The Besties - Runescape and a Competitor to Limbo? It's a Grab Bag, Y'all

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

On this episode of The Besties, we're checking out some stellar smaller games: Bionic Bay, Sunderfolk, and Runescape Dragonwilds. We've also got an update on the latest and greatest in Japanese reality television, as well as the true meaning of Easter. 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!

Did we all kind of queue up a burp at the same time there? That's crazy, dude. I definitely had one in the chamber. Crazy. Wow, Russ had said he had a cold open and he was time sensitive, he really wanted to do it, but then we all fired up. We all had one in the chamber when we did our count.

We didn't launch it, like we wouldn't, we're audio professionals, we wouldn't, but we all got a little choked up there. It was funny, it was like, oh, we all burped, and now Russ can't do the one that he wanted to do. No, I do want to hear that. I really wanted to hear it too. Guys, I want to talk about persecution. Guys, I wanna talk about persecution.

Okay, just the idea of it. Honestly, if I need an expert in that Russ, you are the one I turn to. What do you guys know about me? What do you think, if you were thinking of facts that you know about Russ Froschick and things that he likes, what's one thing that you would say he likes? The steam from scrambled eggs.

The steam that comes off an egg, when that hits your eye like a big pizza pie. He loves that, we know this. His children, one child, it's tough to keep track. No, no, you hit it in one, you hit it in one. I got one kid, likes that, likes video games. Roguelike. The secret-

Likes hurting himself with video games. That's true. The secret about the egg steam is that it does require eggs, which is to say I like eggs. Indirectly, I like eggs. It's funny from the reflection of Griffin's glasses in his computer monitors, I can tell what his mind is wondering.

And that's interesting. It's like you just see the flashes. I'm looking at nothing. It's like he's looking for any tab that might alleviate. I'm looking at nothing but my boys right now. So I don't know if you guys are aware, but there's been a bit of an egg shortage in America lately such that for certain supermarkets, including the one that is within walking distance of me,

it's a Trader Joe's, there's been a sincere egg shortage such that you have to kind of get there right at opening to get a carton of eggs, they're limited to one carton. I get that, I have no objections to that, obviously. The eggs should be shared among, wide and all. I don't feel that way. I feel like if I get there early and have the most money,

I should be able to buy all the eggs. I realize that- I also don't think vegans should be buying them, period. I need those. Those are for Justin and Russ. Those are for me. Russ needs them to live. I don't think vegans can buy them, right?

So was there a point to your story or was there- Okay, so I went to the supermarket. This is the week leading up to Easter. I went to Trader Joe's to go buy eggs, right at opening, and I arrive, and there is a line of no exaggeration 312 people in line at Trader Joe's. Wait a minute, hold on, hold on. How could you say no exaggeration and then say 312? Did they give you a ticket that said 313 on it or did you go head by head?

They were counting people as they went through the door. They had a counter, a ticker, to make sure it didn't get overflown. Legit, legit, I'm sorry Russ, I was out of line. Okay, big man. Speaking of persecution, here we are. This is a cold open. Go on. So I arrive and I'm like, this seems odd. We should be recording this.

There's too many people here for right early in the morning just to buy eggs. Normally there's like a dozen people that are pretty jazzed about buying eggs, but otherwise no. Turns out, Trader Joe's was selling an Easter themed tote bag that was specially released and people were really fucking jazzed about it.

You knew who wasn't jazzed about it? Who? The guy who came just to get eggs. Oh, fuck. Is that? Yeah. And I had to wait in the line. It took like 25 minutes to wait in this line.

Now Russ, why wasn't there two lines? They know there's an egg problem. I would be really T.O.ed if I was you. That's what I said. Why isn't there a tote bag line and an everything else line? But honestly, I think it was fitting for the holiday for me to be suffering in this way. I thought it was an appropriate connection to the holiday that at least one person was being subjected

to something truly awful. And in my case, waiting 25 minutes in line. Yeah. To buy a dope pack. And then three days later. Okay, and the worst part of it is by the end. The worst part of it was, I do know already, but go on. No, the worst part of it is by the end- The worst part of it was, I do know already, but go on. No, the worst part of it was,

after 20 minutes of waiting in line, I gotta be honest, I kinda wanted the tote bag. And they announced, I was five minutes away from the end of the line, they announced, I'm sorry everyone, we're out of tote bags. Did that at least clear out the line, so you could go on, finish your-

No, people were like pot committed at that point. They were like- I hope they have video epitaphs for the time that you die. I want a video tombstone that just plays you telling that story. I love you. Just like, this is the rest-rushing experience.

It was the worst day of my life. Did you try to buy one off of somebody else or? No, I should have. Fucking eBay that shit. Where were they charging? It's like three dollars, idiots. Damn, that's a- else or no I should have fucking eBay that shit what were they charging like three dollars idiots they could have really raked them over the coals My name is Justin Macarot and I know the best games of the week. My name is Griffin Macarot and I know the best games of the week.

My name is Ross Fruska and I know the best games of the week. Welcome to the Besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a video game club. Just by listening, you my friend have become a member. This week we have a melange for you One of our beloved grab bag upsets where we talked about a bunch of different games that we're enjoying None of which you care enough about to make a whole episode

That's the truth. That's the algorithm. That's it. That's not us. You might care about them, but not right now currently You don't plural you currently you don't stick you but maybe at the end you will, enough to be like, that should have been a whole episode. Yeah, perhaps. Well, there's only one way to find out and it's to take a quick break and then come back and then do the dang thing. Griffin, you played an old game, a game that's been out for like 30 years at this point

with like 2D graphics and shit. No, I understand your confusion, but- When I saw this pop up on Steam with you playing it, Griffin, I just assumed they renamed Blueprints. No, I think I beat Blueprints. I am gonna talk this week about RuneScape Dragonwilds. And if you say the full title of that, your underwear goes up your own butt.

