The Besties - Promise Mascot Agency is an Escape From Life’s Headaches

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

Promise Mascot Agency is like running errands on a cool summer day, the radio blasting killer tunes and a good friend riding shotgun. Justin and Plante talk about what makes this a great example of a “chore game.” Plus, the dastardly duo discuss emulation. Because nobody can stop them!  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!

I feel like it's weird when you have a two-person podcast because that's just talking. You know? It's just a conversation between two people. Like, because I pressed a button, now there's an artifice? Hmm. I don't know. But, you know, kind of nice in that we can actually talk with each other rather than compete. Or it's kind of those deathly stares that we give one another so they don't talk over each other week to week. I mean, Frustic gives a withering, withering glance at you if he dares think that you'll talk

over his metroidvania conversations. Sorry, I was on my phone. I can be on my phone when there's three people because someone else will do it, and I'm realizing I can't even be on my phone with just you and me, you know what I mean? No one's gonna pick up my Slack. See, I'm playing Promise Mascot Agency for the first time right now.

I just loaded it up. That's cool, I'm actually, I'm just watching Twitch streams of it at 4x speed just to watch. Just like all game journalists have done the whole time. There is no competition, you can still one up me. It's still here. We still got that juice. We still got that flow. We're back. I just wish we'd recorded it. My name is Justin Macaron and I know the best game of the week.

My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin Macaron and I know the best game of the week. My name is Josh Roshanek and I know the best game of the week. My name is New York Giraffe and I know the best game of the week. My name is Russ Rusch, and I know the best game of the week. My name is New York Draft, and I know the best game of the week. The best game of the week. My name is President Donald J. Trump, and I know the best game of the week.

We can all do character work. Yeah, that's good. Okay, this is the best game still. Wait, that was you? It's a video game club, and just by listening you've become a member. I am so excited to be here to talk with you about Promise Mascot Agency, a game that we're probably only allowed to talk about because Griffin and Russ aren't here.

So what's Promise Mascot Agency? Promise Mascot Agency is the new game from Kaizen Gameworks that made one of our favorite games of like two years ago, Paradise Killer. We really enjoyed it and had those sweet, sweet Sega Dreamcast style vibes. This time they are back and they are doing a Yakuza style open world game that is the most PS2 ass shit I have played since the PlayStation 2. That is a great description. We are gonna talk about that and so much more

right after this. This felt to me when we first started talking about it, so much like a spiritual sequel, like the DNA of it. It reminds me of the specificity of Vibe that we saw with like Ace Team for a while, where it's just like, oh, this game isn't related technically, but it's like, you feel the studio. Like you feel the sense of it.

And in a way, like a studio voice, I feel like you can kind of start to feel in the second one like a, reminds me of like a platinum in its best eras and Suda, things like that, where you feel like that sort of auteur kind of vibe. Yeah, you can tell their core interests are. Video games from the like PS2 dreamcast era, specifically what it felt like kind of to import Japanese games at that time, where you're getting things that seems

kind of different and alien compared to like what you were playing in the U S market that now kind of seems normal. And a little like, a little dirty, just a little dirty. But kind of a comforting grime. Yeah. You know, we're, here's the story with this one. You got the janitor, he's a Yakuza, former Yakuza who messed up so bad, so bad,

and he lost billions of yen. He messed up so bad that his bosses are like, I think that rather than kill you, we're gonna exile you to the worst job possible, give you a chance to start to build back, earn back the money, build back the reputation, maybe get back in our good graces. And the gig we got for you is running a mascot business.

In a town that has one curse on it, and that curse is Yakuza slowly get killed by simply being there. Right. Normal. Normal. So far you're like, okay, I've heard it before. Yeah. Right. But... Normal. Normal. So far you're like, okay, I've heard it before. Right? But what's really interesting, I think, with this one

and the previous entry is this studio seems really interested in new mechanics, like experimental mechanics that may not, like they don't even seem necessarily convinced that it is fun, but they're trying to make it fun. They're trying to find if there's fun in different places. I feel like some more non-traditional structures. So I can, this one, for example, you are, the vast majority of your business is like,

just kind of overseeing the mascots. If you're wait, I kept waiting for a character action game to begin that is not there. I mean, we kind of buried the lead that in this world mascots are real. They are not people inside of costumes. If you see a giant severed thumb mascot, that mascot is a giant severed thumb if you see you know If you saw piggly wiggly walking around that would be the piggly wiggly if you saw gritty you would cross the street Oh gosh. Yeah, I mean you that's kind of everybody in here. This is a city full of gritties

And you take over the Gritty City Committee. No, there are small business owners that need mascots for their events. And they wanna, and your mascot agency, because of the psychopathic severed pinky that was running the business before, has a bad reputation. So you have to start earning it back with local business owners to convince them

that you're worth their time. And the way you do that is you recruit mascots and you send them out on jobs. And there are jobs that want a certain kind of mascot, like a certain vibe. You can also send them with items that can make the job go better. And as you're driving around doing your business in your truck, because you don't get out, you're in a truck, as you're driving around, you're busy in your truck, the mascots sometimes need help, and you can go... play a card game to help them! Yeah!

