Halloween Special! Godzilla Monster of Monsters Creepypasta ft. HotCyder!

James aka HotCyder joins Kevin to talk about one of the more famous video game creepy pastas to ever grace the internet, Godzilla: Monster of Monsters. Take a whirl through a story about Godzilla, Mothra, and the gang taking on deep seeded grief and sentient technology.

Automated Transcript

Hey there, everybody. Welcome back to pixel wit and a special Halloween episode. With me today is not Phil, but my friend James, and you may know him better from the internet as the King of thumbnails. Hot cider. James, how's it going today?

James  0:19
Whoo. Oh, sorry. Halloween fly. It's the episode. Kevin. Kevin, I'm doing great. Thank you. How are you doing?

Kevin Erhard  0:27
I'm doing pretty good. Because today we're gonna be talking about one a creepy pasta, which is completely different than something we normally talk about. It's the Godzilla monster of monsters creepy pasta from about nine years ago, which is one of the most, I would say one of the most popular video game creepypastas that has ever been written.

James  0:54
Hmm, yeah, it was. December 4 2011. was when this creepypasta first came by, actually, because I did decide to, you know, do a little bit of digging and you know, see where these things come from.

Kevin Erhard  1:10
I mean, all the research. Yeah, I

James  1:12
decided to pull my trousers off and say, you know, even though I'm a guest on the podcast, I should be, I got to pull my way. You know, I got to do all the research. I say, what are the best kind of creepy passes? The ones which you can't find a date for? Because that adds to the mystery of Yeah, yeah. But yeah, no, this was Oh, actually. Yeah. So this was between April 23. And December 4 2011, which seems like a pretty long time between releases of creepypasta chapters. I mean, usually PB passes and have chapters. But right, as we're probably going to find out over the course of the episode, this is a very different creepy pastor. And now length is one of those defining factors, I think.

Kevin Erhard  1:58
Yeah, yeah, it definitely has, it definitely has some, some chunk to it. It is it is longer than most things, most creepy postures I've read. It is upwards. It is eight chapters. And some of the chapters have multiple parts to them.

James  2:16
Yeah, it is longer than most books I've ever read. So it definitely was a challenge for me didn't have as many pictures as a lot of the books that I read. Unfortunately, I will ask though, Kevin, because I will say the first time I've read this creepypasta was because you recommended it to me. I had Yeah, I had no idea about, funnily enough, as I read through it, there was certain images and certain bits of text, which I have seen on the internet, like over the past few years, and like, people's avatars and stuff like that, but I have never, like come across this before. Like when you I mean, the funny thing is kind of how I even came up was a strange thing, because we were in a discord and we were talking about, well, somebody had mentioned that there was so much Gravity Rush, and then that came on to talk about Superman and Superman in video games. And then somebody was like, oh, it'd be good if he could play like an evil Superman, where you smash buildings. actually better than that. Has anybody made any games about Kali Jews? Right? It's like war, or the monsters and stuff like

Kevin Erhard  3:27
that rampage and things like that. Yeah.

James  3:30
And then you mentioned, oh, have you ever read the Godzilla creepypasta. And like those two words, when combined together, it's just such kind of like a strange thing that I'm like, No, I have no idea what you're talking about. So yeah, you sent it to me. And despite it being like, one in the morning, my time, like, I'm laying in bed, and I'm reading this thing on my phone, which I'm going to say to people at home, if you've never read the script, before, I know you want a way to put yourself in a mood. reading it on a light reading in a dark room on a phone is actually very effective. And I'll kind of go into why that is as we kind of dig into the story a bit more, but I was like, yeah, this isn't Yeah, like this is interesting. Like I've never done something like this before. I was gonna ask, how did you come across it?

Kevin Erhard  4:21
You know, my memory is a little hazy. But it would have been it would have been like nine ish years ago that I read it. And I think it was, it was a post on Kotaku. I O nine years ago. There was one of I don't even know who who posted it, which which of the writers posted it. But it they posted Oh, check out this like really long Godzilla creepy pasta. And so I I sat down and I read it and I think I was I feel like I was at work or something really slow day. like okay, well I can sit down and write this over lunch. That's good. Yeah, yeah, I got an hour to kill, why not? And it does take it does take, you know, a good amount of time to read through this and I sat there and I read it and one of the things about me is there's a lot of horror that has zero effect on me, but for some reason, glitch har, so Oh, that that's things things regarding like, computer glitches are centered around technology that gets right under my skin. And I remember the first time I read this nine or nine or so years ago from that recommendation on Kotaku, it was it was all I could think about for days was was the contents of this story. And so it wasn't until a couple days ago when we were figuring your guest appearance and all that out that I was like yeah, that's you know, let's dive back into it it said in the back of my head for a while a nice

James  6:10
little bouncing off point really so when you kind of say glitch horror because like I had been looking a little bit into sort of you know, creepy passes and where they come from and it's funny that kind of like you can almost sort of split them down the middle in regards to most of them are kind of well most of them do kind of deal around diver games that exist or games that don't exist and whenever it comes to games that exists there's always some kind of like underlying horror to it that does manifest itself as kind of right errors and glitches and stuff like that but I suppose just like in other terms, like other kind of horror stuff I mean, he kind of have like indie games and I think kind of Undertale might be the best example of that where it uses yeah nature of how the game works and like to kind of scare you

Kevin Erhard  7:02
when it when it there Yeah, there are there are creepy moments at the end of Undertale my dog my dog wants to chime in on this creepy moments at the end of Undertale. spoilers for Undertale for whatever your old game where Yeah, the villain flowers basically forced quits the game it takes the The game takes your agency for your computer out of your hand. And I was like Ah, I don't like that.

James  7:34
No that and it's like one of those moments which will always stick with me because it's such like a like it's like it's basically the kind of Hideo kijima thing is reading the memory card the spooky bit like taking into the extra level of light. Oh yeah, no, I'm not in like something else is control my programs on my computer. Right how I feel about this like again, it is like really effective or Yes, this

Kevin Erhard  8:00
the Psycho Mantis interaction being Yeah, being the big thing from from Metal Gear Solid one. So yeah, that's that's kind of where this all came from. And then there's been, as you mentioned, there's been a bunch of indie games that have utilize this. And I, one of the things that made me think about this a few years ago is when I spoke to air Dorf, who was the creator of the horror games, faith and faith two, I think chapter three is going to be coming out this year, maybe. But yeah, he he created faith. And which is an interesting game because it is based with like these Commodore graphics, right? It's super simple. And one of the things that he said inspired him was the idea that this was a game that existed in the late 80s, during the height of this satanic panic. And it was just something it was like a game that was just lost to time. And it's just being found now. And that was that was the concept of, of the way he developed it, which is very similar. That parallels a little bit what we kind of get into with this. Yeah, Godzilla monster of monsters. Creepy pasta.

James  9:23
Absolutely. Now I know the faith game is to gray and I'll even say like another thing kind of related to the Godzilla story as well as the thing that's so effective about them is that because it is like it's emulating the style of old kind of Gag, Atari and clique division games, where everything but those games have to be left to the imagination. And that's why that's the playground of horror, essentially, is the

Kevin Erhard  9:49
imagination. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah. So why don't we get into the story a little bit. So this short, the background of this story. For those who don't know is that it was originally posted on these forums they were called the bog leech forums. They don't exist anymore. They're posted by username Cosby DAF who using the Wayback Machine I could see used a kind of loony picture of Luigi as is

James  10:25
a good it's a good looking to have it's

Kevin Erhard  10:27
yeah it's good looking Avatar and it's a I think it's a nice off brand Luigi that he's got going on so yeah, he started posting these April 23 2011 and James as you mentioned took a while to finish them so there they were on these forums that don't exist anymore and then he also created a blogspot that still it does exist it's NAS Godzilla creepy pasta.blogspot.com so that's the that's the location for it for the the person who I guess more or less wrote the story that's I guess the most official location The only thing is the the images there's no inline graphics it looks like links might have been broken at some point well there are in some spots but other spots that are missing anyway so that's that's the background of the story. We read a version that was posted on the creepy pasta dot fandom calm yes we went to a fandom.com website unfortunately so fortunately so

James  11:42
but I will say at least the pictures there at least they're all in line and least those and again detail I will say Rena on the phone a lot of the kind of the extra layer of fandom stuff that's on top is all stripped out like it is as much of a clean experience as you can get right reading it really kind of my computer a little bit of the horror is kind of diminished a little patches yeah

Kevin Erhard  12:06
when you see the images up next to an ad for hero wars

James  12:13
evany online but you know I'm scared but I also want to try and pull the pins and help this guy when God you know and I sleep I don't know is pulling me in two different directions

Kevin Erhard  12:29
so the this story starts out with chapter one Earth and Mars so the Godzilla monster monsters game just a little bit more context for that it was a game released by Toho which is the studio that owns Godzilla back in 1988 is produced by a company called compile they I don't think there are still around yep the funks 2003 so it was just it was it was just a side scrolling beat him up more or less but with the with a few Godzilla monsters thrown into it that's that's all it was.

