The Besties - Citizen Sleeper 2 Blends Game and Story Into One Complex Dish

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

We loved the original Citizen Sleeper, but were intimidated when we first heard the news of a sequel that would be more complicated — and presumably more difficult. Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector is just as complex as we expected and yet, once we got our feet beneath us, we couldn't stop playing.What makes a game difficult? Is it fun to lose? What does it mean to be “in the mood” for a game? We have the answers!Plus, Loco Motive — an extremely Justin McElroy game. Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

So I'm, I got all my All Hallows Steve's here. And you guys know that they're all character actors named Steve, right? So, but you guys can see on the camera, but I'm betting that you guys will be able to identify my All Hallows Steve's. Can I play this game? Cause I know you're All Hallows Steve's.

No, you obviously played this game. That seems like cheating. Okay. And you did already tell us some of them. So maybe they're ones that we haven't seen. I wasn't like pointing at a specific cube. Oh, OK. So yeah, some things that we know you have.

We know that you got Steven Yeun. Great choice. I think, frankly, this is a cold up, and we don't need to turn it into a full one act plot. Listen. OK, who is this? Oh, I see the game. Oh, I'm not playing this game.

I don't want to play this game. I don't want to play this game. I don't want to play this game. That was a gimme. That's Steven Ewan. That's beautiful. This bit is very visual. Yeah, I know. That's why it's a good cold open. So what about this one? Okay. Steven Root or Steven Fogg?

Wait, wait, wait. No, no, no. Steven Tobolowski. Fuck yeah, Russ. You got it, buddy. Crushed it. You got it, dude. Well, let me just say, for those that don't know people Tobolowski. He was Bing and groundhog Good he's also a great like Storytellers got a great podcast anyway, it's interesting that you're mixing Steve's and Steve's also this is called open nobody's hearing this okay? That's Steven root like pretty good for somebody

Yeah, and these are little pumpkins that Justin's drawn That's Steven Root. Like pretty good for somebody who's like not good at art. Yeah. And these are little pumpkins that Justin's drawn. That's not important. This isn't in the podcast. They're like stipple drawings. Who are you saying that to, Griffin? It's like Wall Street Journal profiles. But the cold open is Steve Jobs?

What? I was gonna guess Steve Jobs. That was also my guess. Steve Jobs. That's not one of my favorite character actors. This is, I will admit, this is from his later silver fox era, okay, does that help? It's from later. No guessing Steve. I'm later silver Foxy seagull. No Come on character actors named Steve later silver Steve Corral there. He is you got him in the first guess Okay, he doesn't have the hardest one jobs. Oh

You got him in the first guess. Okay. Now this is the hardest one. He doesn't have the hair like Steve Jobs. Oh, God. It's the hardest one, but if you did the- Justin's holding up a pumpkin with a really- Okay, so here's what I slender fit. Who are you telling, Griffith?

This isn't in the podcast. This is the first thing in the podcast. It's not in the podcast, Griffith. This is just scraps on the editing floor that Rachel might hear, but no one else. Okay, now. Here's what it looks like. You know that guy who's a ghost in Ghost and is teaching Patrick Swayze how to be a ghost? Oh what it looks like. You know that guy who's a ghost in Ghost

and is teaching Patrick Swayze how to be a ghost? Oh, yeah, yeah, that guy. Vincent something, but it's not a Steve. So not a Steven. Is it, is it Steven King in? The best, this is the best number one. This is the best number one. The best Steve. Steve Buscemi.

There it is. You guys got all five of them. So like, can I ask a serious question now? Should be bigger eyes. This wouldn't be in the podcast, but like, what do you guys think? How do you think of me as an artist or a drawer? Now we see a pair of five Steve faces.

Five Steve faces? Pretty good. Are we doing an average or are we doing- Griffin knows whether or not I'm a good drawer, so he can't base- I've seen Justin do drawings. He had Griffin do drawings. I would say hit or miss. I just want to say some of them I just am curious if you think I'm a good drawer Some of them great and some of them not so great like a hobbyist. Okay. Yeah, that's accurate. Yeah, that's what he is

It's not enthusiast. I mean, well my bones you want to see how I make my bones. Yeah Here I go. Oh shit, he's growing. Whoa! Oh god, I'm about to cast! Juice, no! It's too bad they can't see that dance. Yeah, it's a shame. My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy and I know the best game of the week.

My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best sequel of the week. My name is Russ Froshing and I know the best game of the week. Welcome to the Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive inter-game-ment. It is a video game club in actuality. And by listening to this podcast, you've joined our ranks. This week on the show, we're gonna be talking about a follow-up to a Besties fan favorite,

and Besties favorite, I guess, just besties favorite overall, Citizen Sleeper 2. Chris Plant, what on earth is that? Citizen Sleeper 2. It's not on earth. It's not on this earth. Sequel to a beloved sci-fi narrative game

by Gareth Damien Martin. They are one of the more interesting designers out there, and I can't wait to talk about how this game blends tabletop with just incredible amounts of daring frustration. I say that largely as a good thing, after the break. We love the first game. We did love the first game.

