The Besties - Wanderstop Performs an Autopsy on the Cozy Game Genre

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

Wanderstop is the new game from developer Ivy Road, founded by Davey Wreden, Karla Zimonja, and C418. What looks like a farming game is an exploration of burnout, anxiety, and the "to-do" list nature of video games. It's not for everyone but it might be for you! Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

I got a, a rogue ally X, because I'm gonna be traveling. It's because your brother got one and you felt a little jealous. That's exactly, that's exactly what he wants. Not even a question, I won't even, I'm 44 years old, I'm dumb pretending, yeah. 100%.

He had one, I didn't even know what it was, didn't even know if I wanted it, just sounded fun, he had it. I can't have one on tour and then just not seize it in his life, he doesn't have it. 100%. Because then he'll have to find a best buy that night. sees it and is like he doesn't have it. 100%. Because then he'll have to find a best buy that night. This is easy.

Like yeah, Russ, yeah. But then I am going to be traveling to Ireland and I got a hard, I got a case for it obviously because I want to be safe. And then I was like, this is going to be perfect. And then I got the case. Uh oh. And I don't actually think that I'm actually going to be and I don't actually think I'm actually going to be I don't think I'm going to be having a giant case.

Yeah Justin's currently for our audio listeners which is everyone. Justin is currently holding up a case the dimensions of which I would say about six inches deep maybe eight inches wide and then about a foot and a half long, and it does have a big strap around it that says Republic of Gamers in enormous unignorable letters. So. That's me from the Republic of Gamers.

This is my briefcase. We've come with an offer to you. It does look like it does look like something that They they they would use in pulp fiction to To hide the true motivations of the deuteragonist So what I'm saying is I'm just gonna let it bounce around with the Cheetos dust and the cookie crumbs and the chapstick You know what I'm saying? I'd rather I'd rather grind chapstick into the fence then walk around with a giant chastity pouch. Well, you also mentioned you were going to Ireland, and that was my immediate thought.

I don't know. In the Republic of Gamers in the Republic of Ireland, you're a little worried. Yeah, it's rough, right? You're a little worried. You don't know enough about global geopolitical conflict. I had to know It seems that the Republicans in Ireland don't care for England very much. Oh Okay, this is good. This is a rich vein that we should explore Further yeah, and I'm gonna leave That was my first thought when you showed it I was like, oh

That was my first thought when you showed it. I was like, oh, oh. Oh, Griffin said he's gonna leave and none of us are gonna talk anymore. Okay, Russ. Oh, goodbye Griffin. My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy. I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know a fine cup of tea.

My name is Ross Frosch and I know the best game of the week. Oh man, you know what I should have said? Here's the tea, this game's really fun and nice. Yeah, like that would have been good. We're gonna be talking about Wanderstop this week. And Chris Playa, what is Wanderstop? Wanderstop presents itself as a cozy game where you manage a farm effectively, growing different plants and shrubs,

keeping things clean, and ultimately, making nice cups of teas for people who come through the area. But you see, it is much more than that game, and we'll explain why and how after the break. First things first, we got all the cheat codes for Wonder Stop. If you wanna know, if you-

Let's go tea flavors. First, if you're not grinding green seeds from the first frames of this game, then you're already a noob. The rusted key can be cleaned off in the teapot to open the shed with the bazooka in it. If you kill Boro, you can take his money and buy a second tea station.

Oh man. Can I try to set this one up? Sure. Okay, this is very much, I would say, a narrative forward game in that there's not a lot of emphasis placed on mechanics and you very, very much need to get on its level, I think, pretty quickly.

I feel like this is gonna be a pretty divisive game because of, for that very reason. I also see where it kind of fits in, in the pantheon of, you know, a Stanley parable or a beginner's guide, the rest of sort of Davey Redden's, am I saying his name right? I'm never quite sure, I've only ever, I've met him and I know.

