0:00

I have Balatro dreams and it's

0:03

a real freaking problem dudes. I

0:07

keep having dreams of these jokers in my head.

0:09

Not a joke, I got full

0:11

blown Tetris effect going on. But

0:13

instead of pleasant sort of

0:15

geometric shapes, it's 150 clowns

0:17

and they wanna quiz me about numbers

0:22

and they wanna yell at me about the

0:25

arrangement of my clowns and how

0:28

I'm not optimizing my chip multipliers. Are they

0:30

locked to the cards or do they come

0:32

out of the cards? Well,

0:34

fuck Russ, they didn't before, but

0:36

thank you for teaming up that

0:38

killer. Oh, we

0:40

got some notes from the

0:42

producers. Oh yeah, it looks like the clowns are gonna

0:45

come out of the cards now. Thank you so

0:47

much Russ for that helpful tip. I,

0:49

Griffin, would you be interested in

0:52

making a rewrite of Pac-Man Fever

0:54

that is just about Balatro, Balatro

0:56

Fever, do you think you could

0:59

do that for me and professionally master

1:01

it and record it and get

1:03

Buckner but not Garcia? Cause Garcia died on

1:06

it. It

1:08

feels wrong to do it without Garcia if I'm being

1:10

honest. And also it

1:12

feels like you're putting me on this, you're like

1:15

trying to make me do a parody song live.

1:17

Not live, not live. This is something I want

1:19

you to take out. No, but clearly the audience

1:21

is listening to this going like, oh yeah, here

1:23

comes another one of Griffin's great songs. And I

1:25

don't, I genuinely do not have it in me

1:27

today. Yeah, I wasn't asking for that. I

1:30

did Google like how to cure Balatro

1:33

Fever. And I found

1:35

that, there's a real article on

1:37

parade.com. They do have 150 joker

1:39

quotes to make you appreciate the

1:44

madness and put a smile on that

1:47

face. Okay, good, maybe this is an

1:49

emergency therapy. I think like 150 jokers,

1:52

that must be a Balatro article. It

1:54

has to be. Cause you maybe give me one. If

1:58

I could just get one out of the way. We get a year. But

2:01

let me give you a year away. Do you mean number one and one

2:03

and one hundred and fifty? A hundred and fifty. Mm-hmm.

2:06

Okay, great. The last one's gotta be the

2:09

best one. You probably have to click through

2:11

like ten pages of clickbait ads. That's probably

2:13

the best one. Peter, Bill. You'll never believe

2:15

what honey booboo looks like now. Okay, are

2:17

you ready? Well

2:20

Melissa McCarthy dead? That's

2:22

like half of mine. No

2:24

matter the situation, always wear a smile.

2:27

Joke. Oh, that's nice. That's actually pretty

2:29

good from the clown prince of crime, I

2:32

think. That ought

2:34

to do it. Oh, I feel myself

2:36

calming down already. Okay. They're

2:38

coming out of a car and... Oh no!

3:01

Hey, that's Vapor and I know the best game of the

3:03

week. My name is Christopher Maptur. I know the best demo

3:05

and maybe game when it comes out of this week.

3:09

My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I

3:11

know the best alternate history 19th century video

3:14

game of the week. My name

3:16

is Russ Frosher. I'm the best game of the week. Hello

3:20

folks. Welcome to the besties where we talk

3:22

about the latest and greatest in home interactive

3:24

entertainment. It is a video game club and

3:26

just by listening you, my friend, have

3:28

become a member, send your special

3:30

welcome to all our buddies

3:34

joining us from Patreon. You

3:36

can support us there at patreon.com/the

3:38

besties. If you like what

3:40

you hear, there's a lot more of it there

3:43

exclusive to you and we appreciate it

3:46

and the rates are very reasonable. Today

3:49

we are giving a reminder that

3:51

video game gods, they

3:55

give us and they take us away. We

3:57

have been granted a reprieve Fred from

3:59

unicorn. of Unicorn Overlord. A

4:02

temporary reprieve. A temporary

4:04

reprieve, a stay

4:06

of execution of fun as

4:09

we are dipping into the hottest,

4:11

latest, and not yet release games

4:13

in the world of Steam. Russ

4:15

Fresck, how did you hit upon

4:17

this great idea? We

4:20

didn't get Unicorn Overlord code in

4:23

time and Steam Next

4:25

Fest had just happened and there was a big list

4:27

of demos. I was like, we should just play these

4:29

demos and so that's how it

4:32

happened. Wow, that's really

4:34

deep behind the curtain. Have

4:36

we talked about how Unicorn Overlord sounds like a

4:38

Jeff Minter-esque game if ever I did hear the

4:40

one? Yeah, can this run

4:42

and win amp? Is that part? Yeah, sure. We're

4:46

gonna talk about that and so much more right

4:48

after this. Feed.

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for for more information about our show, visit

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rules, I'm looking at the menu right now. We're

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talking about chicken and mushroom tetrasini with

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5:46

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use code Besties50 to get 50% off. That's

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6:08

slash Besties50 to get 50% off. Oh,

6:16

before we get into the demos, I wanted to

6:18

mention this one thing. We

6:20

already mentioned the Patreon at the top of the

6:23

show. The next bonus bracket

6:25

battles episode is live on the Patreon right

6:27

now if you haven't listened to it and

6:29

you're a subscriber, you can do that right

6:31

now. It is called the Best First Levels

6:33

wherein we duke it out on the best

6:35

first levels of all time. We

6:38

had a lot of fun with this one as

6:40

usual. It was another late night record and things

6:42

got a little buck wild. Here is a clip

6:44

from that episode. Okay,

6:48

so just to recap, most

6:50

fun to play we're saying what,

6:52

Bloodborne? Yeah. Most

6:56

fun to play is Bloodborne, yes. Oh,

6:58

then there's no need for the... Oh, no, no, no.

7:01

Most fun to play is Resident Evil 4. Right, that's

7:03

what I thought. Yeah, if Resident Evil is most fun

7:05

to play, then Bloodborne takes most narratively or visually interesting

7:07

or the sounds. Now wait, you said that you would

7:10

try to skip that level when you could. How

7:12

is that most fun to play? I think it's most fun to play.

7:15

But Griffin said that it's just as a definite

7:17

and then he said he can't count Griffin. Well, we're lumping

7:20

it just in... At the

7:22

beginning of the show, if you'll remember,

7:24

we sort of lumped in sort of

7:26

design significance into most fun

7:29

to play. So from that standpoint, I

7:31

do feel like... But I think

7:33

we narrowed that even down more to

7:35

just fun. Yep,

7:38

I think that it has... You're right, Juice, there

7:40

has been a bit of a collapse of that

7:42

lead. Oh, fun versus good. No, I think that's

7:44

safe to say Resident Evil is still fun, but

7:46

Bloodborne is good. This is going to be great

7:48

though because... It's an important

7:50

dialogue. I mostly want to

7:52

talk about which game has more

7:54

good levels after the first one. Because

7:58

here's the thing, I can make a case for Bloodborne. winning

8:00

this handily because you can

8:02

make infinite of those Sumerian those

8:05

aren't good levels. We

8:09

have so much fun here. Oh, yeah

8:12

you can go to patreon.com/the besties

8:14

if you haven't subscribed yet and

8:16

listen to anything you can

8:19

listen to obviously the episodes that are already live

8:21

and you will also get anything moving forward as

8:23

you subscribe including

8:25

an episode of the resties which is

8:27

coming at you next week and

8:30

another episode of the resties later this month and then

8:33

so on and so forth. I wish we

8:35

only recorded this show at night if only

8:37

that weren't like completely antithetical

8:39

to the life that I live

8:41

and have built for myself and

8:43

my family. Yeah, this creates a

8:45

nice contrast from the night time

8:47

fun that we have. Absolutely. Okay,

8:50

I think we're gonna get into the demos now. Griffin,

8:53

why don't you start it off with

8:55

a little game called Lightyear Frontier. I

8:59

took a look at the Next

9:01

Fest games just sort of where we pulled

9:04

these demos from. There

9:07

was one that stuck out called

9:09

Lightyear Frontier. That

9:11

demo is out now. It is, I mean it's

9:13

free. It's a demo. It comes out in

9:16

two weeks from when we're

9:18

recording this March 19th. Is

9:21

this planned release date? And

9:24

it is going to be early access when it comes out.