It kind of is like an auto-wedgie situation. Are you guys at all familiar with RuneScape? All I know about RuneScape is the Reddit community for the original game is very active, and like memes will bubble up to the like, homepage of Reddit, but I won't understand any of them. So, I think the main reason for that is old school RuneScape is sort of the re-released version of just that,

the original RuneScape that is out on iOS where it works pretty well and sort of really revived the community. RuneScape 3 is also kind of still available, but from what I can tell, old school RuneScape is sort of the supreme game. And are those MMOs, or are they just like? So yes, they are MMOs.

RuneScape was a very just primordial MMO that had a sort of like top, not quite top down, sort of like isometric perspective. You had your character, there were no classes or anything like that, but instead, it kind of spearheaded this idea of you have like two dozen skills, and the skills can be like logging and- Tailoring, I've seen people talking about

how hard it is to tailor. And as you like do those things, those specific skills level up, and so like that's a lot of the game's content, and it also like sort of inspired a lot of other games that would then come after it. Elder Scrolls, for that matter. Sure, yeah, absolutely.

But it is an MMO. So what is very cool about RuneScape Dragon Wilds is if you are at all familiar with RuneScape or old school RuneScape, there's a lot there that has been like adapted in a weird way that is sort of non-traditional for like, I don't know, new games in a franchise. It is not an MMO, it is a open world survival crafting game

in the vein of your enshrouded, your rusts, things along that line. So you're going around, you're collecting wood and stone to make a thing to chop down a bigger thing, X, Y, Z. However, it does have that same skilling system as RuneScape, so like anytime you do anything in this game, you are constantly leveling up these skills and unlocking these little passive bonuses

or unlocking new spells or unlocking X, Y, or Z. And so like those, this game is interesting because there's a lot of ways that the logic and rules of old school runescape actually lend themselves really, really well to this particular genre of game. Not only that, sometimes you'll find a quest that is a quest from old school runescape.

I don't know that you will necessarily vibe with that if you don't give a shit about that. No, probably not. But it does some stuff that is sort of like, it does some stuff that's interesting. Sorry, what is the quest of like, is it like, oh I remember that time that guy asked me for vlogs and I went fucking nuts.

So you're showing your ass a little bit here right now because RuneScape was weird in that its quests were not straightforward. They were not like go here, do this thing. It was like you would find a ghost and it'd be like, here's an amulet, find my body. And you wouldn't get fucking anything else from it. And then it was just like-

I'm down with that. That sounds like my kind of thing. Yeah, no, I mean, and I genuinely think like old school RuneScape is free to play on your phone or iPad. And I do think like there's a lot there that's interesting as sort of a historical document. But that stuff will obviously be lost on you if you didn't play that game.

One thing that's really neat is that there is magic in this game. And the way the magic system work is you collect these runes, which are sort of like your ammunition for casting these different spells. You unlock these spells by leveling up different skills. So for instance, the first spell I unlocked by leveling up my wood cutting skill,

summons a magic axe that you kind of swirl in front of you and then throw forwards and it chops down every tree right in front of you that you sort of aim it at. And then you get a spell that causes the trees that fall down to explode so you can just grab all the lumber without having to chop stuff down. There's a spell that lets you just do one really high jump, which really sort of makes exploration and stuff

a lot more interesting. There's a lot of really interesting kind of applications of magic in the game. And I think overall, like it feels pretty good. It was sort of a stealth launch. Jagex, I believe is the name of the team who makes RuneScape. Those Jags.

Those Jags. They kind of just like stealth launched it, and we're like, yeah, give it a try. It's early access, let us know what you think. And it's like solid. It's genuinely pretty fun. I do like that it's colorful. Yeah, sure.

Which I think a lot of these sort of games, like even in Trouted, which is a game I really liked, does have like a kind of a filter over it that kind of juggles a lot, which is more realistic certainly, but this is like more in line with that. It's also the design of like the main characters and stuff. It feels less like... We've gotten so kludgy with character design lately, like the piling on of accessories and bands and everything. Like, we've gotten so kludgy with character design lately,

like the piling on of accessories and bands and everything. There's a lot of iconic silhouettes here. Like it feels like iconic fantasy. The pointy hat, if you will. You know how like Final Fantasy games these days all wanna have their cake and eat it too? Like leather jackets and swords, like that never happened. Yeah, because they have the Uniqlo brand deal

like after the first- Right, exactly. That is not the case. And a lot of the armor from RuneScape is in the game. A lot of the weapons from RuneScape are in the game. And so like that is why that stuff kind of looks sort of like 90s camp fantasy, is because like that's exactly where it was pulled from.

It looks like, you know what it kind of reminds me of is the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon? Yes, for sure. And so I have, I didn't play RuneScape when I was a kid, I played old school RuneScape. And so, I don't know, I've always been very charmed by that world. I think the aesthetic is really kind of something neat. And I think that this game is really promising. I do think it is a bit content light at the moment. You can't level up all the skills to like max level.