James  13:08
Um, what I'll say about it is that kind of like I think that's a pretty good place to start off of Creek pasture anyways because people know who God Sylar is but i don't i think if you asked like the average person well I think if you ask the average person or did you know he had any any last game they probably I mean I did not top my head but yeah that kind of makes sense but they blindly would know it was called monster monsters so right kind of face nicely and it's sort of splits the difference between like the usual creepy pastor which is oh is S.T.A.R.S. familia kids Nintendo Ganga always as creepy underlying elements to it so like you know your Sonic dfcs or your like your band drowns and stuff like that right and then the other side of stuff which is I went to a car boot sale and I found this old gray and yes cartridge and all they had was a sticker on it that said kiss.xc I don't know what this means like but it might and you know and it's like a game that doesn't exist This works because it's a game that does exist but very few people actually know about Yeah,

Kevin Erhard  14:10
it was it's a somewhat obscure like it's it's it's mid as the kids say the game

James  14:17
and yeah, it's pretty nice. Yes. It's neither cringe nor based. I think one thing I will say is that the person who created the creepy bosses did kind of have a nice place to start from because in general, Godzilla was kind of creepy to me. That was the intent was that obviously in the original Godzilla, he is just, he's a guy in a suit, but it is like this lumpy lever, monster Crazy Eyes. And it makes sense because the thing is, a creature born from nuclear war, like it's not meant to look natural, right, and then, with the likes of Shin Godzilla and stuff, they kind of exaggerate the balance. And then you try and recreate some of the ready locks in human on the NAS and despite the fact that the sprites are pretty big are pretty detailed there just just is very unsettling work yeah

James  15:14
one thing I know so because I decided Oh the game itself probably isn't that bad and yeah from what's the what's the flavor of it the the game of serve actually seems pretty fun I can understand why this guy won by the person the story one to get the end yes game back because it is very good at some

Kevin Erhard  15:30
nostalgia for it yeah

James  15:35
so because black is background color in this Godzilla Godzilla is it is also black which means it's transparent so the moment he goes over any over graphic it just starts flickering different colors. It is so unsettling.

Kevin Erhard  15:51
Yeah, yeah, that'll end yes trick. Oh, yeah, there's just there's just a transparency here now.

James  15:58
Yeah, no, it's a black is transparent. Yeah. Anything black is transparent. So Oh, I can see for Godzilla. sigh Oh, that's not very nice.

Kevin Erhard  16:04
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Oh, so chip. Yeah, chapter one starts out with basically this the protagonist. Zack, I believe is the name. The name is not revealed until the end, I don't believe but the protagonists name is Zack. And he's been looking for a copy of monster of monsters. And his friend Billy, which is just the that's the that's the default friend name. I feel for a lie.

James  16:33
I was thinking about this because yes, so he said, when I was 10 years old, I got monster monsters now. He says when he was 10 years old, he loved Godzilla. No, assuming this guy's an American, which if he's going to call Billy and he's played on an end. Yes, that seems pretty likely. So if he played this game in ACA, and the story came out in 2011 the guy's got to be 30 at the time, right? Yeah, something like that. Who at the age of 30 calls themself Billy

Kevin Erhard  17:01
Yeah, that's the thing is that I Billy Zane?

James  17:05
Oh yeah, I show you know, so like Billy Joe. I think that's the guy from the 50s so what Yeah, make sense. You got Oh, Billy Zane or Billy Idol. A 50 year old guy in 2011 call himself that we don't unless he's still wearing short pants in a striped shirt,

Kevin Erhard  17:23
striped shirt right night. An unbranded baseball cap.

James  17:27
You know Yeah, backwards. He still got he draws freckles onto his face because he no longer has them anymore. And he's and he and he raised the house on his bicycle he goes Yo, dude, I got this NAS game for you.

Kevin Erhard  17:40
Yo, I got it at a garage sale. Want to check in kick it with the I lost my 90s references for some reason z, z, z you wanna you want to pop open azima and

James  17:55
I'm gonna have myself as Suge Kohler and I'm gonna enjoy Godzilla monster

Kevin Erhard  18:04
The game is so basically the game seems normal in chapter one up until he fights Ghidorah and basically the game eats his aura and turns the screen into like a bunch of eyeballs or something like that

James  18:21
it's yeah it's pretty freaky. It's like it starts to almost kind of like the texture of blood starts coming in. I will say this is probably one of the best selling points of this creepy pastor is that there are a lot of screenshots to go along with it to kind of write sell a lot of the ideas that are going on and what I will say is again, reading the song The phone was actually pretty effective because of the screen size yep yeah the moment you you know when you look at these images a little bit larger some of the illusion is broken a little bit

Kevin Erhard  18:55
yeah, just a tiny bit you can tell like oh yeah that's just like you know Photoshop like like bounding box over and scaled it up type.

James  19:06
Yeah. And like with this kind of red paint effect it's almost like he got the spray cans all in the MSP and when Okay, dad the bad dad. Oh, yeah, looking good looking.

Kevin Erhard  19:17
Looking sharp.

James  19:19
This is looking spooky. I like it a lot.

Kevin Erhard  19:23
So basically, the games just in chapter one, the game seems normal ish. It just keeps getting a little bit weirder and weirder. azura gets consumed by the game and turned into eyeballs and Mago era is twice it's normally normal size.

James  19:42
Yeah. Well, one of my favorite lines in this which is magro it was twice the size he should have been. Which startled me. When I say that about about any time I see my cousin's children just like that but twice the size that should be and that's I find that very stuff

Kevin Erhard  20:03
these children are getting way too big and that's yeah

James  20:07
I remember when they were the sizes maybe two bags of sugar on top of each other I don't like them getting any larger than that. If they if they get no large if they stay under five foot I will be fine with that and bigger than that and that's kinda yeah how this guy feels about Maghera which again this is quite early on so seems very weird but nothing totally out of the ordinary yet

Kevin Erhard  20:29
yeah, Titan is Saurus is a little bit taller. The thing that where it finally breaks though is he finishes the earth level and instead of going to Jupiter as if it spoke as the game is supposed to it is going to a level called path those

James  20:49
are all the levels of So yeah, I decided to do a little bit of looking into that and the levels the level names and the creepypastas and make a little bit more sense when you kind of know what the story's about cuz yeah and the usual in the regular monster monsters it's about erfs getting attacked by Planet X so Godzilla mafia have to go to all the different planets that you got a Jupiter and Mars and all those sorts of oh no here you go you got a path force instead which

Kevin Erhard  21:18
you're going to go into sadness

Yeah, so it's like things get wildly different now because the first the one of the bosses How do you say that at violante? Which I yeah,

James  21:40
some like that. Which is

Kevin Erhard  21:43
which he basically he declares that would have been impossible because violante didn't come out into 19 wasn't introduced into the Canon until 89. And this game was 88

James  21:53
Yeah, it's Yeah, I will say one thing that I do find funny about this switch. I think if you've ever read a creepypasta before you kind of know what this is but if this is like kind of your first one the sort of the thing that you kind of have to take the verb with it is is that like these are kind of your modern day horror stories but they kind of delivered in the way of like a game facts if it exists. So in this one like the guys kind of write in it like oh, here's my recollection of it like hey, if you ever get this home too then yes car here's some tips and tricks on how to and my favorite detail is that he kills the paddles and he goes well I know this is a new level because although the background looks like the board of Jupiter, it's got different colors and it's he says at the beginning of the story he hasn't played this game in 20 plus years now how does he remember Yeah, he said of all things yeah, you

Kevin Erhard  22:53
kind of ignore certain things the game the the harder when you're when you're when you're getting your heart through a game facts walkthrough. Yes.

James  23:07
I mean granted I'll give it that like I mean you know horror is built on kind of the unexpected I mean, you know, yes example of that is say, I mean, it's not really a horror film but from dusk till dawn when you go in expecting it to be a Tarantino gangster movie and then literally at the halfway mark it turns

Kevin Erhard  23:24
in price vampires Yeah, surprise.

James  23:26
Oh yeah. Surprise vampire movie. Well, this is kind of like it's tricking it's kind of loading you into a false sense of security because it is this it's kind of you know, I don't think I think the writer knows exactly what he's doing like he's delivering it in the style of a dry game fac which means that when you get to kind of these weird elements like not only there's a show going forward see on the protagonist meaning that they are still within their right mind which means that these guys have a bit more weight to them but it also of course catches you a little bit off guard well yeah yeah pictures certainly do help

Kevin Erhard  24:05
with rates Well yeah, once you we start you start getting into the weirder pictures like basically the sky is like oh things are the same but not quite the colors are swapped and then different enemies start popping up and then there's there's new bosses like the bosses are being slowly replaced. So my era or however you say that is replaced by a flying machine and his aura is is turned into this crazy and this is one of the I think this is one of the enemies that creeped me out the most was this blue with the like the backwards knees this Oh yeah. The light blue with a brain ish kind of head and and single eye. I didn't like that one so much.

James  24:58
No, I'd love to know Again this was me wanting to dig in a little bit more kind of like what the inspirations were because like a lot of the designs kind of have a kind of a guide a Giga quality to them especially Why are on there's you know a lot of alien influence but then right we've stuff like this with the backwards knees they almost kind of feels a bit like I'm like really low budget like B movie horror movie stuff like x Sherwin stuff like that where ya know it I mean I mean it does work and then again if you've never played a Godzilla game like no I've ever seen a Godzilla film you go on maybe this is just you know maybe that's just the guys he fights against I don't see any issue with it. Yeah,

Kevin Erhard  25:42
if you weren't if you if you don't know a ton about Godzilla and I don't know, much like my my knowledge of the Godzilla cannon is not vast or deep or what have you. Yeah, I could I could definitely be like I said, it's a guy. It's a it's a, it looks like Hey, there could have been a dude in a suit, I guess or an animatronic of that at some point.