9:27

It is a sort

9:30

of farming sim,

9:32

survival sim, first

9:34

person experience in

9:37

the vein of a slime

9:39

rancher. I

9:42

think it's probably the most accurate

9:44

comparison here. You

9:46

crash land on an alien planet,

9:48

which you are tasked with sort

9:51

of exploring and domesticating

9:55

and in some cases sort

9:57

of revitalizing. do

10:00

that by tooling around inside of a

10:02

giant fucking mech. You have a mech

10:05

that you use for your farming and

10:07

your building and everything. And that is

10:09

sort of the main kind

10:11

of hook of

10:13

the game. It seems shocking to me that this

10:15

has not happened before. Yeah, No

10:18

Man's Sky actually does, I think, let

10:20

you do a bit of mech-based farming.

10:22

It doesn't go quite as hard on

10:24

it as this one does. There's

10:26

sort of like a Master Blaster thing going

10:29

on where you can hop out of your

10:31

mech to, you have like a basic pickaxe

10:33

that you can use to kind of get

10:36

around. But for the most part, you are going to be

10:38

in your mech and your mech, very

10:40

quickly you find a bunch of different

10:42

attachments for it that are

10:45

basically like the analog of like

10:47

tools in a farming game. And

10:50

so what it does with

10:52

that is kind of fun

10:54

where instead of, it's so

10:56

tired going around and planting seeds in

10:58

the ground with your hands. Instead, after

11:00

you build a plot, you get out

11:02

a seed cannon and you shoot seeds

11:04

into the ground in a first person

11:06

shooter style, which is very, very good.

11:09

You have a like vacuum that you can use

11:11

to pick up stuff off

11:13

the ground or you can use it to suck up water,

11:16

which you can then use as with

11:18

like a hose attachment to your

11:20

plants or clean up the environment. Is

11:23

it like Tears of the Kingdom where you're like constantly switching

11:25

your arms and things? Yeah,

11:27

but it's like instant. It's very

11:30

fast. It's not some, it

11:32

is very smooth. You will

11:35

have to get out of your mech frequently

11:37

also because this game has some really delightful

11:39

physics where your mech feels

11:41

heavy as hell. You start out with like

11:44

very kind of weak jump boosters that you can

11:46

use to sort of hover in the air a

11:48

little bit. But if you don't land on flat

11:50

ground, like the physics engine will just topple your

11:52

mech right over and then you have to get

11:54

out of it and flip it and flip it

11:57

in order to get it back on its feet and off its

11:59

ass. Which is really like, you

12:01

would think that would be annoying. It is hysterical

12:04

every single time. I mean, it sounds like Helldivers

12:06

style physics. It is. Yeah, I

12:08

can say that maybe a little bit.

12:10

It is not a, I

12:12

played quite a bit of the demo. I

12:15

don't know quite how like deep of

12:17

an experience it is going to be.

12:19

I don't think that you can maybe

12:21

even know that from playing a

12:23

demo for a game in this sort of genre. But

12:27

I didn't run into any like deadly enemies

12:29

or anything like that. Like it seems

12:31

like a very chill, vibey game.

12:33

The soundtrack is incredible. It is,

12:35

there are shades of Outer

12:37

Wilds there, which is about the highest compliment I

12:39

can pay. Just that sort of

12:41

like, you know, space

12:44

folk kind of. Banjo. Yeah,

12:47

space banjo tunes. You

12:50

can build lots of different sorts

12:52

of habitats for yourself.

12:54

You start with like a basic tent and then

12:56

there's different sort of refineries you can build. You

12:59

can build a like an upgrade station for

13:01

your Mac, which then you can customize

13:03

with different like aesthetic

13:06

upgrades or like,

13:09

you know, mechanical upgrades. There's

13:11

a lot to do in this demo. I probably sunk like

13:14

a couple hours into it, which is, you

13:16

know, quite, quite generous, I feel like for a

13:18

demo. Did

13:20

you play it on Steam Deck or on a PC? No, I

13:22

played it on PC. I didn't know

13:25

sort of how well a demo would

13:27

handle on Steam Deck. I don't know

13:29

if that's even something that developers

13:31

really care about optimizing for. Sure.

13:33

But yeah, I mean, after a couple hours, I'd

13:35

explored the world and

13:38

found a bunch of different

13:40

like weird alien artifacts. And I had built

13:42

myself like a little farm and a little

13:44

homestead. And

13:46

it seems like a really clever sort of

13:49

take on this genre that is genuinely

13:51

just really kind of enjoyable

13:53

to play. I mean, the aesthetic is... It

13:56

has multiplayer also, you can play with up to four

13:58

people. It

14:01

yeah, I could see myself say

14:03

I it was one of those like demo experiences that

14:05

is Ultimately

14:07

kind of a good thing where I hit a point where I was like wait

14:09

a minute I'm probably gonna

14:11

play this game a lot Yeah, I'm going

14:13

to stop playing the demo now because

14:16

I want to be able to kind of you know go

14:19

into it and Not not

14:21

feel like I've already done everything Yeah,

14:24

that that is definitely an instinct that I have

14:26

with especially with these sorts of bigger games And

14:29

you're not sure if the save is gonna carry

14:31

over. Yeah, exactly So

14:33

yeah comes out in a couple weeks, and I'm definitely gonna

14:35

pick it up This is this is you can get the

14:37

demo now, and I like if you like games in this

14:39

genre Then I

14:42

really do feel like this is gonna this is

14:44

gonna scratch an itch for you I

14:47

like the man's is a flower on a note What's

14:50

that fans of the genre take note? Thank you.

14:52

Thank you. Justin. This is how to take that

14:54

Yes, I was gonna say I like

14:56

that the the mech has flowers all over it. I

14:58

think that's very yeah Mine didn't

15:01

mine looked like an old Chevy.

15:03

I customized mine. Yeah, good American

15:05

Chevrolet And and

15:07

that worked for that worked for me I'm

15:10

done cool I'm

15:13

gonna talk about a different game which is

15:15

it would be wild if the

15:18

inverse were true Total

15:22

total tonal shift with

15:25

my game which is called mullet

15:27

mad jack This

15:29

game fucking looks buck wild and it's why I

15:32

picked it out of the list I Don't

15:36

necessarily know the bet. It's like

15:38

an ultra colorful cyberpunk

15:42

This game looks fucking sick Russ.