You didn't say like, hey, hit me with that last name, pronounce real quick. Hey, hit me with that last name, pronunciation, please. It is a game about burnout, primarily. It's about some other stuff too, but it features a young woman who has been a fighter her whole life has fought her way up the sort of gladiatorial ranks and has put every ounce of her time

and energy and herself into mastering the blade and becoming the world's greatest fighter to remain undefeated. And that is a great way for her to live until she starts to lose a couple fights and it shakes her She doesn't know what to do She goes to look for this master in the woods to teach her what she's doing wrong and instead gets lost and trapped basically in Wanderstop a tea shop in a clearing in the middle of the woods where she quiet literally cannot carry her sword anymore Yes

the the weight of it, for whatever reason, in her hands becomes unbearable and untenable, and that is what kind of gets her stuck in this weird clearing in the middle of nowhere. So her mission is to chill. Her objective is to rest and relax, right? And so the extent to which that informs Her objective is to rest and relax, right? And so the extent to which that informs the rest of the game is really bold

and completely comprehensive. You manage a tea shop, you make cups of tea for people to their specifications, you can grow different plants to make different types of tea, but there's no farming skill that you improve. You don't unlock a watering can with bigger volume. You don't get shears for cutting weeds that do it faster.

There is no mechanical progression to the game at all. Just to be clear, there's not even days. So if you feel like, whoa, I need to finish this cup of tea before the clock runs out for the day, nope. Nope, and the game will also frequently throw at you sort of chapter breaks in the narrative, after which you're basically gonna start over.

Not the story of the game, but like those plants you grew are gone, and the place is dirty again. And some of the people you chatted with are gone, and you maybe probably didn't even get to the end of whatever your journey was with them. Life just moves on. Right, and that's not because you fucked up.

That's just the game. The game is you meet a person, you learn about them, you learn a little something about them yourself, and then they go and most of the time, you don't see those people again. So like... As in real life, you do not solve the problems of everyone you meet.

You might have a small impact on them along the way. It's all part of a bigger picture and a bigger sort of story that this game tells about burnout, which is an incredibly difficult, incredibly nuanced topic to cover in a piece of, of, I mean, cover at all narrative non-fiction, whatever, right? Like, it's a hard thing to say something new about. It's a hard thing to address like, well, you do have to work hard and be ambitious to get where you wanna be in life.

How do you balance that with also not making yourself miserable and having an incredibly detrimental impact on you? It's hard to say something about that that is not incredibly trite or incredibly unhelpful. But the way that this game goes all in, that that is not incredibly trite or incredibly unhelpful. But the way that this game goes all in on that conversation and the way that it bucks conventions and expectations for what, personally, I demand from games, right? Like I need to feel like I'm being productive in a game.

I like getting the stronger gun with this better stat. Like I am such a sucker for that. And I had to put all that shit aside to meet this game where it's at. And I'm so glad I did because I cannot think of a game that has had a more like profound impact on me and the way I think about games and work and stuff than Wonders Stop.

I think it is remarkable. In a way, it's what's cool. One of the coolest things to me about it is that it is very much continuing a conversation that was started with Stanley Parable, which like Stanley Parable was like about the idea, I think of authorial intent and how that interacts with players

and how like the maker of a game, like and how they relate to the person playing it, right? And in a lot of ways, the Stanley Parable wasn't a game as much as it was like a protracted criticism, right? And I think that Water Stop is sort of, I think it's admirable in that it isn't just a commentary, and it isn't just a thought starter, and it isn't just a criticism. It's like, it has the strength to be a game, right? Because for me, what's really like the burnout angle of it is very interesting. I think that that's obviously like a huge component of this.

What I thought was. Challenging, I will say about this game, and I honestly think like subversively kind of. Critical is when you remove all of those motivating things, you really start to wonder why you're playing the game. Like it makes, it wants you to wonder that, right? Like, like it's not even this idea like, like characters, right, like getting to the end of their story

is a form of progression, right? Decorating your house where a lot of these cozy games, it's like, yeah, it doesn't have the typical motivating factors, right? It's about relaxing and all this stuff, but still the decoration is a type of progression, right? It's still a hoarding, and it's enacting a control in your environment, right?

And I feel like this game, by removing those sorts of like motivational structures that games typically use, it really has to take you down to the base level of like, why are you doing this? What are you taking out of this? And that's really like, I still don't know how I feel about it.

Like it's like a lot of it is like, I don't know, man, once you realize how much of game design is about just that little dopamine thing. Like pulling you along, right? I don't know, I think it's cool that it is critical in a much more subtle way, I think, than Stanley Parable was. Yes, I think it is a game about stillness in being present to the degree that

every mechanism in the game went up against the question of is it being still? Is it being present? Because I think you're right Hoops, not just the make number go up, make plant, you know, potted plant get stronger, but everything you can tell that they asked is this creating a sense of progress? And if so, we need to pull away from it because that is not what we are going for. We are going for the idea of you sitting and being with yourself.