James  26:06
I do have to say just for the people at home and also again, unfortunately, the only Godzilla The only Godzilla No, I know, which I think is canon, is the Jamiroquai deeper underground video where he's taking the movie fair to me. I'm pretty sure that's canon.

Kevin Erhard  26:24
That's Yeah, that was a Godzilla movie. Right there.

James  26:28
That was Godzilla it is most Godzilla.

Kevin Erhard  26:31
Yeah. The platonic ideal of Godzilla was a Jamiroquai music video. Um, so the the writer the protagonist is noted is talking about how more and more things are getting weird, and faces off against bo vontae. And then there's this the, the guy who did this did a really good job of creating pixel art for a boss that wasn't even in the game. I know, I give him that, like, this is really cool. I mean, it's still a little too good for the NTS. In terms of resolution, I think but it's it's pretty well done.

James  27:18
I found on time if it's who I think you're gonna mention, as an antagonist design for a creepy pastor, it is very much punching, but it is very much punching above its weight. It is. Oh, yeah,

Kevin Erhard  27:30
well design. Yeah, yeah, the. So basically, he, he beats violante and is introduced to a level with a red, there's just a red mask on the tile. And he did the prompt is simply run, which is something about the prompt to run is, is always a little unsettling when especially when there's no other context around it. I don't know what it is in har, where where that's just where, where we see that and it's just Just do it. And yeah, something about it gets under my skin so so once this happens, where it's just run, okay.

James  28:19
I mean, even in general, I think a single white words on just complete on a complete sparse black screen is incredibly unsettling. To the point that I've always had this stupid idea for a website which is purely just like a picture of a skull and then a countdown underneath it. Now the countdown isn't counting down to anything in particular, is just counts out on a black screen with a skull and my fault was always How long would it take for somebody to take this website down? Because they just find it incredibly unsettling?

Kevin Erhard  28:53
Yeah, exactly. Like do they think is this? Is this website a threat or something like that? Or

James  28:59
is it like it? Is it when I'm gonna die? Is it when is it when the school's coming out like a film about schools or something? I don't understand. Well, yeah.

Kevin Erhard  29:09
And then when the countdown finishes, it just says the text says the countdown is finished. Thank you.

James  29:16
Even scary, the knife finishes and it says now by the non fungible token for this.

Kevin Erhard  29:24
We have a invest now, this Ethereum back skull. It's an NF T. Give me your wallets nerds. So basically, there's this red mask on the map. And the The only thing left to do on the level is to, to put Godzilla over top of it and select the the stage and we're talking about how it just prompts you to run and when you start running, there's this thing this skull faced red lizard thing with spider legs that begins chasing.

James  30:07
Yeah, basically, to describe to people who haven't seen what this guy looks like. It's basically like what if Mr. Magoo whose face had no eyes or teeth and was on a scorpion, his body and it was all red? Yes. What if you funnily enough that's the name that the protagonists get very smartly this is what this character is doing as it goes red that's what I'm going to call you but your red

Kevin Erhard  30:45
it's it he it's an instant death if if red touches your your creature, and he escapes it. Thankfully, our hero escapes read. And then they move he moves on to the next chapter, the next level of the game, which has now been called trance. And he said the theme, the

James  31:14
theme tune from video

Kevin Erhard  31:16
video. I was like, wait,

James  31:19
people are home if you've never heard it, it basically sounds like a dot matrix printer mixed with screens. How have you managed to get to that on the end? Yes. I mean, you know it's quite impressive. I'll say that but I

Kevin Erhard  31:34
will say that for working that out into that that uh, that music chip. God bless you

James  31:41
know, and I mean, we protect this does often say as, as known as Anna turistica was comes up. There was no way this game was made in 1988. Which, actually, I think I guess video jam would be a perfect match. But that did come out before 19 eight. Yeah, it's Yeah, I'm pretty sure it did it.

Kevin Erhard  32:00
Yes. Is one of the I just want to check. Yeah. 1983 It was one of the three movies that were it was videodrome and American Werewolf in London in London. And the thing we're all in production at the same time. Around the same time.

James  32:21
It was a universal monster. Universal

Kevin Erhard  32:25
monster. And it's weird because video Jerome is like, I don't think that that would fit into a monster cat.

James  32:34
I can't imagine in the 1930s like, even though videos wouldn't have existed, but that's not the point. I can see Bela Lugosi playing James Woods sleazy character video drone with Debbie Harry's face appearing on my like a projector screen or something like that. Technology back Yeah. Bella good old fashioned must get out of his chest.

Kevin Erhard  33:03
That would have been good, though. If I would. I do just want to imagine Bella.

James  33:09
And Tina What? I've even been even better at an Abbott and Costello Meet the video. Jerome.

Kevin Erhard  33:21
Oh, good. Yes, that would be that would be, that'd be quite good. I'd like that. That that

James  33:27
would be a classic film. And that would be a

Kevin Erhard  33:29
classic film.

James  33:30
Absolutely.

Kevin Erhard  33:32
So So yeah, the more anachronistic stuff starts popping up in the game, such as origa which did not create it was not created until the year 2000. So things are getting a little weird and then the quiz levels start appearing.

James  33:54
I will say before we get to the quiz levels there is a funny there is a line in this society you think is quite sure when he is talking about the anaka risk elements which is those guys so how maybe smart what I'm sure they couldn't see that far into the future. If they could, they never would have given Roland Emmerich the rice to make Godzilla movie. This guy is scared out of his mind that this game is like getting under his skin. But he's still taking time to like crack jokes.

Kevin Erhard  34:23
He's still he's still gonna burn Roland Emmerich for the Godzilla movie.

James  34:29
I mean, would it be neck on his face as we go forever in and you know, tiny, pixelated Matthew Broderick? That's a lot of face.

Kevin Erhard  34:41
Oh God, that movie happens.

James  34:44
It showed that the best thing that came out of that movie Yes, as I know is the is deeper underground by chimeric wise

Kevin Erhard  34:54
is correct. The the what we have determined is the team of guides.

James  35:04
There was one more thing before the case as well which was so all the way through he's like this is pretty bad but I mean this is still within the realm of possibility but he thinks about it and he's and here's the horror line here's the big This is big chorus thing which is Billy didn't know how to make a ROM hack in such a funny way

Kevin Erhard  35:28
it is it's like Billy doesn't know how to make a ROM hack like well the name Billy as we've determined is absurd.

James  35:37
Billy is already a funny name for a 30 year old man to have and you know Billy might be messing with him, but he can't mess with me that much. I know Billy inside and out i know i know that he could not make it wrong. I actually know he goes on and he says, but if he could make a wrong pack, he probably wouldn't be this complex. It would be full of genitals and stuff like well there's one guy there's a lot of geeky stuff coming up but yeah, bite your tongue a little bit by your tongue

Kevin Erhard  36:06
a little bit there are some there are some possible pains coming up and there's he also asked Is it even possible to put a hack ROM into a cartridge? The answer is yes that is yes it is. It is possible.

James  36:22
If you have a copy of the SCI smds game winter games you can put Star Fox still on that because as a super effects to chip in it. So no. Well, there you go. That's my Halloween. That's my Halloween chicco treats recommendation to the people at home.

Kevin Erhard  36:40
So slap Starfox to on to Winter Games and then play it with a with an original sn Yes. And you're doing that. And you'll have a great time. You don't have a great time. That's the hot cider guarantee.

James  36:55
silly way.

Kevin Erhard  36:59
Sir James, do you like dogs?

James  37:02
Dogs pretty good. Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Erhard  37:05
That's what the quiz level start asks our friend Zack is whether he likes dogs. And these quiz levels are it's it's a really weird turn. But I think it also shows that the author has relatively good control of what he wants to do with this game with this story. Because it's like it's such an absurd concept that these quiz levels pop up but at the same time, it's not that out of the realm of possibilities for a Nintendo game from the 80s to have something really weird like this just slapped it.

James  37:47
Exactly to have this kind of mini game element to bulk out the rest of the experience. Yes, absolutely. Right. And that being said, I can't imagine like you know, Family Feud or whatever would ask some of the questions that come up in this Oh, that'd be good. If it did.

Kevin Erhard  38:03
Yeah, it would be it would be I think Family Feud would be a lot more interesting if

James  38:08
if if Steve Harvey came out and said all right, we asked 100 people do you like dating people?

Kevin Erhard  38:16
survey says ding ding ding ding Yes, yes. 100 out of 100 answered Yes.

James  38:24
Just said yes. I like to share the pain.

Kevin Erhard  38:29
Then Peter comes out.

James  38:33
Of course the protagonists to say to all this Wow, maybe this is why the game was so weird. One of the designers was clearly drugs out of his mind. Oh no. Terrifying elements like that does come at the expense of psychedelic drugs. So yes, yeah.

