Everybody, everybody. Snuffy, big bird.
Come see what I'm looking. Welcome to Remember 64, where
this week we're learning our ABC's and our 1-2 threes.
Welcome to the show, everyone. My name is David Pitrangelo, and
I really, really want to play one of the most iconic and most
nostalgic opening themes ever on this episode.
But then I'm very scared that we're just going to get dinged
with a copyright claim. So instead you get this, and
then I'll stop there. In case that also creates a
claim, Jiggy Lookback is here with me.
Hello. Jiggy look to count numbers.
Yeah, he does. Well, if any of that makes any
sense to you whatsoever, maybe you got it from the theme, maybe
I got it from that amazing impression right there.
But this time we are talking about Elmo's number journey and
Elmo's letter adventure, and what a perfect time.
If you're listening to this, when this episode comes out in
2024 in March, what better way than to bring school to you
while you're on March or Spring Break?
Come on, that's just what this is about.
Yeah, we're here to bring us, bring us some school.
You don't have to do homework. We did it for you.
But we're going to tell you all about it and what is, what it
all means. So that's what we're covering
today. That's going to be the double
header 2 games that we're covering.
I think this was something that we had on our To Do List on our
check boxes for a little while and we kind of landed on it
because we're like we kind of need something shorter this time
around. Let's let's find something
short. And this was one of the shortest
ones that popped up so so here we are.
Oh, we're here. I can't.
I can't believe that. I can't believe the day has
finally come that we get to tackle both of these games,
these mythical games that I've seen growing up so many times
and never like so many garage sales, so many.
I've always seen Elmo involved. It's always been super cheap.
Never picked it up because obviously this is going to be
terrible, but been so curious as to A how they actually play
because I've never watched anything about them.
B are they actually terrible? Question mark?
Is there any redeeming qualities?
I actually would argue there is. We'll get into that.
Yes, we will. Absolutely.
So actually that's one of the first things I want to talk
about is because you're you're several years younger than me,
there's a little bit of a time difference of what Sesame Street
means to both of us, right. So it's not even necessarily
directly related to this game, but it is a little bit like you
said, you saw these games sort of maybe come across your
peripheral around the time that they came out.
They both came out in 1999. That's the year that we're that
these came out. But Sesame Street for me was in
my back mirror by that point like it was for me.
It's early 90s and you know, first couple years of the 80s
after I was born kind of thing. So basically by the time the N64
came around, I was out of my Sesame Street phase that that's
it. So I only know these exist
because as I got older, I just was more aware of games that
came out around that time. But I don't think that's ever
crossed my view at all in 9899 or 2000 or any anywhere around
there. But for you, how did you grow up
with Sesame Street? Cause for me, it was a huge part
of me growing up. I mean, I don't, I probably just
had less TV available. I lived kind of in the middle of
nowhere and we had like 4 channels when I was young.
And this is one of those go to's.
My parents tell me that I was glued to the TV when Sesame
Street came on. I was that kid.
I do remember watching it, but not that intently 'cause I was,
you know, three years old or two years old or something, right.
But you know, there was no Dora, There was no SpongeBob, there
was no Bluey. It was Sesame Street.
That's that's what I had. So that was my version of it.
And yeah, like I said, games like this just were not in my
wheelhouse at this time based on age.
So what about you? Well, first thing I want to say
is that one of those shows you mentioned is not like the others
and that is SpongeBob. That's not at all.
I know. I know what you meant, but I was
like OK. I would, I would say early
SpongeBob is much more, quote, UN quote, not child friendly,
'cause they're all kind of, you know, can be for kids.
But like earlier ones that I remember at least watching the
first couple seasons, like when I was younger or they don't have
as many, like inside jokes, if that makes sense, or culturally
relevant jokes, you know, stuff like that.
But again, that's my experience with SpongeBob is when it first
started, not, you know, even 5610 years ago, it was like
early 2000s. I remember when SpongeBob first
started. Oh, OK, I I yeah, I was there.
I watched the first couple episodes and I remember
thinking, this is weird, but liking it, you know, just the
whole concept. I was old enough to think it was
weird. I probably would have been like
6 maybe. Yeah.
So that I would, I would have been, yeah I would have been at
least over 10 by that point when it when it debuted.
So, but yeah, so Sesame Street is one of the longest running
shows. Sesame Street is one of the
longest running TV shows programs of any kind in the
history of TV. So do you have experience with
it or had you had experience with it?
Minimal. OK, I so growing up like as a
kid I had Barney the Dinosaur was a big, big deal.
I had bananas in pajamas. Yes, that was another.
One I love and Blue's Clues was really like I when I was a kid.
Blue's Clues was in its heyday, and that was arguably my
favorite show. Sesame Street existed, but I
didn't really get into it. I know I I must have watched
enough to know the Elmo's World song, which I know came a little
bit later, but I know the Elmo's World song.
I may not know all the lyrics, but I know.
The It's recognizable to you, yeah.
You know, and I I remember that. And I remember the scribbles and
everything. And yeah, Sesame Street was
never something that I sat there and actively watched it.
It was round. It was a thing.
I just didn't. It wasn't my thing.
I liked other things more. Yeah, I think kind of the
Muppet. The Muppet characters, maybe
just I I was kind of AI was kind of afraid of puppets as a kid.