Well, okay, so... let's talk about what you do in the game. Because you're right, on one hand they are trying something really new-ish with the... managing the actual mascots. And the way that that works is that you go into a menu and you have to decide how you hire a mascot and how much money are you going to pay them? What percentage are they going to get? What's their bonus period structure? What's their time off? And you adjust

that as the game continues. And depending on how you've adjusted that you either accrue lots of money or a little money you keep them happy or unhappy you send them out on jobs and then when jobs go wrong you have to like step in and play a card game but to call this a card game is I don't know even what I would describe this as because there's not much game to it. The game is... No, yeah, it feels... It kind of reminds me of cooperative board games, where it's like you're just sort of

going through the motion. It's not about your skill, it's more like what you have available. It's a little bit pass fail. There's not a lot of depth to it. It's either going to work or it's not. Yes, a mission would be that a cash register is broken and the mascot wants to fix it. So your enemy for that round is the cash register. And that manifests like a fighting game health bar.

The cash register shows up. The mascot itself deals a little damage to it. And then you look down at your cards and you have a set of cards that have little icons that can be used to deal more damage to the cash register. And I think there is a game here that maybe is complicated because there's like all different types of cards. There's boss, there's ways to get more cards or get fewer cards. There's all these things, but every time I played it, the answer has been, look for

the card that has the highest number, play it, finish the health bar, move on. So. So this is what, this is what I think is interesting. Plant is I in playing this game and that feeling of like, waiting for the game to like, the game to start, where I kind of got, what I think they may be kind of going for here is something that looks like, like looks less cozy than it is, but is actually just kind of like a cozy game.

Like it's, none of it's hard and most of it's nice. You know, like the characters you meet like There's one guy you meet early on that just wants to be in porn and he wants to be in the porn industry And he cares about the fidelity of the adult entertainment and he cares about AV a lot and it's great And so funny and it's like but it's but you're none of it is in the hard stuff, too You know, that's what's sweet about is. Yeah, why pixel anymore? Yes, no pixel. Oh, actually, I think he says almost no pixelation Which I is worse in a way because if you want a little bit That's troubling No, but like when you get for example

the way you get cards is you ask people if they will be a mascot support hero and then they say, yeah. Almost, I mean, sometimes you gotta do something for them but sometimes it's like, hey, yeah, that sounds cool. Yeah, you can call me to help and that's it. And it's not really like a challenge, it's just sort of constantly sort of giving you things

and like making it to be a fairly pleasant, even experience in at least as far as I could tell. It's a chore game, it's a game of chores. And I guess my question for you is like, what makes a chore game enjoyable for you? You know, good or bad's not the best words, What makes a chore game enjoyable for you? You know, good or bad's not the best words, but I, after about two hours, really clicked in with it.

And just going around and doing chores. It's a tough beginning, man. I picked this guy up and set him down a lot, because that's, it's tough at the beginning. It's slow, but then when you get into it, it becomes a series of basically fetch quests the entire game. So the open world part of the game, you effectively play as a truck.

You never get out of the- Yes, an indestructible truck. An indestructible truck. You're driving around- That's faster. That's better and faster than a truck. Yes, it has rocket boost. And you go-

Can't go in the water a little bit. Yes, you go from place to place doing basically the same thing over and over again, you see little dots on the map. You pick up those items. Those are your fetch quest items. You go to various characters across this pretty large open world. You deliver the things they tell you new things that they need. Some of them become cards in your, your game, like you said. Over and over and over.

There's not like when you meet a new character, it's not going to surprise you what will happen. You'll say hello. They'll tell you a little bit of their backstory. They will offer to be a card. They will offer to sell you some new items. They will give you a new fetch quest series. This sounds so boring.

And yet I, I, I definitely locked in after about two hours. Or I was like, great, I am just zipping around this world. The music is good. It looks cool. It looks good. They got some really funky filters on it that you can choose to put on. It just looks cool.

And the writing is good and funny. I will say this. If you liked infinite wealth, but it was a little too gamey for you, this has like a similar vibe with less like mechanical. It's probably closer to Wander Stop, honestly, than a lot of other stuff. It's a little bit more like it's management.