If you missed that one, basically you're an android, or a robot, right? There's no difference. Then you're a clone. Well, it's confusing. You're a synthetic human. How's that? Synthetic human.

You're a consciousness in a robot body. There, okay. Yeah, in a robot body that's basically going to destruct if it does not maintain, and it is very expensive. So you're doing jobs in gritty space stations in this sort of post-war galactic environment, and just basically getting by by the skin of your cyber teeth. Right, it's very much an experience

about balancing some resources, things that you can, and what you can and can't do without, and making really hard choices, I think. Not a lot of getting comfortable. It's very much about what sacrifice and... It's very, very cool. Mechanically, you have a character sheet with five stats

that you have different scores in, and then you have different D6 dice rolls that you can do for different checks, which come with different sort of like danger ratings. And so like, it's a question of like, how much do I wanna push this day? Cause I'm dying. So like, I need to make a little bit of money

so I can afford my special robot medicine. That was basically Citizen Sleeper in a nutshell. Bunch of different endings, bunch of different stories, bunch of different ways that it could go. Very, very cool. Citizen Sleeper 2 seems to kind of blow the roof off, blow the roof off the thing a little bit. The roof's been blown off in many ways, Griffin.

Can you clarify how the, in what way the roof has been blown off? I would say the biggest differentiator between Citizen Sleeper, and this may have been like a component of Citizen Sleeper that I don't remember. I think you guys probably got a little deeper into it than I did. Now you have a ship with a crew and you go out on jobs

and you basically have these little microcosmic experiences that are short, very fucking stressful, like encapsulations of the whole loop of the game. So you'll be going through the space station, and it's like, oh my god, we need these special tubes for our ship before this guy catches up to us, or we'll die.

You can either just do a bunch of work around the space station and try to scrounge up enough money, or you can go out on a contract job and have a little five day jaunt into the inky blackness of space that might not go, probably won't go great for you, but it adds all these different systems. You have like crew that get their own dice that you can spend, they have their own stats.

Yeah, the first game was, as far as I remember, entirely based on a single space station. And this is, you've I remember, entirely based on a single space station. And this is, you've got like, there you start on a large space station, you go on missions, and then you'll go to other space stations. So it's much more mobile. And as Griffin said, those many missions feel like a much more focused version of the entire game. Whereas I think in the first game, you would look at a screen and you'd have like 16 different options of places you could go.

And I think by having these missions, it kind of narrows your focus into a few select options. I'm way more into this game than I was the first one for this very realism, because I feel like the first one, it got a little bit after I was, I was loving it, loving the story. The writing is like still insane. Like so, so good. So, after, I was loving it, loving the story, the writing is like still insane, like so, so good, so, so, so top flight good. But I would have, like Russ said, like this huge map,

and it's like, man, it's another day, or I'm gonna go fucking grind out some cryo so I can afford to buy some food so my dice aren't so shitty next time. Like, there were all of these systems that it got a little bit samey for me. These missions really break it up, especially as you get further in the game, where going out on missions is a necessary thing

to avoid being caught by the people pursuing you. It's a really, really cool way of handling the tempo of the game that doesn't make it feel like there is this doomsday clock that is counting down and I have to finish all my shit before it hits zero or I'm dead because now it's like, well that doomsday clock's getting a little low,

better get the heck out of dodge for a little while. It feels like you always have options to kind of put time on the clock. Which is very cool. Yes, I think the ambition of the storytelling, okay, so the first game I think is a game about like literally just getting by day to day in a really shitty world. And I think like the political metaphor there was like very obvious.

It was a game largely about what it means to have to be effectively people who are doing jobs like a Uber driver, where it's like you are on commission constantly working dollar to dollar in a system that is being updated basically daily to take advantage and exploit you. And then you ultimately can build a community and that is your reprieve from that experience, which is a great story and a very, I think, personal one. I feel like where this game is going is something much bigger, which is how do you actually

go out into the world once you have created that stability for yourself and start to actually create change and start to work with other people? And I think that is harder to do. And what I think is incredible about this game is it captures that it's harder to do. And that's gonna be the divisive thing about this

is this game is, it's weird to say difficult, you will lose a lot in this game. But losing is kind of the point. And I think that's going to be the hurdle that a lot of people run into. If you are the sort of person who goes into a game and you expect to feel the need to win, if you are a completionist and you expect to be able to see everything fairly, you will have trouble with this game because the way that it uses loss is not like actually because

you were necessarily bad at the game, but because it wants to create hills and valleys for the story. So there are times where you will lose because you did a poor job. There are times you'll lose because you were doomed from the beginning and you just didn't even know it. And that I think is not common in video games. Yeah. I like, really love the common in video games. Yeah. I like, really love the writing in both games.