15:44

Yeah, I this from us. I'm

15:47

I said I was gonna play it It

15:50

it is like a super

15:52

colorful super gory violent cyberpunk

15:55

game The basic

15:57

premise is you are stuck in

16:00

like a running man style

16:02

death game show and you have

16:04

to run through these levels and

16:07

you only have 15 seconds to live in

16:09

each level but every time you kill someone

16:11

you get three extra seconds to live and

16:14

it kind of turns it into these

16:16

like death sprints where you're like running

16:19

through trying to survive by doing

16:21

these kills in a very rapid fashion and

16:23

like on screen there'll

16:25

be like cheers and celebration like from

16:28

the audience that it's watching at home

16:30

on the like fake live stream as

16:34

you kind of progress through it. There's

16:36

a host to the live stream and she comes

16:38

on at the end of each run and it's

16:40

like telling you know basically says how you're doing

16:42

and you're trying to like rescue a girl in

16:46

like very tropey traditional fashion

16:50

as you kind of progress through these levels. It

16:53

looks kind of like Hotline

16:55

Miami if it was a first person shooter.

16:57

Yeah. Yeah. It

17:00

has that like very harsh like

17:02

intense high contrast very colorful but

17:04

like intense vibe to

17:06

it. I think it's sillier

17:09

than Hotline Miami in that way like

17:11

I don't think it has the like

17:13

over serious tone that Hotline does. Right.

17:17

It definitely has a similar like you

17:20

know passion for extreme violence.

17:23

You'll get as you're kind of running through these levels

17:26

you'll use mostly guns, shotguns and sometimes

17:28

you get like a sword and things

17:30

like that and then you'll get these

17:32

like broken bottles and various other things

17:34

that you can kind of like do

17:36

finishing moves on enemies with and

17:39

those are like incredibly gory where you'll

17:41

just like jam a bottle into someone's

17:43

face and then you'll see like plus

17:46

five seconds of life because you use

17:48

the finishing move. So there's

17:50

that whole like constant like game. It's

17:52

like if ever

17:54

you needed to highlight the idea that

17:57

like people with epilepsy shouldn't play a

17:59

video game. This is the

18:01

most- I mean there may be accessibility settings, we don't

18:03

know, but yes it is, it is, it is not.

18:05

It definitely says at the top of the game

18:07

and it might need to be repeated like 16

18:09

other times throughout the game because within

18:12

the first 30 seconds my mind

18:14

was like fully awash with the

18:16

intensity that they're portraying here. It

18:19

looks like an

18:21

anime adaptation of that film, Crank.

18:25

Yeah, that would be pretty good. I gotta

18:27

keep my heart going so I just have

18:29

to do crazy shit. And

18:31

like I say that in a really flattering

18:34

way as a fan of- You've got

18:36

a phone that you're holding and you're offhand

18:38

at all times that has the timer on

18:40

it but it also has the display

18:42

of I assume MolotmadJack in sort of like

18:46

Wolfenstein guy style fashion. Correct.

18:49

This looks like my shit man, I

18:51

cannot wait to play this game. There's

18:53

also like you can kick guys- there's like a

18:56

bullet stormy kind of thing where you can kick

18:58

guys into things and you'll get more points so

19:00

you can kick them into like a fan or

19:02

like a vending machine and then the vending machine

19:05

will like pop out sodas and you

19:07

can get various upgrades that like enhance the power of

19:09

the soda. The thing that I haven't

19:11

really gotten into, there is- not to

19:13

like, you know, we've talked a

19:15

lot about a lot of roguelikes

19:18

recently. This is I guess one of

19:20

them insofar as you're going through

19:22

these levels and at the end of each level you

19:24

get a new upgrade or a new passive ability that

19:26

will enhance your ability to keep going. I was

19:30

mostly playing on like easy and normal just to

19:32

try it out and I didn't have too much

19:34

difficulty surviving. It's not like one of those ultra

19:36

hard roguelikes, but

19:38

it was fun to be able to like, oh, I'm going to use

19:40

a shotgun for this run now or I'm going to be able to

19:42

do like dual weapons, things like that.

19:45

Here's what I will say. I think aesthetically

19:48

and presentation wise, I was like

19:50

floored blown away totally over the

19:52

moon about it. It

19:54

didn't feel like the gameplay was able

19:56

to match that level of depth and

19:58

uniqueness in so far. Whereas I didn't feel

20:01

like I was doing a lot of different

20:03

stuff by the end of the demo, which

20:05

is slightly concerning. I hope that

20:07

the full version has, I

20:09

think, more maybe level diversity or

20:11

upgrade diversity enemies, stuff like that.

20:14

Because I felt like I was running into the same

20:16

kind of loop. But the

20:18

loop was fun, and I do think it's a

20:20

free demo, so at least people can check it

20:22

out for themselves and see if it's up your

20:25

alley. But that was finally hesitant. I can see

20:27

how that is probably, if you're literally off the

20:29

video, but I am encouraged that there are driving

20:31

sequences towards the end of the video. I

20:34

wasn't able to try any of the driving out in the

20:36

demo. Yeah, a little bit more

20:38

interesting places. There's also just a moment

20:41

where somebody's getting their head smashed in with a

20:43

book. There are, I

20:45

don't see a release window or anything.

20:47

Yeah, I haven't heard anything about when

20:50

it's finally coming out. I feel like

20:52

with Steam Next Fest stuff, that stuff

20:54

tends to be relatively close to release.

20:57

And this felt, like for a demo, very polished.

20:59

And I was playing on Steam Deck, it ran

21:01

great. So yeah, I'm

21:04

not sure exactly when the final version is, but

21:06

probably pretty soon. Well

21:09

that sounds cool, I'd like to play it. I'm

21:11

gonna leave the episode, I think, because

21:13

I've sneezed about 80 times, and I feel like

21:15

I'm really... Oh no. Well

21:17

that's okay, Griffin. That's alright, Griffin, you did

21:19

your job. Thank you everybody.

21:22

Good luck. I hope these last

21:24

two games aren't very good, or else I'll feel bad

21:26

for missing them. Okay, well we'll take

21:28

a break and we'll return without Griffin, who

21:31

I'm sure is probably fine, but maybe

21:33

not. Nope, bye! I

21:43

have one that's like, I feel like this

21:45

game is one of those, it's like, oh

21:47

yeah, that figures. That figures is

21:49

something you'd like. You

21:52

weeb, you daughter. I want to

21:54

push myself in a well for

21:56

enjoying Dyson Mancer, which

21:59

is... I mean the name

22:01

alone. I, yeah. Right? It's

22:03

tough, right? It's tough. Yeah, I knew

22:05

from the name, like, hello, welcome in. There's room in

22:07

the back. Fall down the seats. Hey, scoot over Solacereka.

22:09

I haven't played you in weeks. No,

22:14

so this is a run-based,

22:18

I feel like at this point the Slay

22:20

the Spire structure is so ubiquitous. I

22:23

don't know a short form way of saying it, but

22:25

you've got a run-based game

22:27

where you have a choice in what kind of

22:29

level you're going to take on. You want to

22:31

do a fight. You want to heal. You want

22:33

to go to a shop. Blacksmith, that kind of

22:35

structure. And

22:38

you are building a deck of

22:40

cards that you use to do

22:42

battle here. But

22:46

there's sort of two tweaks on

22:48

that formula, which

22:50

is always sort of some permutation of

22:52

Magic the Gathering or the

22:55

like. In this one, you

22:57

are able to basically tap

22:59

cards in a way that you would do in

23:01

Magic, not

23:04

mechanically the same, but same idea, where some cards

23:06

you can play as an action. Those

23:09

same cards, though, will have a mana value.

23:11

And there's different colors of mana. And

23:13

you can basically, like, discard

23:15

that to get that kind of mana.