It's not really that hard. It's more about bit more like it's management. It's not really that hard. It's more about... To answer your question about a chore game, for me, if you're... I was thinking a lot about what makes a good video game story, because a lot of times you see stories adapted from other media into video games, but there seems to be something that makes a good video game story. And I think part of the ineffable quality that video games can, can do with storytelling that other media can't is the story of a area and how that area changes. Right. So it, if you think of like the lead as like a region or like an area or this town,

and it's really the story of that, then what video games can do really well is seeing those characters evolve, seeing the location start to change, seeing like the impact of what you're doing on the world. And that as like a way of telling a story that like video, that movies and TV and stuff can't do as well because it has to be so character driven.

And this can be a story about like a lot of people in concert without a necessarily like a main character whose story is driving it. And it's more like, it feels like the story of a community, of a bunch of people and how they're changing over time. That is really helpful and also helped me see it as if you took any popular farming game and said that what everything that you just said about the farm where you're doing the chores on the farm and you're watching it grow and it went from having all these weeds to being like a nice place

that you're proud of. You've run all the fetch quests for the locals, flush that out to be an entire city and that feels like this game. In fact, that makes me like the game more because the chores are actually, while mundane, enjoyable versus watering plants, which is my least favorite thing to do in any video game ever. Yeah, I really, really enjoyed it. I just... I don't know. I saw this. I'm going to share this really quick, actually.

I was flipping through the Steam page, and the top review right now has 19 hours, and it's from... I'll not share the user's name out of privacy respect. No, Docs him dude. Get him. But this review is like kind of heartbreaking but also gets at why I love these games. 19 hours in. The perfect distraction in your most vulnerable emotional state. I had to put my dog down of 11 years yesterday, and I got home with tears on my face and continued

my playthrough of Promise Mascot Agency. The gameplay is simple, but that's what I needed. I played for 8 hours straight. There was no downtime to think. It was simply see symbol on map and go to symbol on map. That's it. It is not complicated. There's a theme of running your agency and sending your mascots out for tasks

But it's still a simple mechanic It doesn't require you to think it is a silly and weird place with moments that make you chuckle at the nonsense of it all but that's what I needed in that moment and like That kids say Something that I think is happening when I play these sorts of games Obviously, I am NOT having as intense of a day as that person was, and I feel terrible for them. But every day is hard.

Sure, yeah. And I think that's a more beautiful way of describing escapism than just like, oh, I did this and I got lost, and the world seems to exist. It's like, no, I gained purpose. There's something to, and I'm not smart enough to voice this though, but there is something to,

something that simply keeps your hands busy and your mind, the monkey mind busy to kind of let the rest of your brain take in something, to take in a story, to take in a world. I think there's a lot of games that keep the monkey mind very busy, but then when you look for something deeper beyond that experience, there's nothing there, right?

And I think what we're talking about here is a game that keeps that mind busy, that keeps that mind with little tasks, but is feeding you. That is like giving you characters, is giving you story, it's giving you a world that's pleasant to be in, it's giving you these other, and it's allowing you to be in this world with like just the faintest bit of mechanical justification, but it's enough to keep that part of your brain busy

to kind of let you like relax into the rest of it. And I think that if like, if that's what it takes to get you to relax into a story, especially when you're going a mile a minute in your head, I think that that's really laudable. Yeah, yeah, no, I dig it. I'm definitely gonna keep playing it. I think I'm probably about halfway through.

Again, it is almost, you have to turn off the critic part of your brain because all the things that we traditionally value in games are, I think, really refined mechanics, variety of new things to do, certain novelty in gameplay. And that's just not what I think this game is going after at all, intentionally so. I will also say one other note, and this was not, I was debating whether or not

to mention this, but I think it's worth, I think part of the reason that I was having trouble at first, and I think that this is probably a cultural difference, but I feel like you have seen a cultural shift in the US and some other Western cultures to a less sort of boss employee contractor manager and more like employee owned kind of a culture being more in vogue here.

I guess what I'm saying is like, this is not a game about prostitution, but it is what, like it feels in conversation with like sex work, right? Like it feels in, or at least to me, it feels like the metaphor of a pimp and his, like the people that work for him is a, it is, it, that was very hard for me to escape it here in the U S because I feel like it is a management structure that we are, that is very like tied to that for me. And I feel like it feels a little bit weird to be bossing around these other like sentient beings. And it doesn't feel, it helped.

It didn't help me to feel like cozy at first because at first I felt kind of like, uh, like I'm profiting off of other people's work and it doesn't feel great. Yes. I, I'll break that kind of in two parts. I agree with both. The management sim of it all is weird and how direct and crass it is. Yes.

About what business is, where you are literally saying, you know what, you get 12% of whatever your return on investment is for what we put in, or you get 15%. And after you do this much, that's when you get your bonuses. And these are the incentives that we're giving you. And when you see the numbers, it does not look fair for the mascots.

