Playdate: Tender Loving Care (04/14/2017)

Missed the end of this earlier so cheers for the quick post!

My god, that thumbnail.

I've found my date replacement for tonight!

Yeah wow I saw that image at 10:30 and immediately thought of death, am I okay?

What the fuck even is this game? But more importantly, why?

This is secretly a Film and 40s, it's gotta be.

Those video notes, whooooo boy

That grocery list is like the only believable thing in this whole game. (Well that and John Hurt at the end.) That is the most Oregonian grocery list ever.

Did I do something bad to deserve this?

Video notes should say "Fair warning, this game portrays people as stupid, unlikeable assholes obsessed with sex and violence."

Man, this game went fully of the rails. I can't even imagine where this is headed.

Fun fact the guy who wrote and directed this went on the work on 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand

Seriously, concerning the campy manner of treating mental illness here, I'm seeing the same issues present in portraying transgender/homosexuality/etc in Mass Effect: Andromeda. It's not that an otherwise decent game has a blind spot in its portrayal of a sensitive topic, it's that the entire game is a big mess and those topics are collateral damage.

This game is not only derisive and offensive to mental illness, but to psychiatrists, medical professionals, husbands, and humanity in general. By the end, I was treating it like a slasher fic where you're supposed to root for the killer. God help whatever poor souls base their perspective on any aspect of humanity off this game.

That was maybe my favorite moment.. cut the shit you know the one :P

I keep thinking the therapist/nurse looks like Talia Winters on Babylon 5. Similar face/hair, even her clothes when she was introduced looked like something Talia would wear.

What on earth is happening in that still-frame for this video

I love everyone's bewilderment as Alex pulls out jokes only a few Terminally Online people like myself understand.

Judging from the video notes, i wont be surprised if they somehow get into trouble playing this game....

"Is this just copy and pasted from the DSMIV or something?"

Those brief moments when you're reminded that Dan actually knows some stuff about some things.

Boy what a thing.

@blacklagoon: I was so convinced it was Andrea Thompson I went to IMDb to check.

Hey what happened to the Bomberman Feature? Did they give up?

How?

They've played old FMV games with worse.

There was a lot of stuff like this on PC. When FMV first exploded I think a lot of small film companies got into it, trying to become "multimedia" companies and all that.

They mentioned this earlier I believe but it also is very of the time in its kind of topic and themes.

the "the new one is handicapped" part hahaha

I've only seen a few of the random pc game archive and now afraid to see the rest if they are worse than this....

I am incredibly impressed that Dan knew that Picasso did Guernica.

That penis farm joke is weirdly self aware for this game.

@forteexe21: Phantasmagoria 1 and 2 are definitely worse I think but amazing. Love the GB playthroughs of both. There's also a lot of good FMVinny on Youtube.

Is this Enya

Alex said on Twitter no one involved with this game has ever had sex. Have they even spoken to another human? "I guess the new one's handicapped"?! Good grief...

(Edit: from the help text at the end of the video - "Tender Loving Care is not just a finely crafted suspense story [...] TLC is an outrageously innovative interaction experience". I'm sorry, WHAT?

@gyoru said:

Your GIF didn't load properly at first, so I wondered why you'd posted an image of the room. I then scrolled back up to find John Hurt staring at me. Little creepy :p

There's glimpses of self-awareness in the quizzes that certainly aren't evident in the rest of the game. It reminds me of what Jeff said about some FMV game Vinny played on UPF a few years ago - were they added after they shot it in an effort to salvage _something_ from the whole thing?

I...kinda think this is awesome. I'm genuinely curious to see where the story goes, and the nurse chicky is hot.

*****

Just finished this game on iPad and boy does it goes places with some of the endings.

Today I learned that meditating and "hugging the shame boy" are the same thing, so I've been meditating all my life.

That radio play was some fine acting.

I really want someone from Giant Bomb to interview John Hurt about this and be like - so were you high during this filming? Did they tell you what this was? Did you just need some quick cash?

I kinda love this, thanks for bringing us more tender loving care.

What, like Weekend at Bernie's style? Or did they get their hands on time travel technology?

John Hurt died earlier this year, so unless GBE have been dabbling with some dark arts, it's unfortunately never going to happen. It's an interview I'd very much have liked to have happened though.

Still, if the figure of £100,000 is accurate, I can't really blame the guy.

Edit: @zeik: There was a time traveller posting on the Giant Bomb subreddit last week, so you might be on to something there....

EPK

Michael sitting in the rain, shirt untucked.

Michael enters house, shirt now tucked.

Does Michael die soon?

As someone who was too young to really experience the 90s FMV craze first hand, this is something else.

Like...did anyone involved with this actually think this was a good, quality product?

Inspired by zaldar's comment, I went to see if the AV Club had done a Random Roles with John Hurt - and they had! But they didn't ask about this game. Dammit!

(I will plug again, though, that Geoff Keighley article on Trilobyte (source of the $100,000 quote for Hurt's salary), which gives the best account of how this game came to be.)

Is the guy at the office who keeps staring at Michael the same actor who played Stauf from The 7th Guest? He's supposed to have a cameo in this.

I need to buy the game to see all skip content

@zaldar: Sadly an interview with John Hurt can't happen since he passed away in January.

Oh man, I was hoping for a gif of Michael hitting his head already in the comments. :(

Only time in my entire life I even had a chance to run over an animal was when I was driving with learners permit at 15 years old. Had to come to a rather violent stop in a 45MPH zone for a random dog with no nearby owner deciding to cross the road.

Probably the most difficult driving moment in my 15 years of driving, and thankfully the dog was not hit, and seemed totally blisfully happy throughout the whole thing. Probably was an asset that it happened when I was still trying super hard to drive right instead of now when I'm mostly on autopilot.

I can't imagine the monster that would purposely run over animals like that.

Did they say at the end someone else from this had passed away other than John Hurt?

I'm really hoping this gets Phantasmagoria crazy. Loving it so far. JFC.