Some of the skills are like missing entirely. Like there's no, you can shoot bows and stuff, but there's no like ranged skill to like level up alongside that. And from what I can understand, like you can get through most of, but there's no ranged skill to level up alongside that. And from what I can understand, you can get through most of the content of the game relatively quickly. What is the paint?

Is it just buy once and you're good, or is there a? Yeah, no, it's not an MMO. It's buy once and you're good. I think it's like 30 bucks, I wanna say. But I don't know, I have been enjoying it. I don't think it is hitting quite as hard as like, in Shrouded, I think is in like a really good spot right now and kind of does a lot of this stuff better

and has like better building and more to kind of do. But I do think that it's a really sort of, ironically like it has a lot of original ideas, or I guess RuneScape had a lot of original ideas and this one has adapted them very smartly. Yeah. And so, yeah, I've been enjoying it. I've been playing on my rogue ally,

it works pretty well. Rogue, yeah, I was gonna say rogue ally, a new addition. That does seem neat. I get a little bit overwhelmed by all of the, whatever the genre is, the survival RPG genre. But it's good to see something that does at least visually stick out from the pack in that way. Yeah, and it's also like, I don't know,

I think it's fun that fans of this franchise who have not really had anything to snack on since RuneScape 3 dropped a million billion years ago, just get this like huge kind of exciting thing out of nowhere. Do they seem happy? Because oftentimes... Yeah, no, it's been, it's the response has been like incredible. I can't imagine trying to make an audience like that.

Like, that's pretty fucking impressive. I do think it's kind of incredible that like, an audience can just keep their busted broken down thing going long enough with a great circle of time comes back around and like, wait, people still like RuneScape. Let's just make more of this. Old school RuneScape really set that ablaze and I'll say really set the tone for World of Warcraft

Classic that did kind of the same thing.craft classic that did kind of the same thing. EQ, I think, did sort of the same thing. But I don't know, old school RuneScape, it just works so well on a touch device and I think that's why the community is still as fired up about it as it is. Lord British, what the fuck are you doing? What are you doing, though?

It's time, man. Sitting on the toilet doing nothing? Get in it. Make your own remake. Lord. He's lost in his magic house, that's what happened. Griffin, here's the great question I have for you. What is your plan for this game going forward? Is this something you're gonna hang with

now that you've talked about it? Lord British was Ultima online. I know, I was saying he hasn't thrown his hat into the ring. He's like not making something. Oh, I see. Whereas he needs to get Ultima back going. He fell into a trap door in his fancy house and now he can't get out again.

Griffin and I are very close friends. Yeah, true. So my question to you, Griffin, because you weren't listening because you were looking up facts about Richard Garriott. My question once more is, now that the episode is completed, do you think that this is something

you're gonna hop right back in and play some more of, or do you feel like we'll check back in in six months where you're at? Yeah, it's definitely a check back in scenario. I've put maybe 10, 12 hours in it, and built a cool base and done some of the story stuff, and found a dope weapon and did that, but it is tough to dedicate a lot of time,

at least personally speaking, it's tough to dedicate a lot of time to a game that you know is going to be better in some amount of time, at least personally speaking, it's tough to dedicate a lot of time to a game that you know is going to be better in some amount of time once it's gotten some updates. So yeah, I am probably going to put this one to bed for now until it is more active. But that said, I've had fun with it and I wouldn't let that stop you if you're interested.

With Entrouded, have you gone back to, like I'm waiting for Entrouded. Yes, I've gone back to Entrouded. Entrouded's gotten a ton of shit. Because I'm just waiting for 1.0 on that. As soon as that drops, yeah, that's gonna be huge. I did return to Entrouded a little bit earlier this year when I got the rogue ally and wanted to play some stuff on it.

Yeah. It's in good shape too, but same sort of thing. I'm in the same boat. I would love for 1.0 to drop. So I feel like, okay, all the time I invest in this is makes sense because this is like the capital G game. Yeah. What else were you talking about?

I checked out something this week called Sunderfolk. It was part of an Easter celebration, an impromptu Easter celebration because I was stuck at my house where other people swam. So I started an impromptu Sunderfolk party. What is Sunderfolk, Justin? Well, thank you. I was gonna, I would ask.

Go ahead. You didn't really leave much out. I was being their listener, not you guys. What is Sunderfolk? So yeah, sorry. In my head, that was the listener. Oh, okay. Not you guys who should have asked.

I was distracted by Griffin's Funky Kong shirt and couldn't ask anything. So, Sunderfolk developed by Secret Door, who has done Sunderfolk. I think. That's where I'm from. You may know them from. You may know them from Sunderfolk.

Okay, so imagine a game that is halfway between, you don't know Jack and Four Swords, Legends of Four Swords, so the idea is like you start the game on a computer or laptop or what have you. I think the ideal scenario is you're running it into a TV with an HDMI out, but you could run it off the laptop regardless. And then- Is it on, could you could run it off the laptop regardless.

And then- Is it on, could you do like an Apple TV situation or is? Oh, you know, I mean, I don't, I, as far as I know, this is just coming to Steam right now, but so, and this is part of the, I guess, Dreamhaven franchise. Oh, sure. Dreamhaven. So that's a whole,

I don't need to tell you about Dreamhaven. So when you boot up the game, it basically starts a campaign and the campaign has a QR code on the screen. People scan the QR code on their phones and that prompts them to download an app that is the Sunderfolk Controller. So then when you start, this is also,

I think there's some parallels to the stuff that, until Dawn, is it super massive? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some parallels to what they did with hidden, ah, somebody looked that up. You know the one I'm talking about. Yeah, the anthology, right, that they did?

