The Besties - There's No Rest for the Wicked Nuns

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

What if you combined Dark Souls and Diablo, then added a pinch of city-building mechanics and survivor elements? You’d get No Rest for the Wicked from Moon Studios, the team best known for the Ori games. It’s ambitious and bound to inspire conversations — even in its Early Access stage. In the back half, Plante updates the team on 2024’s best nun simulator: Indika! 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!

But I ain't no rest for the wicked. How many times have you guys busted out that little note while playing and thinking and talking about this game that we're doing? I ain't no rest for the wicked. What's the band? Is it Buckcherry? Yeah, no, it's the Borderlands band.

It's the Borderlands Jam band. From Borderlands? That's right. No, yeah, it's the Borderlands Nightmare band. If memory serves. You guys remember that trailer? It was like, I know, and the guy gets shot in the head and you're like, fuck you. Cage the elephant, cage the elephant.

Please. I was fairly far off. Yeah, sure. I don't even think it's an intro. It's not an intro. It's just a lot of chaos. Fresh start, fresh start. Fresh start, we needed to shake off the rust anyway.

Yeah, new intro. Justin and Griffin, you guys went on airplanes. How do you feel about airplanes? You got any material? Fucking really, Russ. Yeah, new intro. Justin and Griffin, you guys went on airplanes. How do you feel about airplanes? You got any material? Fucking really, Russ. You got a tight five on airplanes? I got my first first-class upgrade.

Whoa. Wow. Wow. I fly home from Chicago. Pinky's up. Did you ditch your whole family and just go into first class? I was traveling by myself. I think usually they only do it to people

who travel by themselves. They don't try to split families up with a sort of like class battle. That's not true. I've seen Home Alone. Oh, that's true, yeah. The parents sit in the front. But those are awful, awful parents.

Awful. I don't hold myself up on a pedestal or anything like that, but my success rate at getting all my kids to go to the places where I'm trying to go with them between these places in this beautiful country of ours is 100%. I've had no homes alone. I don't think that's what makes them bad parents. Because like, Kevin maybe was intentional. I think we can all be a little honest that Kevin was a little bit of a poindexter and maybe they wanted to leave him behind Why are they bad parents because they have like? 30,000 kids and they leave all the random stranger adults in in the in the General seating area to take care of their kids while they're up front drinking champagne

You don't have that many bad not. No I disagree with you. I love the move. I love the move of putting your kids in coach. Let the kids learn. I wrote in coach, I'm with the dad. Let the kids learn. They actually, I've written in first class before

with kids because of accidents that have happened with the upgrade system. And let me tell you folks, they don't appreciate it. They don't get it. They don't get why it's good. From a legroom standpoint coach is first class to them. Yeah What are the kids gonna do on a plane? They cannot leave They can't go anywhere right yeah Ain't no rest for the way down That's not in this intro group. Do you think they wanted Catherine O'Hara for a third one?

She was like, I can't, I can't do it. I can't, it doesn't make- I can't keep leaving the kids. I can't lose a child again. That would have been a better Home Alone 6. If she was like, rolls up and she's like, heard you lost a kid. No, maybe it's time I come out of retirement. rolls up and she's like, heard you lost a kid?

Maybe it's time I come out of retirement. Kept you waiting, huh, Kevin? My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher McElroy 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 Russ Rushing and I know the best game of the week. Welcome to The Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment.

It is a video game club, and just by listening, you, my friend, have become a member. Welcome to our Lustry strengths. Today we're going to be talking about a new release called No Rest for the Wicked, but Chris Plante, what is that? No Rest for the Wicked is an Chris Plante, what is that? No Rest for the Wicked is an action RPG

from the same developer that made Ori and the Blank Forest games. Blind Forest, do you want to see the other one? Blind Forest, Will of the Wisps. Oh, it's not Will of the Forest, okay. Yeah, okay. And the Will of the Wisps. And that was a little cuter with their titles.

But this time, they're making an action RPG that they wanna be making like the next decade. This is their Lord of the Rings. And this action RPG plays a little bit like Dark Souls and a little bit like Diablo and a little bit like, what the hell, I have not played anything quite like this. Animal Crossing. And Animal Crossing.

And a lot like Animal Crossing. Leisure Suit Larry, it's Tetris, it's got them all. They just want to find Todd, football manager. Yeah. We're gonna talk about that, and I don't know what questions you could possibly have after that, but we'll answer all of them right after this.

This game is so fucking weird, and I'm really excited to talk about it, but we'll kind of start at the basics and go from there. For one thing. I'm really excited to talk about it, but we'll kind of start at the basics and go from there. For one thing. I'm sorry. We have to figure out how to turn that off. Let's go behind the music real quick. Sure.