Like puppets, ventriloquist dummies, like those kind of
they. They creep me out and I had a
fear of them. I wasn't, like Afraid of Sesame
Street, but I think just that general, like I didn't like
puppets kind of pushed me away from it a little bit more, you
know, just in case something creepy did show up.
Just in case Elmo's head popped off or someone came out of
Elmo's mouth or something, you know?
Yeah, everything. Traumatized, traumatized for
life, for life. But there is, but there is
something to that. There is.
There is a sort of uncanny valley to Sesame Street, right?
For oh, for some characters. Absolutely.
There is this this creepy factor
thing going on, Yeah. I I I think, I think based on
the shows that you're saying that we're pretty much your
wheelhouse around the same age that I was watching Sesame
Street is why. Maybe Sesame Street wasn't at
the forefront, right? Because those existed, right.
You had those choices, like Barney huge for my cousins, my
younger cousins and my brother and like, you know, Blue's Clue,
same thing, 100% that was in my family, my friends.
Like, I know of those because they were just a few years
behind me kind of thing. So those existed.
They didn't for me. So Sesame Street was one of
those things all kind of educational, you know that
that's sort of educational programming.
So that's all part of it. I will say what's funny?
Yeah, I. Was just going to say that I
like. I said yeah, like kind of
afraid, like didn't really wasn't my thing.
But I love The Muppets. So but I said just apply.
These are basically Muppets, but I like they are The Muppets.
I liked Kermit the Frog. I didn't like these guys.
Yeah, it's it's the same. It's the same.
Henson, yeah. It's Henson Company and and
Frank Oz and those guys, right? It's the same thing.
So actually jumping off that same thing whether if you have
any experience with Sesame Street at all, even if it's
minimal like you do, I highly, highly recommend the movie.
I just looked up the exact title because it's a little bit of an
odd title, but it kind of makes sense.
Street Gang, How we got to Sesame Street is the full title.
That's a documentary that came out a couple years ago and it is
how they made Sesame, how they conceptualize it, how they made
it come to life, how they it basically tells the tale from
like 19. I want to say it's like 1970 or
whenever they first or 68, something like that.
When they first debuted it, how they came up with the ideas, how
they executed everything up until about I would say the
early 90s, mid 80s kind of thing.
And just how they implemented curriculum.
How they how they came up with the Muppet ideas.
And then the characters, the voices, the people that were the
characters and designed everything, wrote the songs,
created these carrot like it is. And honestly like I I sort of
like look back at movies that I've watched at the end of the
year all and and for 2021 when this came out, this was my
favorite movie of that year. It was amazing and it made me
laugh. It made me cry.
Just watch this movie. It is.
It's so, so heart warming and so good.
Yeah, I just highly recommend. I just want to.
I want more people to watch it. And one more of you it's so.
It's so great. It comes from that era of public
access television being a thing and educational TV and like Mr.
Rogers is another good example of that.
So I could understand Mr. Rogers.
I I I never watched Mr. Rogers. I knew of it.
I probably seen an episode or two.
Didn't really watch that one either.
That was maybe it was a little bit before me or happened kind
of ending. When I was, it was it was
ending. It was ending when I was
starting to watch Sesame Street, essentially.
Yeah, Yeah. So, so, but same, same vibe.
Anytime you see any documentary or anything on it, or the movie
with Tom Hanks, it's like, yeah, yeah, it's a bit emotional
because they're just genuinely trying to do something good and
it's heart warming. Exactly.
You know, Exactly. And that you know it this these
games, you know, they're not that, but there's something
there. There's something there.
So I I, so I I kind of stepped on my own toes here queuing up
something. But this is the perfect, this is
almost like the perfect sound bite that I've been using since
day one that applies so much to this episode.
So bust out your history books, everybody.
I'm learning. We're going back to November of
1999 and because we are learning and learning with Elmo, I'm
going to do it again. I'm learning.
Because I love it. I know it's The Simpsons, but
too bad everybody. You get it twice.
Probably even more than that. OK, so here's here's what I
found with the description of this game and some info about
the companies that that made it, which I thought maybe it would
be one of those games that has very minimal, you know,
background. It's just, hey, it's Sesame
Street. It's a kids game.
Let's just get somebody to license this and pump something
out. It's a little bit of that.
It's it's a little bit of that. You know, like I said, you get
that with license games sometimes I think, right?
Like, I think that's not, unfortunately, it's not that
uncommon, especially in the 90s. It's just let's get a name and
slap the company on it and create anything.
Power Rangers was a perfect example, I think, in some ways.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So.
Oddly enough, I thought of Power Rangers when I was playing this
game. Oh, my gosh.
OK, OK, cool. I think we're on the same page
on I, I. We'll see what point, but we'll
get to that. Yeah.
OK, so this was published by New Kid Co.
They acquired the rights for properties like Sesame Street,
Dora the Explorer. They made games about that.
They had Tom and Jerry games as well.
Most of their games were rated E for everyone, which is very
common for games like this except one, a Tom and Jerry game
that I don't know if you've seen this, this game.
I've I've looked it up. I was like, oh, I don't
recognize this. It's called Tom and Jerry War of
the Whiskers and it came out for Xbox, PS2 and GameCube and it's
rated T for teen for excessive cartoon violence.
Yeah. So it's you know you're going
into the next generation of consoles and you could do more
with it. And I guess, you know it seems
like it's it's very similar to the Tom and Jerry that's four
and 64 where you're kind of in a room and you battle each other.