Basically. Yeah. It feels like you're paying them like 25% of what they're earning. And it's like, look, gross. And, and, and, but, but at the same time, the game is making it clear where all that other money is going, cause it's like, well, they're getting 25%, but then like there's bills over here and you owe this person went and yada, yada, yada. And, and it just puts you in the, the yuck of like,

I think it's harder to get excited about building a business in America. I think that it is like, we, there is more of a respect, I think, in this culture for like the value of building a business and the value of like, the, the, the, there is there is value in building that over time. And I feel like that's less of the culture state side currently. Yes. And then the sex work part of it,

which kind of like coexist, that is, it feels like just the metaphor of the game, right? Right, I mean it's... It's, so you're... I'm not like, we haven't mentioned it And I don't want people to think like I'm I'm like reading between the lines like I'm not looking for this guy I'm glad you brought it up because it's somewhere between like it's that it's also a murky space in its own where it's like are these Mascots hosts are they escorts? What's are they?

Sex like what what what is the kind of stand in here? Because- I think we can pretty definitively say they're not having sex with the mascots. I feel like that was not even, wow, you just gave me the weirdest look. Sorry, I mean as a metaphor, though- No, yeah, yeah, no, okay, I get you.

Don't put that past people. Like people are having sex with mascots in this universe. We know that for a fact. Yes, right, that's a great point, Plant. Yes. So like- Whether or not that is part of the package. Yes, but the fact that you are a Yakuza

who is going around kind of toughing situations, where it's like you only show up when a situation goes bad and then you have to you know kind of like put in some reinforcements to make sure everything's okay and that your mascot's taken care of. It's weird. None of this is bad. It's just, it's some weird flavors that I didn't expect when I saw it. There is a cultural thing that I'm just not, like, I don't know, you know what I mean? Like, there's obviously like more culture,

I don't know how things are supposed to hit. It's like that thing in like, in like a dragon games where you don't necessarily know if something's like, is it funny because it's a joke or is it funny because I'm not, I'm dumb and I don't know about this part of the culture, right? Like, I do feel like the Like a Dragon, the fact that that series exists in the continuity it has

and the direction it has, it does make me wish that they had gone, like not done the Yakuza angle with this because I feel like it was really hard to avoid those comparisons in your head. Unless you feel like it's like more direct, you feel like it's more intentional., you feel like it's more intentional. Do you know who the lead voice actor is? No. Kazuma Kiryu. It's the same voice actor who does it. The actor's name is, I have this,

Takaya Kuroda and plays Kazuma Kiryu in the Yakuza series. Okay, so is it a satire? Are we in conversation with it? What's what's happening here? I will and and it goes like in other directions to like Swery Who is the developer who made a number of games that I think this one is kind of like? riffing on it's where he made Deadly Premonition which this game aesthetically is borrowing a lot from, is a voice actor, Shuhei Yoshida, who oversaw Indies for PlayStation,

is a voice actor. Can I say, I'm really glad you brought up Deadly Premonition because that is a game that I've always wanted to love, but can't because the mechanics get in the way. This feels like, this is, for me, this is what I wish Deadly Premonition was, because I want to experience everything in Deadly Premonition without playing Deadly Premonition. You know what I'm saying? Yep.

Like, so that made me very happy, knowing that around every corner, there's just going to be the strangest. God, like Captain Sign, the guy who is a superhero, who's just obsessed with road signage. And he's like, and it's like, are you gonna help me or like fight? It's like, no, he runs a shop on top of a pier on a mountain. Yep. Always, he's always up there.

There's no real reason. Also, it is hysterical to me that I kept waiting for this guy to fight somebody. Like, you talk about it being the heavy, and this guy shows up and it's like, oh man, it's the janitor. But there is not a, like, unless I visit, there's not a fighting mechanic in this game.

Not that I've seen so far. This guy doesn't actually beat anybody up. He just happens to also be a guy who knows how to beat people. I do like that you meet Captain Sign and Captain Sign's like, Captain Sign looks like Pepsi Man. And you're talking to Captain Sign and he's like, hey, so I gotta teach you how this hero system works. You're gonna meet heroes everywhere and they're gonna become cards

in this little card game for you. And they're going to help protect your mascots. You're like, great, great, great. And he's like, yeah, one other thing. None of them are actually heroes. I'm the only one, even though I am the first one you're meeting, you will not meet anybody else who looks like me.

You're like, sorry, what? And he's like, yeah, you're going to meet like a cat, like a woman. Yeah, they don't look like superheroes. I'm the only one that looks like a superhero. Yeah, they run a fishery, maybe. You're like, oh, okay, sure. There's conversations, there's a shot, there's a guy, one of the first business centers you meet

is a guy who's also on the phone with his wife every time he's talking to you. And you're like, hey, do you wanna be a mascot support hero? And he's like, absolutely not. He's on the phone like, yeah, these guys want me to be a mascot support hero. And he's like, covers the phone, he's like, do you really think that I could be a mascot support hero? They're like, yeah, we do, actually.

