:31.11 Dave Right. 01:54:35.92 Danny I'm wondering how impactful it would be, right? If I know from the get go. right committed, try to commit suicide, she's in the hospital, something about that, maybe not all the details, but enough to know that like, we're in dangerous territory. um How that would have changed me progressing through it, what I've looked at it in the lens of like, man, there's a lot of sadness around this, or would have been like, hunky-dory, boyfriend-girlfriend, skipping school. um Dang it, the bully's here. Dang it, the mean girl's here, et cetera, et cetera. And not really have seen the true scale of it until it really hit, you know? 01:55:11.53 Dave Yeah, and that's what it is. It is a kind of bait and switch, like we said. like When I started the game, based on what I knew about it, I thought that it was going to be Raya and Atma working together to stop the apocalyptic supernatural event, ah because that is... 01:55:25.60 Danny Hmm. 01:55:30.28 Danny Yeah. 01:55:33.03 Dave I don't know where I picked it up, but it's from something. It's not a secret that there are supernatural and apocalyptic things in the story. 01:55:40.19 Danny Hmm. 01:55:40.59 Dave So like hiding that and. 01:55:45.77 Dave Pres like. This story with Raya's dream world and her ideal life being shattered, that's the apocalypse and. 01:55:48.77 Danny Hmm. 01:55:56.77 Dave um 01:55:59.21 Dave Like coming to terms with what all this is and how, how the story that Nirmala wrote with Atma, how that fits into everything. There's just a lot up in the air and. This is where like this is the sin. right So I talk about how oh it took too long to get to the point. i Off the top of my head here, I'm not going to come up with an alternate way of telling the story. 01:56:25.21 Danny Yeah. 01:56:25.80 Dave right But it is part of the experience of playing this, where things are up in the air for so long. 01:56:26.34 Danny Lots to do. Yeah. 01:56:33.45 Dave that it's no guarantee that somebody's going to get to all of this wonderful stuff at the end. ah So the one thing that I will say is in chapter three when you are doing all of those space dives for people in town to try to clear the path so that you can get back to the school so that you can confront Raya, I thought that section was bad. 01:56:40.32 Danny Yep. 01:56:57.44 Dave ah It is you have this like pressing thing we have to get to the school and to spend two hours doing adventure game puzzles that are like again you're learning a little bit about the characters in the town but they are not really relevant to what this game is actually about so that is the section where like I think you could have just cut all of that 01:57:17.19 Danny Yeah. 01:57:22.92 Dave Like maybe space diving one person to have them move a truck so you could get in the school. But like, I keep coming back to the fact that Again, for all the story content that we talked about in the spoiler section, there are like no puzzles during any of these sections. ah There might be a couple of space dive things where you do a little bit of something. You might have to find a key or something like that. 01:57:48.13 Danny Yeah, flip a couple switches back out. 01:57:49.04 Dave There's one where you have to like yeah you have to like go into the past, crack the school back wall, then travel into the future so you have a hole to go into. 01:57:58.90 Danny Yeah. 01:57:59.13 Dave like There's stuff like that. but when the story is at its strongest, there are no puzzles at all. 01:58:06.01 Danny Mm hmm. 01:58:07.29 Dave ah And it makes me wonder why that section that's like all puzzles and no, you know, plot revelations, I don't want to say no story again, because you're learning about characters, but you know what I mean, like that, that section there, I don't know what purpose it really serves other than delaying you getting to the good part. 01:58:18.19 Danny yeah 01:58:27.58 Danny Yeah, if this was a four chapter game, we have our you know epilogue at the end, but we kind of cut out three or even just piecemealed a bit because that is chapter three establishes why Lulu is a problem for Raya. 01:58:32.66 Dave Yeah. 01:58:41.44 Danny But that, again, is only established at the end of each section. You have the teacher who's like, I'm a military general. 01:58:45.10 Dave Yeah. 01:58:47.65 Danny And then you have to go out and find like I actually found your teacher paperwork that has your name on it. 01:58:49.74 Dave Yeah. 01:58:52.75 Danny I found the picture of you and your father, whatever. 