23:18

And then you use the mana you've collected

23:21

and the actions to activate the cards. And

23:23

the cards are usually, you know, block

23:25

something, attack somebody, whatever. So that's a small

23:27

tweak. That's something else you have to kind

23:30

of manage. So you're

23:32

basically, if you don't want to use the card

23:34

in question, you burn it and get the mana

23:36

back to spend it elsewhere. Well,

23:39

the mana has different

23:41

colors. It's not

23:43

to spend elsewhere as much as it's to spend

23:46

specifically on a blue. Some cards

23:48

have an action cost and some cards have a mana

23:50

cost. You have to have the mana

23:52

and the action. This

23:55

is all very whatever. I

23:58

know. I also haven't mentioned dice

24:01

yet. So I'm very- Yeah, but we built that,

24:03

Russ. So this is a big twist. It's got

24:05

dice in it. No, it

24:08

has an element of randomness on

24:12

almost all the cards have some element

24:14

of randomness, except for your very basic

24:16

attack and block. And

24:19

the randomness is in the shape of a

24:21

die, and that die could be anywhere from

24:23

a D4 to D20

24:26

all the way up. There's

24:29

all kinds of different die, and that is what

24:31

will be represented on the card. So you may

24:33

have an attack that does 4D4,

24:37

which is not revolutionary at

24:39

all for people who do tabletop

24:41

games, but it's not necessarily something

24:44

that has been part of this

24:46

genre. Right. This

24:48

idea that every card has

24:50

an element of randomness,

24:53

and that makes it a lot more modular. But

24:58

they build on that with the

25:00

ability to change numbers

25:02

permanently also based on

25:04

a dice roll. So for instance,

25:07

when you start, you have this card called

25:09

the one die. It's extremely

25:11

powerful. And what it does is if

25:13

you play the one die, then

25:15

any number that is currently on

25:17

the screen, you can

25:20

permanently change to a D6 roll,

25:23

like to whatever you roll your D6. So

25:25

imagine you come up against a boss. He's got

25:28

like – most of the enemy

25:30

health bars are segmented a little

25:32

bit to prevent you from wiping them out

25:34

with one of these. But you

25:37

might see a boss who has 25 health,

25:40

and you can play

25:42

the one die to basically

25:46

lower it to six, or four, or three,

25:48

or whatever the dice roll is. Some

25:50

of those are permanent. Some of those

25:52

are temporary stat boosts. So you may

25:54

roll a D4, like

25:56

adds to your attack on one of

25:59

your cards. is only for that round, so you

26:01

wanna use that card as much as you

26:03

can. The

26:05

look is very cool. It has

26:07

a, I hate

26:10

talking about aesthetics because it's not my area of

26:12

expertise, but it reminds me of sort of a

26:14

80s Japanese animation,

26:20

or like a lot of 80s lower budget

26:22

animation. It kind of looked like David the

26:24

Gnome, or which I don't think was, I

26:27

think that was actually Spanish. But you get

26:29

the idea. It's got that vibe to it.

26:32

I don't wanna say Miyazaki because that summons up

26:34

things. It's not really. Not even Miyazaki. It's

26:36

like David the Gnome, or like TV animation, I

26:38

think is a good analog to it because

26:40

it's not the highest of, it's

26:43

not even a quality thing. It's just like an aesthetic thing. There's

26:46

a little bit more simplicity to it than you would

26:48

see in the movies or that era. Pastoral

26:53

would be a word. I think I would

26:55

summon up. It's very like chill. There's

26:57

a little bit of like light animation sort

26:59

of like in

27:02

the background, but it definitely

27:04

does have that, it has a very

27:06

chill, distinct vibe, and that's very cool.

27:09

I'm looking at the screenshot and I wanna fuck the

27:11

goose up so bad. You play from

27:13

first person, which

27:16

is kind of interesting. So like when

27:18

you play like the crossbow card, for

27:20

example, you see yourself take out a

27:23

crossbow and take the shot. So that's kind of

27:25

engaging. And they've got some

27:27

fun little, it's

27:29

early, right? So my thing I would say right

27:31

now is it

27:34

feels like one too

27:36

many levels of randomness

27:42

to where like the complexities of that

27:44

are tough to do on the fly.

27:46

Like the layering

27:48

of the dice on top of the cards sometimes

27:50

makes that a little bit hard to keep track

27:52

of everything. If I get, you

27:55

get the choice to choose a new card at the

27:57

end of a round, very classic for this sort of

27:59

genre. And I found myself really struggling

28:01

to know like what would actually be helpful. And

28:04

part of that is inexperience right in the demos. I haven't

28:07

played it a lot so I didn't have that experience. But

28:09

part of it is like it's not as much of

28:11

a slam dunk to get that card because there's a

28:13

chance it could be good and a chance it could

28:16

be bad. You know, it's a little bit more risk-reward.

28:20

It's interesting talking about this out loud

28:22

because I am realizing that

28:25

like a lot of this

28:27

is verbatim D&D. Like it

28:29

doesn't occur to me – it didn't occur to

28:31

me in practice of doing it. It doesn't feel

28:33

like that. But it is definitely what – that

28:36

idea of you make an attack but you're not going

28:39

to know how much damage it will do. Yeah, you'll

28:41

know, oh, it's going to do at least seven but

28:43

it might do as much as thirty. Right. You get

28:45

like a lucky break every now and then. I

28:48

want to go back to the aesthetic. One,

28:51

if people check it out, I strongly encourage you

28:53

to watch a video of it rather than the

28:55

screen. Because the screen – yeah, they

28:57

look almost too simplistic but the

29:00

art – it reminds me of like

29:03

Sesame Street interstitials and like the 7th and

29:05

the 80s. Oh, yeah, like

29:07

late 70s sort of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it's

29:09

like – it's all thing. It's really

29:12

pretty. I – the way the

29:14

characters move in it is they almost

29:16

like pulse. Yeah,

29:18

this looks great. It's

29:20

very chill. I don't know when it will be out but

29:23

well worth – well worth putting

29:25

the demo. Well worth checking out. It's developed

29:27

by Ultra Piggy Studio which I like. That's

29:30

called Dysonancer. Cool.

29:33

Spelled just like it sounds.

29:35

It is just spelling of

29:37

Dysonancer. Chris, play it. You

29:39

have one more demo for us to talk about. Sure.

29:42

I got one more and then I want to talk about

29:44

demos in general just a little bit after this. But I

29:47

brought Indica which

29:49

– have you all heard any – Heck yeah, dude. Yeah.

29:52

Yeah, baby. It's

29:54

a Wii game. No,

29:56

it's not a Wii game. I mean it's not a – well, you

29:58

know what, maybe it is a Wii game. Here's the

30:00

whole thing if it is not a weak game

30:02

calling it indica is a very strange It's

30:05

a choice. This is you it is 19th

30:09

century Russia, but it's an

30:11

alternate history Russia and you

30:14

play as a nun who has been booted

30:17

from her monastery For

30:19

I guess heresy because she hears an

30:21

inner voice and I think she believes

30:23

that that inner voice is the devil

30:25

and the demo

30:28

starts with you finding a man who

30:30

I Think believes

30:32

that he has been told by God to

30:34

go heal his arm his arm is kind

30:36

of like injured or

30:38

just I mean looks almost destroyed and

30:41

you to decide whether or not to set

30:43

out to this like I think it's like a What

30:48

is it called not a hospital? But like the places

30:51

where you'd go to get better in the hills back

30:53

in the day a Nuttery

30:56

sanitarium. I think I think like

30:58

a sanitarium And

31:01

in that that's kind of the premise of

31:03

the game. There is in the

31:05

demo one big puzzle

31:07

that you Go

31:10

about solving by a kind

31:12

of modifying the environment when these puzzle

31:14

moments happen your brain gets kind of

31:16

taken over by the devil and Reality

31:19

shifts and you have to pray to adjust

31:22

the environment back to normalcy, but you have

31:24

to let it go into the devil's face

31:27

also to like kind of navigate through the

31:29

space so you're kind of Merging

31:32

these two environments to get from point A to

31:34

point B if you use any one environment You

31:36

wouldn't be able to get to the end that

31:39

does not make any sense to me. Is there any

31:41

way to like? Let me

31:43

try it again ready. Okay, so you

31:45

need to get to from point A You

31:48

need to get from let's say You're

31:50

in a big factory and you For

31:54

people at home. It's a 3d

31:56

like third-person 3d

31:58

third-person very realistic looking

32:00

game. Okay. You're now in a

32:02

factory and you look to

32:04

the other end of the factory and you see

32:06

a doorway and the upper, the

32:09

second floor of the factory, but there

32:12

are barriers blocking between

32:14

you and that door and that door is

32:16

on the second floor, there's no stairwell, how

32:18

are you going to get up there? You

32:21

can go into this kind of like

32:23

devil vision side of yourself and

32:26

the environment shifts and suddenly there's

32:28

a stairwell, but now there are

32:30

huge gaps between you and

32:32

that door. So then you need to shift

32:34

back by praying to the real world to

32:37

be able to get a little bit further

32:39

and you're shifting back and forth to kind

32:41

of navigate a 3D space. Got it. Do

32:43

you have a sense that like that's the

32:45

main mechanic that goes throughout or you don't

32:47

know? So that maybe, but here's, here's what

32:50

I love about this game. It's not that

32:52

that stuff is like fine enough and

32:55

interesting. What I love about this game

32:57

is it is cinematic in the truest

33:00

sense of the word and it struck

33:02

me immediately playing this how few games

33:04

that even that want to be cinematic

33:06

and want to borrow from movies actually

33:10

consider how movies are made on a

33:12

shot by shot basis, like how cameras

33:15

work, where they should be placed, what

33:17

lenses you should use, how you should

33:19

light it and that every shot you

33:21

make has to have those choices made.

33:24

So in an example, just

33:26

the very beginning of the game, the very beginning

33:28

moment, you open on this

33:31

fuzzy image and it's almost

33:33

like polygon like looks like a

33:35

PS one model of like half a face,

33:38

but you realize that you're just out of

33:40

focus and as you come into focus, you

33:42

see this woman's face against the snowy background

33:44

and she's distraught, right? Now you

33:46

cut to a wide shot and you

33:48

see that this woman has what looks like a

33:50

dead body right next to her. Then

33:52

we cut in closer to get like a reaction.

33:55

There's a lot of these fish eye lenses that

33:57

are used to like put you in her head.

34:00

Then we cut to a shot that is like

34:02

her looking down at the body and the body

34:04

moves. Now suddenly the man is alive. All

34:07

of those things, it sounds so simple and

34:09

said out loud, that is not

34:11

how most video games shoot that scene. Most

34:13

video games, it's just like, I don't

34:16

know, here's a wide shot and the guy's waking

34:18

up. But each of those shots, it's like we

34:20

are bringing brought into the world and we're meeting

34:22

the character and now we're learning the mystery of

34:24

the situation. Is this man alive or dead? And

34:27

we're learning the next step. Each shot

34:29

is moving the story along and using

34:31

the lenses and the lighting and

34:33

honestly the performances, which are unbelievable.

34:35

I do not know how they

34:37

mocapped this game, but they are

34:41

exceptional, realistic.

34:45

It's fantastic. And if all

34:48

this game is mostly

34:50

a kind of like lightly playable

34:52

film, that would be

34:55

okay because the performances are stellar

34:57

and the writing is just really

34:59

interesting. So I mentioned that it's

35:02

about this alternate history

35:04

19th century Russia. The game

35:06

is really just picking at

35:09

the church, specifically the

35:11

Russian Orthodox Church and like, what is

35:13

faith? What does it mean to have

35:15

voices in your head? What does it

35:17

mean to make choices to care for

35:19

people when that goes against institutions? What's

35:23

kind of cool is that if it's alternate

35:25

history 19th century Russia, it

35:29

might as well be real history 19th

35:31

century Russia because I wouldn't know the

35:33

difference. That is

35:35

true, except for you do ride

35:37

a motorbike that pretty much immediately

35:40

I was like, I don't think

35:42

those ever existed. Ed Begweger wasn't

35:44

around back then. Yeah, but it

35:47

is great. The music is great. How

35:50

It is thinking about video games to their

35:52

collectibles in the game that are like religious

35:55

artifacts. When you collect them, it kind of

35:57

triggers almost like an arcadey point score as

35:59

you. Come out there to God

36:01

we're on which seems like a antithetical

36:03

to the visual style are going for,

36:06

but I don't know if it works,

36:08

it's just it's so nice whenever I

36:10

get to pay game and you can

36:12

feel people making choices and even if

36:15

I don't like every choice they are

36:17

like constantly. Choosing. To

36:19

do something arms, wings or billion made

36:21

right? Yes they nine a little hated

36:23

you being in the situation that you

36:25

are in like you can feel them

36:27

sort of communicating to you because they

36:29

they have thought through this. Yes

36:32

in a intercepted what you anticipated.

36:34

So go into a moody environment

36:36

you're like okay and this is

36:38

when the like moody music comes

36:40

on and instead like a really

36:42

eerie funny electronic like drone comes

36:44

on and a down know he

36:46

just kind of. It's like was

36:48

always a step ahead of where

36:50

my brain thought the game would

36:52

go. I'm very quick and for

36:54

the developer and they were in

36:56

Russia when they started this game

36:58

I believe it ten of the

37:00

fourteen developers. Laughed at the

37:03

beginning of Russia as war

37:05

on Ukraine. And

37:08

they have been making I think

37:10

in Kazakhstan and since then. Which

37:13

I mean again, when you play the game, you. Would

37:16

understand quite clearly why they decided

37:19

to leave. Yeah I'm ah but

37:21

yeah it is. It's really promising.

37:23

I really I really hope that

37:25

they stick. The landing it is

37:27

is right now for me while

37:29

others this and dragon segments you

37:31

are kind of my like to

37:33

most anticipated games for moving forward

37:35

this one it looks like you

37:37

to Twenty Twenty four so we

37:39

are closing only authorities. Yes,

37:42

Yes, Accent. I didn't wanna

37:44

tag that them as well because I've question for both

37:46

of which is yes. Winded Demos

37:49

Come back. This.

37:51

Is actually. It when. receive

37:53

just sit doing demos as like what

37:55

are you on about man before or

37:58

during demos like i i i Really,

38:00

for me, I kind of thought demos went

38:03

away with like post 360. You

38:05

know, like that was the last era where

38:08

I feel like, and demos were a big

38:10

deal back then. It's like late 2000s, early

38:12

20s, like we would do post.

38:16

And even through the 90s, like the shareware era

38:19

is all demos. We would do, but as far

38:21

as like on these like marketplaces, we would do

38:23

like posts of like, here are the demos that

38:25

are out this week on, it was a huge

38:27

deal when a big demo would drop. Yeah,

38:29

I think what happened was because

38:32

companies need to pay for certification,

38:34

even for demos, it was basically

38:36

a loss for them. So

38:38

that's why you see very few demos these

38:40

days coming to consoles. They

38:43

do have like PlayStation, I know if you subscribe

38:45

to like the highest tier, you can get like

38:47

free previews of games, or I guess it's included

38:50

in the subscription. But those

38:52

I think are just like the finished game and you just

38:54

get like a portion of it, like you can just play

38:56

for a certain amount of hours. Right. So

38:58

they don't need to recertify it, but

39:00

for demos, it was like a huge cost.

39:02

Now in the case of this episode, it's

39:04

pretty clear, we just used Steam games, and

39:07

obviously on Steam, you're not necessarily having

39:09

to pay extra when you upload the

39:11

demo versus the finished product. So I

39:14

think that is why we've seen, especially

39:16

smaller games trying to like make their

39:18

self known, they're using things like Steam

39:20

Next Fest as a way to like

39:22

get more attention, which mission accomplished. I

39:25

like demos, I think it's a good, I think this

39:27

won't be the last time we do this format, if

39:30

only because like, you know,

39:32

we traditionally, in many years past, we used

39:34

to all play four different games and come

39:36

together and talk about all four different huge

39:39

games, and that's obviously a lot and not

39:41

something that we can always do. But

39:45

these like kind of bite sized experiences, I

39:47

think are easier for each of us to

39:49

play our own thing and then come together and kind of pitch

39:51

it. And it's also like great,

39:53

because it'll mean that I think some of these

39:55

games will get full episodes in the future if

39:57

they, you know, really do a great job. So

40:00

I think this is like a really good preview format.

40:03

Yeah, it's fun to see. On

40:05

that demo note that you were saying, Fresh, I

40:08

also feel like we're seeing more demos

40:11

where they kind of are just the opening

40:13

of the game, and the

40:15

save progress continues from it,

40:17

which makes sense, I guess,

40:19

as an investment in what you're talking

40:21

about of getting it certain.

40:23

It's worth it if it's not

40:26

just giving people a taste,

40:28

but actually getting them hooked into the

40:30

game. I think Unicorn Overlord

40:32

does this. I think one of the final fantasy

40:35

demos. I know Final Fantasy Rebirth does.

40:37

I did actually hear someone did that, where

40:40

they played the demo of Rebirth and then

40:42

played the main game, and did say that

40:44

they had to walk slowly as Cloud through

40:46

the fire twice, even though they

40:48

said they would just progress where they were at the

40:50

end of the demo. But broadly

40:52

speaking, I think it's a

40:54

good thing when there are demos that were the

40:56

main progress carried over. I gotta be honest, though,

40:59

I don't like when there's a demo for a

41:01

game that's not out yet. I

41:03

like demos as like a, oh, I'm going to buy

41:05

this right now. Yeah. I don't

41:07

know. I don't like this. Well, I think in a

41:09

lot of these cases, these aren't going to go away

41:12

when the full game is out. I know, but I

41:14

worry I'll forget. I guess that's why we're not. Maybe I

41:17

have to start. I want it now. Maybe I

41:19

have to start wish list. So much stuff

41:21

comes out that I never know when

41:23

I'm going to be in the mood for something.

41:25

Some of these sound like, oh, I'd play that

41:27

right now. But in two months, I don't know,

41:29

man. Yeah. I've been wish listing a lot more using

41:31

Steam. And that really

41:33

helps because it'll just email you when the thing is

41:35

actually out. And developers love

41:37

it when you wish list. That

41:40

makes them very happy. OK.

41:43

I think we have some reader mail that

41:45

was specifically regarding this topic.

41:47

Because obviously, we pivoted and

41:50

changed the subject

41:52

of this episode. But we sent

41:54

out a letter as part of our

41:56

newsletter, besties.fan, for that newsletter. Sign up

41:58

if you haven't. joined already and

42:01

asked people what they've been playing using I guess

42:04

not only the Steam Next Fest demos but also

42:06

any other demos and so we got

42:08

some recommendations this first one comes from Kate

42:11

normal fishing was an easy favorite from

42:13

Next Fest Haunty and Tales

42:16

of Kenzara as close seconds I

42:18

looked up normal fishing I

42:20

instantly regretted not having played this because

42:22

this game looks fucking dope it's

42:24

like a Game Boy fishing

42:27

game with like a narrative I guess it's

42:29

like Legend of the River

42:31

King? It kind of that was my immediate

42:33

thought was like Legend of the River King it

42:36

kind of looks a lot like that and

42:38

I'm super psyched about it this

42:41

is coming from the developers called the

42:44

Borg and

42:47

yeah it looks sick a lot of people actually

42:49

in the comments were mentioning how much they like

42:51

normal fishing it seems like it's an early big

42:53

hit for people I okay

42:55

so I clicked this expecting like

42:57

very cutesy Legend of the Fisher

42:59

King River King whichever

43:02

it is aesthetic

43:04

no these these

43:06

looks are hilarious there's

43:09

like a giant crab monster everybody looks

43:11

like a little bit like they've been

43:13

playing some indica this looks this looks

43:16

really good but this but it is

43:18

like Game Boy level like kind of

43:20

art style yeah yeah

43:23

yeah very pixelated but

43:25

yeah weird definitely weird yeah

43:29

this looks sick um the next

43:31

one we have is from Andrew Pepper Grinder

43:33

is my most anticipated game from this fest

43:35

and possibly for the year don't know if

43:37

any best use loves Celeste but I feel

43:39

like it lives in that space of challenging

43:41

but satisfying platforming very pumped Frush

43:44

and I can't remember if we talked about this

43:46

on a best user arrestees

43:48

like a year or two ago

43:50

maybe longer I think it's like four years

43:53

ago that we might have played an early

43:55

time ago we got access to

43:57

a demo of this through I think

44:00

that IGF the independent maybe

44:02

a vegetable and we're really into it,

44:04

but it was so early and I

44:06

am Thrilled

44:08

to get back to it. I honestly I

44:11

did not bother playing the demo Because

44:13

I already know I'm gonna really like this

44:15

and I want to play the full game

44:18

Yeah, it would not surprise me if we

44:20

ended up doing a full episode whether it's

44:22

a main besties episode or arrestees or something

44:24

on this But yeah, definitely stay tuned because

44:26

it looks pretty effing sick I download that

44:29

demo. It's it's cool. It reminds me of

44:31

like a Dig dug

44:33

met echo the dolphin. Oh like

44:36

that like the Digging

44:38

through with your drill It's very the motion

44:40

of trying to get those arcs right reminds

44:42

me of like trying to get a

44:45

flow going and echo the dolphin Yeah, the

44:47

second Ori game had a mechanic that was

44:49

kind of similar But it's cool to see

44:51

a game that is like fully built around

44:53

that idea Cool

44:55

we have another recommendation this comes from Bruce pine

44:58

hearts. It's an absolutely gorgeous adorable

45:00

game I played the demo for

45:02

an hour and desperately wanted more.