Hidden pictures? There was like one where you had a, it was an investigation thing where you had a secret agenda that you were trying to complete and the other players, anyway. As you play through the game, the main interactions of it are basically a Hex-based. The Dark Pictures anthology.

Thank you. That's not the one you're talking about. I was talking about, but anyway. In Cinderfolk, it's a Hex, the combat is like a Hex-based system where you choose a character class, all pretty bog standard stuff, right? You got a bard, you got a wizard,

you got a fighter, what have you. And then the campaign starts, each person is controlling a character and they can make like dialogue choices, stuff like that throughout on the phone. But then when you're playing the game, the phone becomes basically like a touchscreen controller where you're manipulating what's on the screen.

So you're not doing much of the interaction on your phone, right, you're not staring at your phone the whole time. You're looking at the screen, but you're using the touch screen to move your character, choose things that you wanna do. And then your spells and actions are all like card based on the phone. So you're swiping up the things that you wanna do.

Okay. I was gonna ask, it doesn't, I don't understand why this needed to be a phone and not a controller until you hit it on that. Well, the thing is, if you are, it's the setting, right? It's the, it's a phone, not a controller because people have phones. And so you can get, it's the same model as like,

I mean, you don't know Jack could be a controller too, right? But the model is different because you can bring people in for a couch co-op thing where the phone, you don't have to pair a bunch of controllers and hook it up and everything. Is it adversarial at all or is it? So there is definitely an aspect of collaboration, but there is an aspect where the first person

to touch the gold or the first person to touch the gold or the first person to interact with the treasure chest keeps it. And then your gold is specific to you. So there's definitely this element of like, I really should come help you with that, but I really want this gold. And so there's a little bit of like back and forth

as far as that goes on. And you've got the character, there's a story being told, right? There's a campaign story where you can like hop in and hop out and control the characters. What I don't know is like, I played it with slice for like an hour and a half, I would say. And it took us just a little bit to kind of figure out the basics. Mechanically, if you were playing this like solo, if it didn't have the other elements,

I think you would be like, I don't know what the, you know, most of it is just kind of functional, right? It seems like the focus was just making it happen. But it was a really interesting way of like playing together without having to like, it's very similar to, I think, a lot of board game experiences, just, you know, in a digital way that makes it easier to set up and easier to play. You can do a lot of board game experiences, just in a digital way that makes it easier to set up

and easier to play. You can do a lot of the sort of boring character management stuff on your phone where it's not slowing people. Yeah. Right? So when you both level up, you're doing your own level up stuff on your phone. You're waiting for the other person to do it, but you can actually like go to the shop and buy things

while they're doing that. So you don't really- It sounds like playing multiplayer multiplayer Baldur's Gate 3 was a similar, obviously this is easier because it's just on phones, but like from a logistic standpoint, it does seem kinder in that way. So my issue, I think,

the thing that worries me after playing it, the thing that I'm like unconvinced about, this is out by the way, you can go play this, try this if you want. I don't know how easy it would be to like onboard someone who wasn't already in the room. I'm not sure this is like a party game. Yeah.

I think this is more like, I have friends over to do this or like have a plan. This is not like, you know, you don't know Jack or some of the other Jackpock stuff. It's kind of like, you know, the dinner didn't go as long as you thought it was going to, there's like an hour before everybody's gonna leave, so like, let's just goof around. This is not that, this feels a little bit more dedicated.

If you have friends that would get into this kinda thing, I think it's pretty accessible, I think it's well worth trying, I think it's pretty cool. Yeah, there aren't too many of these that are, you know, like this format, but also like pretty approachable. I guess Jackbox is still like the epitome, but this feels like a different experience entirely. This is more of an RPG.

I also think if you have kids, this would be a really great balance between like interacting with screens, but still like interacting with each other. I'm always looking for stuff like that, then kind of engage them, but we can still sort of hang out throughout. So I think that would be a good fit if the kids are a little bit older. I think it's not super, I feel like 12 plus if I had to guess, like it's not super, and

you know, I don't send that not just ages, but like familiarity with games overall, right? This is not something you're gonna hand it to your grandmother who just likes Peggle or something, and she's gonna be able to play it in the same. That's not judgmental, like you can hand Jackbox to, you know, you can onboard someone with that in 10 seconds, and this is not that, but it is very cool. Yeah, it looks neat.

Is there like a long campaign or is it just like individual play sessions where it's like, here's- That's the thing that I don't know. It feels like we have a campaign that we could return to. I don't know if I started a different campaign, if it would be that different. And I assume it would have, I mean, obviously there's branching narrative choices.

So like, yes, it would be very different, but like, I don't know the long tail on it. But sometimes those branching narratives are like not really. Right, right. It may be the Dragon Age thing of like, I don't know the long tail on it. But sometimes those branching narratives are like not really. Right, right. It may be the Dragon Age thing of like, I don't know, it's just a bunch of AI generated crap. It doesn't mean anything.