He's like, okay, don't tell my wife, but like, if you need me to like come help. For example, one thing I had him help with was, my tofu mascot got stuck in a door that was too small and it had to free itself from quote, the tyranny of normal size door Oh this game's of as a rot, you know, I think you know pretty well if you're gonna like this game or not Yeah, you should you should you should probably check it out. It's a good one. Yeah, it's a good one

Hey, there's someone's heart is on display here Do you want to you want to take a break and we can come back and we can talk about emulation because nobody's here to stop us I Would love that Would love that. Let's go Okay, we're back and we don't have The police here. We don't have rust rush. Xen. You can't talk about it. We're gonna talk about emulation It's you know, Noel holds Bard. You know, but I was thinking like, emulation's a big topic.

What if we just talked about like, laser discs? And then, that still feels like pretty big. Yeah. Would there be like a way to narrow it? Narrow it down so it's just like the laser disc games that I have on this tiny cabinet behind me? Yeah, yes. Yeah. Yeah plant. That's what I've been doing this week is trying to make Laserdisc games work Because I want to have a Laserdisc game arcade, right? I made a little little I'm using this piecade

It's run off of Raspberry Pi and I wanted it to run Laserdisc games because I really like Laserdisc games. People can't see it, so I will describe it. Can you hold it up for me? Yeah. It is, it's one of those desktop arcades. So about maybe like foot and a half by a foot and a half, has a beautiful joystick on it. And the arcade cabinet has been designed to look like a tiny recreation of the Dragon's Lair cabinet. Yeah, I printed this out. I printed the marquee art out. The rest of it is the stuff that it came with.

What's great is when you boot a LaserDisc ROM up for the first time, the ROM, the machine actually has to watch the whole LaserDisc video. So the first time you boot something up, I mean, look at this. This is the game Interstellar is the name of this one. But the first time you boot it up, you watch the play through it like super speed

because the DVD has like watch the entire thing. And then what you see here in a lot of these laser disc games plant is the video background with a emulated thing. Like I said, this is the only computer part. The rest of it is just laser disc movie, right? In front of the background, right? Sure. Sure sure so yeah, that's what I've been doing wait wait wait wait I think I had in my head laser just games being like dragons layer where it was just like a DVD and you're hitting the

Skip chapter button and that it so that's the two different kinds of lasers games You'll see is is is dragons layer where it's an interactive. And then, okay, I'll show you one more. Okay, thank you. I wanna show you, I know this is an audio podcast, but. No, I'm happy to be the tour guide. Well, we, you know, what else are we doing here? Nobody's gonna stop us. Nobody can stop us.

I am getting text messages, Frustrate can feel this. He can sense it happening. His irate, he is saying, cancel the show. He's furious with us right now. Okay, so which which one is it so I'm gonna try to tilt it's hard to see the screen but I'm so glad that the thinnest amount of audio is coming through here this is great oh thank you for turning the light on now this should be easier for you to see. Help it all. Oh, insert a coin and help it all. Okay.

Right here. I can't believe it. What game is this? This is MotoGP, right? So the road is the video, and the video doesn't play unless you're holding in the gas button. So by gassing, I'm advancing this laser disc of the road, right? Wow.

Yeah, so the rest of the game is just kind of projected on top of the video. How do you steer in a laser disc video game where the camera's locked in? The car is the only thing that moves, so you're on tracks, right? So you're just moving back and forth. And the only thing you're interacting with is the other cars, which are also digital, right? So it's basically just like a big background.

And those other cars are always in the same spot because I can't even think of them. The other cars are digital too. So the other cars are being generated. Obviously. You're racing. The second I said it, I knew I was wrong. Yeah, you have to have other people to race around. I'll tell you what has changed about emulation lately,

because I want to hear about where you're at. Because I've always gotten into it a little bit, and then I'll get something working, and then it's kind of like, eh, cool. What has changed lately is there is a much better front end experience on a lot of these games that makes them so much more console like. A lot of this has been pulled together. Most of it uses front end like emulation

that's based on emulation station or something like it. That's like pulling all these emulators and all of it into one big thing. That's just like, you can flip through all your games and flip through all your stuff, and you have like some simulation, a recreation of like a home console arcade. Like that level of seamlessness

is a lot more attainable than it was, even like five, six, seven years ago. How do you commit to playing anything when you have a trillion choices? I don't. Yeah, you have that dilemma. I play the game that I have to play for besties, and to me, I used to do that calculation a lot for myself. I was like, you know, I'm going to put all the work into getting this running, and then don't play anything on it. And then that would like sometimes stop me from doing it.