Some of us have activated on our computers. Oh, you did it intentionally? The virtual emojis of, I believe it's an Apple feature. It is, yeah. If you do a certain hand gesture, sometimes it'll put up a special effect on the screen. So sometimes we'll be talking about stuff and then balloons will just appear from the ether.

I don't Chris, I don't think you have balloon magic. I've only seen it from Justin and Russ. Nobody, none of us are professionals enough to not break. It's so distracting. It's so hugely distracting. So what's really funny is, first of all, I learned how to turn it off, so well done me. And secondly, I've been on very important business calls

and very inopportune times balloons have appeared. I've been on them too. It was not ideal. All right, let's get out of the way. One sort of admission, which is, and maybe this isn't so true as much as it was back in the mid-20 teens, but the way, one sort of like admission, which is, and maybe this isn't so true as much as it was back in like the mid-20 teens, but the like, it's like Dark Souls comparison,

I feel like carries so little water now because it's been used so many times. Yeah, I do, I think in this case it does. I think in this case it is, only because it helps to sort of differentiate it from the other big comparison that people make to every ARPG ever made, which is, it's like Diablo. And I genuinely think my experience with this game

was turned on its ear by expectation setting, because I went into it expecting a Diablo game or a, oh God, what's the other big one? Not Pillars of Eternity, that's the CRPG. Torchlight? Torchlight is one of the- It was a lot like Torchlight, yeah. This game really puts into stark contrast

the fact that a lot of games in this genre really feel a lot like Diablo. Like really, really wicked a lot feel like Diablo. And this game doesn't even a little bit at all despite the fact that it is of the same perspective. It has loot. It has extensively the same genre. It has loot.

Yeah, it has loot. And it's in the same perspective. It's an isometric action RPG. So I understand the instinct, but the second you play a minute of it, you realize it's a very different thing. There's actually, see, the Souls thing is interesting because I actually kind of feel like other than difficulty,

there's not as much of the DNA in there from a gameplay perspective. If you look at the nuts and bolts, a lot of the teachings that Souls likes, if you want to say that, have taken away from Souls are not present in this game. It's hard, but it's structured very differently. For instance, grinding is not really a thing. Once you kill all the enemies, they're all killed.

When I was up against the first boss and I would reenter the areas right up, they're all completely cleaned out. I couldn't level up further to, and the resources were also maxed. Like I had gotten all the resources. And there's no sense of like returning to your death spot for any reason, which I feel like is a huge, like soul's element.

Before we get too much further, how about we lay some like groundwork of like what the game actually is? Yeah, I feel like that what we are, that is what it looks like a Diablo. And then, but it's a lot harder than a Diablo. Yeah, I guess I would say that makes a difference is it is an action RPG. You make your character, you can assign skill points to different like things like health or your carrying load or your magic or your.

That's very soul. That's that's very soul like. And then you go into this world and where the combat feels both like and dislike souls is rather than Diablo, where it's like swarms of enemies. And it's like a power fantasy. You'll come across maybe like one to three enemies and it's about patients. It is about letting them come at you with a certain attack, using a parry or a shield and then going back against them

and kind of taking turns with the enemy relaying attacks. Managing stamina, parrying, doing a lot of very thoughtful, very sort of kind of slow, but considered combat. Right, that's the Souls part that really clicks for me, Justin, that like the combat is so much slower and more methodical than you would see in a Diablo. And that sort of experience really has only appeared in those sorts of like Souls likes.

Like this feels more Soulsy than a game that I think we also call the Souls like, which was tunic Which has like flat healing flasks and has safe points and stuff like that But the combat here is like way more intentional and I found the perspective shift and the way they wanted you to fight actually Almost like tough on a physical level like cuz my brain didn't want to connect on a physical level, like, cause my brain didn't want to connect.

You've been playing Diablo, this exact Diablo type thing so long, that there's something about being in that perspective. Now part of it is, this is early access and they are not, and this is kind of, that's kind of a separate conversation, but right now the game doesn't do a very good job of, at all, of differentiating how you should play this

differently from a game that normally looks like this. Yeah. Which I think is something they can obviously like improve, but it took a really long time before I could make myself slow down in that perspective. Right. What I liked about this most is, and I said this, I think to Griffin offline,

I said, this is what I wanted from Diablo, which is make me care about each combat encounter in ways that Diablo does not. Diablo, as Plant said, hoards of enemies, you're killing dozens of guys at once. And here I am like really thinking about, oh, there's this guy here and he's throwing fireball grenades at me.

And then there's another guy with a giant spear that's attacking from the side, how can I get the advantage in this situation? Yeah, for me, the like, trademark of a Souls game is the fact that if you take your eye off the ball and you disrespect just bog standard swordsman enemy that you would run across a million times in any other game,

they'll fucking lay you out. You will get killed. And it's happened to me many, many times where I've just run into a combat encounter like, yep, here we go, slam dunk. And I get put in the fucking ground because I completely, I just, it's usually really, I'm going through the same-

It's usually after you upgrade something. Yes, exactly. And you upgrade your sword and you're like, guess who's back? They're like, oh, it's still you, and they punch you in the nose and you die. Yeah, yeah, this game is punishing. This game is punishing in a lot of ways

that even Souls games, I feel like, aren't quite punishing, and if I'm being completely honest, don't know how I feel about that, because it is, I don't know, the Souls games at least have that loop of like, die, oh I got fucked up, I'll go grind for a bit, maybe find some new items, but like ultimately, the cost of dying is like, okay, I might lose

the experience that I gained if I can't get back to my body, and in here it's like, there's no Estus flask, your healing items are limited, it's food that you have to cook by gathering resources in the environment. So there's this feeling of like, okay, I don't have actually infinite chances at this. You're also, you have a degradation of your equipment that you then have to like go back to town and repair.

And so like, if you go into a boss fight and you get killed a lot of times, all of a sudden that boss fight carries with it like a financial burden that is not a great feeling. Like I get that it intensifies the like stakes. And so I understand why the choice was made, but I don't know, I think this is a very cool game that does a lot of really cool new stuff.

And the way they have fused this, these two genres is really interesting, but I'm really having trouble getting my brain out of these two separate modes that it has sort of conjured up into this new kind of thing that they're making. I am on the same page with, this game is in early access, we should also emphasize, it's just like the first chapter. And my opinion of it feels very early access

because Griffin, I think you said even before the show, you have to deprogram yourself when playing this game. And yeah, there's the Diablo deprogramming, but there's also the Dark Souls of it all, which the combat works for me. What feels really strange to me, and I haven't enjoyed enjoyed and maybe my opinion or this will change is Having to make

Calculated choices in a souls like which is there are five routes. I can go I can look at the horizon and kind of gauge Hey, that looks really dangerous. Hey, this looks less dangerous. Hey, here's I have an idea of where the next campment is in this game You can see about ten feet in front of you Hey, here's I have an idea of where the next camp is in this game. You can see about 10 feet in front of you and that makes it really hard at any time to gauge. Do I want to take a risk in some of those are like that? That's kind of the point is like, hey, it looks like a dark woods area. Do I do I really want to go out in there and see what I can find? That I get. What I like less is, hey this is like a little cliff that I can hop off of. Is this going to be an instant death or is this going to take me to a

secret? And it really wants you to explore. Or is it going to take me back to a place I was 10 minutes ago and now all of a sudden I have to try and you don't have camera control. You don't have camera control. You do have a map that like automatically fills out as you go, but it is, the world is so dense and vertically like stacked that the map is not especially parsable. The worst example of this, which you would never do

in real life, water. You can swim in this game, but you don't know where the shoreline is. You would never go out to swim. Right, why would you? You don't know where the shore is. So like there are many times I was like, oh, this is great, like I see a thing over there, I'm gonna go get that.

And this is old man talk, but it reminded me of the first level of Toe Jam and Earl where you would try to get to the secret island by swimming as far as you could, except for I just died every time. Giving around the world is the worst part of this experience for me. I'm already not super strong on navigation

and it is intentionally labyrinthine in a way that I found really frustrating when they're not replicating the enemies. The enemies are finite, right? You kill them and you're done fighting. I do think they come back at various break points. I know, yes, but at a point where early on, where that first segment where you're trying

to just get a foothold, and finding your way around the environments is like, it sucks. It's so dense and hard to navigate and intentionally obfuscating. I mean, they made a souls map, basically, but they gave you the camera of a Diablo. Yeah, and this is the kind of thing where it's like, huh, you guys, I don't know if the challenge

is intentional or not. And this is what's, I think, really tricky and what I was thinking about with doing early access, really hard game is tough, right? Because I found nooks and crannies in the map that I fell down into. Well, which is it? Do you want this to be a tough experience where you want me to explore thoroughly to get everything?

Or can you not withstand that? Because if not, then that just is frustrating. It takes very little of that for me to, in a game this hard of of a genre this challenging, to not immediately be like, well, okay, if you don't, if you're not gonna respect the tremendous amount of time that I feel like you are asking to get into it.

I feel like we are being like, universally pretty negative. I do think, I love a hard game. I love a punishing game. Like, I love all the Souls games. I've beaten Sekiro more times than I can count. Like, I love this shit. And where this game does succeed,

in Diablo when you find like a legendary item or something like that, it's like, ah cool, a legendary item, that's gonna like help me make some bill, that's gonna be great. In this game when you find like a really good item, it's like thank Christ. Like it is genuinely thrilling and transformative. It does suck that there's no respec option,

which is like, I'll find a cool item and be like, well, I wish I could use that. I got a sword that I needed so bad, I took off my pants to use it. Like, I'd stop wearing pants. Because the encumbrance system is stupid, it doesn't make sense. Like, I was off my pants to use it. I stopped wearing pants. Because the encumbrance system is stupid, it doesn't make sense. Like I was wearing mesh pants that weighed

three times as much as my shield. They were wet. They were wet. Wet mesh pants. I don't know if you've gotten your mesh pants wet before, Juice, they... They get so heavy. Oh boy.

I was at Coachella once and I took off my pants because I'm gonna use the sword. So I just gotta lose some pants. I think the loot system and progression and all of that stuff of this game is airtight. I think it's great. And I think the combat is also in that place. I think the combat is fucking phenomenal.

It also took complex, it looks so good. I will say, I did experience some slowdown, even on my main PC, not just on the Steam deck, my main PC, when things got a little busy, I experienced some slowdown and things got a little busy, I experienced some slowdown and that was a little weird. But the cinematics and all that other, I don't even know how to describe the style.

It feels like a motion comic in a way, but like- Dishonored with what Arkane did, where they took like- Arkane is what I, oh well, I was actually thinking of the League of Legends TV show, Arkane. Like that is to me is kind of what it looks like. But no, I mean, it looks... Painterly gets overused, but that's like... Yeah.

I mean, incredible voice acting. And the story, the writing is all like really, really, really good. Really strong. There's a lot that this game does that is like firing on all cylinders for me. And I feel like this is a case of early access where I am like kind of optimistic because I think that they can do some stuff,

do some tweaking to these elements that for me just feel like needlessly punishing and put me off from wanting to invest myself in this game and wanting to like get good at this game because I feel like there is a reality in which like it can't happen because of X, Y, or Z. I run out of resources, I run out of healing items, I, whatever.

I spec the wrong way and I feel like I'm stuck. Like there's certain things that I feel like the Souls games have kind of figured out at this point. So like that stuff seems doable. And if they can, I don't know, I feel like there's a version of this game that I get really fucking into. The challenge for them is going to be what advice and what feedback do you take and what don't you.

Because a lot of what we're saying could be totally wrong. They know the game better than anybody. There are definitely things, even with games that shipped, you know, the original Demon's Souls, where there were people who didn't get it. It takes time for people to get new ideas. So I think they have a real challenge ahead of themselves for all the reasons I struggle. Here's the example is I think everyone's response is well fuck the food healing thing just give them Estus Flasks but the game is designed to not have enemies respawn and if you have infinite Estus Flasks every time you respawn you're basically just grinding your way to

eventual victory until you get to a boss. So there are design things that they would need to dramatically change about the game to add something as simple, quote, simple. Yeah, I don't think it's simple, but yeah. I also think they make enough different choices from both of the sort of things that they're pulling from that they are definitely up against a ingrained

like learning curve and power arc that I recognize from both of these genres. Right. That I was, Griffin said it, and I think it's so key. This is one of the kind of games that I'm really glad we can talk about because I really do think it's an expectation setting thing. If you go in with a really open mind,

I think you're gonna have a much, and not make assumptions, I think you're gonna have an easier time of it if you just take it at face value. Because once I did that and stopped expecting it to fit into like the molds I was looking for, I enjoyed it a lot more. I did wanna add, we were talking about performance and stuff.

I do wish it worked better on Steam Deck, because this seems like the kind of game that I would play a lot. Like, if I could take this on the road with me, it'd be great. But there were like constant performance issues and also just straight up hard crashes on my Steam Deck. And so... Yeah, I didn't have that. I ran it at 40 FPS on Steam Deck, and it's not like pretty as it is on a PC, but it was pretty speedy.

I can deal with that. I can deal with that. What I can't deal with is like... Yeah, crashes as speedy. A crash in a game where you have been killing yourself to make progress and then lose it. In their defense, as far as I'm aware, it is not anywhere listed that they actually support Steam Deck. No, not at all. No, this is not a case of false advertising.

It is a case of like, man, I don't know., not at all. No, it's not. This is not a case of false advertising. It is a case of like, man, I don't know, if I had this one on the go, I feel like I wouldn't really stick to it. Yeah, it does feel very much that kind of game. I just like it because there is no comparative for this game. Even though we've referenced a lot of other genres and a lot of things that it pulls from, there's no game in this style, in this perspective that has this combat flow. Wait, wait, wait.

You're going to correct me and say I'm wrong? Wait, wait, wait. I'm not going to say you're wrong. I'm just saying there's a comparative that you said earlier that people thought was probably a joke and isn't, which is animal crossing. Toe Jam and Earl. Oh. Explain yourself.

Well, I would say we haven't really talked about it, but once you get to the main city in the game, there is actually a full full on like city building aspect where you're upgrading vendors and like building out your like building furniture to like have more chests and things like that. So yeah, I'm not a big fan of the like farming materials in these games. I find it tedious. Yeah, I didn't like it either. But I get how this would get me a little more interested in it in the long term. The one that got me, and I gotta admit, this is a broken, this is broken. Sure.

This is bad. Don't be like me. But the first time that I had to wander up from, there's like a market area in the city, and then you wander up this fucking insane pathway for stairs back and forth and up. Then you get to your house and then it's like, well, time to go back to the market. Oh God, okay, walk back down, go turn around. And then at the bottom of this staircase

is a dude who's like, give me some fucking copper I'll make you stairs right to your room pal. You just made a problem and then made me desperate. This is all I wanna do now is get these stairs built. That's mean, that's a mean thing to do. I cannot wait to talk about the game I have for y'all in the B segment. Hell yeah, man, let's get to it.

Let's do it. No rest for the wicked is the name of that game. Sorry, I feel like we didn't say it for 10 minutes. Okay, thank you, Griffin. Plant, you were excited to talk to us in the Beast segment about something. What do you got on your mind? What if I told you,

and I want you to close your eyes and picture this. I can see you while we're taking this. I mean, you've talked about this game before, so. Just let me do my thing. Do your thing, do your thing. God, dad. It's centuries ago. You're in a nunnery and you're a nun. It's beautiful. It's cold. And you need to fetch a pail of water from the well. And you need to drop the pail into the well and you need to lower it. And then you need to walk that pail over to a bucket and pour that water in the bucket

and then you need to do this four more times. Welcome everybody it's Indica! We're finally here, game of the year Indica! Nun time! You're gonna be getting water, you're gonna be repenting, you're gonna be doing the rosary so hard that you've got blood coming out of your hands. We are so back Hey Pentament era Inca Lottie

I was gonna say it's the ChrisPlant Catholic hour We're doing it baby What did ChrisPlant, I was out of the loop, what did ChrisPlant trade to us to allow for this to be our base segment I did not see our rundown before this and it's like there's just a little picture of us of an apple crate and Chris On top of it. It's just Chris's apple crate. He's on top of it. He's out in the town square spouting about It's religious Sick okay, so here's here's here's not sick. I guarantee you

It is in the most literal sense, sick. Here's how it works. You're Indica, you're a nun, right? And you're in Russia, you're fetching your pale water. You're Kronika. Kronika. And you have a narrator who's like, Indica woke up this morning and it was important for her

to do her menial tasks because that reminded her of her faith. But as this is going on, the voice is like kind of rude, not like full on valve rude, but like kind of shitty. And you start to realize, oh, she hears this. This is not for the game. This is, she hears this. Say no more, I am down.

And when she's like trying to just get by in the church and not, you know, look like a witch or something who's going to get killed, it reveals itself more. So she's like taking communion. And as she was doing it, the priest is offering her the communion wafer and his mouth opens and a little man and a like little puffy costume comes out, dances down his arm and then tries to like crawl into her face. And she like, obviously freaks out and they're like, yo, Indica, you gotta stop it.

We'll probably have to burn you alive if you keep doing this sort of stuff, you little sicko. Um, and then she eventually meets a man who is also on the run, who believes that he has God in his head. So she thinks that she has effectively the devil in her head, he thinks he has God in his head. So she thinks that she has effectively the devil in her head. He thinks he has God in his head, and they need to go on a little adventure through the winter. It's a buddy comedy.

It's a slam. It sounds fucking sick, man. That's a great pitch. I mean, you started off with maybe the least interesting aspect of it, so well done. How did you know me? You talked about the pale for a while. That's the game.

Plant likes to bring us down so he can know, that's the game. Well that's- The plant likes to bring us down so you can lift it back up. Exactly, exactly. Well done. And that's what the game does. It like starts, the way that this game looks, it looks like a movie in the best sense. I know a lot of games look like movies. No, this looks like people who know how to like place a camera.

It's a bold idea. Like you like the good- Who likes a good- ...douch angle over here? They're using different lenses in a video game. Wild idea. Turns out, you know, a fish islands or you know that the lens in horror movies where the cameras like strapped to the person's neck and it's always looking in their face.

A lot of that real creepy stuff. How does the game actually play? It's a third person. So it is a third person, honestly, like story game. It's a lot of like going from place to place, and then there are environmental puzzles that become increasingly strange. I don't wanna like go too much into like where it goes,

but I would say that reality decomposes in certain ways. Is this one of those like short, like five hours, six hours, like marriage things? Yeah, I can't imagine it's more than six hours. Because I am probably four hours in. Is there a skill tree? OK, so there is a skill tree in it. And there are points.

And when you light a votive candle, a little gold coin appears. And it's like, bing! And then you can upgrade your skills. But every load screen is like, do not worry about points. Points mean nothing. Which is, it's very not subtly getting into like religion and the idea of like, how much is a good deed worth?

And like, why are you, are you doing it because it's a good thing? Are you doing it because you think you're getting enough skill points to go to heaven yeah yeah but what in terms of like which skills I should get first to like yeah what's your loadout I mean so it's a lot of like do you want the the more more god points now or do you want to kind of get like god multipliers and I've been multiplying I want to stay really into non-multipliers. I'm playing the long game, you know?

It's- This is Christo, stay prayed up, thank you so much. I don't wanna say too much more about it because it is a very short game. I really would like y'all to play it. This is a game that I, I think the only way to really dig into it is to do like a spoiler episode or talk about spoilers down the line

because it is so short. This looks so sick. I am very glad that you brought it. It's gorgeous too. It is also just a beautiful game. It does seem less boring than Pentament was. It is definitely less boring. It's less book than our Pentament was.

I can promise you that. I appreciate that. I'm talking about an indie platformer called Steva. And Steva is... Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh...

Uh... Uh... Are we, we got some mail? Yeah, we got a little bit of reader mail. So while you guys were out, we had Lucy James as a guest. She was great as always. And Lucy mentioned the fact that she was in a performance of Hamilton and the person in front of her in the theater

had their laptop open the whole time. What? And she had to like say something about it. So we got a letter about that specifically. This comes from Rosemary. Hi besties, I'm a professional stage manager and long time listener and want to chime in on the Hamilton thing.

If Lucy had quote early tickets, it's likely she was seeing a preview. During previews, the design team will watch from the house and make edits the next day before the following preview. So if whoever was on their laptop was probably a designer or an associate designer. That being said, it's pretty bad form to disturb the paying audience that much.

Just wanted to share since a lot of people didn't know much about what happens offstage. Very interesting. I mean, wouldn't they sit close to the back? I don't know. That would have been my guess as well, but maybe they need to see all the viewing angles. I mean, maybe they had some pressing emails. Like geez. Also, I feel like Hamilton's gotta be pretty locked and loaded at this point.

Like, do you need notes? Yeah, I don't know. I guess on the performances, maybe. Anyway, Josh writes, Justin, you recommended The Appeal by Janis Hallett a while back, and I've gotta say thanks. I've been on an epistolary book binge since then. Have you read any of our other books?

I am currently reading, Sydney and I are both reading the Twyford Code, which is actually, I think predates the appeal. I'm actually not sure. It doesn't matter, they're not related. But the Twyford Code is another one of the authors, like non-traditional storytelling novels where it's the story of a man who's released from prison and has an estranged son and very little else in his life to to help bully him.

But because of something that happened when he was younger, he gets pulled into a basically conspiracy group of people that think that this author named Edith Twyford, who was a children's author, hid a bunch of secret codes, coded messages in her children's books. And he gets embroiled into this conspiracy that quickly expands in size and what have you. But what makes it interesting is that he had just, as you're reading the book, he has just learned to read in prison. So the entirety of the book,

he doesn't feel comfortable with writing. He has just learned to read in prison. So the entirety of the book, he doesn't feel comfortable with writing. There's implications he has like dyslexia or undiagnosed dyslexia. So he doesn't like to write. So the entire thing is his dictations on his phone. His son loaned him his old phone that he has no idea how to use.

So he just uses voice memos that are then being dictated. So like what you're reading in the book are just his voice memos and his one-on-one like conversations with people, but there's no outside editorializing. There's a lot of times you'll see words that don't make sense and you have to kind of parse out like, uh, there's a teacher named Miss Isles that's very important to the story where every time you see her name in the book, it's Miss Isles and it doesn't occur to you until a little bit on it's like oh, oh, okay That's interesting and you get a lot of conversational snippets where you have to kind of piece together What was happening, but it's a it's really cool

And it's a really interesting kind of detective who is Uniquely suited to what he's, mainly because of his history and like before, his like criminal history and stuff like that. But it's really cool to see how he reacclimates to the world and like there's a scene where he tries to buy a map to get around before everyone's like, we're not doing the map thing. And like no one's doing maps anymore.

That kind of thing, it's very cool. That's awesome. Oh yeah, we had one more reader mail. I had mentioned in the previous episode that we're not gonna be doing the Romance is Bracket episode for a number of reasons, but I did want people to write in through the comments with their favorite romances,

and we'll read some of them over the next couple of weeks. This comes from Tamasha. Anyone wanna talk about Stardew Valley romance? My OG was Leah because I'm queer from a hippie town, but my fave is Platonic Crobus. I totally agree with both of those picks. Both Leah and Crobus are awesome. I think I almost always default to Crobus these days.

Yeah. You gotta go Crobus. Crobus has no expectations of you and is like a pretty chill bro. Yeah. Cool, do we have any honorable mentions we wanna talk about? I got a couple.

Cause I haven't been here for a couple episodes. I think I mentioned Destiny 2 getting like a big content update. The last time I was on here, the Into the Light update, which is sort of the big final thing before the final shape, which is like the next huge expansion. I've been real into it. They have added like a new horde mode called onslaught.

That's really fun. They have added back and like remastered all of these like fan favorite weapons throughout the history of the franchise that are like pretty easy to get like really, really cool versions of. Did you end up going down the rabbit hole of getting it working on your Steam Deck? Yes, I did. Yeah, I just got GeForce Now installed on there. It's fucking great. That shit works like way better than any streaming thing I have ever done. Like no perceptible lag whatsoever.

Yeah, so I was able to play it a little bit while I was traveling. Yesterday they added a new mode called the Pantheon, which is a boss rush basically of raid encounters from different raids. With like really crazy rewards and stuff. How does that work with changing loadouts? Like, don't you need to bring every possible piece of gear

you would need for every boss encounter? No, I mean, you would need a diversity of options, but also since, I believe, Lightfall, they have added an in-game loadout system that makes managing that stuff wicked, wicked easy. I am having some of the most fun I think I've had playing Destiny over the last couple weeks. And I don't know if like hop on now,

you'll be able to get to that stuff, but as like a long time player who fell off for a while, I am very, very much into it. Also wanted to say Sea of Thieves got another big content update yesterday that added a bunch of zany shit to the game that I am very much enjoying. They added throwing knives and double-barreled pistols and you have this harpoon gun on your ship

that you can use to pull things onto the ship, but now you can use it to stick a rope up somewhere and then you can tightrope walk on it or grind down it. It opens up, you have this horn that shoots wind out of it so now you can board an enemy ship and blow some holes in it and then just keep knocking them off so they can't repair it.

Or you can blow wind into your own sails or get in a rowboat and use it like a motorboat by blowing wind or jump down from high places and catch yourself with it. That game works the best because it is full of silly plays that you can do while playing the game otherwise, And this update adds, I played it for like three hours last night.

It adds a ton of shit that you can now goof around with. So I'm having a very, very fun time with that also. I finished Shogun. Ooh, nice. It's, I really, I can't say enough about, like, hmm. Make sure you take the time to set aside to like really watch it. I would say it's not something you can do

like on your phone, while you're washing the dishes. Like this is really something where you owe it to yourself to like sit down and really immerse in it because it is, it's all so good. I mean, it's just so well acted and well written. And it actually like has a point that is not rammed down your face. It's never cheap or easy. It doesn't go for like easy, good, easy, bad.

All the, every scene is like incredibly tense. the every scene is like incredibly tense. And it is occasionally like a really hard watch. I think just like it starts to, you start to feel so bogged down, I think with like what the, the, the weight of what all the different characters are dealing with. But that's really as much a compliment as anything else, because it is like, it didn't occur to me until the very last episode to look to see who the actors were playing the part. Like the idea that these were actors was like not occurring to me until almost the end of it.

It's like a hundred percent immersive. It's beautiful to look at. It's beautifully shot. It's fascinating. The music rules, it's beautifully shot, it's fascinating, the music rules, I don't know man, I can't say it. It's a mini-series, is it a mini-series? It is a mini-series, it's done, it's 10 episodes. That's great.

It has some scenes in the last few episodes that are like, they feel like they're 10 minutes long, and they keep you suspended in a state of dread and like anxiety and excitement. And I have never, there's some acting to it that is unlike anything I have ever seen from human beings before. It is really, really stellar.

There are moments of like shock and surprise that are, I mean, wilder than anything I've ever seen on TV. I mean, like legitimately like, oh, nobody else, cause it's a mini series. They don't give a shit. It's not extended universe. You know what I mean? They're not coming back.

Yeah. It's incredible. That's awesome. I wanna talk with you, Althea, about the finale. Cause I think it's very bold and super duper interesting. Yeah, man. Yeah. Yeah. man! Yeah. Yeah.

A brief segue, but related, because it's also an FX show. Oh, it's but related. Go ahead, you nasty dog. I finally finished season five of Fargo, which I also feel really strongly about. If you've tried watching the show before, I actually think this season and probably season one

are the best onboarding for Fargo. Oh, interesting. For sure. I think they are very approachable. And I think this season in particular is quite good because it actually doesn't really have any connection to the other seasons apart from being thematically in terms of the region of the US.

Everybody should watch the last season of Fargo. Oh, wow. It's some of the best TV I've ever watched. I fell off. I think I fell off the- Don't worry about any of it. Just watch these episodes. They're like some of the best TV I've ever seen.

I think the other seasons of Fargo get so big with so many characters and such big stories that it's easy to feel like homework where you're trying to keep track of everything. And this, I think, for this season in particular, is a very focused story with basically five main characters that you're following and their individual storylines and the performances are just fucking stellar.

I will also say without talking about any story or specific stuff. This season, I think trucks a lot less in the sort of like nihilism that permeated several of the other scenes, a series, like the, sorry, the seasons. I don't think it's specific to the movie, but there have been other seasons where

the whole point seems to be like, I don't know, we're all gonna die. Everything, new kids. Everyone's bad, they're all bad. And this season has something more, I think maybe in reaction to the world around us, this season has something more interesting and ultimately a little bit more uplifting, I guess,

maybe too strong a word. But it's- If you think about Frances McDormand's character in the movie, like her kind of spirit that drives her, I think is very consistent with what this season is trying to talk about. It sticks to landing, it does. Yes, 100%.

Good, because that was my issue. Unbelievably. The moment to moment writing in the show, I always really, really enjoyed, but then I feel like we'd get to the ending and then like, and then a newspaper flies out of nowhere and it lands on the windshield and they figure out that they need to go to blank.

And it's like, I can't believe that that great writing ended with that. Hey, basically, Plant, it ends with a one act play. Killer. In one room. And doesn't rely on the ex-mock, there's ex-mock in a like moment. It's relentlessly like the best.

Fantastic. It's amazing. I'm gonna check it. It's amazing. Uh, extremely good. The only other thing that I'm gonna call out, uh, before I forget is a YouTube channel called Solo Solo Travel. Uh, this fucking rules. It is a first-person travel YouTube channel where a guy who lives in Japan basically takes takes very high and or even low and travel form so for example one night till just stay in a seven thousand dollar a night sleeper train that is like famously difficult to get tickets to.

There's no video it's all done in subtitle where he's like narrating his experience but only in in subtitles. So it's incredibly quiet and chill. It's just like the vibes of Japan. That sounds good. And my son loves it. He'll just like watch it and be immersed in like the trains and the experience of it. He's super involved. And I have since gotten like totally hooked on it.

So if you're looking for something on YouTube that is like to fall asleep to boom solo travel I love it I love it um mine is a new book by Adam Moss famous editor and the book is about editing and the book is called the work of art emphasis on the work and it is about how I think the subtitle is how something comes from nothing. And he just went and interviewed a ton of brilliant artists about their process of like, how do you turn blank paper into something cool? And it's everybody from like George Saunders to Susan Laurie Parks, just people I really admire. It goes from like

writers to dancers to photographers, and the book itself is gorgeous. So if you are the sort of person, one, who likes art, and two, just likes learning about process and like how the hell do masterpieces get created? Because ultimately they're made by like just people. Like all of us, It's a really great read I found it like very inspiring about how to keep a kind of a healthy and open and creative mind. Cool. I Think we did it. I wanted to thank the following patrons For the patreon a shout out goes to Wednesday, Sophia pat Lusk, Cake at Jobs, and Vette Fantastic. Thank you for being patrons. Speaking of the Patreon, which you can find at patreon.com slash the besties, we have

our new Bracket Battles episode which is coming up, that's going to go up this coming Tuesday, and we're going to be talking about the best second games in series history. So think like Mega Man 2, that kind of thing. That won't win. Mega Man 2 is not winning, which is why I called it out. But it should be a fun one. I'm really looking forward to it. Obviously feel free to drop in your picks for a favorite second game in the series as

well in the comments, as well as your romance picks feel free to keep those coming but yeah should be a fun one. Plant you want to recap the games we talked about? Yeah we talked about No Rest for the Wicked, Indica, Destiny 2, Into the Light, we talked about Shogun and Fargo on both of them on Hulu because they're FX, we talked about The Work of Art by Adam Moss and We talked about the work of art by Adam Moss and Justin, what was the name of the book that you mentioned? The Twyford Code.

The Twyford Code. We also talked about solo travel on YouTube. Solo solo travel. Solo solo travel. Thank you. Solo solo travel. And I think that's it. Cool. So next week we are doing Animal Well. Fuck yes! A game that... I'm so excited to talk about this game again. I don't know that you know people listening at home, know anything about Animal Well. Maybe the most excited to talk about a game I have been for the last year.

I'm incredibly fucking pumped to talk about a game I have been for the last like a year. I'm incredibly fucking pumped to talk about this game. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Awesome. Well that, that will be next week. We'll look forward to it and we hope you will join us again next week. Until then, my name is Justin McRory for all of us here. Thanks for listening to the besties and be sure to join us again next time for

the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!