Kevin Erhard  38:52
Yeah, it was a pretty common thing and it's less I feel like it's less common and storytelling now to just yeah, blame blame twisted things on either drugs or psychosis. because let me tell you, neuro typical straight, straight laced neurotypical people could have some of the weirdest stuff going on in their in their mind.

James  39:18
I think the Sims the classic Simpsons joke about it kills all notion of that but they get auto into boys Puccini is like well you go smoke him and he came up with this enemy sticks his head out and says, We're eating rotisserie chicken now eat, I'll read the line.

Kevin Erhard  39:41
It's amazing. It's like that's that is the that is the great that is the perfect rebuttal to that kind of, oh, they must have been on something. It was something.

James  39:55
I like the faces that the quiz has as well. They've given me a vibe of like, really old like BB code forms like yeah that like little hand yeah like very if there's if I hadn't found a forum that this was on I would have almost fought this came from like the something awful forum or something because right they have that that kind of like how those emojis used to look

Kevin Erhard  40:19
yeah back when back when those those emoticons were just like they were cuz they were for each forum that existed they had her own set that they created

James  40:31
Oh 100% but they would also have like a kind of couple of commonalities of light, right? You know, like Edison, you know, watching his rivals to make his lightbulbs better like all that for him as a ninja emoji, we're gonna have a ninja emoji as well. And funnily enough, this quiz also has an injury emoji in it and I'm not quite sure why

Kevin Erhard  40:50
I'm not sure either. And I what's really funny is that the quiz the quiz section, you don't necessarily need to read or thoroughly understand everything he writes. This is probably I would say the Tom Clancy just he gets in the story. Because it's just so much detail about these these emoticons. It feels like Tom Clancy talking about like a jet or something like

James  41:22
he's describing a down to like you know what kind how much fuel how many cubic centimeters of fuel you burn the engine all the way along like even in the previous chapter he was like the song should be the same but there's there's a significant distance every 14 seconds there is a loud noise and then the song slows down by this much percent. And it's like, if I was scared out of my mind, well, even if I was completely if I if I was completely functional, I wouldn't have noticed those details. Especially if the game that I haven't played in nearly 20 years.

Kevin Erhard  41:55
Yeah, but yeah, yeah,

James  41:59
I mean, he's writing a game fac about

Kevin Erhard  42:03
the gameplay so yes, a lot of detail has to be put into this app throw us the nerds will be angry.

James  42:11
But there is something cool that comes out of the quiz though. Yes, yes. New monster to play with. Yeah,

Kevin Erhard  42:19
he gets a he gets a brand new Monster. What was it the I'm curious I believe and curious Yes.

James  42:26
Which he famously much like the beginning of Goodfellas the famous beginning Goodfellas he says ever since I was a kid I always wanted to play isn't curious about everything followed by rags to riches which would have been very funny.

Kevin Erhard  42:45
So and Gary is is is basically the sonic of Godzilla monsters. He can roll up into a ball and do like a spin attack or something like that. But basically he gets in various on the dementia level after after doing the quiz and there's these The game begins to drift further and further and further and he gets into this level where just called unforgiving colds where Yes, he has to walk through a level of just these frozen screaming faces for seven minutes I don't understand like seven minutes is is such a long time in a video okay

James  43:36
yeah I don't know like at that point I just be kind of like I mean I probably would have tapped out a little while iliac is like is asking me all these very kind of personal questions and the more I don't know well this doesn't really apply to me I'm I'm I'm not a white knights but yeah yeah just walking through a seven minute level of nothing but yeah frozen enemies This is a big ask

Kevin Erhard  44:02
it's a huge ask for me I do not have the time to to let that happen to my life

James  44:13
Yeah, absolutely.

Kevin Erhard  44:16
But yeah, the the level continues he's fighting against new bosses and replacement bosses. This is so I understand the story is basically trying to cover the entire game but also at the same time the middle of the story feel get is where it gets feels a little bit slow. Because there's so much game to cover. There's like such a huge gap to fill until we really get to some of the big turns of the of the game.

James  44:57
Yeah. I would say that that's almost quite I definitely think that's intentional because one element that I found the first time I read it and then a little bit when I reread it but not so much the next time was you would get these enormous blocks of text which is very kind of Marah the fact describing stuff so you end up kind of speed reading a lot of it. Right as I was doing there. Bam. But you would like come face to face with like just this really weird image or like really evocative sentences like oh, you know, it's almost like, you know, accidentally like scratching a cow but your own as your light kind of absentmindedly driving it's just like, genuinely shocking. And right. I think a lot of this story like again, as I said, it's kind of like almost gang fax style. delivery, is lulling you into this kind of comfort zone that these scares you know, they're effective scares because of that because you asked sites certain kind of like a mellow place that they can hit a lot harder as a result,

Kevin Erhard  46:14
right? Yeah, because that some of the biggest scares don't start they really start happening in chapter five when the quiz the quiz takes away everything everybody but mothra and now he has to

James  46:30
another great line which is face such as fucked me over that's what he calls the quiz. He just calls it Face

Kevin Erhard  46:41
Face give it and face take it away

James  46:44
face Take him away face fuck me. Again it's the personnel is saying fuck me Oh yeah, he's just stuck with offer then.

Kevin Erhard  46:58
Yeah, he's flying around with mothra he's he's now in some and this is where it's almost like oh the game is almost becoming an immersive sim because mothra is flying through these levels where there's there's there's an animal Yeah, there's these deer monsters that they don't attack you they're just kind of there and they have their own simulation loop and then they're they're being attacked by base these uprights Raptors and so like that's kind of interesting. And then there's these TV screens TV screen levels

James  47:41
the TV screens that the boy with the beaverhead boom boy up

Kevin Erhard  47:46
Yeah. he clicks on it it basically just plays this GIF of a boy with a beaver head with a green and blue striped shirt and licking a lollipop and it just sits there

James  47:59
it does Yeah And the funny thing is so throughout this creepypasta which again is also like that's another extra layer to how well the screenshots has done this but some of them are animated including this one of him liking the lollipop now they only rarely use it for anything horrible and like all the way for hours kind of like if I was like if I was to redo this or whatever i'd occasionally have it so like the ones that you think are static occasionally like a monster looks in your direction or whatever and then to your back and like it happens so quickly that you have no idea whether it did or not right like that's what these kind of these TV shows kind of have the quality of it but I also think as well like the right is very good at peppering in a lot of kind of on I think it must just be kind of like an idiosyncratic humor that he had because I was digging in and I was like after he's got any kind of when you have the story in focus sure these have any additional meaning to them. And I don't think they do I think they are just meant to be these very kind of like they're evocative images but they're not really meant to indicate anything it's just there to keep you on your toes essentially.

Kevin Erhard  49:11
Right exactly. Yeah, so the the TV the TV images are they are basically the new or new element they get introduced now in chapter five as just something another nuance to the world. And he continues flying. Fighting through these levels the the monsters are getting weirder and weirder. And he returns to that forest level where he saw a deer and now the deer are it's it's snowy and the DRL frozen to death.

James  49:44
Yeah, he went to like it. I was wondering with this part whether this whether this was meant to be allegorical or a bit of anything because these pick because eylea are all morphers picking up like sand timers and stuff like that and then he goes to like in new Probably a waste plant and it's like oh is this meant to be like a story in miniature of industrialization? Oh, the world is dying nuclear winces stuff like that. And are you seeing it from the eyes of mafia? Which I will say By the way, the right the protagonist of the story? Not a fan of MMA for not a fan of MMA very straight in the beginning, not not a fan the fact that I'm having to be forced by his MMA for it not that is a shame offer offers quite a good looking spray it's Governor's girls of anybody else in the game and the only fly around like Kirby What's the problem? What's

Kevin Erhard  50:36
in mothra is of the of the Godzilla monsters from what from the limited research I've done mothra is the most more heroic of them. Yeah mothra is kind of like the protector of Earth. So yeah, like why not

James  50:54
know exactly Well, I I mean, maybe I don't know that the protagonist is your is. I don't know he's got his priorities all over the place

Kevin Erhard  51:03
all over the all over the map. Oh,

James  51:05
yeah. Once we get to the snow zone, all the deer are dead. And oh, he mentioned sloths as well. They become like the new delicacy for the Raptors.

Kevin Erhard  51:15
Yeah, the Raptors are ripping apart these sloths with some some. And here on like, once you when you're reading this on a phone screen, it's harder to tell when you're looking at on a monitor, like oh, yeah, these the Raptor graphics are way too high DPI. You know,

James  51:39
the deer in particular look like. And it kind of reminds me of like, it almost reminds me a little bit of a MTR where it's a bit of a clash of styles between because they use for the moat the creator of it uses for the most part, the NAS sprites, like gorilla and Morpher and stuff like that never changes but then the DERA Yeah, their weight, the the rendering on them is way too high detail, but to the point that they their Nanos, like rounded are like is they don't have as much volume as like any of the monsters do so. So it's almost like kind of very high rendered stick figures, which I think kind of does lend them a bit of an additional creepy quality.

Kevin Erhard  52:20
Sure, but they they're uncanny. Yeah.

James  52:23
And I will say, respects to the writer of this creepypasta because when the Raptors are eating the sloughs, there is detailed blood coming out of them. He does not say the classic key creepypasta line of the blood look very realistic, more realistic than in any s kit. And oh,

Kevin Erhard  52:44
yeah, yeah, he does point out like yeah, this is the like he he calls out the fact that the graphics look weird, or better or different than than they should on any Yes.