I was put off in this case, and this might be something that clicks the more I play it, but I was put off in this case because it felt like the first games, the ratio of the first game was like 70% narrative, 30% doing like gamey stuff, picking dice and things like that. And this feels like way more on the game side. I mean, there's still a ton of narrative.

Don't get me wrong, but I was kind of drowning in, you know, there's glitch dice and there's damage to your dice and there's stress to keep track of, and there's the crew members to keep track of. Yeah. And I don't think the game does a very good job tutorializing a lot of that stuff to the point where like,

I only real, like at one point it says like, hey, your crew members have their own dice. And I'm like, oh, that's really helpful. Where is that indicated? And it's like in the corner of the screen to the point where I didn't even know I could use their dice until I had already fucked myself up so bad that I didn't have any actual could use their dice until I had already fucked myself up so bad

that I didn't have any actual dice. And I think I was just really struggling with the onboarding of it. It got a little easier, but I still question whether the solution or the right thing for this game, which is so strong in narrative, is just to add more interactive elements to it. I feel like the game, my experience with this game was

I played it, I think the build we played when we first got the code was a little bit rough around the edges because I had the same experience as Russ where I hired a crew member and then when I got to a mission that I brought the crew member on, they weren't there for some reason, like there was some, but there's been an update

and it's fine now. I mean, I had played recently, so I think it's the first, it's the latest build. I started over though after playing, because you can skip through all the text and get through pretty fast if you wanna catch back up to where you were. Because I wasn't enjoying like the class

of there's three different types of sleeper you pick at the beginning that have like different special. I wasn't enjoying that, but mostly like, I didn't understand the economy of the game. There is certainly a pretty hard and fast economy of don't push it too much. If you push it, if you go through the space station just pushing it, making really risky rolls all the time,

you're gonna, it's gonna be bad. Sometimes you go to bed with a dice that you don't spin because you don't wanna run the risk of blowing up the drone that you're trying to dismantle or like X, Y, or Z and hedging your bets is, is important. Sometimes that means like not going out on a job right away. Sometimes that means saving up some money so you can buy extra supplies. So you have a little bit extra time on the job. Like those things are not like, there's no way to know that stuff going into the game.

And I think it's the kind of thing like Chris said, where you figure it out as you go along and you fuck up a lot at first and maybe it gets better, but I was not enjoying that. way to know that stuff going into the game. And I think it's the kind of thing, like Chris said, where you figure it out as you go along and you fuck up a lot at first and maybe it gets better. But I was not enjoying that. So I actually started over and had a much, much smoother ride knowing kind of like, okay, I should not, I should not go so hard on this. And it has made the whole thing feel

a whole lot less stressful. And I am enjoying the like different plates I'm kind of spinning and the different choices that it is sort of offering. Because you really do feel like the captain of a ship making really tough choices all the time on how to keep your crew afloat in a really hostile world. Yeah, I'll dig into, Fresh, what you were saying

about there just being more of the game. I think that's right. What they're going for here is the game and the story being one in the same. So that means when you need to literally just get through large chunks of text, there are checks throughout it where you are going to pass or fail. And again, you don't have control on it. It is based off of the stats of those roles. When you are deciding where even to go in the solar system, you need to earn or buy fuel and rations that allow you to actually have turns once you get there.

And before you even do that, you have to decide, do I want to leave right now, or should I get some stuff done here and get the person who's chasing me to get a little closer to my current destination before I zip off to the next one? Every gameplay decision you're doing is also directly tied with the story that's being told. Which I think it is an art game and the way an art movie is difficult and that I'm like really I'm really into intellectually and it's working for me again as a player. I just really don't know how big the audience is for this game and that's not really my problem. But the challenge with the thing I'm describing where you connect the game, playing the story so closely,

is that feeling of loss of being cheated out of the best possible storyline. When that is what you're accustomed to, I continue to think is going to be very jarring for many people. The good thing is. The Gareth Martin, the writer of this game, they. They do make you feel good, even when things go wrong,

like there is a richness to the story, even when things fail and go topsy turvy. And I think if you can switch your brain to embrace that and just see wherever the kind of like the river takes you, it's such a great and compelling sci-fi story. It really is, yeah. But again, it is a big ask. And I'm not surprised, Fresh, I know that you were, it was like kind of rocky ones.

I honestly think it's a tutorialization issue. Yeah. I think it's two things. I think one, it's a tutorialization issue. Like if I'd started from scratch as Griffin did, I'm sure I would do better. I got into a situation where I literally had like two dice and so I would roll twice and then have to sleep again

and roll twice and sleep again. And that fucking sucks. Like that is a miserable experience. Yeah, something went really wrong, yeah. Adding in the fact that I was playing on controller and sleep again, and that fucking sucks. Like, that is a miserable experience. Yeah, something went really wrong, yeah. Adding in the fact that I was playing on controller, and just like the first game, the controller support, while there, is not very good in this game, which it just isn't.

