You know him, you love him; The one and only Dave Gilbert is on the show this week to talk about our relationships to gaming as we all get older. Is nostalgia inherently good or bad? Is ET for Atari as artistic a feat as Perfect Tides? We get really really deep into it.

Also, Roses and Matt each played a few Next Fext demos (maybe more to come next week?) and Dave Gilbert played Obsidian’s answer to Unavowed, Avowed!

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Games Mentioned:

• Old Skies
• Avowed
• Unavowed
• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
• Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping
• Do No Harm
• The Alpinist
• Getting Over It w/ Bennett Foddy
• Deck of Haunts
• Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Assassin’s Creed: Oddysey/Valhalla
• Sonic the Hedgehog
• Curse of Monkey Island
• Blackwell series
• Perfect Tides
• Dragon’s Dogma II
• Citizen Sleeper
• Cloudpunk
• Quest for Glory series
• Knights of the Old Republic
• Hypnospace Outlaw
• Crow Country
• Sanitarium

Communal Actions:

• Amazon Boycott March 7-14.
• Nestle Boycott March 21-28.
• Walmart Boycott April 7-14

Look, you all knew this was coming eventually. Matt put it off as long as he possibly could, but the time has finally arrived. Despite it having practically every element that PushingUpRoses hates in adventure games, we play one of her favorites of all time: Sanitarium!

Roses is still playing Cabernet, trying to get the good ending. Matt is Playing Heaven's Vault and it's incredible.

And the less said about the intro, the better.

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Games Mentioned:

• Cabernet
• The Crimson Diamond
• Heaven’s Vault
• Overboard!
• Sanitarium
• Space Quest VI: Roger Wilco in the Spinal Frontier
• Ninja Gaiden

Economic Blackout Day is Friday, February 28th. Don't buy anything!

Amazon Boycott March 7-14. Nestle Boycott March 21-28.

Roses and Matt roll up their characters and embark on an adventure, avoiding Killer Tomatoes and sadistic oral surgeons, leveling up their scratching skills with Itch Simulator VR 4000, and making their way to becoming full-fledged blood-drinking vampires!

This week, we discuss the new vampire game Cabernet, an adventure/RPG hybrid in which you live two months as a vampire in a small eastern European town in the 1800’s. We review the game and talk about the differences in our playthroughs. Then, we discuss the intersection between RPGs and Adventure Games, and what makes a game lean more heavily to either side.

Also, we rank some adventure games we’ve never heard of and wonder what the word “Cabernet” means.

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Games Mentioned:

• Cabernet
• Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector
• Final Fantasies 1-8
• Flat Stanley RPG
• RPG Maker VX 8
• Stardew Valley
• Heaven’s Vault
• I Was A Teenage Exocolonist
• Disco Elysium
• The Thaumaturge
• Planescape: Torment
• Grim Fandango
• Itch Simulator VR 4000
• Skyrim
• Morrowind
• Fallout: New Vegas
• Through Abandoned: The Underground City
• Super Jazz Man
• Apprentice
• Enola

Come take a train ride with Matt and Roses and help us solve the murder of Lady Untervald. If only Matt still played adventure games, instead of SGG (Shoot-Gun Games). First, though, some orders of business: We have a surprising TEETH UPDATE. Roses got a new toy! Matt's new favorite game was finally release. And two cool games got release dates. 

And now, the main event: A retro-styled murder mystery adventure game set on a train that HONESTLY WE SWEAR WE'RE NOT JUST SAYING THIS BECAUSE IT GETS SAID ABOUT EVERY POINT-AND-CLICK GAME has major Lucasarts vibes.

And, by popular demand, Ranking Every Adventure Game Ever makes its triumphant return.

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Games Mentioned:

• Blake Stone
• Stardew Valley
• Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector
• Kings Quest V
• Cabernet
• Rosewater
• Loco Motive
• Pine Hearts
• Orion Burger
• Valiant Hearts: The Great War
• Puzzles in Motion: Backstreet Boys
• Backstreet Boys Save Christmas

Matt and Roses are in a terrible struggle against the new villain of the podcast, but only a little bit. Mostly, we're talking about all the games we're looking forward to in 2025. There's a ton.

Also, Roses started making salsa dishes and Matt played a deduction game about a very complicated family tree!

Email us! [email protected]

Games Mentioned:

• The Roottrees are Dead
• Obsession
• The Last Door
• Mythargia
• Cabernet
• Disco Elysium
• Mermaid Mask
• Foolish Mortals
• Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector
• Perfect Tides: Station to Station
• Rosewater
• Old Skies
• The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker 2
• The Shapeshifting Detective
• Strange Antiquities
• Little Problems: A Cozy Detective Game
• Case of the Golden Idol
• The M/S Cornelia II Incident
• Pony Island 2: Panda Circus
• Inscryption
• Baby Steps
• Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy
• Duck Detective: Ghost of Glamping
• Broken Sword: Parzival's Stone
• The Drifter
• Subnautica 2
• Atomfall
• Fields of Mistria

It’s our 2024 Wrap-Up episode! We talk about our BEST GAMES OF 2024, including some runners-up and some older games that we played this year and fell in love with.