James  52:57
Hmm. So I mean, he's pretty hooked in at this point, because later on, he also says that the music was a sort of short looping of an Ambien synthesizer song, listening to it made me feel like I had sniffs and toxic fumes myself, and it was messing with my head the whole time. I even felt like I was choking while playing this level. Now. I've played a lot of bad game, so yes, and, and no point Have I ever felt like, you know, that I've never I've never wanted, I've never felt like the music and the video game has had that kind of effect on me. But that being said, there is such as an insight as synesthesia and stuff like that, where you know, certain sounds and smells can use trigger other

Kevin Erhard  53:41
stuff. Trigger other sensations.

James  53:45
Exactly. Perhaps this protagonists may have undiagnosed synesthesia that might have been the whole solution to this entire that's,

Kevin Erhard  53:53
that's the entire story is synesthesia. mixed with grief, I guess, which we will be finding out

James  54:01
soon. Oh, we're gonna find out about that very quickly, actually. Because Yeah, as you said, m entropy is the chapter where this is the turn essentially, this is where the this this is what the card is turned over. And you're basically told what this is about.

Kevin Erhard  54:19
Yeah, surely. So after beating the moon beasts, respects to which, you know what I'm doing assume that's this is where Miyazaki got the idea for the the Bloodborne boss.

James  54:34
When I saw I was like, 1,000% This is a and the guy even said they This is based on a dream I had which you know, shot us the developers forgetting somebody is dreaming. So a video game, I think, but yeah, the egg. The moon cracks like an egg. Little person falls out of it into the water. And then yeah, turns into a big ol moon base that looks straight out or something from Bloodborne.

Kevin Erhard  54:57
Yeah, yeah. It's pretty neat. That, that it does feel almost like a the, like a Cleric Beast or what have you from blood borne but this predates blood borne by four years or so.

James  55:14
Oh, absolutely.

Kevin Erhard  55:16
So it's pretty interesting. So after dealing with the moon base, though, we get a little backstory on the character of Zach and his friend Melissa, who was his girlfriend when he was in middle school and she would go into episodes now the episode The episodes that he describes in the back of my mind they they sound like something that I've heard of Is it a grand mal seizure? Or

James  55:54
yeah I feel I I again, I've never really dealt with it myself but yeah, I know what you kind of talk about

Kevin Erhard  56:01
so there's it's it's a big It's a type of seizure where the person you don't realize the person is having a seizure they're just kind of sitting there and but they'll when they snap out of it they're not really going to remember a whole lot of of what just happened there was there was actually a girl in my elementary school who was I remember going into third grade she had been in third grade the previous year and she was repeating third grade because they discovered that the she was having these seizures during the school day and at her desk, and not learning she couldn't learn anything. She will it was yeah it's very sad and but I mean they figured out what they figured it out and they were able to get start treatment for her but it was Yeah, it was it's it's very terrifying. So he has this girlfriend Melissa, who would go into these episodes and she gets she has during an episode one night she runs out into the road and gets hit by a car and dies

James  57:12
Yeah, they are laying in a field looking at the Stiles she has one of those and yeah she is hit by a truck to the point that he I'm not gonna repeat it because he does describe in detail how it works but there is a fun it's not a fun detail so what is the sale of that which is how her neck looks which is recreated on the moon beasts yeah which going back and reread I was like that is a very like for a creepypasta that is incredibly good attention to detail

Kevin Erhard  57:46
very subtle to they he doesn't call it out but it's like the the moon beast snack but when you look go scroll back up and look at the moon beast you're like oh

James  58:00
and yet he will go into details saying that this is the song that I would remember from this yeah

James  58:07
usually it's in three quarters time but this is actually done on five six which is very weird but you know I didn't think of it most of the time.

Kevin Erhard  58:15
Yeah, it's he will go into detail on the text but the subtext is is tastefully handled.

James  58:23
Yeah. Which I think is maybe the best way to handle it and

Kevin Erhard  58:27
so he kills the moon beast and then these this is where I think I started getting chills the very first time I read it goes to a black screen. And after he tells the backstory about his his old girlfriend Melissa. The screen just reads and read text Melissa, and then changes to the words kill yourself. And then the word kill fills the screen. And this chapter ends with that, with the evil Mr. Magoo face

James  58:57
with Magoo with Magoo made out of the word kill.

Kevin Erhard  59:00
Yeah, it's an unsettling image to look at.

James  59:04
Uh huh. And when you're scrolling when you're me at one in the morning in your bed and yellow let's get to the good stuff. Let's go for you when you add to that, yeah, that works.

Kevin Erhard  59:18
That's that's a good image right there. That's that really hits the spot. So you some would say and then we continue on, like chapter five continues basically.

James  59:33
Chapter Two. Yeah. Yeah. And I will say as well. So now that we've done now we've mentioned kind of what the card club is. I did have a look. All of the chapter names for the most part are named after different neuroscience terms. Yeah, so pay for so pay first is obviously it's kind of, oh gosh, I did write this down. I'll be

Kevin Erhard  59:54
sad, sadness.

James  59:57
pathos is basically emotional appeal. It's like complaints of the soul as to your goals. Okay and trances obvious is altered states of consciousness is this association. entropy is your brain's connectivity and capacity for information now the only one I couldn't find an answer for was the next chapter and the chapter after that I think both of them kind of dropped this naming convention because well it kind of makes a bit more sense when we get some really because of the contents of the story really.

Kevin Erhard  1:00:31
Right. Exactly. Yeah, and oh and dementia was another one of them

James  1:00:37
on dementia Of course Yeah.

Kevin Erhard  1:00:39
Which is well we know what dementia is. So he calms his nerves and continues on fucked up as it was this was the experience of a lifetime and then he clicks on another TV tile and we get this adorable little frog man just kind of like opening and closing his mouth I would I just I just want to eat him up I think this is this is cute so

James  1:01:13
I just love the fact that he says photos it was this was the scenes of like, like he just put sunglasses on I have to say

Kevin Erhard  1:01:21
it's like it's like the end of an 80s movie but like he just you know learn he just beat this ski instructor and a downhill race or something like that.

James  1:01:31
He's like he's scared out of his mind but he's like, Yeah, but I pay for like he puts the Power Glove on and he turns on like Huey Lewis and the News and he's like alright, I'm locked in

Kevin Erhard  1:01:42
I'm gonna play that I'm gonna You've made me mad and as he slides the Power Glove

James  1:01:50
Oh, now you've made me mad Yeah, he puts the Power Glove on and he plays with the

Kevin Erhard  1:01:56
square yeah hip to be square starts playing in the background oh god so basically he still has to use mothra and a new title like maze chase level gets introduced where he's flying around these interesting levels with mothra which is like part of this is like if they were making this game now they would make it so that you would have to use certain characters on certain levels it wouldn't be like you could use whatever on whatever level because I feel like designers now would be like oh no this is this is a master level

James  1:02:35
we're using them again and it looks a bit like an auto scroll or something like that this level because it is kind of again a little flying Mays but yeah no 100% it would be like yeah, I know that we're trying to tease this guy over is that Gil from but he sees it he sees Godzilla on this level it's all about calm I'm sorry yeah

Kevin Erhard  1:02:56
yeah yeah so he continues through there's some weird and I feel like there there might be he sees these faces these heads yeah the heads that he says have the face that Melissa was making when she died

James  1:03:14
yeah well yeah she made a big eight bit face

Kevin Erhard  1:03:18
she made a big a big face when she died she is really sad moment

James  1:03:29
Yeah, so it's you know it's going through the it's gonna fit them off for amazing yeah more bosses are being thrown in as well and yeah, why is it kind of at this point you do kind of get a good grasp of how things are going. That being said though, this does have like one of the most I guess scary if it has been one of the most unsettling TV gifts in there survived but I'm actually calling this surprise is still up on the on the fandom page. Yeah, no,

Kevin Erhard  1:03:59
it is gnarly. It's basically this executioner with a with a mask on taking a giant sledgehammer and just crunching somebodies head open

James  1:04:16
Yeah, like that gave me like really big like splatterhouse volume

Kevin Erhard  1:04:21
I was about to say splatterhouse it does have a lot of it that's what I thought of when I first saw it it's not clear it's not the mask from splatterhouse but it just gave me that oh yeah this Yeah, he's suffering from slider house

James  1:04:37
White House as a boss which has like a hag man well yeah like it like the axman bag over his head but I think he uses James was also reminded me a little bit of chiller which was this really old any Yes, like younger I think was an arcade game, which is genuinely a game of a car look at a lot of footage off because I do find it so unsettling in regards to like, is this really gross? test scores but because they're done in such a low bit style like again your mind kind of like fills in the details and because there's such a mystery behind who developed it, it's like oh, like was this made by a crazy person? Right by an extra man again and I think those are influences which all riff on what this story is doing which you know, the guy me you know the Creator, he's paying homage he knows his you know, he knows Yeah, he knows his you know, his betters

Kevin Erhard  1:05:33
he knows he knows his heart he knows his heart references definitely said speaking of splatterhouse It feels like we should get a there's there should be something new in the vein of splatterhouse out there right doesn't that doesn't that see

James  1:05:48
it? No one's made a yeah nobody's making good gnarly horror. I think that kind of because most horror stuff that we get nowadays are like either the kind of like Alien Isolation or they're like you know RPG Maker style gangs where you know they start off one thing and then the horror element slowly creeps in but Sure, yeah, nobody makes gnarly nasty bloody games and even more

James  1:06:15
yeah

Kevin Erhard  1:06:17
just gross.