But maybe it's just, you know, you can see it all more or it's
just more graphically it's pretty cool.
It does look, yeah, it does look kind of cool, so very cool art
style and everything. So that's the publisher that
that put this out there. They have pretty much all
educational stuff that they put out there or some version of a
kids cartoon or something like that.
That's basically what it was. So it was also developed by Real
Time associates. I recognized the logo, but I had
no idea what they were or who they were.
It just popped up when I turned on the game.
They were founded in 86 by ex Mattel Electronics employees.
So these, yeah, so these people were making little Mattel
electronic toys or toys that involved electronics in them and
stuff. And they said, you know what
we're going to start making games for in television.
That was their initial goal. Sounds like a great goal.
I know, right? That's cool.
That's awesome. That's great.
So they made a bunch of games across and television, Turbo
Graphics, PC, Game Boy. And then now is my excuse to go
down a little bit of a rabbit hole.
People may have seen me post this online over the last couple
days, and I'm probably going to do something else about it too.
If I haven't, by the time this episode comes out, I probably
will after. But here's my little bit of a
rabbit hole Jiggy, OK? The most impressive thing I find
personally that Real Time Associates made is create a few
games in the early and mid 2000s.
So like Game Cubera right? Or at least starting a Game
Cubera. They made games specifically for
kids and families that are going through cancer treatment and
even staff of hospitals that work in those wards or in those
areas of the hospitals. Research went into creating
these games of like what what they could do with it, how they
can connect with these kids and these families and these staff.
And it's called remission, that's what it's called.
And the description is the player controls Roxy who is a
nanobot that is designed to be injected in the human body and
fight particular types of cancer and related infections like non
Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukemia at the cellular level.
So you are a character going through the human body and
they're basically teaching you how these medications and things
like that would work in your body.
And I'm like, that's such a great idea and on it.
Sounds like an episode of Magic School Bus.
It it oh, yeah. I mean, if Magic School Bus
handled cancer, yes, that's what it would be if they if they went
to that level. But yes, they do do that.
They go in at least one of the episodes.
The blood. Yeah, the blood screen, the
blood stream and everything. Yeah, there's one all about the
white blood cells and all that kind of stuff.
Absolutely. Also, perfect example of a show
that I grew up with that I absolutely love.
Magic School Bus. That's great.
On top of that, the another reason why this is great is
because there are 20 levels that they made.
So it's not a small game. It's not like, hey, just here's
a demo and go for it kind of thing.
They distributed over 200,000 free copies of this.
So they brought it to hospitals, They gave it to families, they
gave it to kids, They gave it to staff.
And they did it through a nonprofit and distributed
200,000 discs that had these two or three games called Remission
on it. And like RE Dash Mission.
And I'm like, you know what? That's awesome.
You know, I we just talked about a little bit of a heartwarming
thing with some of these documents that that's
heartwarming to me. I love it.
I I had to mention that because I think that like they again,
similar to what like Sesame Street did just to get started,
this company put research into it.
They actually did studies in North America and Australia to
find out the best ways to make this, you know, effective and
all that. And I'm like, I love this stuff.
I I eat this stuff up. It's so I'm such ASAP, man.
I'm such ASAP. I love it.
Immediately think like a place like Elmo's Letter Adventure.
Maybe it does. You're in the bloodstream and
it's like. Grab the cancer and it's like.
Grab 3 cancers. Oh my God.
Now that you say that, I mean, even if it was, I don't know,
even if it was, I just thought that was a cool little sort of
Side Story, so. That's funny.
Anyways, that's basic. Yeah, it's a little, little sort
of side note, has nothing to do with Sesame Street or Elmo's
letter adventure or or number journey.
Yeah, number journey. I always get them mixed up.
OK, that's our little sidetrack, our little bit of a development
history. Let's talk about the game
itself. I want to play a little bit of
what it sounds like. How's that sound?
We're gonna try that. We're gonna try that.
Sounds. Perfect.
Sounds perfect. OK, this is how I believe this
is this number journey. I think this is.
I think this is this. Is number journey, yeah.
This is how this one starts. Welcome.
To Sesame Street I'm almost so happy to see you.
You picked the perfect day to visit.
Let's go and look for some numbers.
Those smell like the best cookies ever.
Did Cookie Mart Just save one for Elmo?
No, we can go to cookie world to get more.
Cookie World sounds like fun. Anyways, that's how it starts.
Oh my gosh. It's excellent, isn't it?
It's just so good. It's.
So excellent. So let's let's talk about the
games. Let's, let's get into it.
Two games, yeah, two games here. One based on letters or spelling
and the other one based on basic numbers.
It is strictly a learning experience for younger kids
that's that's just gist of how this all works here so go for it
man. Would would would you start with
would you think what was the you know?
So I started with Letter Letter Journey or letter adventure,
whatever it is. I don't know.
I'm going to get the titles
mixed up like 20 times. So I'm really glad.
I just want to say I'm really glad we decided to do both of
these at once because I was, you know, I was kind of just, I was
under the impression these were two totally separate games and
they just made one later, you know, oh, I see.
But these are, they honestly could be one game.
They they are the same. They have.
Literally the same intro, except Elmo says he's looking for
letters rather than numbers. That's literally the difference.
And two different characters that are.
On and two different not even. There's three characters in each
game that you interact with and two of them are different
between the games. Ernie is in both games.