45:04

Do you guys have you heard anything about

45:06

pine hearts? No

45:09

familiar with this one Do you

45:11

pine arts on steam is described as

45:13

a as a cozy little narrative adventure

45:16

game set in the sleepy scenario of

45:18

pine hearts caravan perk Explore

45:20

the great outdoors uncover items unlock new paths

45:23

and secrets to the park. Yeah,

45:25

it's very chill very colorful Isometric

45:27

you play as a person who looks

45:30

part person almost like a mushroom because they're wearing

45:32

a little beanie Yeah,

45:34

it looks a little tunic e but

45:37

probably not combat heavy as much as

45:39

like just exploration and Yeah

45:43

Yeah, just very cutesy art style and tunic

45:45

e by way of costume quest. Yeah

45:48

Look, it's yeah, it's come to quest a little relevant

45:50

reference No

45:53

costume quest there was like an

45:55

Amazon kids show I think so

45:57

maybe maybe you never know who is raising

46:00

costume quest. OK,

46:02

we have two more letters with recommendations. This

46:04

one comes from Brooke. I just put

46:06

a demo for the upcoming Stardew Valley-like that

46:08

was really good. It's called Little Known

46:10

Galaxy, and it's available on Steam Deck. It's

46:13

Stardew, except you're on a spaceship. Once

46:16

again, how have I not actually, how

46:20

has there not been a Stardew Valley on a

46:22

spaceship before? That seems like a missed opportunity. Yeah.

46:25

I want Stardew, but it's the Martian. You

46:28

know what I mean? I'm harvesting my own dude,

46:30

Keek, to eat this scared potato. You're completely alone.

46:32

There's no one to love. Yeah, you're completely alone.

46:35

I throw little birthday parties for myself. I

46:38

have to give myself quests. That

46:41

would be amazing. As the game goes on, you get

46:44

more and more imaginary citizens of your little town. This

46:46

is actually an extremely good idea for a video game.

46:48

We have to stop right now. There

46:51

is a game called Mars First Logistics that kind

46:53

of reminds me of that, where you have to

46:55

build the vehicle so I can accomplish very simple

46:57

tasks. And you don't have imaginary friends. Yeah, you

46:59

don't have to tear us down. We've got the

47:02

fun part. OK,

47:04

we have one more letter. This comes from Ian

47:06

Kay. We're not really going to do it. This

47:09

letter comes from Ian Kay. Death Trek Double Blind

47:11

caught me by surprise. It's a really great ace

47:13

attorney like about investigating a murder in a circus.

47:16

I was so taken with the writing and replayed the

47:18

demo to learn more about the characters, and the art

47:20

is solid too. OK, we have to

47:22

talk about the phrase ace attorney like. If

47:24

you are so deeply enamored of that format, that

47:27

you've played all those, and you're like, there's got

47:29

to be more exactly like this, my heart goes

47:31

out to you. Because I would say ace attorney

47:33

like, it's not a genre that is particularly

47:36

replete with. I mean, it is. Capcom made

47:38

like a gajillion of them. Clearly there's a

47:41

lot. But like, that should

47:43

be enough for anybody. It's

47:45

just like a visual novel, right? Like that's

47:48

more with like light gameplay mechanics. But most

47:50

of it is like just

47:52

a visual novel, right? Yeah,

47:54

it varied in the amount of like puzzle

47:56

solving that you would have to do or

47:58

in vacation. Yeah, that

48:01

sounds cool. Those

48:03

games are ones that I feel like

48:05

are so in my

48:07

head, they're so perfectly fit to

48:09

play with a stylus.

48:13

Like in my head, that's the ideal way of

48:15

playing those games, where you have the screen in

48:17

front of you, but also a stylus in your

48:19

hand. Is it because you feel like you want

48:21

to kind of rest the stylus against your chin,

48:23

like you're thinking about it? I

48:26

know, with the fidelity, you can tap

48:28

the stuff on those. I

48:32

should have mentioned, actually, super quick with

48:34

Dyson Mancer, I played it on

48:36

Steam Deck, and right now it does not have

48:40

traditional controller support. I

48:43

was using the trackpad to play through it,

48:46

and the text was very

48:48

tiny. So obviously pre-release, but

48:50

not optimized for Steam Deck

48:52

currently. Okay, I think

48:54

we have some honorable mentions. I've

48:57

been very busy. I saw

48:59

Dune Part 2 last night,

49:01

and that two-movie duo is

49:05

one of the best series of

49:07

any movie I've ever seen. Like,

49:09

movie-wise, fucking, they both rule, and

49:12

the second one rules, and it

49:14

sticks to landing, and man,

49:17

I was just totally blown away. If

49:19

you have the ability to see it in a theater, please

49:22

do so, because it is really quite

49:24

the experience. I know everyone can't always

49:26

get to a theater, or it's not

49:28

safe, but for people that can, please

49:31

do so, because holy shit, I had

49:34

such an amazing experience, and I

49:37

just want more people to really have that

49:39

experience as well. For what it's worth, I

49:42

never read the book. I knew it

49:44

had sandworms in it. That was basically

49:46

it. I was just so

49:48

impressed by their ability to

49:51

not only summarize the things you needed to know

49:53

about this world, and bring

49:55

you in in a way that made sense,

49:58

but did it in a way that didn't feel like it was worth it. I was

50:00

doing homework to like try to like keep all this

50:02

stuff in my brain like I was very

50:04

engaged with the first movie and then by the time

50:06

the second movie came around like They felt

50:09

like they had done all that groundwork so

50:11

it's really just kind of a sprint through

50:13

like of various like action scenes and like

50:16

you know serious character development moments

50:19

that just make it's just

50:21

so like well produced and Gorgeous and

50:24

the music is amazing and performances

50:26

are great. I was just blown away

50:28

incredible the The

50:31

other thing I want to talk about is a game called

50:34

Ultros Which is a

50:36

Metroidvania? That

50:38

is Unlike any video

50:40

game visually speaking that I've ever seen

50:43

it is like a totally trippy like

50:47

psychedelic Metroidvania, which I don't think any

50:49

one has really tackled that art style

50:51

in that genre before and I'm

50:55

gonna talk about I'm gonna talk more about

50:57

it because we're doing a resties episode about

50:59

it That's coming out next week. So

51:02

stay tuned for that. But yeah,

51:04

if you're into like weird trippy

51:07

Metroidvania games Ultros

51:10

is definitely worth checking out. It's

51:12

available right now for everyone. So Definitely

51:16

look into it because it's bizarre

51:19

I have actually two books that I wanted to recommend the

51:22

first is I have finished Crooked

51:26

Kingdom, which is the sequel

51:29

to six of crows which

51:31

is part of a duology in Lee

51:35

Bardugo's like Fantasy

51:39

world if any of

51:41

that Makes

51:43

any sense to you at all, you know what I'm talking about, but

51:45

this is a I've

51:48

talked about this series before it's interesting because

51:50

there is a trilogy of books

51:52

that I think are weaker than these in this

51:54

fantasy world and this Duology

51:56

of six of crows in the kingdom follows a

51:59

gang of like six thieves inside

52:01

this fantasy world and that felt a

52:03

lot different than a lot

52:05

of these types of books and you really

52:07

feel her like improving over the

52:09

series. But you

52:12

know, you should read those. I

52:14

think you can start with Six of Crows, fine. But the

52:16

background colors you get in the first trilogy which is Shadow

52:19

and Bone which is turned into

52:22

a Netflix series. It's that

52:24

same like series. The

52:27

other one I want to recommend really quick is The Appeal.

52:30

This is a book that actually Sydney and

52:32

I decided to read together. So we were

52:34

reading that sort of like asynchronously and talking

52:37

about it. It is a

52:40

murder mystery set in

52:42

a British community

52:44

theater. Someone

52:47

in the community theater is murdered. But

52:51

the way the book is told and

52:54

there's a word for this and you probably

52:56

know but the

52:59

whole thing is like letters. Oh,

53:02

epistolary. Epistolary. It's an epistolary novel.