James  1:06:19
is definitely a market for it the free 60 splatterhouse was like that's the last game I think that did it and even then that was just kind of what if we did God of War but it's the it's no i don't know i want some a bit more because like, again, spire house kind of had that weird quality sort of like it's Namco and they're kind of riffing on all these horror ratings but there's that slight unsettling element to it because it's you know, it's a turbo graphics 16 game and the music is a little bit wonky and the graphics yeah when the gaps itself but right hey, if you're a fan of pixel and you listen to this episode, and you can develop a game like that, me and Kevin would very much appreciate it

Kevin Erhard  1:07:05
we would love New splatterhouse style game doesn't have to be splatterhouse Don't raise your back trying to get the license for splatterhouse Just give me a quote Give me something gross call it

James  1:07:17
blood mansion

Kevin Erhard  1:07:19
blood mansion that is that sounds perfect actually outplay the hell out of blood mansion

James  1:07:25
blue ocean coming soon to steam and switch

Kevin Erhard  1:07:33
yes the the endless list of independent games on switch that you have to wade through

James  1:07:44
south of the bay

Kevin Erhard  1:07:45
it starts with the bay that's true so it basically there's there's more mansion he or more mentioning the Maisie type stuff and there's this interesting level where Martha has to fly through the maze but the light the light keeps going on and off and when the lights are off the these Raptors monsters start chasing you so that's kind of a cool like it's it's a cool gameplay element.

James  1:08:18
Oh yeah, this guy was thinking like you know like the Mario Galaxy designers like had we had a new twist that what wasn't new wasn't new twist he didn't use at this level in this game about torturing you regarding your path.

Kevin Erhard  1:08:32
Yeah, exactly. So yeah, in this motif kind of continues after beating mechagodzilla

James  1:08:42
oh mechagodzilla who tunes into a very interesting spray of essentially a little dog with a big man's face.

Kevin Erhard  1:08:50
Yeah, it's basically what is it? Invasion of the Body Snatchers?

James  1:08:58
When Mars Attacks with God is it? Is it the woman from sex and this isn't the actress from sex on the city whose head is pot on the Chihuahua.

Kevin Erhard  1:09:09
Oh, right. Is it? I can't remember who it is. But I know what you're talking about.

James  1:09:14
Yeah, like you saw in the post of a milestone because it's such like an iconic thing despite the fact that he doesn't have inside the last five minutes of the film but yeah, like very Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Yeah, like a dog with a man's face. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I was what I was trying to remember. Yeah,

Kevin Erhard  1:09:29
so this so what we're referencing is from from the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Definitely worth worth watching it's it's a it's a creepy body snatcher movie, of which there have been there have been plenty of body snatcher type movies, but this one is. This one has Donald Sutherland in it. It's a it's based on. I think it's it's more or less a from what I because I just listened to the to an episode and Whoops all monsters episode on it mid the 1978 movies more based on the original

James  1:10:06
book yeah rapoza remake of the 50s then

Kevin Erhard  1:10:09
as as opposed to as a remake of the of the 50s movie so yeah it's it's worth checking out um but yeah so yeah the continues through these mazes, beats mechagodzilla and you said as you mentioned the whole job human face dog body mechagodzilla form and then finally there's another run level bread he's back the big red as big bet big reds back and he's all added Big Red chewing gum.

James  1:10:45
He's had a big crack he seems to have a flying form and chew bubble gum and he's all out of

Kevin Erhard  1:10:53
bubblegum and he's ready to chew on mothra instead so it's just it's another one of those maze levels that he kind of talks about going through and he he says he gets lucky finding the exit

James  1:11:06
at the end of say all the way through I think I don't want to keep talking on it because I mean it's the same point but it is written from the sale of like oh if I don't do this I don't know what will happen or you need to do this he needs to make these level of jumps but because he's such a pro game and nothing he's always doing fine yeah which it does defuse the tension at the heart is the

Kevin Erhard  1:11:31
bit he is an amazing pro gamer

James  1:11:35
that's I think that's the reason why he bred eight sim is because he is such a pro gamer yeah knows all the strategies your reaction rate he's got an Action Replay card plugged into is a monster coming from me putting the wrong Action Replay Yeah, yeah one is infinite you wanted infinite air getting your infinite scares instead

Kevin Erhard  1:12:00
oh there we go

James  1:12:07
that's why they're happening me on the podcast.

Kevin Erhard  1:12:10
Oh like oh you get the you get the evil switch.

James  1:12:17
DC problem you got a switch to evil

Kevin Erhard  1:12:23
that's this that's this is it's the that Krusty the clown doll but as a video game is is this creepy pasta?

James  1:12:31
If you got a ghost in the NAS catches she's used some isopropanol alcohol cleaning

Kevin Erhard  1:12:36
creams right? You get a little q tip alcohol yes fine.

James  1:12:40
Yeah Nice get rid of all the ghosts.

Kevin Erhard  1:12:47
So he gets in the next level and Exodus Yeah, he gets another new monster who is? He sure does and he's the best monster ever. His name is Solomon Yes, he can do everything he's stronger than all the other monsters he's like the Mary Sue of monsters basically.

James  1:13:08
not based on any previous Toho creature I will say is what niver is bred but throughout the story it's cool actually like I had a look at monster monsters and essentially it's kind of like the Smash Brothers of its day because it isn't just Godzilla stuff it's also other Toho

Kevin Erhard  1:13:24
it's yet all the Toho monsters Yeah,

James  1:13:27
yeah but then this one also has a couple of new ones too which you know that has read and knows about Solomon who yeah as he said Solomon is he's just the best you know he's the best guy for every situation

Kevin Erhard  1:13:40
it's the best guy very situation where it's amazing because so he plays a beats his first level of Solomon and up pops this image of Solomon just kind of standing there looking at the camera and the caption grinning and the caption below says still the best 1973 and he writes

James  1:14:01
having no idea what's still the best 1973 means neither day nor the phrase has any meaning or significance to me that I can think of and I've spent a lot of time thinking

Kevin Erhard  1:14:14
and it appears every time you beat a level with

James  1:14:20
doo doo look out for this like if you Google for it, but keep in mind some people have edited the image so he's giving finger guns originally saw the image I thought he was doing that as well. So I thought that was the right one but he he doesn't usually but yeah, because he just essentially he's like a kind of a flying guy who's got like an almost like exposed skull for face so it's just always great. He's just having a great time. still

Kevin Erhard  1:14:47
the best 1973 I feel like that I feel like somebody has to have had that on a T shirt at some point like 100% gonna scan like gotten blown up. This this JPG and and put it on a T shirt.

So there's some weird pyramid stuff that happens. pyramid and Native American stuff which is a little weird to throw in.

James  1:15:20
It does have my favorite unintentionally funny image though in the entire creepypasta which is again it's Solomon but it's Solomon in the left which says the word left. Standing still just looking goofiest out as he goes down in an elevator lift.

Kevin Erhard  1:15:46
And then he, he, they they continue fighting bosses there's kumaun gaag or SRS. One of my favorite TV screens is just the

James  1:15:59
full set head frosted head yeah

James  1:16:02
and he says I didn't think there was ever much reason behind the TV screens if I was to guess I see some random uncontrolled manifestations of couches abilities, or maybe it all makes perfect sense of the quote game well I just like the idea of this cartridge being this kind of like evil living entity, but it just likes putting in these memes

Kevin Erhard  1:16:25
like Ooh, look at this there's a man with a faucet for a head Oh, aren't evil

James  1:16:33
there's a beaver licking a lollipop. What do you think of

Kevin Erhard  1:16:37
it's basically the cartridge the the sentience of the cartridge kind of switches between like just these terrible horrific images like read over to basically David s pumpkins.

James  1:16:58
Basically it has two modes which is gas light or shit post and it just vibrates violently between those two the story constantly keeping you on your toes the David has pumpkin saying you Sonic is a teacher's kind of come out of nowhere to the point of even the protagonist of the story is like Why is this here? What does this mean?

Kevin Erhard  1:17:24
And it's like ah I'm David pumpkins any questions yes several

guys so the the this the SEC x This wraps up with another run level but instead of instead of normal he's basically walking through a graveyard and he sees a blue floating cyber Angel type thing

James  1:17:51
Yeah, she looks like the woman from metropolis. Yeah, big robot lady

Kevin Erhard  1:17:57
bill robot lady and then red comes in and just eats her up just gobbles her right up.

James  1:18:03
Let me show you like like a bomber recently. Lizzie just swell with it all right, not a good leg

Kevin Erhard  1:18:09
not a good look just just sucks sucks it down. And so our protagonist says to the screen you're gonna pay and then read decides to make eye contact with us the reader and scream Yeah. Yeah, this is a lot of screenshots for somebody who is terrified.