I. Don't understand that.
I don't know. Why Cookie Monster and Grover
replace each other and Big Bird and the Count replace each other
and I? Yeah, so starting with Letter
Journey. And yeah.
Starting with Letter Journey, there's basically like, is it
three different games? Yeah.
So there's three in each. That's basically that's that's
what it is. Yeah.
But I'm wondering, I I'm trying to remember if the letter
journey, if two of them are the same or similar.
Oh yeah, OK, OK. This reminds me.
OK, so in the letter journey you have, when you talk to Ernie,
you basically you talk to each character and you get a mini
game, right? Yeah.
And they give you a letter. And they just give you a letter,
yeah. Yeah, and they're like, find the
letter Z likes happening right now on screen and you talk to
Ernie and you're basically, you're scuba diving.
Yep. And you just go in and you just
move around and kind of navigate to a letter and press a button.
Doesn't really matter what button.
Essentially almost any face, any face button essentially like AB.
Or a right side of the controller, you press it, you're
good and the hit box for it is insane.
You can you can be about, I would say in the game like 5
feet away from a number and hit the button you.
Just have to be in the in the vicinity of it.
Yeah, yeah. So they make it pretty easy.
But my experience with this is, well, it works.
It's definitely geared toward little kids, so I can't
complain. It works and it's it looks
visually kind of appealing sometimes.
I mean, Elmo himself looks pretty good.
Like this scuba thing looks really interesting.
I can't complain about the graphics.
They're actually not too bad. Yeah.
I think they could, They could have done more.
That's my my disappointment with it is that I think they could
have made it either. Either it's more characters or
whatever. I think they could maybe maybe
done more. I know it's not not that easy
and you don't want to like flood the screen with a bunch of stuff
if really you're supposed to be focusing on the letters and
numbers. But I agree.
I think that like the character models at least look look pretty
decent, like why not, I don't know, get get some more lighting
in there or something. I don't know, whatever.
But anyways. Yeah, they definitely could have
done more, but so you play through a mini game and they're
fine. They're.
You sound so excited. In the letter adventure, it's
just walk. It's basically just move around,
grab a letter. Yeah, you essentially will be in
an environment, whether you're scuba diving, which you might be
seeing on on YouTube, version of the show of the episode right
now, or you're walking in a garden or somewhere else, I
can't remember where. Else Rovers is in space.
Oh, in space. Right, so and.
Actually, that's pretty cool. It actually does look kind of
cool. Yeah, we'll get we'll, we'll,
I'll pop that up in a SEC. But you are like just moving.
There's no looking up, looking down.
There's no vertical to the game whatsoever.
It's just walk with the joystick and press one of the face
buttons like you said. All you have to do is be in the
vicinity of the letters, you press those buttons and
depending on what difficulty you play, you either collect.
I think it's like 5-7 or 10 letters.
Yeah or some are. Some are close to that and you
have less opportunity to fail and pick the wrong letter is
really what the also the difficulty is.
So this is easy, medium and hard.
That's that's it. That's really the difficulty for
us. Not such a big deal.
I can understand why for kids it's it's a basic setup so.
Yeah, so, So just like, piggybacking off of that, I just
felt like I needed to describe the gameplay before I gave what
happened and how I experienced it.
But I went into this immediately.
Immediately, I'm like, well, I'm going to put this in hard
because it's an educational game.
Like whatever. Me too.
And I went in and I walked in
the garden and I was like, will this ever end?
And I was. It just kept going.
And it just took forever. And then I beat it.
And then it tells you to press one of the face.
You have to wait for it to finish what it's saying.
It's just press. If you want to play again, press
one of the face buttons that are highlighted here.
And then it pops up the controller with the buttons,
right? And then you wait a little bit
and then it says, if you want to go back to Sesame Street, press
the start button. So I did.
I press the start button. By the way, I failed
intentionally to see what would happen if I failed.
And Elmo, it just ends and you can just go back to Sesame
Street. Oh, I see.
OK. But I.
Did I'm such a good speller. I didn't.
I didn't fail. I went, I went through and I did
the first row on hard like you see so 12345678910 you got to
get 10 letters for each each row.
So essentially what happens is you play the mini game and then
it gives you the option to play again.
What it doesn't tell you is if you play again, you actually get
a different stage with that character.
So each character has two stages.
I didn't know that. So I played one stage and I'm
like, well, I'm not going to do that again.
And then I left, and then I went and did another character to see
what the difference was. And they were all similar but
different. Grover's, I think big birds in
this particular one was the worst because it was just slow
walking. And then you kind of smack a
number or smack a letter. I mean, Grover, you you get in a
little Mars Rover and you're on, you're on the moon or something
like that. Ride around.
And that's what reminded me of Power Rangers, for sure.
Oh, that one. OK, OK.
Yeah, because I was riding and I was like, wow, the environment
kind of looks exactly like Power Rangers.
Yeah, it's the one where you sort of like walking around in
like the space area. And you're in a vehicle too, so
it's like, oh man, it's like double whammy.
And also for me, see the Power Rangers reminder is that like
sadly, this is another knock against the Power Rangers game
is that this game is just as complicated, if not more so.
Because in this game at least, you have to press another button
to survive some of those stages. In this game or in in Power
Rangers, you could get through some of the levels without
pressing any buttons. In this you at least have to
press A or B to select something, yeah?
Yeah. And you could do, yeah, yeah,
yeah, for sure. And it requires a little bit of
thought. Yeah.