Not to say Dragon Age is that, but yeah, you get it. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, that seems cool. I think we have one more game we can talk about and we'll do that after the break. Okay, so the last game today that we are talking about is called Bionic Bay. And this is a 2D platformer puzzle game in the style of games like Limbo and Inside. If you're into those games, if you've ever played any of those games, you will feel instantly very at home here. The game-

We need a name for this. It's a very niche subgenre, but- I think it's a puzzle platformer is what people call them. It doesn't seem- I guess so. Atmospheric puzzle platformer. That's better, yeah.

The problem with that term is that that instantly puts me in the mind of like, I have to shift boxes around Which you do in this game you do have boxes. I mean they're nice-looking boxes guys. There's some moody music, but This game kicks off you're a scientist in a lab and something goes wrong and you for some reason get teleported to an alien world and you for some reason get teleported to an alien world. And the alien world looks kind of like Zen from Half-Life 1.

It's just like kind of biomechanical, but you know, there's a lot of like creatures and lasers and gears that'll kill you and all sorts of shit. It hits you with huge out of this world vibes. Yeah, that was my first thought. Or another world vibes. Yeah, that was my mother world vibes really really fast Yeah, yeah, you really just get dropped into this thing and you're like, well, this is a shitty situation how am I gonna survive this and

Within five minutes you were shot with a laser that turns you into like a springy bouncy boy Yeah, sure. It is a really effective like when, when you boot it up, you're like, oh my God, no please. I can't play home. It feels so shitty, yeah. When I thought it was the game of, like, we were just doing this game for the week, when I booted it up, I was like, oh God, I can't play many hours of this,

but it's like, I mean, literally 30 seconds. It's basically a psych gag. Yeah, they do like a slow, you're forced to like very slowly walk cause all your bones are broken, into this laser that like fully heals you and turns you into, yeah, bouncy jumpy boy. And from there, it just turns into like a much more platformer centric game, even the limbo, like there's a lot more of these like moves where you're doing like

roll into jump into dive through the air and try to land on like a tiny grab ledge thing. These like just very balletic dives. And that's paired with some special abilities that you get as you play through the game. The first one that you get is a teleport swap. So you can tag any item, like any object in the game and then swap places with it.

Pretty straightforward, but that obviously has tons of like puzzle elements to it. There's also like, you know, if there's like a tracking rocket, you could like swap at the last second with a box, and then the box will like block the rocket. So it's those sorts of ideas that you're using while you're kind of progressing through this game. Yeah, a really, a a lot of moments in this game where it uses this

pretty small handful of mechanics in really clever ways. A lot of moments are like, oh shit, I can't believe that worked moments. It's quite smart. Yeah, later on they do mix in, I don't know how many there are, but they do mix in other I don't know how many there are, but they do mix in other powers beyond just the teleport power.

You do get like a super strength punch at one point, which really helped to kind of mix things up. But broadly speaking, you're using the jumps and the rolls and the teleport. I found it just visually very compelling, like immediately grabbing. They do, I love games where you have like a very, very little character and a giant

environment around them, because it really gives you the sense of scale. And they fucking crush that. It looks so gorgeous. Runs great on a Steam Deck. And I think like, I know LED screen really helps this game as well. There's like really cool contrast with the art. Did you guys play online at all? No, there's online?

There's online in this game. I did not know. Yeah, so it's not unlocked at launch or right at the beginning of the game, but once you, I think, beat the first chapter or whatever, you can go back to the main menu and there's an online, it's called like Bionic Bay Online, whatever. And it's basically like ghost runs of various like levels.

So you can see 30 people doing the same run that you're doing and you're trying to get the best time in that level. Is it asynchronous? It is asynchronous, yeah. Okay, good. So I guess technically not online. No, I mean, that's, having played, you know,

Mario Maker online like that, asynchronous seems obviously superior. Yeah, yeah, that's, having played, you know, Mario Maker Online like that, like asynchronous, seems obviously superior. Yeah, yeah, it's asynchronous and just like a nice addition to I think, this feels like the sort of game that I'm really enjoying and I will probably beat, but once I beat it, there wasn't necessarily a reason for me to go back and this gives me a little bit more

of an incentive to like go back and, you know, play. They have like daily challenges so people can keep coming back on a daily basis. There's even a character customization feature of that where you can make your character look unique in that sea of Ghost Runners. I really dug this game. I love games like this, games that really use physics in fun ways to result in stupid ragdoll effects and making you feel kinda epic. I will also say it is a puzzle platformer

and sometimes the puzzle stuff gets a little bit challenging but I was surprised at how good the parkour kinda feels. You can really chain together some, I bet the speed run of this game is gonna be fun as hell to watch because you can really chain together some, I bet the speed run of this game is gonna be fun as hell to watch because you can really chain stuff together in a way that feels pretty fantastic. Yeah.

It feels surprisingly good, not surprisingly, I guess, but for one of these games, you're not used to them being as fun to play, I think as this one is. I was surprised once the elastic stuff kicks in, it's like, oh, this is really like, it reminded me of Cannibal't in the elastic stuff kicks in, it's like, oh, this is really like, it reminded me of Cannibal, in the way that it feels,

like the joy of just like rushing and like sprinting and like throwing yourself forward, it really has a lot of that. Yeah, you compare that to like Limbo, which I think is a great game, but also like very slow and kind of pensive. And there are moments in this where you do have to like take a second

to like figure out the situation, but broadly speaking, it is much more of a sprint through which I really dig works Cool that is Bionic Bay and that is also out on Steam All these games are out right who made it the developer is psycho flow studio and Marina Oye made it. Awesome. I don't know their stuff, their previous stuff,

but it looks like, yeah, this might be their first major release. All right, fantastic. These are great games, guys, and I love video games. Okay, sort of weird thing to Sort of a weird thing to, like a weird thing to assert, I guess. It was just silence. It was just like silence and I didn't know what to do.

