Category: Drains

Welcome to my video game review blog, where I review video games new and old. Today, I’ll be talking about the latest release in the Sewer Plumbing Brothers series, Sewer Marlo RPG: Myth of the Five Drains. Now, I was pretty sceptical when this game came out, and by the end of my playthrough, I have some pretty strong opinions about it. Buckle up, kids, because here we go.

Funnily enough, I actually had a plumber come around to my house on the first day that I played Sewer Marlo RPG. He was in the area to do some drain camera inspections for Melbourne houses, but I asked if he could take a few minutes to give his thoughts on the game. After only a few moments, he proclaimed that the game had a fairly simplistic view of what the work a drain plumber performs involves, and it certainly involves less jumping on strange mushroom creatures than the developers lead you to believe. I found this quite disappointing, given the game was marketed as the “most realistic entry in the series yet”. Not that the series has ever prioritised realism, with turtles that walk on two legs, led by the giant mega spiky backed turtle. 

The plot of Sewer Marlo RPG involves the titular character travelling from Italy to Melbourne, Australia, because the city is being attacked by the aforementioned mega turtle. Blocked drains across Melbourne are at an all-time high, and people don’t know what to do. So, Super Marlo and his team, consisting of Princess Apricot, Mellow the Cloud Man and Genie the Living Toy, must clear the five main sewers of Melbourne. Overall, it’s a fun experience, although I do wish it had leaned into the RPG elements a bit more. It doesn’t really feel like a true RPG, especially since you can’t get any plumbing equipment such as drain cameras and the like.

 

As a young girl, I was fascinated with the sewers. I used to watch the drains in my house and on the street constantly, in the hope that I would see something out of the ordinary. I used to lie awake at night imagining the sewers and all of Melbourne’s underground. It was actually a TV show that I watched without my parents knowing that sparked my curiosity. In the TV show, there were people living in the sewers. They had created a whole new society down there, and for years I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was true.

I will never forget the day that we needed drain camera inspections. Melbourne drains lead to the sewers, I knew that, and I thought it was my chance to finally uncover what was living under us. Even twenty years on, I remember the drain inspections clear as day. I faked sick so that I could stay home from school, and then miraculously felt better when the drain contractors bought out all their futuristic technology that I was certain would give me all the answers that I needed.

I’ll never forget my disappointment when the plumbers found nothing but gunk down the drains. Through my tear-stained face, I begged my mum and the plumbers to let me go down the drains and check for myself. I was certain that the people living down there were just hiding because they were scared. They lived a simple life down there and would have been scared of the alien-like technology that had come from above. At the time, I knew this for a fact.

My mum reassured me that there had been a lot of blocked drains in Brighton recently and that this was because of faulty plumbing, not because of people living underneath us. This upset me more than anything, and I kept crying. Looking back, I think she must have thought I was scared of the drains. It was the opposite.

My youthful dreams of owning a restaurant were full of naivety. I was so enthusiastic about all the fun parts of running a business that I hadn’t considered how much work it would really take. Owning a restaurant is no walk in the park. Not only do you need to satisfy the demands of the clients but you also have to take care of unexpected hiccups. Most recently this involved calling a Melbourne drain cleaning company to come fix a blocked drain pipe.

It was actually a bit of a disaster to be honest. The first person to come into the restaurant was the kitchen hand who arrives in the early afternoon to start preparing. He’s the one who noticed the funky smell in the place. He called me immediately while roaming around the restaurant, looking under the kitchen sink and in the bathroom for the cause of the problem. By the time I arrived he’d found it and showed me the damage in the bathroom where the ground was sinking in slightly and there was moisture seeping through the tiles. We looked up one of the more reputable companies who do drain inspections because we had to get the thing repaired before the restaurant opened for business at six. When it comes to drain unblocking, Brighton has some good companies that can arrive within a couple of hours of the call, so we were lucky to have them on the scene asap.

The drain repair guys used a camera to locate the exact position of the problem, which was actually a blocked drain and a broken pipe. I was starting to get nervous that we’d have to close down the business for a couple of days and lose a lot of money, but I was so impressed by how fast they got the job done. When the pipes were fixed I was so relieved I thought we’d have a private staff party after work. Owning a restaurant is hard work but at least it’s rewarding too.

I must admit, living with my parents has been tough. I’m a 22 year old university graduate, and a fully fledged corporate professional. I wear pant suits for crying out loud! However when I come home on Saturday night (read Sunday morning) having consumed a bottles worth of sauvignon blanc and eaten the equivalent of a slice of lemon I still find myself having to regurgitate into my mother’s rose bush in the front garden. The location of the family bathroom means my mum and dad would definitely wake up to any mystery sounds in the small hours of the morning. 

I was shocked when Mum told me she needed to pay someone to deal with the blocked drain, Camberwell is lacking in gossip so this is what mum and I talk about at brunch, I was shocked! I don’t understand what caused this problem. Nothing goes down that sink, I don’t hurl myself over thorny terrain to have to stay in for the drainage contractor to come and clear the U-bend, no sir!

She was a little taken aback at my interest in the blocked drain so I had to scale it back a bit. I was pretty excited for the day I’d have a drain of my own, a sink to do whatever in, something that was all mine and I could be as loud as I needed to. Living with the parents is good for my savings but it does come with its trials and tribulations. Of course I had to be the one at home to let in the drain plumber. It didn’t take him long and he said it was his easiest drain repair. Melbourne apparently is a bit of a mess when it comes to old pipes. It doesn’t compare to some of the stuff he has seen blocking drains out in the country. I didn’t engage all his drain chat. I had a driveway to hose down, turns out my aim isn’t always spot on and the rose bush is further back than is visible in the night sky!