It should be played on a mouse and keyboard, I would strongly recommend playing on a mouse and keyboard. It works on Mac on the current processors, so. Yeah, I'm sure there are a number of ways you could play it otherwise. I'm bummed because it was a critique I had of the first game, and I think there are probably solutions

like a virtual reticle or something like that that would have made controller support a little more cogent. But if you do- It's doable, I'm playing it on Steam Day. It's doable. I have not had the, I would say the worst thing about it is like all of the UI elements are kind of free floating

around on the screen. So you're not, when you press left on the D pad, you're never quite sure which way it's actually gonna go. It needed like a destiny style thing that you can move around the screen to act as your whatever. I mean, there are moments where like, I was like, okay, I need to go on this mission. I just accepted the mission. I'm gonna go on it.

I have no fucking idea where this mission is. I have it marked in my journal and then finding the map button to like, took me 20 minutes. I think that's very fair. Jumping to the, there's two different maps. And the only way that you know that is by pressing, there's a little tiny indicator at the top of the map

that says if you Press Y it'll go to like the gap the you know system map which I did not know I was like man Where the fuck does this guy want me to get what the fuck is flotsam? What are they talking about? This is the game is so clearly based on tabletop games And you were describing my experience of playing every yeah well top game for the first time where I'm like oh, sorry what? Oh, oh my god. I gotta go back and read the entire- It just feels like they got a little ahead of themselves in like going in deep with all the new functionality

and features of the gameplay, that they didn't do the baseline of like, oh, you have to go to the map and do this and do this to like really walk you by the nose. Just, how are you feeling about it? Cause I know you were really into the first one. No, I did such a good job. I did such a good job of not saying anything.

Okay. Do you want to continue that streak? Okay. Can I be honest with you guys? I turned it on and I played for one minute and I was like, I can't, I'm not in a place where I could engage with this much. It's a lot.

Reading? Well, it's reading. It's reading, it's like alert. Guys, my brain's been moving really fast lately and I couldn't slow it down enough to do what this game, to meet this game where it needed me to meet it. And listen, this is from, and I didn't say anything because like, this is from someone who played the entirety

of the first game. This is a hundred percent just where I'm at right now, but it is just not, just not where I was at. I just couldn't, couldn't get into it. I couldn't engage with it. Yeah, I had a tough time as well. Like, like end of the day, 30 minutes before bed kind of thing.

I was like, how am I gonna download all this information? It's been a lot of like it's also been a lot of like where It's been a lot of like stealing time for games and when it's like those short windows It's like really hard to like get into a groove. Yeah like this, but I will probably play it at some point But this is I at that point. I know that you do lots of travel for work and stuff. I played this on a plane, and that was the best possible place. I got a peek into why people get games like Civ, where once you do learn the rules,

you're just like off to places. Oh, one more turn, for sure. It's a bit like, oh my gosh, the one more turn of it is. It's got its hooks in me from an art like a RPG perspective Which I was not really expecting from this game like I know technically I guess that is the genre there You have a fucking character sheet or whatever But those elements were so light in the first game that I didn't feel like oh, I'm putting a I'm putting a thing together That's my own

Because this game is based around like having your ship and making choices about who lives on your ship and what jobs you go on and how you prioritize it and how well you take care of yourself. Like all of those choices I'm making really do make it feel like this is my thing. And I know that the first game had like branching storylines that were sort of designed to have that experience, but like I am finding it extremely compelling

to like just manage a little crew of plucky, independent space contractors right now, which I really did not think this game was going to give to me. You might go back and try that first game again, Griff, if you sort of are like into the groove of this, because it was, I've forgotten, I think it was on the last episode when we were talking about this, I think I had forgotten or conflated it with another game, but like I had played a lot of the first Citizen Sleeper. I really liked it.

And I will look forward to playing this one. Is this, Chris, you might be the best one to answer this. Is this a continuation of Citizen Sleeper 1? In my trying to figure this out, I didn't wanna spoil Citizen Sleeper 1 for myself because I do wanna go back and finish it sometime. Can you? I don't think you can.

I mean, it's... No, I mean, it's not like Quest for Glory where you bring your, it's not the same character. Not the same character from what, I don't remember a lot. I know there's a lot of endings to Citizen Sleeper, right? That's what I'm saying. That's the problem.

I didn't feel like you could spoil it. My understanding is this is just in the same universe and uses the same logic. The game starts with an insomnia, or not an insomnia, amnesia sort of hook. Which is typical. That's sort of the background of that character, the sleepers. Right. All are like clones of actual people that have to work for those people before they can wake up

and whatever. So yeah, no. I don't think it's a direct continuation of anything. Definitely worth playing the original one. If you like the writing and you like the story, again, it's not going to have the deep gameplay stuff you were just talking about. But I personally found that

more approachable, yeah. Cool, cool. Yeah, cool, cool. Interesting game, I think it's gonna click with a very select group of people in a really hard way. Tastemakers. Yes. Sure. Movers and shakers.