Yeah, but we can be comfortable, we've done this show for so long, we can be comfortable being silent with each other for like little spurts. We could sit here for 10 minutes and not do anything. Little spurts of time. Yeah. Reader mail? Yeah, I'd love that.

Okay. We have one letter. We had many letters, but this is a long one. So I thought it was worth just focusing on this one. This comes from- Nice, I'm excited. Bass toad. Long letter you say. Or I guess bass toad.

Podcast me to heaven. So apparently, I wasn't here, but apparently you guys were talking about building games last week. Yeah. Does that sound like- I also wasn't here last week. So there was a question last week? Yeah. Does that sound like, I also wasn't here last week. So there was a question last week about games

that were about sort of like freeform construction where you can play together and make things. Cool. So Bass Toad had recommendations for some other games to check out. Vintage Story is a take on the Minecraft voxel game with more in-depth building tools. It has a creative mode so you can build freestyle.

There's also Planet Zoo and Planet Coaster with great customization and building tools for designing very intricate landscapes. Tiny Glade is a great game where you build these little castles and ruins. I played that one. That one is really neat. I like that a lot. Summer House and Townscaper also in the vein of Tiny Glade.

And a throwback from my childhood is Blockland, a Lego style building game where you are the size of a mini figure. And finally, The Sims 4 has very good building tools, just like a ton of stuff, especially if you type in the console, you can just generate whatever you want. God, Blockland.

I remember playing this game. It is kind of a trip to see it, because I have not thought about it in, well, 18 years, I guess. It's on Steam. Crazy. Perfect. Great. Yeah, it looks very blocky.

But- Russ, you play a lot of, I mean, you've played like No Man's Sky and stuff like that. I think you have two. What's your, and play a lot of, I mean, you've played like No Man's Sky and stuff like that. I think you have two. What's your, and maybe this is like germane to the conversation you had last week, but like what's the gold standard of, you know,

base building, that type of stuff? Man, No Man's Sky is pretty good. I think the best that I've ever played is probably, oh, fuck, what's the name of the scuba diving game? Oh, Subnautica. Subnautica has really incredible base building that I think where a lot of the base building in games like No Man's Sky get a little distracted for me,

I know a lot of people like this, is they lean on like a little more of the role play stuff where things that you put in your base don't necessarily have like a ton of utility, whereas essentially everything in Subnautica has some utility to it, which I thought- I think that speaks to the fact that Subnautica has a lot of plates you have to spin,

and you build things that make spinning those plates a lot easier. I really think Entrouded has cornered the market on this. You can build some stuff in that game that looks truly pretty fantastic and really make a space your own. I remember feeling very intimidated when I first started playing.

This is like right at early access launch where I felt like my shitty block castle was like very pathetic in comparison to what it could be. Yeah, I remember. It left a mark. Have you guys been playing or watching anything else? Maybe we should say that Oblivion stealth dropped very recently as we are recording this,

and I think we're gonna talk about next week because I don't think we've spent a ton of time with it, but early impressions are quite positive. It's crazy how good this game looks. Yeah, it's weird. I haven't thought about, week's, I don't think we've spent a ton of time with it, but early impressions are quite positive. It's crazy how good this game looks. Yeah, it's weird. I haven't thought about, it's weird to think about returning to Oblivion.

Yeah. That it's a big one. We are gonna- For a long time I said it was my favorite game. Well, really? Yeah, for a long time. It was, it's a, we will end up talking about it next week. Yeah, we're doing an episode on next week.

But that's incredible. I have a TV show, I talked about it on another podcast, but the more I watch of it, the more I really like it. It's called Offline Love. It's a Japanese reality dating show. The premise is that there are 10 young Japanese singles, five men, five women, and they spent 10 days together in Nice, France.

And the big sort of conceit of the show is that when they get there, they lock their cell phones in a locker that they can't access until the 10 day trip is over. And so all correspondence, all kind of like courtship, all planning and stuff like that has to take place either face to face or through letter writing because there's a little mailbox with the box

that you lock your phone in. And that seems like, oh, that seems kind of stupid. Like that seems like not enough to sort of hang an entire show on. But instead you get these kind of thrilling moments where they have a map that they will show two people walking closer and closer and closer together, and then they'll just miss each other. And they'll walk right by each other.

Because there's no, there's a meeting place where they all sort of drop their letters, but there's no guarantee that you're gonna see anybody any given day. And then once you do, if two people ask you out on one day, you can't let that first person, you can't text that first person. You have to write them a letter and hope that they see it

so that you don't stand them up. It has a lot of drama. You could just not accept the second date like a classy person. Yeah, but if you get two letters in your mailbox. Oh, I see. Right? So there's a lot of really great moments

that come out of that sort of core idea. It has huge, I don't know, chill Terrace House vibes. I know that the shine kinda came off that apple pretty hard, but it is like really, really polished. The tour, I don't really have much affinity for, like I've never traveled to France or like really prioritize that, but it has like a lot of great sort of that virtual tourism kind of element to it.