Especially if you're of the age that is meant for, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it it it's just so simple, so mad.
But it's simple. It works.
It works for what it does, and the 2nd iteration of mini games
tend to be better. I would say the second, The
second Rover one is like you're actually on a rocket, like
flying in space, and it's all colorful.
It's like Rainbow Rd. That's exactly what I was like.
This is Rainbow Rd. I It would be kind of cool if,
like, it made you follow the path.
You can actually just kind of cut through everything because
essentially one of them is like usually a very narrow hallway
sort of thing. So like the one that we're
watching right now, which is the one on the moon with the Rover,
you just have walls around you and then letters in different
areas left, right. Maybe it's just off to the side
or something like that. But really you have no control
over the camera. It's always just behind you.
So as long as you're looking in the general direction of where
the letter is or number that you're looking for, you're going
to find it this one. Honestly the the camera worked
really well. It was.
It was totally fine. You can see everything at all
times. It never, it was never caught on
anything. Like, the fact that it doesn't
need to be controlled is actually totally fine because it
just adds to what you need to focus on if you're a kid of this
age that you need this for, look for the letters, look for the
numbers. That's it, right?
You don't have to worry about these other things.
It feels maybe a little bit disappointing as like an adult,
'cause you're like, oh, I wish I could do more.
But then I kept telling myself, well, this isn't meant for me,
you know, and that and that's OK and that's totally OK.
So I think it succeeds in that and that it actually just, it
gets the job done, you know? Yeah, it gets the job done.
It's, it's it's a kids game. It's an educational game.
So I don't know what to expect out of it.
But I will say there's there's one thing like I I was, I was
satisfied as far as like checking my boxes, like graphics
are decent. Like look at this environment.
This is a very interesting environment.
I think if all the world's had that level of care, would look
really cool. Yeah, this is the if anyone's
not watching, it's it's the space one that we were just
talking about that reminds us a little bit of Rainbow Rd.
There's there's just describing. There's planets in the
background. There's stars coming across the
screen. The road, like I said, like we
said, looks a little bit like Rainbow Rd.
You're driving a spaceship that has like stuff flying out of the
back of it and stuff it. It's cool.
That's cool. Yeah, and and yeah, it's it's
checking, you know, quite a few boxes.
I don't remember the music. It wasn't anything memorable,
but it was certainly wasn't bad when.
Why don't? Why don't we?
Why don't we listen to it for just a second?
Let's see. Because not all of it is Sesame
Street music. Some of it is just sort of like
stuff that was created for this. Or maybe it is recognizable.
So yeah, let's see. Yeah, yeah, when you finish and
it's good. And it's got the voice acting,
which is cool. Every character is voiced by the
people that voice the characters in the in the show, which is,
which is great. You know that everyone was on
board to do this, so technically this game is fully voice acted,
which you can't say for a lot of games.
The only thing about it, and it's only in letter adventure or
letter journey, whatever it is, it's because there's they're the
same, but one's about numbers and one's journey and the other
one's about letters and the other one's.
Adventure. I'm with you, man.
I'm with you. I'm confused too.
I Yeah. Sometimes I would.
So you go up to a character, you you initially start out on
Sesame Street, you have to walk up to a character and you stand
in front of them. And then the dialogue just kind
of starts when you're after you stand there for a couple
seconds. What happened to me was the
character started moving and animated and we're clearly
saying something, but I heard nothing.
And then Elmo would respond with what, like in response to what
they said. So like for example, you go up
to Ernie and then he's like it's quiet and then Elmo goes see the
carnival. And that would be interesting.
OK, I didn't run. More than once.
OK, I didn't run into that. That's interesting it.
Only happened in letter. In letter, whatever.
Oh. In letter whatever.
Yeah there's oh here. OK, so that reminds this is a
note that I put in one of the the known.
I guess it's it's probably a bug.
I guess you could call it is that in Letter Adventure on
Sesame Street there's no music. It's just not it's not in it,
but on on in Number Journey it is in there so that could be
part of it. Maybe it's a a related bug in
the in the game of that. So like you go walk through
Sesame Street like you said, there's a little bit of
background music in in the number one, but in on letter
adventure it's just not there. You just hear sound of like
street noise and some kids in the background and stuff like
that, which also I think is a little nice little added
feature. It's not just like dead air, you
know, like even if there wasn't music, at least you got
something that feels like you're actually quote UN quote, you
know, in in Sesame Street or on the street.
Yeah, I think it's a nice little added touch.
It's not necessary, but it's there.
So yeah, so that's interesting. I didn't run into any of that.
Maybe it's related, I don't know because it was in the same game.
I don't know. Yeah.
And then I I think, yeah, I mean the the gameplay is the same
pretty much across both, like you said, like it's it's really
just the same game. You just have numbers or letters
and that's kind of it. I would say though that we.
Yeah. Let me mention because they have
two distinct bonus stages. Oh.
Yeah, that's right. Yes, that's a big difference.
And the in the letter one it's you have to like walk, you walk
target to target looking for the letter for to complete the word.
So like for example they show Ork Ork and they say complete
the word and then you have to walk to the target that has an F
on it and complete it and then flip flop.
I guess we just move over to number Journey, right?
Yeah, yeah. Move over to number, yeah.
Move over number journey, which is the better one?