But the thing is like, I learn a lot just getting it going, right? Like I understand these games a lot better because I like went through the process of making them work in a different way. Yeah. And so that process I think gives me like a better appreciation for it. And like, I find it pleasurable to do. I do play the game sometimes and sometimes I like find something like Super Don Quixote I've never heard of before.

And I'll fire up Super Don Quixote and play through that. But like, uh, it's more about the, there is something also plant that is when I watch a game where I feel like I'm the only person that has looked at it in like 10 years, it's like it feels so bizarre. It's this sense of like a direct connection to like this one person working too hard on a laser disk game and be like, yeah, I'm appreciating it. Thank you for your work, person 40 years in the past. Yeah, I love that when you can find a collection of Japanese ROMs somewhere and it's like, here's just 40 Japanese ROMs from a console or

handheld that you didn't even know existed before today. Yeah. And you pop that in and you look at something and immediately, again, good or bad, it doesn't really matter. It's just unlike anything that you can even imagine until, until you're playing it. And it feels like, oh, there was an entire history that happened. And I thought I was fully caught up and it turns out there's always more to learn.

I do wish, like, I wish this, it's a library dilemma, right? Where you go into the library and you can, there's everything there. But what works about an actual physical library is once you pick what you want, you leave the library and you take it home, right? And then you have just that option. You have four books

that you brought home. You don't have every book in the library. And I wish there was an option almost at a UI level in my retrograde, where I said at the beginning of the month, these are the four month games that I wanna play this month. Take away everything else from me. You want restriction. I want a game dad to say, this is it, what's your time, son? Yeah, and just like, you picked it, great choice.

Here, I'll tell you what has been scratching that itch for me lately, and this again, this isn't gonna be for everybody. I understand that. But if you get yourself a tiny computer, like a Raspberry Pi, four or five, whatever, and you get yourself a mini SD card for whatever size, there's a lot of sites now that are a lot of people in communities are curating images that are specific to a size, right? So like if you have a 64 gigabyte SD card, here's like a themed collection I built around that. And here's what I'm kind of like, here's like the connective tissue or like, you'll get one

who's like, this is my, it's like a doom collection. Like it's like everything doom is on this one. And it's like a doom theme thing, it's like everything doom is on this one. And it's like a doom themed thing, or it's like Japanese arcade classics, or like you'll get a, sometimes there'll be an image that's like manufacturer centric. So it's like Capcom classics. If you have an 128 gigabyte memory card,

you flash it to this, you pop it in, and that is a collection. What's cool about that is it's not, a lot of the times it's not just like the games that this person has selected, but like you see the way they have the UI set up. It's like a custom experience that they've set up the menu art and all that stuff.

So like, yeah, and the controllers are all set. It's all ready to go. All the ROMs work. They've done all that annoying stuff. And then you can experience it as like a collection that someone has made as a really fun way of doing it. I love that. I love the Criterion channel, the streaming service. Their solution for this is each month to have little micro collections of things. So it's like 70s horror or movies that were inspired by Godzilla but from across the world, right? And the thing

I love about that is one, it limits the options, but two, when you start to watch that, say you're watching, you know, kaiju movies from across the world, they're all in conversation with each other. So once you've watched three or four of these things, you start, your brain starts filling in the gaps between them of like, oh, that's why they did it that way in the UK. And, oh, I can now see like how that inspired all these other things in Britain. And that, I don't know, for me, like I like when

the entertainment clicks for me, but then it also has my brain kind of revved up for the non-viewing time. And yeah. It's also really cool. I've had already a few times since I got the full library. I've done other sort of projects like this, but once I got a place where I could play most stuff pretty quickly,

I found a few opportunities where like, I'll hear something mentioned, and it's so easy. I mean, a matter of seconds before I'm like, checking it out. And I think what's cool about video games is, I think you really can get a sense of what a game is like in two minutes, you know? Like you can't say that out of book really.

And you can't say that like maybe some songs, you're like, oh yeah, I've listened to one, but like you can get a vibe of like what the thing is pretty quickly. And I do think once you've lowered those barriers so much that you'll get a whim of like, I wonder what that's about. And that you could be kind of exploring that pretty quickly.

I have found that to be a nice thing to have. That is a great idea. And also it makes me think I need to get my mister refigured out. It got a little borked after falling off of my table. Yeah. That feeling of being able to just pop it on and play anything whenever I want is pretty, pretty special.