I should talk a little bit about how the game works really quick. Yeah, please. Because so far we're making it sound like wicked fucking boring, and I don't think it's boring. You do do stuff in this game. We should make it clear.

Yes. So you are tasked with making tea and the way that you do that is by growing various plants of different colors and mixing and matching the, I guess, splicing the seeds to grow different plants. So depending on the shape that you grow them in, in your yard, you will grow a different type of fruit.

And then you will also go around the garden and you will harvest tea leaves with a basket. And you will take that into your house. You will dry out the tea leaves. I'm not doing any favors to make this sound more exciting. But trust me, it's quite pleasurable. To touch on something though, and this is like, it's just now occurring to me as we're talking about this.

You don't wait on stuff to grow, right? It's much more active than it sounds, because interestingly, this game that is about stillness and it is about like patience and all that stuff, like you don't have to wait for shit to grow, man. You jam that seed in there, you dump some water on that motherfucker, and he'll grow that instant, right?

There's no way, like it's active. You're not forced into passivity. It is like, there's just no reason to rush. There's also no brewing period for your tea. So you get your dried up tea leaves, you get the different flavors that you want, you have a recipe book that lets you know, one, how to plant the different type of fruits,

and two, what are some of the flavors that you'll see in those fruits, and then you align that knowledge with whatever conversation you're having with somebody. So maybe somebody has an injured leg, and they're like, I just want to not feel pain for like five minutes. Can you give me anything that'll make the pain go away?

You look through your recipe book, you find a flavor that matches that. And then you make the tea, which is this giant contraption in the middle of a beautiful house. Uh, it is a flubber esque in its silliness, very whimsical, very whimsical. And you make a giant thing of tea by like first warming or pouring the water into the spout.

It's like a Rube Goldberg machine kind of, or like a... Kind of, yeah. It's like almost... And then warming it up, and then tossing each individual ball of tea in, and then putting a cup underneath the spout, and then releasing the tea so it fills just perfectly in it. Do you, if you do any of this like wrong, does it punish you?

Absolutely not. No. The aesthetics of all this are sublime by the way. Like watching it, like you can taste it. Like the, it's beautiful. Every little thing is like, it's just gorgeous. Like taking it in is such a pleasure. I mean, you can, to be fair, you can fuck up a tea.

Like you can not absolutely. Yeah, I mean, if you literally don't follow the recipe, what I mean is like, you can't pour in too much water into the tea thing. You can't make it too hot or too cold. Yeah, and a lot of the like, typically with farming game, it's not a farming game in the sense that like, there's no homesteading that makes sense, right?

And so like, it doesn't make sense for you. My first impulse is like, I'm gonna go play in an orchard and I'm gonna have all of the plants, right? And they're gonna be min-maxed. So we're like, my reds are here, my greens are here, but you get to a certain point and it erases everything. It's like, it's all gone. It's like, don't do that.

There's no reason for you to do that. So when I would get an assignment, right, or like somebody would want a certain tea, it wasn't like, I'll just go to my blue section and grab the blue thing. And like, what I would do is like, they want something that tastes like ice cream. What does that?

And I would get a book from upstairs and I'd flip through the book. I'm like, oh, okay, that. And what colors do I need? Okay, I'm gonna go wander around till I find these seeds that I need. There's no reason to go faster. There's no reason to min-max it.

There's no reason to not enjoy it. And I think what is maybe the most revolutionary thing about this game is it seems to say like, if you don't enjoy this, you shouldn't be doing it. I don't care. Like I'm not trying, you know what I mean? Like it's not trying to motivate you in any way other than like, if this brings you pleasure,

please continue to do it. But otherwise like, don't. It reminds me of like, if someone were to come home from a long day of work and wanna do cross stitch or knitting, not talking about the narrative because that's I think separate from this, but the actual gameplay beats feel like something that is entirely self-directed in ways that-

It's almost more like maintaining a Zen garden or like a, like in the impermanence of it, right? Like crafts where you would create things, I think is where a lot of video games are. Like I feel like Stardew is closer to a cross stitch, right? Because it's like, you've got a pattern, you've got the things that you want. Yeah, but there's advancement in Stardew.

Like there's progression. There's lots of advancement, yeah, for sure.'ve got the plan. Yeah, but there's advancement in Stardew. What? There's progression. There's lots of advancement, yeah, for sure. No, but I'm saying you are working towards something in Stardew. Yeah. You're not working towards something with this. So I'm like contrasting that from cross-stitching.