Also, about this intro, all we can say is we’re sorry. The views and opinions of Elmo do not represent those of your hosts, Matt Aukamp and PushingUpRoses. We do not endorse Elmo and we’re sorry for platforming him in this way. You can read all three of our full Notes App apologies on Hanson Swansen’s Xanga page. Hanson Swansen wrote one, too, but we’re not sure why. He mostly just uses it to talk about S.E.O. and AI-driven engagement metrics.

Games Mentioned:

• Nightmare Frames
• PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo
• Dave the Diver
• Strange Horticulture
• Disco Elysium
• The Last Door
• Hobb’s Barrow
• Dreams in the Witch House
• The Abandoned Planet
• Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
• Tactical Breach Wizards
• Is This Game Trying to Kill Me?
• INDIKA
• The Operator
• Lil Guardsman
• Death of the Reprobate
• Duck Detective: The Secret Salami
• Phantom Fellows
• Loco Motive
• Prim
• Crow Country
• English Haunting
• Thank Goodness You’re Here!
• Fields of Mistria
• Crimson Diamond
• Botany Manor
• Loco Motive
• The Rise of the Golden Idol
• 1000xResist
• ANIMAL WELL

PushingUpRoses and Matt Aukamp welcome you into their trans-dimensional Christmas cabin to play a bunch of holiday-themed games with them and their amazing guests. We play a cat game with Crimson Diamond's Julia Minamata! We play an obnoxious boy game with Alasdair Beckett-King. We play a creepy depressing game with Francisco "Grundislav" Gonzalez. And wrap it all up by playing a demon game with Party of One's Jeff Stormer. There's also talk of nog, window-jumping, wassail, and much much more fun!

Happy Holidays, everyone! We hope you had fun and enjoyed this extra-long episode and we'll be back early 2025!

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Julia: https://www.juliaminamata.com/

Alasdair: https://www.abeckettking.com/

Francisco: https://www.grundislav.games/

Jeff: https://www.partyofonepodcast.com/

Games Mentioned:

• Christmas Nightmare
• Lonely Christmas
• Crimson Diamond
• Milo and the Christmas Gift
• Milo and the Magpies
• Watch Over Christmas
• Scribblenauts
• Rosewater
• Last Christmas
• Still Life

This week, we’re playing a game that made us so angry, we had to yell about it. And to do this, we brought in the internet’s best angry yeller: Pearlmania500.

Comedian Alex Pearlman hangs out to tell us a bit about politic and then the 1994 “edutainment” game Wrath of the Gods. Matt talks a bit about Loco Motive, Roses talks a bit about Kings Quest 8, and we rank a few adventure games.

Pearlmania500 Linktree:

https://linktr.ee/pearlmania500

Wrath of the Gods:

https://www.wrathgame.com/

Email us! [email protected]

Games Mentioned:

• · Stardew Valley
• · Minecraft
• · Skyrim
• · Outer Worlds
• · Vampire Survivors
• · Kings Quest VII
• · Hoyle Card Games
• · Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
• · Oregon Trail
• · Loco Motive
• · Wrath of the Gods
• · Legend of Zelda
• · Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator – Case 1: In Search of the Skunk Ape
• · Tangle Tower
• · Madness of the Architect
• · Lifeless Moon
• · Secret Doctrine

We’ve got a high-energy, Smirnoff Ice-fueled shorter episode here for you to kick off the month of December. There is some good news and bad news about the December schedule you won’t want to miss. Roses played a terrible mobile game out of spite. Matt played a rad PS1 throwback game.

Then, we get some really good rolls on the Ranking segment.

• Games Mentioned:
• Virgin River the Mobile Game
• Crow Country
• Spider-Man: Miles Morales
• Curse of Monkey Island
• Prim
• Escape from Monkey Island
• The Dark Crystal
• The Cat Lady
• Erica

Happy American Thanksgiving, everyone! This is absolutely our yuckiest, most disturbing intro ever. And in the last episode, we talked about piss-proof toilet decals! And we are thankful you let us into your lives with this filth.

This week Matt and Roses talk about two of the best Storiented™ mystery-puzzle games ever made, Case of the Golden Idol and Rise of the Golden Idol, by Color Gray Games. We use our ancient, magical artifacts (microphones) to find all the words and put them in the exact right order and make this podcast for your ears to listen to.

Then we continue ranking every adventure game ever and try very hard to forget that we ever came up with a movie called Yucky Princess Swap.

Email us! [email protected]

Games Mentioned (*BRIEFLY):

• Case of the Golden Idol
• Rise of the Golden Idol
• Crypt Custodian*
• Tactical Breach Wizard*
• Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus*
• Chicken Police: Into the Hive*
• Crow Country*
• Arco*
• Nine Sols*
• Loco Motive*
• The Journey Down
• Grim Fandango
• The Sexy Brutale
• Myst
• Return of the Obra Dinn
• Duck Detective: The Secret Salami
• The Slaughter: Act One
• SSTR
• Dallas Quest
• The Book of Unwritten Tales: The Critter Chronicles
• Long Count
• Missing Since January
• Chants of Sennaar