James  1:18:31
Yeah, I'm gonna say the story does stretch disbelief at some point. So it's like I was so scared I couldn't move. Except I could still do Ctrl windows s and take a screen I couldn't get my head around this. I assumed he was playing it haunted NAS cartridge,

Kevin Erhard  1:18:56
right?

James  1:18:57
He's how's he being on his pc?

Kevin Erhard  1:18:59
Yeah, that's the thing is like, there's the way they got screenshots for the for like, for an O g NAS was a it's a really intricate setup in order to do that.

James  1:19:17
You're lucky like you'd have to have like in like a, like a CAPTCHA code and his PC or some Yeah, you'd

Kevin Erhard  1:19:24
have to run it through a capture card into the PC that uses like old s video or something like that.

James  1:19:32
Yeah, exactly. Which seems like a seems like a pretty big jump to mate when not to advocate piracy or anything but if you're Mike cartridge from his friend Billy, he coaches download the wrong.

Kevin Erhard  1:19:48
Yeah. Yeah. yar

James  1:19:55
that isn't that isn't a hot cider top tip. By the way. I'm not very good. mandating to anybody to download ROMs for games they don't know. Especially haunted games

Kevin Erhard  1:20:05
do not download ROMs for haunted games, you don't know where they've been.

James  1:20:10
Exactly. You don't know what they'll do to your PC. So all your Mac or Linux based systems or whatever, you have space, you got living spaces so I think your PR right? Yeah, you should be fine.

Kevin Erhard  1:20:23
I don't think ghost

James  1:20:24
ghost doesn't understand. wouldn't wouldn't be able to pass that kid or go

Kevin Erhard  1:20:29
sir. Yeah, they're there. They're a little bit more familiar with what they experienced in real life. And nobody actually ever uses Linux systems. They just say they do

James  1:20:38
know exactly. Yeah, there's this hydroelectric dam runs on Linux and it's like okay, but that's not a computer I'm going to use I use an iPad I'm gonna choose home design. I'm gonna

Kevin Erhard  1:20:49
hate this iPad over here until it gets recycled. It starts out with like this very melodramatic line Yeah, and here we are at the final world I don't like to discuss this part and it still bothers me very much but it's something I have to do so that I can put this behind me people deserve to know

James  1:21:19
if you've ever played this game before you would be very surprised at this path so I need to be upfront with you know what happens next

Kevin Erhard  1:21:29
so yeah, it's it's very short level basically there's there's there's not that much to go through and then there's a What is it? destroyer and Ghidorah as the bosses at the end

James  1:21:48
there is a dose out with a creepy quiz though

Kevin Erhard  1:21:51
yeah the quiz The face is dead The face is now melting and dying

James  1:21:56
and it just says it's recommended in the film get out which is recommending get out if wishes we could film came out in 2017 now with this game about a film from our heads

Kevin Erhard  1:22:09
that's wild so I would have said yes to get out though I mean

James  1:22:15
it says get out and then it starts to store in and everyone waiting yeah and at this point he's like what the hell is going on the gangs behavior was scaring me and I haven't even started levels and it's like no joke for you did nothing three feet there was nothing there that had heel I consider and this might be a bit much is is the big space saying get out there Yeah, that's a bit much

Kevin Erhard  1:22:46
that was the that was the thing that really tipped it in favor of being scared.

James  1:22:53
That was the straw that broke Solomon's back that being said stilled by us 1973

Kevin Erhard  1:23:00
so there's a new Monster now on the board. He tries to select it and the game says no, and moves the monster and then there's the last TV screen which is basically just the whole Yeah,

James  1:23:16
it's a bit it's a bit Balti on in front of a fire

Kevin Erhard  1:23:20
yeah it's like Terminator two judgment day but yeah yeah type of setup you almost feel like the T 1000s are gonna step on the skull or something like

James  1:23:34
it is it's like the it's like the nightmare that Sara con is having yeah

Kevin Erhard  1:23:39
pretty much it's it's exactly that so there's a he gets into another temple level and this time he has to fight basically that Angel which is now read as like a mini boss

James  1:23:57
very contract esque

Kevin Erhard  1:23:59
was yeah I'm

James  1:24:00
alive like this is when I said earlier that there's a lot of Giga influence in here like all the enemies in this lock like the gear enemies from contra. Pretty much all you like even the temple itself bloomsby made out of like ground beef. Yeah. is not a good

Kevin Erhard  1:24:17
not a good look. And one of the levels the the all the the platforms are made out of the word kill. Yes. Which is fascinating. Fascinating choice. Another level is like yeah, you were talking about the gieger stuff is like the the monsters like melt to into each other and become one gigantic monster.

James  1:24:40
Yeah, like a big old Legion creature. Yeah. Yeah. And then at one level that flashes up the word mother, and then cuts to a pregnant alien with no ice sockets which is nothing but I sock is essentially homebuy he says in testing But I don't know the ns graphic style is a bit more like a big zip which yeah well good light and then and then a crow with a class face pops out and attacks by shooting green lays Great Green needles.

Kevin Erhard  1:25:17
Yeah right yeah the the the imagery of the thing the mother hanging is like oh that's disturbing and it's immediately offset by the clown face grow.

James  1:25:31
And then also immediately like this is like this is these are upsetting images except the protagonist says it's also worth noting that all of them were considerably larger than Godzilla. Although the majority were not very intelligent. Each of them took around 30 plus hits to kill. Due to this it was a better idea to run away from the fight but it was never clear he sat fight once eration sovereignty while the gaming facts voice comes back.

Kevin Erhard  1:25:58
Did you know

James  1:26:00
I have taken a breakdown of these demonic creatures and I will say that if you have this upgrade it will take around 20 to 30 shots to kill but other than that

Kevin Erhard  1:26:14
then there's like some a de monster start getting weirdly like photo realistic.

James  1:26:20
Yeah, this and this when I mentioned Undertale you if that's what that reminded me of Yes, the final boss from that which is I had a look on the wiki because I was going to call it this and then it turns out this is the quote not this is the sort of official name has been given which is Photoshop Aoi as it looks like a creature which is made out of like kitbashed photos to create a monster essentially which was created by a guy that design was created by a guy from something also called avatrade who I tried I wanted to make sure I got his name right and I had to look him up and the way that I found him was in such a bizarre way which was he had done a piece of art for something which was called son of stroke His Son of God which was somebody that made a fantasy story by remixing pieces of Barack Obama's autobiography if you're listening to this at home do find it out because it is such a it's actually quite cool but they just took words of my father and just like rearrange the stuff that Obama was saying into making this like fantasy story about the creation of the world essentially yeah but anyways the guy who created Photoshop Hello he made up for that and that's what those cases reminded me was yeah very very Photoshop esque yeah so I

Kevin Erhard  1:27:50
yeah definitely definitely has that float Photoshop flowery vibe though also creates flowery by several years the yeah so just continue on there's a lot of weird monsters that that pop up there's like this weird there's this gigantic hell beast that he has to fight against fight against acts as a mini boss and then eventually comes up against King Ghidorah which is the three headed like dragon mob like if you've seen the like if you've seen pictures of the Godzilla monsters This is one of the more common ones that you'll see. And then it can get or becomes Mecca King Ghidorah and destroyer which is an interesting little enemy I didn't know I didn't know anything about Australia but it looks like it starts out as a it started out as like an embryo basically each hit it grows up hmm

James  1:29:01
no it's very cool yeah

Kevin Erhard  1:29:05
yeah, the evolution it's weird there's it's it's a thing it's like it grows it that's that's part of its as part of its Mystique is is the the growing. But yeah, so those are like the the bosses that they have to deal with. And then all that's left is the one last mask to deal with. Hmm, red, red is back.

James  1:29:36
Magoo, Magoo, he's he's ready to ready to lay down the law.

Kevin Erhard  1:29:45
He's ready to lay down the law. He starts taunting the protagonists saying, You pathetic worm it's too late now only one will survive. And he starts feeling the pain every time one of the monsters gets hit. He feels it the writer feels the pain

James  1:30:04
well yeah and yeah that's a here I mean that's the classic that's a choice A creepypasta trope is a point but if you

Kevin Erhard  1:30:16
die in the game you die in real life

James  1:30:19
real I felt like Godzilla my body was being burned I just imagined because he was like oh this this point in the story was I should have screamed but I didn't but I worried what my roommates would think and it's like just like well I'm working in this is like well you say why is he skating lucky like that to send off the game but come on what you're up to now at this point this is the power of the game is calm completely under his grasp the point that he is feeling Godzilla is pain.

Kevin Erhard  1:30:56
He is feeling Godzilla his pain and then also all the other monsters because it takes all the monsters to to fight through. And when he gets through fight to Solomon, red and Solomon have an exchange, where we

James  1:31:16
get a bit of backstory, a little backstory. Solomon was a greater sense of sorts. Yeah, yeah. Trade ready was him in red will ones bodies but not anymore. He is tuned to the I guess the good side. I mean,

Kevin Erhard  1:31:33
there's only a 19 set. I would say 1973 is when Solomon turn turned to the good side.

James  1:31:40
Is this story set in 1974 is speculative fiction about the gods.

Kevin Erhard  1:31:48
Yeah. So Solomon beats reds final form, quote, unquote, because then red has another form where he has like 15 life bars.

James  1:32:00
Oh, yeah, he has so many lifestyles. They go off the screen. Yeah. That's how hearty this guy is.