You don't have like a thing at the, when you're done with this, you don't have a thing that you can show people and say like, I did it. But you are working towards something in the same way with the Zen Garden, which is self-improvement. Yes. Like, you come away from this game, I mean, I came away from this game feeling a lot better about things.

Like, this game made me feel better. Yeah. There are things in this game, and it made me feel a little bit, made me feel a little bit sad, but there are things in this game that I hear that I didn't realize I needed to hear. And I heard it from this little video game man, the same box that Dunn made Pac-Man on my TV, and this guy's making me feel things?

Come on, Davey. I have been looking forward to talking about this game with you guys genuinely because so much of it felt targeted towards me as somebody who for his entire adult life has worked from home on my own schedule. The level of success or whatever I've achieved is directly proportional to the amount of toil that I put into it. And I think that that is a really common sort of sentiment or trait for lots and lots and lots

and lots of people these days. And so I genuinely think there is a message in this game for most of the people I know that is not anything I've ever heard before about this topic that has been spoken about and lectured about and Ted talked about at length for years and years and years and years and years. And that's like, that's incredible.

To find a game or a piece of fiction or whatever that has something new to say about a topic that has been so thoroughly explored is in and of itself like a pretty massive achievement. I did want to say speaking of achievements, one of the things this game does that really drives this whole shit home is it has like 10 achievements. You get them, you'll get them. If you finish the game you'll get the 10 achievements and it gives them to you at seemingly random intervals. You'll be like just walking around the garden

and it'll be like, you'll see the achievement thing pop up and it'll have some sort of obscure text. So it's- It's always something like, she never thought it would find, it sounds like an achievement, like you've done something. But it's not like, oh, you solved this guy's quest, bloop!

Or like, oh, you've had this moment of incredible catharsis. Yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was because we were playing on some beta branch, but you know what, it's not like someone has this moment of catharsis and then it's like, bloop, you helped the guy. Is it because that was also to, I want to touch on, there is a mailbox, you get correspondence, and there's a series of novels that you were sent

in the correspondence and plants are already smiling. To me, it's fucking infuriating because Davey Reardon is like he's already he's doing this game that is not Like on its surface a gut buster, right? It's not hilarious. It's humane and warm But it's not like try and then you get these letters. It's this fake detective story these books of the fake text story that is Fucking leaps and bounds funnier Than any game that I've played for months and months and months and he just like tosses it in the mail there You get you get letters in this game that have more quality writing in it the entirety of split fiction

I mean like not only are they hilarious, they then become self-criticism in the same way that the Stanley Parable is, that is as good as any criticism of video games in the culture around video games that you're going to find. I'll include this in besties.fan, but the entire first book of the Dirk Warhard series we published on Polygon. So people can read that and also Davey talking

about adding that stuff to the game. But it is so good and just gets better and better. good and just gets better and better. The ability and I want to be clear, Davey is, you know, a writer of this game, but it's Ivy Road is the studio. And I think that's the magic that happened here, right? Is that voice and that vision and talent that Davey brings, getting paired with a team that clearly knows game design so inside and out that they can subvert it while still making it just pleasurable enough to keep you going, it's a hell of a trick. And it's so risky too, like if they don't land

that one part of it, then the rest of the game is I think an infuriating, masturbatory exploration of self-care, which is a term that has almost lost all meaning in how wide-ranging it becomes and how in conversations about that thing, you can ignore going too far in that regard and how then that can become harmful, right? It's, it's such an insane balancing act that I don't know, but at the same time,

playing Wonder Stop, like really quickly, I felt myself trusting this game to like, handle it. Like after the first cycle or whatever, the first story, like once you kinda see like, what this game is going for and sort of all the different ways it is moving away from what I expect from games, I felt like, okay, I'm fuckin', I am on board, I am uncomfortable, but I'm on board, let's see what happens, and it really, I think it rewards that. I wanna hear from Russ, because I feel like you and I

are cut from the same cloth in terms of like, you know, preferring the grind, enjoying progression, and a sense of accomplishment in games that this moves away from, and I'm curious if you have the same sort of experience. So I haven't finished it yet. I think I have seven hours in it six six or seven hours I