Let's take a quick break, and when we come back, I have a brief recommendation for a new adventure game. If you have a thirst for adventure. Oh yeah. I call it the un-Google-able game. Locomotive on Steam. I just Google it. Search for it all you like. Search Locomotive on Steam.

I'll just search Steam Locomotive. That's easy, man. Just search Steam Locomotive as I have so many times before and be thrilled. No. Google expert, I wrote Locomotive Adventure Game and it did pop up immediately. Oh, wow. Okay, so- Pro over here.

This is from a first time developer called Robust Games and Locomotive is, in many ways, pretty classic. This came out in November. Uh, so it's, it were a little bit, uh, on and on in years, but it's not like this is a multiplayer first person shooter, you'll be fine to return to it. But it is a very much that old school sort of like Ron Gilbert data, technical very much that old school sort of like Ron Gilbert data tentacle era look of adventure games, uh, pointing and clicking and finding, you know, the, the items in the inventory. Um, this is a very, a lot of games like this really live and die by their dialogue. Um, and this is a pretty snappily

written one. You, uh, start the game, you have three different characters that you play actually, but you start the game as the lawyer to an heiress who is about to announce, make a big announcement when she is murdered, moments before you could reveal or peruse her last will and testimony. And she's murdered under strange circumstances. So what you learn at the beginning of the game is that there are three suspects for the murder.

And in the game, you are playing as the suspects to the murder as you're relaying the story to the police. So you are, the lawyer has been brought in for questioning, there's huge suspicion on him, he is telling the police what happened, and that's sort of the framing device for you being on this train where the murder happened. And-

It's like a Rashomon kind of thing that's telling their own angle of the story. For sure. And you definitely- Right, Chris Plain, Rashomon? There you go. Here's your biscuit, Rez. Don't feel bad. don't feel bad.

Sometimes they say that a Japanese RPG has waffles in it and then look at me like, right, waffles? Oh, yeah, it's a, sorry, so this murder happens and you are trying to like retell the events of the murder, but it is that thing, Russ, where you could tell that the narrative is being shaped by the telling. Like there is sort of an unreliable narrator aspect to this. Which you don't see a lot in video games.

It's like kind of on untouched territory. You don't see that very often. I think it's a neat way of introducing a kind of meta element to it, right? Because this genre is so explicitly gamey that I feel like not running from that and rather kind of like hanging a hat on the artifice of it.

Like there is certainly like a disbelief from the police that like you. So you replicated the cocktail with some petals you found on the ground and some mouthwash. And then, right, so that is- That's funny. It's really, the dialogue is very snappily written.

It is a great looking game if you like this era, like the sprites are very lushly animated. It's pretty relaxing to spend most of it on a train. It's got that like CRT, like low res. Little bit of scan line, I think, at least. And then the way it's framed, it's like the top and bottom of your screen is almost always landscape, like going by, because you're always on this like moving train.

So it makes it a very sort of like relaxing experience. I also like for someone who the biggest problem I always have with games like this is like backtracking and like when you know exactly where you need to go in this game, it's just one line. You've gotta go one end to the other, that's it. There's only so many ways. It is funny though how like the size of the train

has a little bit of like a TARDIS element to it where like when you open doors, they'll be like, wow, this does not, this should not be on the train. It's way too wide. What? Yes. It's like, this is like 20 feet deep.

Like, where is this room? Yeah. It's very cute. It's very well written. It looks great. It's called locomotive. Is it voiceover? Oh, okay.

So that sorry. Yes. Thank you, Russ. I'm glad you said that it is voiceover, and that is one of the other like big recommendations I can make for it. The cast, it does a great job. I searched for locomotive cast, and it just castings for pieces of locomotives,

so you can't actually find this information either, but the cast does a great job. It's fully voiced. Let me see if I can't imagine. I always wonder, because there are definitely times where having stuff like this, especially from this era, that level of humor, having it voiced over kind of diminishes it, but I guess that has everything

to do with the performances themselves. They're really good. Everyone's really leaning in and doing really fun stuff. And your character, the lawyer, is, just like I said, one of the characters, there's also a Sherlock Holmes style, her cupro style detective who really doesn't know what he's doing, and that's another one. But like I said, super well-written, funny, well done, it's great, it's called Locomotive.

I'd check it, where are you? Totally out. It looks so good. It looks, it really, they have captured that vibe. 18 bucks. On Steam. Do I send that directly to you or? Yes, I am selling the game.

Oh, that's cool, man. It's bootlegs, I'm selling bootlegs. Do we wanna do some honorable- Griffin, do you need a cracked ROM? Leave this in, Rachel, if you need any cracked ROM of this game, I can freak you a cracked ROM of this game. You send me $18, I'll gift it to you on Steam. How many Floppigas does it come in?

Fully free. 76 Floppigas. I will give, for $18, I will give you a fully cracked version of Flocomotive on Steam. Honorable mentions, I got a doozer. Oh yeah. Oh man, jump in. Have you guys?