The commentators are really, really fantastic. Is like language a factor? Like do any of them speak French? The commentators are really, really fantastic. It has been- Is language a factor? Like do any of you speak French? So it's really interesting because they all speak Japanese when they're with one another. And then they will get in moments where like,

there's one couple that go on a date to a winery and they have to like try and stitch together any kind of conversation with this married couple that owns the winery, but they don't speak Japanese. Right. And the people on the date don't really speak a lot of French. They all speak a little bit of English.

And so like they're just bouncing between conversation between different languages as they as they converge. Have they done that reality show? Where no one speaks the same language? Yes, they have done that reality show. I think it's called the language of love. The language of love? Yeah, that's done that. Yes, they have. I think it's called the language of love. The language of love?

Yeah, that's right. So glad you got to hear. You've asked the two rightest people that you could have. Yeah, it's on Netflix. Rachel and I have been watching it and it's been a really lovely way to de-stress from the NHL playoffs, which have been bad to watch as a St. Louis Blues fan so far.

I mean, fittingly for the name. What's that? The name of the team, it's fitting. The Blues. Blues, because it makes you feel sad. Yeah, sometimes they make you feel good. But yeah, it's a great show, and I've been liking it a lot. Cool.

I think that's it for me. I have another show to talk about. I've been watching Daredevil Born Again, which is the new Daredevil show on Disney+. It's basically just like bringing back the Netflix Daredevil show with basically the same cast or a lot of the same cast in a new adventure. And all your friends are here,

except for some of them aren't. But the most important- Now you're just reading from the trailer script for us. But the most important person is here and that is Vincent D'Onofrio because I do not think there is anyone in the Marvel universe that is more compelling to watch than-

Get this guy in a fricking movie already, please. Holy shit. I could watch him for. Let him fight Spider-Man and let me have that film please. The like sad but also angry Kingpin who's huge and is now mayor of New York City. Like all this stuff is working for me so well. Is that canonical to the MCU? I mean, is anything?

Yeah, I mean, there's a continuity of the MCU. I know, but they like dream, oh, this was on Earth 12, so, you know. Sure, but like, I do need the bullshit. If you start hand-waving it away, I would like to know the garbage. So here's what I'm gonna say. It is, I guess, minor, minor spoiler.

Kamala Khan, who is Ms. Marvel, her dad has a bit part in this as Kamala Khan's dad. So I guess it is part of the MCU if you consider it in that vein. Yeah, it is. Yes. Yes. I heard somewhere, and this was just like a short, I didn't read the article, but I heard somewhere that Vintanofrio was saying there was some licensing something or other that was keeping him from movies But that might just be like he's being coy because he's in fucking the next Avengers movie as like dr Doom's best friend who fucking I mean there's always a thing right?

But there's always like a dollar value attached and you know who's very good at solving dollar value problems Disney Yeah, don't figure you have to look around and they own it somewhere, whatever business it is. But I've been enjoying that show, you know, it's fun. It's good to have something like that back again. Justin, you have anything to share with us? You know me, you know me, I've just been kind of tinkering around.

Oh, you love to tinker. Making a little computer, making a little video game consoles. I made a little portable video game console that was a big hit at Easter too. I was a real entertaining guy at Easter. Thanks hyper fixation, you did it again. You made a portable game console?

Yeah. What does that mean? You wanna see it? Yeah, I wanna see it. You wanna see it? Yeah, I'm gonna describe it visually to the audience. I showed last week, you guys weren't here, I showed Plant, my Daphne,

my LaserDisc Arcade cabinet that I made. Wow. That's in last week's best. That's still within arm's reach. Oh. To have that little beauty right here. Oh yeah, I love that. Okay, it appears to be in a case

that you would keep a nuclear football in. It's like a locked orange, like a safe case, which seems like overkill for a portable device. Oh, okay, so when you mean portable, you mean like, like is it technically a carry on? Go on, go on. I mean, it is technically a carry on. You could fit in the overhead compartment,

but it's pretty close to not, to having to be checked. I mean, it's gonna set off some alarms. What are you playing there? It starts when it boots up with a classic commercial from the 90s. A random one? Yeah. About video games, obviously.

How many, like the Paul Rudd commercial or the Jack Black commercial? Yeah, yeah, that kind of thing. Sometimes it's like Hills, where the toys are. It's like Game Gear. Yes, this is a Game Gear ad for Joe Montana football. Oh, the TV tuner for the Game Gear, classic. Yeah.

And this is the way you're funding it, right? You're getting some money from Game Gear, it's some Sega from the start. We got some startup, I've got the two controllers embedded here. And which controllers, those look like a bit though. Yeah Yeah, and I carved some holes in the foam those guys the honest description. It looks like a laptop in a case It looks kick-ass. It looks very very cool. I'm very impressed by the logistics of all

Show you the inner workings here. This is a battery that white thing you see deep in the cases of bad Okay, I got a Raspberry Pi 5 see deep in the cases of battery. Okay. I got a Raspberry Pi 5 Velcro to the top of that, right? And then I've got the two controllers paired with Bluetooth to this. And then I've got this monitor that's a five volt charge running off of the battery too.