Find the writing fantastic. I find the visual design fantastic. I think voice acting is really really strong where it appears I Really struggled with the themes of these this game because with the themes of this game because it feels like it's hypertar... And this might not be wrong, and obviously it landed with you guys more than me. But to me, when I was playing it, it felt like it was targeted to me 10 years ago, when I was like, building a crew, like, starting, you know, in the middle of my career and even making some changes in my career. And it was not great for my mental health,

but I was kind of just pushing through, pushing through until it got to a point where it was like, oh, this is not right for me. And being at a point now, specifically from like a having a kid standpoint, and again, I'm sure you guys can relate to this too, there's messages in this that are like, take a beat, chill, which is important, I 100% agree, but it's very difficult to play a game

without objectives or progression when I also have a list of 20 things that I need to be doing. Yeah, sure. A hundred percent. Yeah. And that was the like, like whenever I hear Borough being like, just like, relax and put the leaves where you want. I'm like, cool. But also my son needs to be picked up

from daycare in 30 minutes. Yeah, for sure. Well, I mean, I think that's interesting though. But this is like, what we're hitting on, guys, and this is like actually really, really rare. We are reacting to this game in terms of what it is saying in four different ways, right?

It hit the four of us in like different ways, right? Like Russ, you saw it, but it wasn't exactly the time you needed to hear it. Griffin, you thought immediately like Burnout, you heard Burnout. I was like much more interested in the like, the ideas of like what it means for games and game design.

Like, and I don't agree with a lot of the stuff that it is like, if it was like, Justin, do you agree with all this as a message? I think that there I don't know, man. But as I think that it's, it's hard because I think if you're a game that does have a message, it almost has to be like universal because that's so rare, right? Because we don't have this symphony of different thoughts and opinions being put out by video games.

Like we don't have a different video game. It's like actually buck up and you know what I mean? Like a different philosophy. It's so rare that a philosophy is put forth in a game that it almost feels like it has to be more universal than it has to be, right? Like it doesn't have to be appealing to everyone for it to be successful, I guess.

I agree. I also don't know if it even buys any singular message in its own game beyond the chill out. It is, for lack of a better word, therapy. And the main character that you're working with, Boro, who is just this lovable giant tea maker, most of what he tells you is, I don't know, what do you think? How does that make you feel? Oh, you didn't do a good job. Well, what is like a good job? anyway, it is if you've ever been in therapy a lot like therapy and I

You can see it even with your character in the way that you can respond to questions And you can there's dialogue options in this game and those dialogue options Don't seem to inform the story so much as they are there to have you think of, well, there are a variety of ways I could respond to that. And none of them are bad. So I think that is, again, the tricky part, but I agree with you, Hoops. What I love about this game is it's so nice to talk about a game and talk about the things it to talk about a game and talk about the things it made you feel that it brought to you rather than just is game good,

did it click all of the different things. I will say though, for people who wanna play this game, I would not want every game to be like this. No, God. You know, like this, it is challenging in a way. Boring? No. I'm sorry, keep making fun games everybody. Yeah. No, God, you know like this it is challenging boring Sorry, keep making fun games everybody It's nice to have a challenging game like this and it's challenging it's challenging get good

Get good at chillin the fuck out this game said some stuff about burnout. and I was like, yes, I understand. If you didn't, skill issues. Skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip. Guys, you can blaze through the fucking dialogue in this game, it does not matter. It is not gonna impact your score at the end. So here's a question that I've started thinking about, right, like we have to play new games for this show all the time.

The question of whether or not I'm gonna finish this game is interesting to me because that is a type of progression, right? Like in a game that does seem to be about so much about like, I don't know, it's, you know, do it if you wanna do it or don't, but it's not like, there is still a bit of have your cake and eat it too of like, well, we are moving towards something, right?

There's a story that's being told here. I don't know if that is gonna be enough to keep me like playing, like, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know if I'm gonna stick with it without that motivation. And that feels a little, I don't know, contradictory. I will say this. I think, you know, we've talked a little about game design.

I think it is worth calling out that I think from a beat to beat game feel standpoint, I don't think this game feels very good to play. Like the physicalities of it, I thought felt just kind of clumsy, uh, which is part of the reason that I like. Didn't. Yeah. I mean, that was part of the reason that I like, yeah. I mean, that was part of the reason is like, okay, enjoy your quiet time and vibe out and like get to a place that makes you a healthier person, cool. But there are elements in Stardew Valley, for example,

just to like the noise of a seed plopping into your bag or whatever, just like little stuff like that that make the whole experience more pleasurable that I feel like this game, given the fact that is about the small things being pleasurable, doesn't quite nail. And a lot of that is interface stuff and like switching through bags and oh, my bag is full and oh, I gotta drop this seed

and oops, I planted the seed by accident. There's just like a lot of weirdness to the interface. Yeah, they're trying to simplify so much with getting it to a single button type thing that you end up futzing with. If you're in an area where there's several things you wanna interact with, that can feel kind of clumsy sometimes, I'm sure.