It's so it's so cool. OK, this one I definitely have
to play the sound for because there's one particular sound
bite that he has. I don't know if it's going to
pop up here. So he threw.
OK, so let's describe what it is first and then I will find the
sound. So what?
Is it the the bonus game? Yeah, the bonus game for the
number one. Yeah.
So the the bonus game for the number one is it basically it
pops up a number and it says 5 and then or or math I guess and
it whatever. And it just says like, throw a
certain amount into the mouth of this thing and you just go to
the basket and you throw. Or I was going to say Mario Elmo
throws baseballs into the mouth of this creature.
Like a carnival game. Like a carnival.
Yeah, it's a little carnival, but it's not it's you don't
target, you don't anything, you just tap A and you can't like
hold it or multi tap. It's literally just like he
throws one at a time. It's very.
Slow it's it's it's slow. But he has something to say in
between, right? So.
And then when you're done, you ring the bell.
You ring the bell. Does have something to say?
So, so that's what I wanted to play is like, let's see if he
says it in this first section here.
Hold on. Yay, To get a ball, go to the
bucket and press one of the option buttons.
Ring the bell when you have the right number.
If you want to take back a ball, hunt the horn.
Yeah, good tune, right? Three. +1 So how many?
Balls. Then you throw the amount of
balls. But then he says something every
time you throw it. Goal.
Oh, I returned that one for some reason.
I don't know why you. Didn't know.
The mechanic yet There it is from downtown.
Yeah, I didn't say that quite a bit.
Swish. Swish.
So anyways, I thought that was, I thought that was charming and
I was like, that's cool. That's, you know, is it, is it,
you know, making or breaking this game at all?
No, it's not. But at least it's different.
At least, I mean, I guess it has to be different, but instead of
putting the letter at the beginning, you're just doing 3
plus 1/3 plus one, throw 4 balls in and then the number changes.
And I think it depends on what difficulty you are made.
Change how like what words you get and then what number you
have to add up to. I don't know for sure but.
So the reason why I was thrown off that yours had math, mine
did not, because I played this uneasy.
OK, so I did. I did Medium for most of the
playthrough of it. Yeah, I did hard initially in
the letter one, but it just took forever.
So I was like, I don't need to do this, I'm just going to do
easy. So I did easy.
So I just had a number. It just said four.
And so I just had to throw 4IN and count to four.
OK. But so that's an interesting,
that's why I was like I don't remember doing math, but that's
probably why. Yeah, yeah.
So mine was just like a simple addition.
So now, flipping the script, this is the best mini game in
the game. The.
The two.
The two Cookie Monster ones. Both of them.
Are the best ones. They are the best ones.
So I wanted to point these out too, because first, Cookie
Monster starts with you riding up a river of chocolate, which
is hilarious. And also.
I'm wearing my Conquer shirt. It's not Pooh, though.
It's not. And conquer.
It would be cool if conquer showed up, but you're you're
basically just instead of going down like just walking through.
The collaboration I didn't know I wanted.
Oh my God, could you imagine? He like, you pick, You pick a
number and Elmo's just like it smells like shit.
Damn it, Cookie. Monster and Sesame Street,
they're all going down and then all of a sudden you whip out a
couple a KS and eat lead mother buzzer.
I mean, let's do it. Or or Conker's just smoking a
cigar with Oscar the Grouch. Yeah, if anyone's going to do
it, it's going to be him, right? For sure.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
So this one is still. So the first one we're on like a
jet ski, basically looks like one of the wave race vehicles
and you're just going and collecting the numbers.
But at least it looks kind of interesting.
I think it looks kind of cool. It's fast though.
Like you move pretty fast and it's it's cool.
You go over the little jumps and he does the little handstand.
I totally did not expect any kind of movement or reaction or
what or anything from Elmo. And then you go to the snow
level and you're snowboarding and he literally does like grabs
and flips and stuff. Little tricks.
Yeah, it's awesome. And you're not.
You're not doing anything. You're you're just still
pressing forward. It's still basically doing the
speed and everything for you like it does in the other
levels, but like at least there's some sort of interaction
sort of speak, I guess you could call it makes it more
interesting. It was it was much more fun just
for those reasons, I think. So I agree, these were the best
ones. Yeah, they're they're fun.
They're fast. They're, you know, simple and
they work. But the rest are basically just
little walking Things hit the target.
I mean that's that's it for the rest.
But I will say that I did like the count in the number 12, not
the first one. So he so he goes, oh, let's go
to my castle, do you want to go to my castle?
And I'm like, that sounds really creepy, but all right, I guess
we will. Sure, dude.
Elmo's like 3 or 4. Whatever he is, he's he's he's a
preschooler. He's little, right?
And this creepy old man invited him to his castle, his dark
castle. He's probably like 400 years
old, not four years old. Yeah, and we we go to his garden
1st. And at first I was like, this is
not his castle. And I was legitimately mad
because I wanted to see the castle.
I was like, this is stupid and he's like, this is my garden.
And I'm like, I don't give a crap about your garden, man.
I want to go see your castle. But then, you know, you beat
that first, that first walking one and then he does take you to
his castle. And I was totally right.
It was more, it was way more interesting.
It was visually interesting to walk around his castle.
And I kind of want to go back because when I was collecting
all the numbers, I started hearing these clanking noises
right here. Let's.
And then see if it. Yeah, you like hear these
clanking noises. Got it.
You hear the bats, but you hear that it's almost like a
thundering noise. OK.