Next thing I'm gonna do, I'm gonna get a couple, I got, I found an arcade one-up cabinet on clearance. I'm gonna rip the guts out and put a couple of light guns on the clearance. I'm gonna rip the guts out and put a couple of light guns on the side. I'm gonna try to make a light gun cabinet. Do you give these as gifts? Hmm? Do you give like, do you like make handhelds

and be like, this is just a good gift? Yeah, I make like a little, after you make the project, you know, I don't usually need it. Like I made a little mini, I found a Raspberry Pi case that looked like a SNES that I printed. And so I made a little tiny SNES with a Raspberry Pi in it

that has the entire library and it's this big. And I gave it to my cousin so he plugs it into the TV, plugs into that, plugs into that USB joystick, it's like the entire library there and So I do that as gifts. That's a fun way of like making especially with like kids like you can get them to Mess around a lot of these emulation programs also have like a kid mode now where you can play all the games But you're not gonna get in and like mess around with settings It's just like turns it into a dumb kiosk that only just plays games. Ooh, I need to figure that out.

I would love to have that for Mozi. I, having that plus an all-in-one solution, like what you showed me with the arcade, where it's like, hey, you don't need to get onto the TV, you can just play some games here and enjoy it, that seems really awesome. Our friends have a, their son, Des, comes over and he'll just search for like, he's a big sports guy,

but he'll just search like NHL and then get onto like the Genesis and play like an old, like he'll play an entire, like an entire game NHL or like old Madden's and stuff. Like he'll, or he'll search Spider-Man and just see like all the Spider-Man games that have been, that have been in between. There's a bunch of bad games. Yeah, a bunch of bad games with some very, very, very good ones.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's a lot of fun. One, one, one question for you before we wrap up. What do you think will happen to this industry with all the tariffs? Because so much of the hardware side of things is coming from China. I I don't know like I think that uh so Obviously any manufacturer anybody like you're buying stuff it you you are seeing messages about You know tariffs or how it has or hasn't affected pricing.

So it's definitely something a lot of people are thinking about. I saw at least one company that makes a, it's called Retro Tank. They make like an upscaling converter or whatever that they are gonna stop taking US orders until this is like figured out. I guess they could have some stock here or what have you.

But so it doesn't have any effect. I will say this, for me, it is having an effect. I will say this for me, it has actually been as a hobby. It has been much better for me finding stuff that I already have lying around and seeing if I can find something new to do with it. And, and I feel like if you can understand electronics in that way, we are disincentivized from understanding them at that level. In fact, we're, we're told really by a lot of like the Microsofts and Apples of the world that it's like too complex for you and you can't figure it out. And I know what I'm sounding like. One of those Linux people right now. And if you try, it will break all your contracts, etc. Yes. And

you've broken it and you broke the seal and you got in here and, but like, I'm not a smart person. If I can figure it out, like it's really not that hard, especially when you have a computer that's based in Linux where you can understand it a lot easier because it's not full of a bunch of crap that people wanna sell you. So that is all a long way of saying, I feel like if you invest a little bit of time in understanding like basic computing

and how some of this stuff works, I feel like it's a way of breathing new life into stuff. You know, like your laptop may not be great as a, you know, to play the latest and greatest AAA video games, but maybe you flash it to make it like it just plays all these consoles or just plays this or it's just doing something else. You know, it's just my Minecraft terminal, whatever. Like, if once you understand this stuff a little bit, you could get more use out of things, I think, and not have to buy so much stuff.

Do you think that you're kind of like reverse Superman and that you have your glasses on right now and it's all Linux, but when you take those things off? Chris, this isn't for them, okay? My visual appearance is not up for discussion. And as you know, these are my gamers only blue blockers. Oh, sorry. That was so rude of me.

We got any mail from people? We do. I'm going to hop into that. But very quickly, just worth reminding everybody that every game we spoke about, we own. We own physical copies of them and we love all of them. Also, if you really, like the best, sanest voice in this entire space that I have found is Good Russ over at Retro Game Core. Like if you, sorry, when he puts out a new video,

I, if I'm not even planning on like getting the thing, I just still watch that soothing guy talk about whatever, I don't care. Great voice. It's a great voice, great voice. A few pieces of reader mail. First up from LB, I love that Justin accidentally made a called shot with his Bloodborne 2 joke

from a couple episodes ago. You had it. Yeah, it did occur to me. It did, it did occur to me. Um, uh, from Taylor heard the question. Uh, well, this is not a couple of weeks ago about great video game soundtracks and had to make an account on here just to recommend, uh, I highly recommend outer wilds is one of the best modern soundtracks for doing work or just chilling out.

It has a blend of huge orchestra sounds, some mysterious and spacey tracks and relaxing folk vibes. That soundtrack is so damn good. So good. And it's on vinyl now, which if you're like one of those people who likes that, I'm realizing I'm becoming more of a parody of myself every time I record this show.

That's okay though. It's okay. You're just becoming more yourself. It's so true, it's so true. And this last one is from Caleb. Question. My kid loves video games with level creators and house building.

She has built tons of houses for Link in Tears of the Kingdom. She spends hours crafting levels in Fall Guys, Mario Maker and Minecraft. Any recommendations for games that have level creators or a free form construction element? I'm especially interested in games that don't require resource gathering.