So I'm able to power both of these devices with the same battery. How big is that monitor? Huh? How big is that monitor? 14 inches. I sized it to the case, right? I bought the case first and then I charged up it. How big is that monitor? How big is that monitor? 14 inches. I sized it to the case, right? I bought the case first,

and then I found a monitor that would work. The only thing that's tricky is the HDMI ports on the side. I had to find a 90 degree HDMI port to make that all work. But other than that, it's great. And I can actually play for about six or seven hours. I got, we got the Raspberry Pi 5, you could do up to like Dreamcast, PS2,

pretty confidently. For six or seven hours? Yeah. Wow. About that, yeah. But yeah, if you charge it up before you head out, then you can run it for about eight hours off this. I've got another, I've got two other controllers in here,

so you could do four player if you wanted to. But yeah, that's the thing. I've spent most of my time trying to get going. Wowza. I'm like intimidated by trying to set up Android and you're running circles around me with your little workshop there. I don't think of it as a competition, Russ.

I think the fact that you see it that way is a little sad. That's who I am. Speaking of though, I'm running Oblivion on my Android device here. You should check it out. It runs so smoothly. Wait, is that remastered Oblivion? Yeah, remastered.

That's streaming, though. No, man, I got it up and running on this Android. I had to move around some ones and zeros, OK? Submit some bytes. But I did get it up and running. Todd called me, and he was like, J-Man, I heard you crack. What was that device? Why don't we save it for next week?

Cause I'm also testing that device. So I think we just- Well, I don't want to be the only one without a device. What's it fucking called? I told you about it after Griffin. Yeah, that's in the olden. You didn't even, spoiler for the listener, Griffin didn't even have his fucking camera on.

And then he saw my cool game boy Show me your cool game boy now. It's also funny. You don't even have a device Griffin Griffin. I have a lot of devices It's the retroid flip 2 yeah We will talk in depth about it next week as I've spent I need to spend more time with it But are you still able to buy one of these without paying $100,000? Probably not, because it would need to ship and land in the United States before, I think, May 4 is the cutoff. And certainly for the people listening,

you're going to even have less time. I would not be optimistic. This might be the last China-manufactured handheld for quite some time that we can actually get on the shores for reasonable dollar amount. Fuck cool. I refuse to let that reality infect this podcast. The device will be taken on its own merits.

I mean, realistically, what here's what's gonna happen is these Chinese companies will find manufacturing companies that aren't in China and then just ship them to America once that works out. But we live in a world of chaos, so who fucking knows? Great, cool. Uh, what are we doing next week? Wait, I want to know what the name of your handheld is. Your portable. Sorry, it's not a handheld, it's a portable. Oh yeah, have you named it?

The portable? No, it's based on a design called the Adventure Pie that I saw that was based on a four. It's a Raspberry Pi 4. That creator, if you look that up, his name escapes me, but he also had a configuration for a joystick sort of setup that you could do, alternate to the controller. Can I suggest something? Yeah, please.

What about the Just Box? No, we can do better than that. No, that was, ooh, I mean, uniquely bad, yeah. Oh. Okay, go on rea- oof. I mean, uniquely bad, yeah. Oh. Okay, go on, go beat the Just Box. Oh, I don't have to. The Juice Drive. You can't, that's a false- Juice Drive is pretty good, actually.

I like Juice Drive. Juice Box. Juice Box. I mean, it's the Juice Box, sure. Oh no, it's the Juice Box, I was so close. What's cool about it is, you can find a different- Like, I could have different- It's cool about it is you can find a different, like I could have different, it's just based on the SD card in the pie

as to like what it is. So I could put in a different SD card with like a different suite of games or different setup or themed differently, whatever. It's pretty easy to modify like that. Have you done like, how much like when you start a new device, how much work do you have to do over again?

Or have you gotten to a point where you've like have the baseline settings? I mean, I have the, I have all my stuff organized to like drag games on. I used to be more fixated on like, I wanna try to play everything on this one thing. And now it's more like, what makes sense on this thing? And I'm trying to take more of a curation approach.

So like the setting it up is like the reason I'm doing it. You know, like that's the part that is making. The Lego part. Yeah, that's the part that I enjoy. And then, yeah. And honestly, like from a pricing standpoint, maybe not in the future, but for right now kind of comparable to Lego pricing.

Yeah, sure. I modded a cabinet to, an arcade one cabinet. I sent Griffin a video that I'll just kick ass. I think we've done it. Congrats. I want to thank the patrons over at patreon.com slash the besties. We love you.

You can buy gifts for people. If you know someone in your life that would enjoy a patron subscription, you can go to patreon.com slash the besties slash gift and do that, which is very cool. Some members to thank, we have Dustin, we have Jennifer, we have Mark and we have Lindsay. Thank you for being new patrons of the besties. We really appreciate you.

We appreciate everyone else who is patrons of the besties. You all have a new Resties episode, which is already up. You also have a Bracket Battles episode, which is coming up on Tuesday. That is the best video game grunts. So- Oh, that was funny, yeah. Cannon fodder enemies, not like,

we're not like sitting like, oh. Yeah, we're not. We're not, not those. We could do one on that. Yeah, that'll be next. I feel like most iconic efforts. Yeah. That'll be next.

That'll be next time. The next besties week, what are we playing, Justin? We're gonna be doing some oblivion. Yeah. What should we talk about? It's on the thing. You could just read it. Yeah, but I'm not looking at it right now. Okay, so if I was looking at it,

okay, we're gonna be doing the oblivion remaster. And we're gonna talk about Skin Deep, the new Blindo game that I've been talking about for literally years on this show But I can't believe it's finally out last game came out ten years ago. Was that jazz? quadrilateral Years ago Christ yeah, it's crazy. I've had that thing wish listed before. I mean literally I mean, I think it's eight years That's gonna be next week, be sure to watch it again next time for the besties. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!