Kevin Erhard  1:32:06
So and this is where the story it gets a little less. Like I would say a lot of the stuff preceding This is much scarier than this moment. Because like an action escalates. it escalates way too much into cinema. good versus evil.

James  1:32:32
Yeah, I almost like I don't think it had to be a cynical ending but I do kind of wish it and maybe like this feels like the event. This is like the end of like an Avengers.

Kevin Erhard  1:32:43
Yeah, the theme is kicked on. Yeah, basically read starts saying you can't win. Zachary? I've known you for a long time I'll tell you tell you a secret I killed Melissa oh my god how did you learn yes conscious do that how did that happen?

James  1:33:03
This demon Where did he come from? How does he know what how is he so tightly intertwined with Zack and Melissa's notes

Kevin Erhard  1:33:11
Yeah, it is nuts and then it's revealed so basically read kills all the monsters. And then the the the angel thing caught pops up saying, Zach We don't have much time you already know me. I am Melissa. It's true. Even after death, he tortures me. If you can't stop him, he'll do the same to you. I can't fight red but there's one who can release him from Red's grasp. Don't give up I love you. And the fifth monster acacias, which is just slay

James  1:33:47
the associates of Constantinople it's an old people call this the name of this chapter of both chapters is zeniff which at this point like it has nothing to do with neuroscience it is I mean Zen is a pretty I mean it's another word for climax essentially like yeah pretty fitting for this but yeah, it also sounds yeah sounds very muffled mythological and stuff like that as well. But yeah, associates of essentially as he's, he joins he joins Super Smash Brothers. He's in the game.

Kevin Erhard  1:34:22
He got the envelope.

James  1:34:24
He did he got the envelope and Oh boy. Oh boy. Hey,

Kevin Erhard  1:34:30
he's pretty Opie he basically just he just wipes red. They it's like it's a fight to the end. But you know who's gonna win red is destroyed by associates. And yeah, you have saved that it's basically they're all together in the graveyard and they're Yeah. Yeah, no quiz faces is there too. Oh,

James  1:34:59
I didn't know Is he still like the angry face or a smiley face smiley

Kevin Erhard  1:35:08
he's happy he was saved and the game and with Melissa telling Zachary you have saved us we're forever grateful we'll be together again someday and then the title screen for Godzilla monster monsters pops up

James  1:35:29
although it doesn't quite and it doesn't because there is a

Kevin Erhard  1:35:32
there's an epilogue Yeah.

James  1:35:35
Which I don't I didn't really have much to say about the epilogue other than the fact that I was hoping at this point that he might explain a little bit of yeah this is an incredibly personal story to me that goes into grief and stuff like that so why did I bother upload it and the

Kevin Erhard  1:35:55
yeah yeah

James  1:35:57
basically yeah basically kind of stability comes back as well and he gives he does chastise Billy a little bit and he's like,

Kevin Erhard  1:36:10
why don't you give me a haunted game?

James  1:36:14
Apparently, which I think is a bit shit on Zachary's part because Billy apparently he's like he's checking upset but he was like yeah, I didn't actually mean to give you a haunted cartridge I had no idea Yeah, um he's got it from a friend of a friend that does trades with him so I kind of leave stuff you know that friend of a friend could be like Samuel Jackson at the end of the event is like I'm putting together a team of you can just you can destroy spooky and yes as but yeah

Kevin Erhard  1:36:42
it's the cart busters

James  1:36:46
yeah it's it's going to be Zachary is going to be the band drown guy yeah it'll be the sonic XC CD guy yeah hold on we're gonna jump in forces to destroy

Kevin Erhard  1:36:57
the first person and the first person who discovered like Pallet Town was was

James  1:37:04
yeah the pallet sound guy he's gonna be on it they're all gonna they're all gonna join forces to destroy polybius you're gonna find the only police he is cabinet

Kevin Erhard  1:37:24
So again, the story basically ends with this sage advice if you feel as if you feel as if the game is literally messing with your head shut the damn thing off anything else wrap around

James  1:37:42
that being said though there is a he does lay a little sneaky thing in there which is dammit once that thought came into my head I knew then I wouldn't be able to destroy it so I checked so he was going to take it to the beach and throw it in the wall said knowing that that wouldn't do it. So ultimately this is what he decides to do with cartridge he sells the game on eBay hmm so that conscious could still be out there ready to horn see with this man's very specific form of green and if you've read this story before well I mean you're gonna know all the tricks and tips now you're gonna know how many

Kevin Erhard  1:38:27
monsters have you know which ones take about 3020 to 30 hits you know it's

James  1:38:31
your you know as well when it says Do you like more for you got to say yes, you can keep all the monsters Exactly,

Kevin Erhard  1:38:38
exactly. I think it would be funny if somebody else got it and like somebody else turned out and like there's like the Melissa ghost thing we like Oh hey, you're not Zack. Hello, I don't know who you are. But hey, can I play monster monsters now?

James  1:39:01
Yeah, I'm gonna give you all CEUs Good luck. They just do like a really old fashioned camcorder LP for it as well. But it's like, like they're doing like an A vgn thing. We just continue tuned to camera and it's just like, what the hell is this bullshit? This game six.

Kevin Erhard  1:39:18
Oh, God. Well, that's the end of the story. So what would you think of it overall?

James  1:39:24
I genuinely do like it like I was like, I was like, kind of poking holes at it from kind of a point of being like, you know, following a lot of creepypasta tropes, but of them it does really wait it is kind of a cut above the rest of them. And the main elements I will say is the fact that a lot of it isn't left to the imagination like it well actually that's the thing. It uses a lot of screenshots to support stuff all the way through, but it totally leans into that kind of element of kind of creepy naasr games where there's not really enough detail. have won any of the graphics so your mind kind of fills in the blanks, even with a lot of the high res stuff but even when you kind of get to that point it's just like it flips the other way of like the high quality enough that the art is genuinely unsettling to walk out right it's quite fun. Yeah, um again I keep dragging on like you know the game facts stuff, but that stuff does genuinely work. It does work. Yeah. It's kind of it's tricking you into thinking it's going to be one thing and then slap bam. The horror elements come in and right throws you as much relief as it does. Like it's better at throwing the audience for a loop than it does the quote protagonist. Yeah, like yeah, it's just really well done. Yeah. And although it is lengthy I would say is that lamp does justify itself.

Kevin Erhard  1:40:52
Yeah. Yeah, I think it's I think it does it works on a lot of levels. It works it I would say it doesn't work on some levels that probably could have been resolved in I get the feeling that this story was not written all at once. It was it like as you said, it was like the first one was published in April and the last part of it was published in like December or something like that.

James  1:41:18
Yeah, it was kind of, yeah, like the guy probably had an idea in his head of, that's the one thing I would love to know. And I'd love to kind of dig in a bit more of how he was written in regards to did they start with monster monsters and then go from there? Or did they start with this idea of you know, the Columbo thing of this is technique This is the solution to the mystery This is the explanation for why it's been haunted right? And then I work backwards from there and we figure out how to get to that because it does just everything just kind of just slots together so tightly which is

Kevin Erhard  1:41:53
really nice. Yeah, yeah, it is.

James  1:41:57
But yeah, as you said it's that kind of serialized nature of it which does take a lot of steam out of it because yeah, the quality changes a lot between right isn't even more than that I was looking and like this was written for a contest Oh, I don't think we're running on that form so I wonder as well whether it was a thing of well I know that I have to deliver it by the certain dates and maybe he was working within a restriction as well so he sure maybe this can't be like the most but then I guess that's the thing is that like you know you aim for perfect and you may never finish things but you aim for good enough and Elisa something so I would say even as a good enough this is still like especially in the genre that is sin of this kind of crowd sourced horror it is definitely punching above its weight.

Kevin Erhard  1:42:46
Exactly. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Well James, thank you so much for being on pixel it Why don't you tell the listeners where they can find you and what you're working on and all that fun stuff?

James  1:43:00
Absolutely Hi everybody my name is James may know me better results cider, you'll find me on Twitter HTCYD. Oh, I make as was mentioned at the beginning of the podcast Yeah, I make a lot of thumbnails for a lot of YouTube people but I also make my own thumbnails my own YouTube videos which I've been keeping I don't know I've been keeping a pretty steady sketch shows that you have hopefully by the time this podcast comes out I haven't like abandon the channel anything at the point that even the one of the last videos I put out which was covering definitely had a certain familiar podcasting voice it It sure did. You may also have heard of in a in a while so maybe a rival podcast is more a complimentary podcast already called a questing show which is a typical Kaspar calf has been on and we're hoping to have him back in May next year as well. But yeah, so yeah, if you're interested in anything that I'm working on, get Twitter is the best place to find me and yeah, hopefully I got some exciting stuff coming soon. Maybe even something for Halloween, but I'm not promising anything. Yeah.

Kevin Erhard  1:44:09
Awesome. Awesome. Well, that'll do it for today's episode. You all know the drill by now please follow us on Twitter at pixel at pod rate us five stars on iTunes, Share, share, share with your friends, family, even even your enemies. I mean, I wouldn't mind if he shared us with your enemies and wouldn't it like they can. They can enjoy quality podcast as well. And that'll do it. My name is Kevin and you have been listening to the pixel lit podcast.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai