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 What is this? Kingdom O' Magic is a point-and-click adventure game released in 1996 by SCI Interactive and it's aim was to be a parody of fantasy fiction. The game was developed by Fergus McNeill, who (amongst many other games) also developed the Middle-Earth parodies 'The Boggit' and 'Bored Of The Rings' in the 80s and you will see more Tolkien references in this game. This is a fairly standard adventure game, but we also have some combat elements and the ability to die in a variety of different ways. The protagonists: At the start of the game we are able to choose between two protagonists:  On the left is Thidney the Lizard Bloke, voiced by John Sessions who has been prolific in the theatre and on the screen over the last four decades. On the right is Shah-Ron the Girlie (a name that hasn't aged well, neither has her attire), voiced by Lani Minella who has been extremely prolific as a voice actor in a vast amount of games over the last twenty-seven years. The Quests We also have the option of choosing to complete one of three quests at the start of the game: The Good, Old Fashioned, Traditional Quest: We need to rescue the dragon, steal the princess and kill the treasure. The Bizarre & Slightly Twisted Quest: We need to find the Lost Lava Lamp Of The Ancient and defeat the Dark Lord, in order to save civilization. The Magnificent 7-11 Quest: We need to recruit between 7 and 11 characters from the Kingdom in order to protect Flake town from an upcoming invasion. LP details This is going to be a VLP and I'll be recording commentary live as I play through the game. I'm going to attempt to complete each quest with each character. This is a game that I was very aware of in my youth but never got a chance to play, but I'm playing it now and will be learning more as the LP goes on. I'm going to aim to do at least one video a week, there won't be a strict schedule as a lot depends on my work rota and childcare. Edit: I may try to engage with some additional material but I'm still getting to grips with the game. Let's Play: Kingdom O' Magic The Good, Old Fashioned, Traditional Quest        The Bizarre & Slightly Twisted Quest     The Magnificent 7-11 Quest     Bonus Video: Some Additional Footage & Death Scenes Rocket Baby Dolls fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Jul 25, 2022 |
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Jun 25, 2022 00:32
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I thought I recognised that name! Fergus McNeill is also the man behind The Town With No Name, possibly one of the worst games ever released: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeV18bZGMqc Dude has an inexplicable ability to just walk off stuff that would have ended another person's career.
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Jun 25, 2022 06:48
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Whybird posted:I thought I recognised that name! Fergus McNeill is also the man behind The Town With No Name, possibly one of the worst games ever released: I was going to comment on the gameplay footage but then I decided to read up more about the game and things nosedived even further: https://crappygames.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Town_with_No_Name The developers give special thanks to Twin Peaks and Mark Frost in the credits so the insanity may have been one of their intentions. Every other aspect of the game being garbage was probably unintentional though.
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Jun 25, 2022 10:46
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As a kid, I virtually grew up on British comedy; Monty Python, Allo Allo, Fawlty Towers, Black Adder etc., so I was no stranger to absurdities and referential humour. But for pre-teen me, Kingdom O' Magic was an impenetrable mess, and it still feels like one vast in-joke, which I'm not privy to.
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Jun 25, 2022 10:50
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inscrutable horse posted:As a kid, I virtually grew up on British comedy; Monty Python, Allo Allo, Fawlty Towers, Black Adder etc., so I was no stranger to absurdities and referential humour. But for pre-teen me, Kingdom O' Magic was an impenetrable mess, and it still feels like one vast in-joke, which I'm not privy to. This is my first time playing through this game completely. I've playtested the start of this game more than I have with any other game before in an effort to get to know it and how it works. I still barely have any idea. There doesn't seem to be any definitive guides to this game either, most of them offer generalities and hints with a couple of guides giving more straightforward solutions. It seems like one of the objectives of the game is to dick you over as much as possible and without any warnings whatsoever. If you're nice to the elderly lady in the rocking chair the dialogue ends with you dying from boredom. Talk to a character? You get damaged. Say a seemingly innocent line of dialogue? It meanders into a situation where you get damaged.
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Jun 25, 2022 11:09
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I think I played this game until that dwarf screamed WAR at me, I asked him where and got beat up for an answer. I lost interest in the humour and gameplay after that.
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Jun 25, 2022 16:01
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Bedwetting seems to be a very common skill around these parts
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Jun 25, 2022 16:53
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I have a feeling that this is going to be another Ace Ventura.
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Jun 25, 2022 17:45
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At least there's no obnoxious catch phrases so far. Judging from Town with No Name there would be terrible celebrity impressions, but Jim Carrey probably wasn't big enough at the time to be here.
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Jun 25, 2022 17:55
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This is certainly...a game.
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Jun 25, 2022 18:21
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By popular demand posted:At least there's no obnoxious catch phrases so far. I was meaning more along the lines of being horrendous, having outdated humour and possibly offensive.
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Jun 25, 2022 18:24
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So far this is… an experience. I’m kinda concerned this is the first run of 6, since at least Ace Ventura was done in 4 videos For the sake of your sanity, is it really going to be necessary to have both characters do all three mission strands?
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Jun 25, 2022 22:56
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kw0134 posted:This is certainly...a game. Zaroff posted:So far this is… an experience. It certainly is both of those. I'm doing a test run for the next video and things will be somewhat calmer now the intro is out of the way. I'm still very much trying to get a handle on things but I think that I'm getting there now that I'm exploring and interacting more with the game world. I'm also trying to get used to the wandering NPCs, I'll be needing one of them in the next update but they will disappear for a while in-game after giving them an item. The day and night cycle seems to affect which of the wandering NPCs you encounter as you're walking around various places. I'd like to play as both characters for all three quests, the dialogue will be different and the approach to some of the puzzles is going to be different. I don't think that I have it in me to do a completionist LP of this game, I think that is something that will break my will. But knowing me, I probably will attempt to record extra material. It just depends on how I feel as the game goes on. Don't worry about my sanity, that went out of the window a long time ago.
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Jun 25, 2022 23:25
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My memories of this game are largely that it's absolute gibberish and the mechanics are completely arbitrary. I did not remember it being this wildly unfunny.
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Jun 26, 2022 00:28
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PurpleXVI posted:My memories of this game are largely that it's absolute gibberish and the mechanics are completely arbitrary. It seems like you are remembering it just fine to me.
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Jun 26, 2022 00:50
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I seem to remember that if a character has anything other than numbers for health they are invincible. Not that the game will do anything to prevent you from dying that way.
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Jun 26, 2022 11:46
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Rocket Baby Dolls posted:It seems like you are remembering it just fine to me. I feel like what it reminds me most of, tone-wise, is "Armed and Dangerous." I.e. it feels like what's funny is the flavour of British comedy that's all about mocking minorities, especially gay people and crossdressers. Except in this case it isn't even combined with some mildly competent gameplay.
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Jun 26, 2022 19:55
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In this video, Thidney enters a dancing competition, goes on a boat trip and then explores a dwarven back passage. Things have calmed down a little compared to the first video and it's starting to feel more like an adventure game. There is a cut around the twenty-two-minute mark as I was waiting for a character to appear, some of the NPCs walk around the game world and I didn't want to go too far away from the starting area. Ratoslov posted:I seem to remember that if a character has anything other than numbers for health they are invincible. Not that the game will do anything to prevent you from dying that way. I added this to the video with credit given to you, thank you for the info. PurpleXVI posted:I feel like what it reminds me most of, tone-wise, is "Armed and Dangerous." I.e. it feels like what's funny is the flavour of British comedy that's all about mocking minorities, especially gay people and crossdressers. I will do my best to avoid any topics of conversation that cross lines. This is a mid-90s British comedy game made by a man who was a shitlord long before the term was invented. I haven't explored all conversation topics with each character but I have been avoiding some conversation choices that are or look like they're going to be a little too spicy.
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Jun 27, 2022 00:03
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This game design is really unpleasant. All of the humor seems to revolve around everyone sucking, including the player, and boy do the devs go out of their way to make the player suffer for their definition of sucking.
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Jun 27, 2022 01:12
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The ferryman never told us how they lost their hand and leg! I was hoping it was something like: https://pbfcomics.com/comics/shop-class/ (some elements of the site are  )but, of course, the reality of it is that there was probably only 5 minutes given to characterization and a real backstory would blow the budget dozens of times over.
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Jun 27, 2022 04:39
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I also love the fact that combat has been a not-insignificant portion of the content this thread but the moment we have the chance to see any, it is short-circuited
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Jun 27, 2022 04:40
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All I can say so far is that this is better than Dementia: Armed and Delirious. That actively gave me a headache while watching, while this isn't. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, I know. 
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Jun 27, 2022 04:56
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I'm not a fan of this random whacky humour, nor of how just hunting for clues on what to do will get you into fights. I did enjoy how the Dancing King took one look at Thidney and noped. Presumably Sha-ron would have a different experience.
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Jun 27, 2022 05:01
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By popular demand posted:I'm not a fan of this random whacky humour, nor of how just hunting for clues on what to do will get you into fights. From what I've read in the walkthrough it's a solution that I'm not entirely happy with, I'm hoping that there will be other dialogue options to resolve the situation. I'm more worried about Sha-ron's playthrough than I am Thidney's as I can sort of work around some of the shitlord humour. I'm not so sure how I'm going to work around how they're going to handle a female character in a 90s comedy game, someone that they've created to have large breasts and be clad in a skimpy outfit.
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Jun 27, 2022 09:48
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Rocket Baby Dolls posted:I will do my best to avoid any topics of conversation that cross lines. This is a mid-90s British comedy game made by a man who was a shitlord long before the term was invented. I haven't explored all conversation topics with each character but I have been avoiding some conversation choices that are or look like they're going to be a little too spicy. I genuinely don't know anything about the lead dev/writer, though it's arguable that he should be boiled alive just for Kingdom O' Magic if nothing else(along with the loving narrator, Jesus Christ, you can't do an "O'" like that. You gotta do it because you have a lilt or an accent that carries the sentence through, there's a loving apostrophe there that means something, it's not just a loving O!!!! You cretin!!!!!), but is there anything beyond this game that makes him a shitlord? I'm not surprised if there is, I just want the hot industry gossip.
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Jun 27, 2022 10:38
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PurpleXVI posted:I genuinely don't know anything about the lead dev/writer, though it's arguable that he should be boiled alive just for Kingdom O' Magic if nothing else(along with the loving narrator, Jesus Christ, you can't do an "O'" like that. You gotta do it because you have a lilt or an accent that carries the sentence through, there's a loving apostrophe there that means something, it's not just a loving O!!!! You cretin!!!!!), but is there anything beyond this game that makes him a shitlord? He developed some really good text adventure games, including a few parody games, in the 80s and even worked with Terry Pratchett to create the first Discworld computer game. It seems that when it got to the 90s and the PC market things went a little off the rails. Whybird posted:I thought I recognised that name! Fergus McNeill is also the man behind The Town With No Name, possibly one of the worst games ever released: https://crappygames.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Town_with_No_Name: This game looks like it was intentionally designed to be terrible, they even trolled people with the game box and its contents. After digging even further it appears that there are only three other games that he was actively working on in the 90s: The Lawnmower Man, Cyberwar and XS. Kingdom O' Magic was the last game that he designed and actively worked on directly, as it appears that he was promoted to the upper management of SCI Interactive soon afterwards.
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Jun 27, 2022 11:12
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This explains so much about The Lawnmower Man.
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Jun 27, 2022 19:42
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Nidoking posted:This explains so much about The Lawnmower Man. stephen king's original premise of lawnmower man was that it was a guy with a lawnmower who promised a good job but had an ironclad rule that he was not to be observed while mowing. Well, the lawn owner decided to have a little peek and it turns out the lawnmower man was using an autonomous lawnmower with no bag. The lawnmower man himself was eating the grass clippings. At least, this is what I remember from the short story having read it decades ago. This is definitely not at all like the movie. Or the adventure game.
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Jun 27, 2022 22:06
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I saw the film when it was released and I haven't seen it since. I was eight when it was released, my parents regularly let me watch films like this. I remember getting VHS tapes of Commando, The Running Man and the like for Christmas. I remember seeing Arachnophobia when I was a kid and it pretty much scarred me for life. Growing up in the 80s and early 90s was a vastly different time to now. I've conducted a test run of the next update and we will be seeing much more of the game world. I know that there has been some disappointment with some easy solutions to combat situations but they were more about peaceful and easy solutions to a problem. There will most likely be combat, albeit very basic combat, in the next update. The game world is pretty big in this game, I got lost trying to reach a certain location and encountered a number of NPCs throughout. I'm not going to spoil anything but a number of NPCs were kicking the poo poo out of each other as they were walking by, I made 90 gold from either finishing off some of these NPCs that were almost dead or looting ones that had already been killed. I have a rough plan for the next update but it mostly depends on who we encounter. Rocket Baby Dolls fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jun 27, 2022 |
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Jun 27, 2022 22:21
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sb hermit posted:stephen king's original premise of lawnmower man was that it was a guy with a lawnmower who promised a good job but had an ironclad rule that he was not to be observed while mowing. Well, the lawn owner decided to have a little peek and it turns out the lawnmower man was using an autonomous lawnmower with no bag. The lawnmower man himself was eating the grass clippings. At least, this is what I remember from the short story having read it decades ago. None of this is news to me. I was talking about the PC game that's a succession of QTEs and logic "puzzles" where if you miss one input, it's usually game over, and after about three continues, you have to start the entire game over. Adaptations of Stephen King's works seem to fall into one of two camps: Either they're spot-on minus a few details too obscene for the medium, or they're completely unrelated stories that happen to share a title, like The Lawnmower Man or the above-mentioned The Running Man. Basically, don't trust anything that's a The Anything Man. The game in question is one of two adaptations (that I know of) of the "adaptation". I think both of them had some pretty incredible music and too much frustration for any of their other good qualities to show. And they were both still better sequels than the actual film sequel.
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Jun 27, 2022 22:32
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Nidoking posted:Adaptations of Stephen King's works seem to fall into one of two camps: Either they're spot-on minus a few details too obscene for the medium, or they're completely unrelated stories that happen to share a title, like The Lawnmower Man or the above-mentioned The Running Man. Basically, don't trust anything that's a The Anything Man. Kicker is, it wasn't even an adaptation. The original film was based on a screenplay named 'CyberGod'. Producers didn't think that would sell, so they grabbed the first property they could get their hands on to try and increase the visibility. That is what made it so easy for King to sue the crap out of them and get his name removed from their project.
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Jun 28, 2022 10:33
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In this video, Thidney explores Gorgon Valley before venturing out into the vast game world. He also meets a lot of new characters, most of which aren't actively out to hurt him. You can see the madness that comes along with exploring the game world, I was hoping to get further along than I did but I think that I did okay despite the circumstances. The test run went a little more smoothly as I only encountered the Ringwraiths one at a time and most of them had already had their health depleted when I got to them. I'm not sure how many Ringwraiths there actually are but I'm guessing that they will be a constant nuisance. The innkeeper only charges us one gold piece for a bed so it's not too expensive to heal up but it does mean having to backtrack when things start getting rough.
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Jun 29, 2022 00:12
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You know, I'm starting to feel like a lot of things about this game would be more tolerable if the narrator didn't exist.
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Jun 29, 2022 18:49
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He got me laughing a few times but nerrating every irrelevant blade of grass gets old.
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Jun 29, 2022 19:19
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That reminds me, I forgot to look at the grass at the crossroads. I'm going to try to avoid the more repetitive hotspots but I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't poke about the place.
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Jun 29, 2022 19:55
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I've been thinking about this LP and I think that im going to make an adjustment. Instead of completing all three characters with both characters, it may be more feasible to just do each quest once. I'll complete this quest with Thidney, switch to Sha-Ron for the next quest and then leave it up to a vote for the third quest. I don't think that I have it in me to do a completionist LP of this game.
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Jun 30, 2022 13:03
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This game feels deeply unpleasant to play so I don't think anyone will blame you for that.
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Jun 30, 2022 14:10
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Rocket Baby Dolls posted:I've been thinking about this LP and I think that im going to make an adjustment. Instead of completing all three characters with both characters, it may be more feasible to just do each quest once. I'll complete this quest with Thidney, switch to Sha-Ron for the next quest and then leave it up to a vote for the third quest. I don't think that I have it in me to do a completionist LP of this game. That sounds perfectly reasonable and was actually how I understood what you were going to do. Do Thidney and Sha-Ron actually play any different or solve problems differently or is it just a matter of different voice lines in places?
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Jun 30, 2022 14:16
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PurpleXVI posted:That sounds perfectly reasonable and was actually how I understood what you were going to do. There are a few puzzles where things differ slightly, the only real differences are the voice acting and the way you approach combat. Sha-Ron has half the health of Thidney but has more spell power. When it comes to puzzles they're almost all the same solutions apart from a few notable differences. A couple of them: she doesn't need to buy the wig as she already has hair and she gets the talisman o' dancing by tricking The Disco King with the offer of a quickie and then beating him up in the alley instead. I've read through a couple of paragraphs of the next two quests and they will definitely be recycling puzzles from the first quest. Rocket Baby Dolls fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Jun 30, 2022 |
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Jun 30, 2022 16:28
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kw0134 posted:This game feels deeply unpleasant to play so I don't think anyone will blame you for that.  Rocket Baby Dolls posted:she gets the talisman o' dancing by tricking The Disco King with the offer of a quickie and then beating him up in the alley instead. as you mentioned, this really does exude that 90s edgy humor
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Jun 30, 2022 16:55
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