Do you need to take a break so you can go to the restroom, Griffin? No, it's not a poopy doozer, it's a game doozer. Oh man, jump in. Have you guys? Do you need to take a break so you can go to the restroom, Griffin? No, it's not a poopy doozer, it's a game doozer. If you guys played The Root Trees Are Dead. The Root Trees Are Dead. No, this is recommended, so I recommended this to you guys,

but only through a second hand, because friends of the show, Jason Schreier and Kirk Hamilton were raving about it. Fuck, it's so good, y'all. It is a, in the, and they're again. God, Russ, can I say, it makes me mad when you nail us with a recommendation. What really makes me mad is when you nail us

with a recommendation in a game you have not played. It's like, it's rude. Haven't played it, really. It's like, oh, here, one man's trash, et cetera. Here you go, this one's for you. Sure, it you go. This one's for you. Sure is lovely. It is a mystery game in the vein of an Obra Dinn. There's actually quite a few similarities, I would say.

I know that we use that as a touchstone a lot. This is a game where you are basically a genealogist putting together the whole sprawling family tree of the root tree family who are these generational candy like empire runners. And you have to basically put together the family tree of the root trees, starting from the first generation that founded the company back in the 19th century, all the way to the current generation, the main sort of root tree family has just died in a plane crash.

And so you have been hired by some shadowy person to fill out this family tree. Each entry on the family tree is, there's a picture that you can put up there, a name and an occupation, and then of course like how they fit into the family tree, who they're married to, et cetera, et cetera. And you get that stuff by getting on your computer

and using a search engine or a number of search engines. One is basically like Google. One is a public library search. One is a periodicals search. So like using those different things, you have to put together this family tree and you do that basically like swinging from vine to vine, right?

If you use the Google, if you use the fake search engine, you can find stuff on the most famous root trees, right? You can find stuff on the one that went off to Hollywood to become a starlet or the one who was the founder of the company or the one who became a famous author, right? But it's not going to turn up much else because most other people don't actually have a Google listing. So for that, you might find something in the author's diary that got published that will lead you to another name that,

and maybe they're an author too and they wrote a book, now you're going to the periodical section and you're typing, you're searching for that and maybe that gives you more evidence. The whole thing is so slick and so, it is compelling in a way where you don't wanna put it down because one, it's immensely satisfying to fill out the family tree.

They do the Obra Dinn thing where they confirm things in groups of three, so you can't just guess a bunch of shit. And whenever you lock in three names, three pictures, three occupations, it feels so good. It feels very, very satisfying. And the game doles out evidence to you in a steady drip, but you will have these breakthrough moments where you get a lot of evidence all at once and it's like, well,

I'm gonna be playing for another three out. Like I can't stop playing now, I have momentum. If I stop now and come back, like, I'm not gonna have this momentum because right now I'm trying to put together the order of succession of the president role of this family candy company. It's really, really, really well designed with a lot of really good sort of streamlined quality of life integration.

You have a journal that you can fill out automatically by just like highlighting something you see on a Google search result, and then it adds it to your own personal journal so you can like go back and look through it later. It adds little numbers on each piece of evidence you have that basically like indicate how many more clues there are in that piece of evidence that you haven't discovered. They just, they have a lot of stuff in the game to make the process of filling out this family tree very, very doable. And once you get, once that boulder starts rolling, man, there is, there is just no stopping it.

So it's called The Root Trees Are Dead. I guess this is another UI RPG, right? No, not RPG, I don't think, because there's no like steps. No, but that was the genre we came up with for these games where you're on a computer doing things. Well, it looks like it takes place outside of the UI also, right?

Yes, you hop around basically, you have like an office, and so you have like an evidence desk, and then you have the cork board with the family tree on it, and then you have your computer with the different search engines on it. And sometimes someone comes to your front door and is like, hey, check out this picture. And it's, I don't know man, it slots into this genre

that I adore so much, just so cleanly, and is so clever, and throws little twists and red herrings at you that you don't expect. And I think anyone on this call would enjoy it, and I think anyone who enjoys mystery games would definitely get in on it. Also, Severance? So, this may have bought it while we've been talking.

Have we talked about Severance season two? Yeah, I don't know if that's the type of thing we're... Here's the thing, we're not allowed to talk about it because I still haven't seen season one and I want to. Oh, okay, well, that's ridiculous. I'm not going to not talk about the show because you didn't watch it. I know that it exists.

Do you know how many times the second season has been delayed because you didn't watch news. I know that it exists. Do you know how many times the second season has been delayed? You didn't want to. There were so, you had so much time. I do, I do want to. You didn't want to. I do, I have wanted to. We don't have to spoil it.

What is want? They wrote a big check at the end of season one that in the intervening years I was like, no fucking way are they gonna cash that check. And in the first two episodes, cha-ching! It's all cashed in. They cashed it. It's fucking hot as hell TV that I can't stop thinking about. Here is what I'll say about Severance House.