So I started hearing that and then I I turned a corner and
then there was, there was like a pathway that led me down and it
turned and I got the last number on that pathway, but I didn't
get past it. So I wanted to know what was
past it. I was like.
I didn't get past it either. I know exactly what you're
talking about. What if we find the torture
chamber? Do you ever see, do you ever see
the. This is great for listeners.
You got to look it up on YouTube.
It's so funny. They took the count when he's
singing about numbers and he's like, I like to count the bats
on the wall, right? He's just singing.
They censor it every time he says what he's counting.
So, so he's like, I like to count the on the wall, I like to
count the in the hall and it's so funny.
It just sounds suggestive. Yeah, all you have to do is put
that beep in there, yeah. Yeah, it's so funny so.
Funny, but like there's but that is so that that's The thing is
like there's glimpses of like, yeah, that music sounded pretty
good to me. The background, you know, like
you said the crashing, the lightning sort of thing, the
bats. That's there, that's cool.
And, you know, again, the focus isn't that in a game like this,
it is get the kid from point A to point B, pick the number that
it gives you or the letter. And that's what your focus is.
And at least there's some small touches.
You know, I think that, like, it's it's kind of strange how,
like when you're walking with Elmo, like the way he is here
that we're seeing, he's not even really moving.
Like his feet kind of just shuffle a little bit.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Jiggy's doing a great dance. Please, everybody, please watch.
It's great. He's going to do it again.
It's and that's And that's all it is, right?
So it's weird how, like that's how he walks.
But then you put him on a snowboard and the guy's doing
like, you know, these huge, these tricks where he's doing
grabs, like toe grabs and and tail grabs, and he's spinning
around doing a 360 and stuff. It's just, you know, it it feels
inconsistent. But I I just kept telling myself
like, whatever. Elmo, professional snowboarder,
but Elmo, not professional Walker.
Elmo says. Yeah, I it's, look, I I, yeah, I
just kept telling myself, like, it's fine.
It's a kids game. It doesn't need that depth or
whatever, right? So ultimately, you know, does
anyone need to play this game if you're older?
No, I don't. Stop, stop, stop.
Yes, yes they do. And they need to make this a
drinking game, and I think that's the way to play it and do
it every time, Elmo says Elmo. And you play like 1520 minutes
of these games a you're going to beat it, but you'll be laughing
so hard, it's just so silly. I'm I'm with you.
There's there's something there. You can have silly quick fun
with this. Like that's the other thing I
was going to say is like, even whether you should play this
game or whether you should experience these games or
whatever, however you do it, it's like one of the games.
I think the letter one is even shorter.
I think it takes 20 minutes, half an hour, the other 1/2 an
hour, 40 minutes. Like in an hour.
You can get through both of these if you don't play on hard.
Just don't play on hard because it's it's not, it's not
necessary because like you said earlier, it just takes longer.
That's really all it is. And then the mini game at the
end for the letter one at least, it's just a different word, like
a longer word, but you're still just picking one letter.
It's not a huge difference and it's not going to take a lot of
your time, so it's OK that it exists.
You know, I think it's good that things like this are out there
for kids. I didn't know this existed.
So I was like, you know what? This is nice.
At least this is here. Yeah, it it's cool for kids.
It's it's cool for. Kids, that's the verdict.
Yeah, that's. And all I have to say is it it
does make me want a 3D platformer fully going through
Sesame Street. That would be sick.
Hopping over the the buildings and stuff and.
Yeah, it would be so much fun, right?
And you could have worlds like this where he's is going in and
yeah, it just seems really cool. Yeah, there's ideas here.
There's different environments. It's nothing fancy, but that's
OK. It doesn't have to be.
And yeah, Elmo's letter adventure and number journey, I
think I got this right. That is the one.
That or the exact opposite. Or the exact opposite.
Either way you'll find it, these two back-to-back games if if you
don't have a ROM of them or a way to play them that way, you
can find it for pretty cheap because they're just kids games
and stuff. But you know, hey, having these
things on hand when you have a kid that is, I don't know, four
years old, that's picking up five years old.
Whenever you're comfortable with them playing video games for the
first time, this is a great starter.
I think this is a really good you know, they're learning their
letters and numbers in in early school.
Why? Why not?
Why not let them just press forward and backwards on the
joystick, press 1 button. They can get through it.
You can sit with them if you have to, like you know, if they
need some help and stuff, but nothing wrong with that.
You know, I think that's pretty good.
So that's about it. I I don't know if we score this
these games. I don't know if there's like a
way to score them because they're not really those types
of games, but well, well, I guess we.
Can we can score them on a scale of edutainment?
Yeah, an edutainment scale. That's.
An edutainment scale, and we're going to make this scale up to
the letter D OK, but it starts at 3:00, so.
Wait, oh, it starts at 3:00 but ends at D Is that what?
We're taking a number journey into a letter adventure.
Yes. OK.
All right then I. Would so so it scores an X3 for
me. All right, I'm going to give it
AAW 7. That's high I.
Don't I don't know. Is that high.
I I have no idea. Well, that's so high, is it?
OK I. Don't know it's a low.
D as you can get. It's a low letter, so I don't
know this impromptu scale. I don't know how this shit works
anywhere. I like it though.
I like it little in universe Radiance scale.
I like it exactly. Oh my God.
Can't. Count.
Yeah, well, we can now. We played this game.
We can now. OK, so. 3 numbers, yeah, that's
all you ever collect. Yeah, that's true.
You know how to differentiate the number 3 from everything
else, but you don't know what everything else is.
Although if you do go back into the stages, they'll give you a
different letter and a different number.
It's not always exactly the same.
But that's funny. That was not my experience.
Oh. Really, it was for me.
Oh yeah, I got it was letter F for Big Bird.
I left, came back. It was still letter F.
Oh, OK wait, did you finish the stage though, or did you like
did you get all the letters before you exited?
I think I I think I failed it first and then I left and then I
came back. Yeah, So that's why.
So maybe that's why. Yeah, so one time what I did was
I didn't collect the last one and the level like ended for
some reason, I don't remember why.
And then I went back. In there's end spots, there's
like endings to each like pathway.
Yeah, if you get too far forever.
Yeah. I think.
That's it'll. It'll just end.
That's what happened with a count 1.
When you go down those like stairs, you go to the end.
If you didn't catch them all, then you have to go back.
That's what it is. Yeah, that's what I did.
So that's what happened with me with that one is I had the
number 5. I went into that.
I must have missed one or whatever.
And then I went and talked to him again and went back in and
it was the same number. And then I tried it on a
different difficulty, and maybe that's part of it too.
I went on like the easy difficulty or the hard one, and
it was a different number, even though the stages are the same.
Yeah, so. I like to believe, though, that
that room, it doesn't end. It ends because you're not
supposed to see it, but because it goes past, right?
And then he does have a torture chamber.
And then every character that you don't see in this game from
Sesame Street is in that torture chamber being tortured.
And there you go. That's how I will end.
That Snuffaluffagus is down there 100%.
Like, where else would he be if he's not with Big Bird?
They're besties. Like they're besties.
Where else would he be? So it is what it is, you know?
Hey, it's just the reality. We're just, we're just doing our
part, investigating and bringing kids games to the forefront.
So it's all good. We're doing the hard work, we
did the homework, like I said, so, all right, so that'll do it
for these games. It's good, quick, educational
stuff for kids and that's pretty much the gist of it.
But jiggy, where can everybody sort of keep track of all the
awesome stuff 'cause you got some pretty damn great videos in
the last few weeks? And honestly few months.
Thank you. Thank thank you.
Yep. YouTube Jiggy back all one word.
YouTube. You'll find me.
Jiggy look back. Lots of good stuff.
Lots of stuff around. Rare Donkey Kong.
Check it out everybody. It's it's, it's popping off.
Honestly, with or without this show, that thing, that stuff is
popping off and it's great. So really, really good stuff.
Remember 64 across the board on YouTube.
Remember 64 show on all of the social media apps.
I'm not going to name them all because they all seem to change
names and it's honestly a pain in the ass.
So although that description took just as long as mentioning
all of them, so maybe I'll revise that next time.
And then of course patreon.com/remember 64 show.
You can find all of the episodes early, some extra content and
also going to be adding some free stuff as well.
Some videos and some write ups about games that I've been
playing that are not N64 related, maybe some gaming news
that I've been, you know, reading and writing about, all
that kind of stuff. I'm just going to sort of start
bolstering a little bit more on Patreon.
It's going to kind of be like a one stop shop kind of thing so.
The pre show chats were were pretty good.
I I I got into the Patreon and I was a a little vain.
I was listening to myself because he told me about the pre
show chats. No he did not tell me about the
pre show chats. I did the.
Previous time, but not that time.
Yeah, I forgot to. Yes, and.
So I was like wait a pre show chat and I was like this is me
and I was like what did I say? And so I went back and like it
was listening. It was just, it was great.
It it actually was awesome. We talked about the one.
We talked about the Nintendo Power with the Donkey Kong 64.
Weird cover. Yeah, weird cover.
That was like a misprint or something.
Something couldn't figure. Out what it was.
It was really cool. I talked a little bit about me
playing Boulders Gate 3, which is pretty funny with my friends.
How tall? How tall the Donkey Kong crew
is. Or short they.
Are how tall, how tall the DK crew is.
Yeah, that was pretty, pretty enlightening.
It's pretty cool. But yeah, that pre show chat was
totally, totally fun. Yeah, and that stuff's available
for at the at the lowest, lowest tier for Patreon and stuff.
So that stuff we're going to keep doing and keep keep doing,
keep bolstering stuff on there. It's going to be free and and
Patreon paid stuff. So a mix of everything going to
be a good spot to kind of find a bunch of stuff, so.
Yeah. And you just put like a dollar
down. Is that the minimum?
Like, you just put a dollar down.
You pay a dollar a month. It helps support the show.
It helps support Dave, we can, you know, do cool stuff, raise
production value, get other guests on, like just go support.
It just shows support. And hey, even if you don't want
to do that, that's cool, but share it.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, right.
Sharing. It is caring.
Sharing it is carrying it. Sharing it is carrying it and
Elmo tells you to share it. Doesn't he?
He always he's. He's such a nice guy.
He's so nice. Support us.
Support. Elmo Sesame Street is awesome.
All right, everybody. Jiggy, thanks for coming along,
this adventure and this journey. There we go.
Which one is which? I always forget again, even
though we've been talking about it for for a while.
Other than that, Everyone, thanks so much for listening.
Jiggy, thanks for being here. We'll see you next time on
Remember 64. Ciao everyone.