01:58:52.97 Dave Yeah, I don't, I don't need to space dive that teacher. 01:58:54.55 Danny Yeah. 01:58:56.11 Dave I don't need to space dive the karate instructor or the martial arts instructor. 01:58:59.06 Danny Yeah. 01:59:00.47 Dave I don't feel like that stuff adds anything to the game except time. 01:59:06.49 Danny Yeah. 01:59:06.71 Dave And Maybe a feeling, maybe there is a feeling that is just guessing it could be completely wrong. But maybe there's a feeling that, you know, we have these gameplay things in here, we need to do them more. 01:59:16.80 Danny Yeah. 01:59:19.54 Dave And I don't think that that was super helpful. um But again, and this is where I think we'll wrap up. 01:59:28.59 Danny yeah 01:59:30.43 Dave despite those sections that dragged, that both of us kind of agree, like to some degree we agree that they were not adding a whole lot to the experience of you know learning about the story. When I think about this game in six months, in two months when this episode comes out, or in six months or a year or whatever, I'm probably not going to think about that. I'm going to think about the ending. I'm going to think about how this game touched on the themes and what a wonderful job it did at those things. 01:59:58.49 Danny Right. 02:00:03.42 Dave So all in all, um I do think this game has a lot of value. The story has a lot of value. It's just a little unfortunate that it didn't always feel valuable when I was doing it. 02:00:17.33 Danny Yeah, I think it's always a weird one because I'm like, I think if you think you're going to enjoy a game, like go for it, play it. I understand everybody's financial place is different. I can easily see this being one. If you think you're invested in the story and you want to see it, I could totally recommend someone like, hey, go watch like. 02:00:29.78 Dave Yeah. 02:00:32.81 Danny spatially unbound the movie on YouTube. Go watch the cutscenes or somebody's let's play and still get that same experience. Yeah, I don't think it's as beneficial to the studio, but it is like the word of mouth thing. But you still get to experience everything we did where you don't have to play through the annoying parts. But um no, I think I. 02:00:47.63 Dave Yeah. 02:00:51.03 Danny wouldn't take back the experience I had with this game. 02:00:51.29 Dave Nah. 02:00:53.03 Danny Sure, there's things that would change if there wasn't one. But if there would be like a space for the unbound to I could see places where they would want to clean up or or take out some of the extra meat that's really just kind of padding out the experience. um But great, great narrative. I think it was like a gem with this one. 02:01:10.45 Dave Yeah. And, you know, valuable games, good works of art don't always have to be perfect. 02:01:16.92 Danny Hmm. 02:01:17.13 Dave There are flaws in a lot of things. And the things that you and I talked about as possible flaws are not, it's not necessarily how everyone's going to experience this. The overwhelming thing that I hear about this game and that I agree with is that the story is heartwarming and touching and really good at the end of the day. So that's what we're going to take away from this. So um really good conversation here in this spoiler section talking about ah the journey that we went on with Raya and Abma. And um Danny, thanks for taking two hours to go through it with me, man. 02:01:53.89 Danny Absolutely. You let me know when you want to talk two hours about an indie game. You want to do Cuphead? We can talk two hours about Cuphead. 02:01:59.68 Dave Ooh. I did have a Cuphead episode ready to go and then my guest had something come up and we never recorded it. So if that gets released out into the wild, I know who to hit up. 02:02:11.98 Danny There you go. There you go. 02:02:12.94 Dave Yeah. Well, cool, man. um Again, and I appreciate you taking the time. I appreciate your um your takes on everything that happened here. And at the end of the episode, I'll give a shout out and a recommendation for everybody to go on down in the show notes, find that link to see the stuff that Danny's doing, whether you follow him on Twitch, check out stuff on YouTube, listen to the Play Log podcast, and anything else, because ah Danny's busy, he's doing a lot of stuff. So there'll probably be new stuff popping up all the time. So I give a recommendation to go check that out. And as always tune in next week for the next game to come out of the backlog.