53:06

Thank God we can't say it around for this. It's

53:09

e-pistolary like e-hiphant because it's like

53:11

all digital. It's

53:14

all like emails between

53:16

people in the theater group, right? And

53:18

that is like the – there's

53:21

a couple of like court filings and stuff like that

53:23

but as a framing device you

53:25

see the – like the first thing in the

53:27

book is these two like law

53:29

students texting each other about the

53:31

case. And then

53:34

you are reviewing the evidence,

53:36

quote unquote, evidence with them and the evidence

53:38

is these emails that went back and forth

53:41

to people in the community group, in this

53:43

community theater group. So a lot of it

53:45

is like – a

53:47

lot of the emails are like regular just

53:49

drama. It's like just theater drama

53:52

which is hilarious. There is

53:54

a backdrop of a fundraising

53:56

campaign for a child's

53:59

like – treatment that may or

54:01

may not be legitimate, so that's

54:03

like one of the colors in there.

54:05

But you eventually are having to – the

54:08

game of the novel really is trying to like suss

54:11

out the signal from

54:13

noise to find what is

54:15

like these interesting, funny, but

54:17

ultimately like not relevant diversions from

54:20

like the actual case. And it

54:22

really does build up – it's

54:25

very impressive the extent to which

54:27

it can mimic the beats of

54:29

a traditional novel with a build

54:32

to a climax and an anticlimax, like a

54:34

real sense of like things

54:37

speeding up and accelerating and intensifying towards

54:39

the end of the book. But

54:42

I just found it really – How do you read a

54:44

book like that with another person? Well,

54:46

what we do is we set a page

54:49

goal for the nights – for the weekly night

54:51

that we're going to talk about it. So like

54:54

by next Wednesday night, you have to have gotten

54:56

to page 100. Oh. And

54:59

you stop there, and then we start to talk. That kind of makes sense. Can I make

55:01

a recommendation for a different approach? Yeah,

55:03

please. Voices, that you

55:06

read it back to each other as characters, and

55:09

then you perform the role of Terrence,

55:11

and she performs the role of Philip

55:14

Saland. But then you also perform

55:16

the role of Jeffrey and

55:19

the role of Jessica,

55:21

and then she performs the role of everyone else. One

55:24

problem with that plan is I

55:26

do that for a living, and she is not getting

55:28

it for free. You know what I mean? Like if

55:30

she wants me to turn on – I

55:33

didn't think you could charge it. You want me to crank

55:35

up the well after hours? Hold on

55:37

a second. I

55:39

think I have a little – I just had to

55:41

do some voices for the kids' stories, so you know

55:43

that that's the last I had in the tank. I

55:47

do have friends who they alternate

55:49

each night reading a book to

55:52

each other when they're going to sleep, and I think

55:54

that's the cutest thing I've ever heard. That is so

55:56

nice. I could not imagine. I would – fall

56:00

asleep right away in both scenarios. That

56:05

book sounds great. My thing

56:07

is like a dragon infinite

56:09

wealth. I'm still just pointing away. Heck yeah,

56:11

baby! I love this game so much.

56:13

Did you free yourself from Dumbo Co. Island yet? I

56:17

did not finish it, but I have forced myself

56:19

to step away from it because I do want

56:21

to keep moving. There are 14 chapters in

56:23

the game. I am at

56:26

the start of chapter 13. So I

56:28

was nearing the conclusion that good

56:31

golly, I was amazing with

56:34

this game. I have played quite

56:36

a few because the games have not finished, I

56:39

think all but one. There

56:41

are many I haven't played. Nonetheless, you

56:43

can still really enjoy all of

56:46

this game's kind of

56:48

like retrospective nature that it's always

56:50

looking back on those games because

56:52

the way it works if you don't know

56:55

what happened in those games is kind

56:57

of like a novel where the character is just

57:00

giving you these little anecdotes from their past. So

57:03

even if you don't have that nostalgia kick,

57:06

it still works really

57:08

well at fleshing out these

57:10

two main characters in the

57:13

game. Yeah, I didn't feel

57:15

lost when new characters were introduced as

57:17

I'm playing through it. I'm nowhere near

57:19

where you are, but I really appreciated

57:21

that. They didn't talk

57:24

down to me because I didn't understand that

57:26

Kiryu had a relationship with

57:29

such and such. Yes, in it.

57:31

Well, we really are going

57:33

to do a spoiler episode at some point

57:35

in the next quarter. We'll

57:38

go into it more then, but I

57:41

think this game is really something special

57:43

and I hope more people play it.

57:45

I finished it and it's one of

57:47

the best endings I've seen in a

57:49

video game. I can't wait. Okay,

57:52

I think we did it. Plant, you want to recap

57:54

everything we talked about? Yeah, we

57:56

talked about a lot today. We

57:59

talked about Lightyear Frontier, Mullet Mad

58:01

Jack. Dysomancer, Indica, Deathtrick, Doubleblind, Little

58:03

Known Galaxy, Pineheart, Normal Fishing, Peppergrinder.

58:06

We also talked about Dune Part

58:08

2. Sounds like a freaking Manchurian

58:10

candidate activation code. The

58:13

way you read those off, I was like, who am I

58:16

supposed to say? Justin

58:20

brought two books with Crooked Kingdom and

58:22

The Appeal. And

58:24

then also, Ultros and

58:26

Window Kill we're going to talk about

58:28

on next week's Resties. And we're also

58:30

going to talk about Unicorn

58:33

Overlord on next week's

58:35

Besties. There is a demo

58:37

for that. For the people that don't want to buy it

58:39

and want to just check it out, you can download a

58:41

demo. Apparently, it's quite long. It's like six hours. So you

58:43

need to do that. Cool.

58:46

I want to thank the following

58:49

patrons from the Patreon at patreon.com/the

58:51

besties, Will Jones, Jade,

58:54

Tapias Sari, Andrew

58:56

Mallets, and Gartholomew Jones, which I

58:59

hope is your real name because

59:01

Gartholomew brings me a lot of

59:03

joy. Thank you so

59:05

much for all the support

59:07

and for everyone else who has supported the Patreon.

59:10

We love how it's growing and

59:12

doing and we love doing the bonus

59:14

content. It's been an absolute

59:16

blast. So yeah,

59:19

thank you. We already talked about next

59:21

week. Justin, you don't have to say

59:23

it out loud again if you don't want

59:25

to, but you can wrap up the show.

59:27

Unicorn Overlord is going to be a surprise.

59:29

I feel like, you know what guys, I'm

59:31

trying to keep it in check lately because

59:33

I've been on a weird tear

59:37

of really getting into games

59:39

that I otherwise wouldn't touch. I'm trying to

59:42

not make decisions before

59:46

I've seen it. You know what I mean?

59:48

There should be an easier way of saying

59:50

like keeping my mind open, but looking at

59:53

the front of it, you wouldn't necessarily have

59:55

an opinion based on what the front looks

59:57

like. Do you ever take a book from

1:00:00

a... shelf when you're at the store

1:00:02

and then you look at the book jacket

1:00:04

and you don't really even read

1:00:07

it. You just look at the jacket and you're

1:00:09

like, fuck this. And then you shove it

1:00:11

back on the shelf. Do you know what I mean? I

1:00:13

do. I do. I wish

1:00:15

there was a way to summarize that. I'm trying to avoid that. That'll be

1:00:17

next week. Unless it doesn't,

1:00:19

you know, things happen. And

1:00:24

I hope you'll join us for that and so

1:00:26

much more. Till then, be sure to join us

1:00:28

again next week for the besties because

1:00:31

shouldn't the world's best friends pick

1:00:33

the world's best games? Besties!