This is my personal take after watching those first two episodes speaking in the broadest of generalities. A lot of shows that are really brainy get mad when people focus on mythology. And they're like, it's not about, you guys are getting hung up on all that stuff. It's not about that. It's about the themes.

Like forget all mythology and they will narratively sweep a lot of that aside. So they can, you know what I'm saying? Lost, yeah. Lost is so the problem that it's almost weird to use it as an example. It's like the bad house was built by Lost and then everyone else had rooms in it.

But anyway, this show in the second season instead like leans fully into what it was doing. Like it knew it's, it did not catch you by then by surprise that you got hooked on the elements of the show that you got hooked on. It is very much like entertaining, like intentionally it's trying to be. So if I have a choice between watching the beginning of Severance or From, where should I go?

Severance or From, Juice? What's the? From. I mean, From's. From's only three seasons, dude. Like do From, and I know you don't wanna watch Severance, cause you would have, so you might as well watch From. The answer is neither, you should be watching Paradise. Okay, how is that?

Paradise is the New From. Is that good? Is Paradise the New From? I mean, I haven't watched it, but like calling a shot for games for fresh, I am calling a shot for TV for you, you will watch Paradise, and you will say, whoa whoa, woga, I am calling a shot for TV for you. You will watch Paradise and you will say, whoa, whoa, woga, this is my new love.

I need everybody to go watch Paradise. I guarantee you. What is Paradise? Paradise is Dan Fogelman, the person who created This Is Us, is like, I'm gonna bring all of that skill to get people hooked on my stuff. I'm gonna make a show that's about like, I don't know,

maybe space aliens and AI and the president gets killed and the president's played by the dude from the Sonic movies. I just want Dan Fogelman to work with Dan Fogelman. James Marsden? James Marsden. Jim Carrey? I would like to make a record. That was not a good pitch, at first plan. I am not enticed.

No. It's not for you, it's for Justin. Yeah, maybe. Oh, I thought you were calling a shot for me. He doesn't know he hasn't watched it. No! If I want to call a shot for you, it's for Justin. Yeah, maybe. Oh, I thought you were calling a shot for me. He doesn't know he hasn't watched it. No, if I want to call a shot for you, I'd be like. Yogurt. Some movie that I watched with my friends,

I had never heard of it, it's called Beauty and the Beast. Has anybody watched that one before? Here's the thing, Justin said yogurt, and that fucking was right on. Actually, if you have a line on some new good yogurt. I leveled him with a single word. Listen, I would like to, last week, we talked about the SNL documentary that's on Peacock.

This week, I would like to recommend to you, because I just saw it added to the Netflix platform, the movie Saturday Night, which is a dramatization of the 90 minutes before the premiere of the first Saturday Night Live. Yeah. It's a very, I think, I think it's a fascinating piece. I think it's really, really interesting. I don't feel like I, I have read so much. This is not like bragging, I'm a broken person, but like, I've read so much about this, like era and this time period and these

events and stuff, like not a lot of it was particularly like surprising to me, but the movie has a spirit that seems to be in conversation with like Saturday Night Live, the show, there is a like movement to it. There is a little bit of a silliness. There's a, uh, almost a sketch kind of nature to a lot of the scenes. Like they feel like, it feels heightened. What? It feels heightened. That's a really heightened and it is a very propulsive like you are feeling like the drums, you're feeling like the the the band warming up. There is a great metaphor of the set designer who going back and rereading a lot of these

anecdotes about this, like how many of them were not just like true, but verbatim based on articles or like people's recollections. But there is a great metaphor where the set designer who had won a Tony before he started working this was laying bricks for the stage. Like as people were filing in to watch the premiere, he was still like laying bricks for the stage for them to do the monologue on. Like out front, like it was coming in that hot. Um, there's a lot of really great impressions, which it also feels like

kind of a, a weird way in which it is meta in conversation with, with SNL, uh, Laverne Morris, who is not related to Garrett Morris, does an incredible Garrett Morris, uh an incredible Garrett Morris. Very predictably from Secession, Nicholas, help me. Oh, the tall one. Nicholas. Yes. Holt. Doing Jim Henson and Andy Kaufman?

Yes, does both. Just lose the beard, you're set. Perfect. I don't, it's, okay, here's what I'll say though. Like I think it hangs together as a movie. I think it's fascinating to watch, but a lot of it is that like, when you're excited about a movie's casting

and you're just kind of curious how they'll do something or like you want to see what the Billy Crystal's gonna be, that kind of deal. Yeah. It's really fascinating to watch. It's a very unique film that could only be sort of like about this exact moment, but I thought it was really fascinating

as a companion piece to the rest of it, I thought it was really interesting. Also, Chevy Chase, upon watching it with the director Jason Reitman, told Jason Reitman, you should be ashamed of yourself and walked out of the room. So that's how you know it's a pretty good movie is that Chevy Chase thought it sucked.

Yeah. Right on. That sounds cool, I'll watch that. I had been playing a little more Heroes of Hammerwatch 2. Ooh boy. Which just continues to be very good. They're continuing to patch it quite a bit, which is good to see.

But just the satisfaction of like leveling up a character, getting them through an entire run and then using that momentum to get a new character up through an entire run. It just gets quicker and quicker and quicker to the point where I can like get a level one character almost through the entire story because of the gear and the things that I've unlocked on the other

characters, which I think is something that is like really missing from Diablo. I know there are elements of that in Diablo, but that aspect in particular, I think is just really satisfying and great. I've also been playing more Pokemon Snap. Now, I hadn't really satisfying and great. I've also been playing more Pokemon Snap. Now you guys, I hadn't really mentioned it,

but, uh, I will say this. I'm not really someone that uses guides when I'm playing games. Um, I know. This is new information to me. Yeah. I haven't really conveyed that. I did hit a breaking point and here it is.

I didn't know this about myself, but it turns out when your son is screaming his head off at you because you were unable to wake up Lugia. Yeah. You will look up a fucking god. That is the breaking point. Uh, I was like, Oh my God, I've tried everything. And I tried the argument of, well, sometimes

Lugia just doesn't want to wake up. Fucking bullshit. He was not having that. No. Uh, and you know what? It. Fucking bullshit. He was not having that. No. Uh, and you know what? It was worth it. I'm glad I did. Saved me a lot of effort and heartache and that game continues to rule, uh,

for both little kids and kids at heart. Uh, I saw the new film by Naoko Yamada, uh, or Yamada, which did any of you see A Silent Voice? No. Are you aware of this? Silent Voice came out in I think 2016, it's like a very, I don't know, famous anime film. But the new one, The Colors Within, is about a young woman in high school who basically has synesthesia, which is to say she sees colors expressed in ways that are like not quite literally visual. In this case, she sees basically kind of auras around people.

So like, oh, you're blue or you're green or people carry different colors. And she's very quiet and a bit of an outsider. So far feels like many anime stories. She finds a young another young woman, another young man, they form a band. Again, all this pretty by the books story that you would see in a lot of animes, maybe one music anime like this a season. The big difference is as a movie, it is structured like the most quiet type of a 24 indie movie it is really really really delicate and not presented like with all the bombast that you would see in a typical anime series it is quiet in a way that honestly I mentioned a 24

that I don't even think they would make a movie this quiet and patient and delicate. Um, and it all builds to a huge risk, which is a big music number. And considering the movie is so quiet, this music number, it has to nail it. And let me tell you, wow, the music in this film is fucking incredible. It is so good. Um, so if you're the sort of person who enjoys kind of a slow, very sweet, honestly very wintery, cozy movie, perfect for this season, I really recommend checking it out. It probably works just as well on a TV,

but I'll be honest, if you can see it in the theater where it's playing right now, that would be great because once the music kicks in, it is loud and it feels like being at a concert and it is just a, I found it like a deeply moving experience. So yeah, I recommend people check it out. Sick. Cool. That's it, right?

We did it. Nice. Good job, guys. Proud of everybody. Proud of us. Really proud actually. Point you wanna recap what we discussed? Oh boy, what at all did we discuss this week? We discussed Citizen Sleeper 2.

We discussed Locomotive. We talked about New Pokemon Snap, Heroes of Hammerwatch 2, The Root Trees Are Dead, Severance, Season 2, Saturday Night, The Film, which I believe is streaming on Hulu, is that what you said? Netflix. Netflix. And The Colors Within, which is being presented by GKIDS,

which means it's out in theaters right now. My guess is it will be on Crunchyroll or VOD sometime soon. And I know it wasn't in the episode, but if you wanna see some of Justin's art, you can go over to besties.fan and sign up for the newsletter. We'll have a photo of his, what were they called again? Something Steve's?

All Hello, Steve's. All Hello, Steve's. But it wasn't in the episode, but you'll have to just see the photo. Why would you send that to people? I don't even know why you bring this up. I apologize. We also want to thank people over at the Patreon, patreon.com slash besties.

You can gift a membership if you want to, patreon.com slash the besties slash gift. But we want to thank some members. We have Alan, we have Ty, we have Victoria, and we have Rue, Child of Kanga. Thank you for being patrons of the besties. Thank you all for supporting the show. We have a new bracket episode coming to you just in a couple of days after this airs. So keep an eye out for that. It is a fun one. What are we doing next week?

I know, maybe I should just say. Yeah, you should just say it. Why ask questions, you know the answer to them. I know, I thought it'd be more dynamic that way. We're gonna be playing a game called Ender Magnolia, which is a sequel to Ender Lilies, which was a very cool metroidvania that came out a couple of years ago.

And Ender Magnolia is, yeah, the follow up to that. Looks very neat. Cool. So we'll be doing that next week. Cool. All right. Well, that is going to do it for us this week. Until next time. My name is Justin McElroy. Be sure to join us again next week for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games. Besties!