I have one that is a bit more like school, but I'm gonna recommend it anyway. Okay. CodeSpark Academy. Are you familiar with this? No, I don't think so. It is kind of like a level creator but with coding and game design built into it. So it does not look nearly as nice as anything is what Nintendo is making, but it gives you a lot more tools on the actual design level of a game where you can make these elaborate levels and then you can kind of create the game systems within the

levels too and there are 2d levels but there are also like 3d options there's even storytelling options which you probably remember this back in the windows 95 day where you could like make an episode of The Simpsons or a Nicktoon using like the worst 3D imaginable. It would take hours to render, but you could kind of like record your audio. It does that sort of stuff too. So if you're more of a storyteller,

it lets you create those sorts of things. If you're a game designer, it lets you do that. If you just wanna make like Mario platform levels, you can do that. It has a whole bunch of user made stuff and it is on iOS for sure on browser and I think it's on Android too and it's Codespark Academy. Do you have anything? Nothing of this brings to mind.

The resource management is the trick here. There's just so much of that. If you... I mean, like I'm assuming LittleBigPlanet and Mario Maker, stuff like that, doesn't scratch this particular itch. Well, they said Mario Maker, so LittleBigPlanet would be a good option. If you are okay using Roblox,

there is a Sonic Maker game in there that is incredible. It is, I don't think in any way endorsed by Sega, but it lets you make Sonic levels in the exact same way that you can make Mario Maker levels. So that's another option, but then you are in the role. They got a Sonic world in Minecraft. I've been thinking about that a lot.

It's really go peak. It's the good stuff. Anything else from you before we wrap up? No, see honorable mentions, I feel like I talked about my honorable mentions. Finish Severance, everybody talked about Severance. If you haven't seen Severance, you should watch Severance. What are you reading right now?

I went and saw a Minecraft movie in the theater. I cried at the end, so I'm probably not in a good place. So that's my review of Minecraft movie. That's good, that's really review of Minecraft movie. That's good. That's really good. Are you are you reading anything? Yes, I recommended the lies of Locke Lamora a few weeks back by Scott Lynch and I am on the second book in that series Red Seas Under Red Skies.

It's called the Gentlemen Bastards series and there's three of them, I believe. It's a fantasy world that has 12 gods except there's a hidden 13th god that is a god of thievery and thieves. And there is a group of thieves that serve this god and the way they serve this God is by stealing and ripping people off. And it's very fun, lighthearted, sort of roguish fantasy if you like that kind of thing. And heisty, very like Ocean's Eleven clockwork, seeing it how it all, the big plans, how they all like the machinations all come together. Really well written, really funny, very much enjoying it.

But yeah, that's it. Nice. Nice. Yeah. My recommendation is Scarecrow from 1973. Have you ever heard of this movie? Who's in it? Tell me who's in it. Gene Hackman and Al Pacino.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had not heard of this movie at all. And then went and saw it this week, and there's just a killer road trip buddy movie starring Gene Hackman and Al Pacino that just feels lost to time. And it's really good. I feel like movies like this that don't have iconic moments

that get circulated in Oscar montages, if you didn't have a big show-stopping scene, I feel, I worry we lose some of these. Yeah, and it has. Like, would we have lost Dog Day Afternoon if it didn't have him screaming Attica at that one point? Would people still be talking about,

you know what I mean? Like, it feels like without that, we lose some of these movies. It's true. Yeah, people should check it out. I think it's streaming, I saw it in a theater, but it was really nice. And really cool to watch Al Pacino not doing Al Pacino.

You know that period before an actor becomes themselves? He's just like this lovable, silly dude here. He's very sprightly, which is not how I normally describe Al Pacino. Do you know one movie, I think he shakes that off as insomnia. A little bit, right? Or he's like making it work for him enough

that he's like wearing it like a suit that seems to be making him tired also. Like he's tired of being Al Pacino. You know what I mean? Anyway, what are we doing next week? Are we doing Claire Obscure? Is that- One thing I'll say about Russ, and I, listen, I hope he doesn't hear this,

but he does write down the things that we're supposed to talk, like he does do some of that stuff, so I do miss that. Hey, I have it all on a Google Doc, I just don't know what next week is. You didn't share it with me, so I don't know any of this.

That's because I'm such- Russ always shares it with me. I'm a generous host that I knew that I can just walk you right through it. I had almost landed the plane, the wheels were down, and then at the last minute you just throttled it into the pages. We usually change midweek anyway, so I don't even know why we did this part of the show anymore. But we'll maybe talk about Claire Obscura.

I don't know what that is. So I hope it's good. Be sure to join us again next week for the besties, because you're the world's best friend for the world's best games. Besties!