To share my sort of perspective, I finished the game a long time ago. I was so fascinated by this game that I kind of couldn't put it down. I also started playing it while we were traveling, which I thought was kind of an ideal, because I was separated largely from my parental obligations, which I agree with you, Russ.

Like, I don't think this game is particularly, this game doesn't really dabble in those so much necessarily. There's a character who is- It's not even, I'm not locking into parental, it's more locking, like dabbling in the idea that there are things and oftentimes a lot of things that cannot be left.

Cannot be, yeah, I fully get that. I think having this idea of like story as motivation, right, like, well, I gotta find out what happens, right? I think having this idea of like story as motivation, right, like, well, I gotta find out what happens, right? So I have to keep playing through this story. This game, I'm not gonna get into spoilers, but like, I don't even think that that is particularly emphasized by the end of it. What I do think, and the reason that I do think

that it is worth seeing through is, I mean, one, from a personal level, there is a moment of beauty and catharsis in this game that truly rocked me to my core at an emotional, I needed to hear this a long time ago level that I don't think I've ever seen in a game before. But I also think that like, you know, it throws all these different characters in these different cycles and it doesn't explore all of them fully. Sometimes people come and they go and that's, you know, that's life. I do think this game has a thesis and I do think that that thesis is all pulled in by one of the later moments that happens, one of the final moments that happens. And so I do, I do think it is worth seeing it through to that happens, one of the final moments that happens, and so I do think it is worth seeing

it through to that point, not so you can find out how the story turns out or what happens with this character because there's not a ton of emphasis placed upon that, but I think this is a game about a message and I think that in talking about it, that is the big thing that this game has to offer, is like it has something to say about a thing. And it does kind of tie it all together at the end

in a way that I found like really, really great. Like really, really good. I wasn't really necessarily as interested in like whether or not it sticks the landing as much as like, isn't that just another motivator? You know, like, my curiosity about that, I feel like is another thing that is keeping me playing it, where in a game that is, like, interested in that, I think it's interesting that that is one sort of consideration

that's left there. It's like... Do you know that Alan Watts quote about, like, psychedelics, that when you get the message, hang up the phone. Have you ever heard that before? I feel like that can be a fine rule for a game like this. If you are having that conversation, if it's doing those things for you, it's okay if you don't finish it. At the same time, I think it's great if you do. The bigger thing I think this game wants is this conversation to happen, right? It wants you to stop and have the conversation. If you finish it, that's great. I can't imagine

that the people who made this game would be crushed here. You didn't finish it so long as you walked away from it, thinking about your life a little differently. I've been thinking a lot about like who I recommend this game to. Like, I don't know that that is like, I don't even know that that's a thing you can really do with this game. But after finishing it and talking about it with you guys, I can't think of another game we've talked about on this show that we've talked about

in this specific way that is divorced from a lot of other shit that we talk about when we talk about games. And I do think that it is like gonna differ person to person on how much of a pass you're willing to give it on the fact that it doesn't feel amazing. And there's not a ton of, I mean, there's literal carrots in the game that you can grow.

But it's not, and so like, and how challenging that is, right, I think that there's people who are gonna hit that and be like, that's not, I'm not. I can see this game being very divisive, I guess is what I'm trying to say, but I also, man, it's so, I'm gonna be thinking about this game for a long fucking time, and to me that is like a huge point of recommendation of like, if you like playing games that stick with you, and based on what we've said, it doesn't sound like it's gonna turn you off right away. I heartily recommend playing this game,

because if you give it the chance to, and it doesn't immediately turn you off, I do think this is a game that is going to stick with you. Or at least, I don't know, it certainly will for me. Also, can I, we also, I wanna point out the music, fucking is tremendous. I just looked it up on Spotify. It's C418 who made most of the Minecraft music.

It's like 90 songs long. Like it's a ton. I can see this being my new sort of like working ambient music playlist, but I adore this game. All right, well, it's a good one. We're gonna take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about more games. Okay, we're back. I pulled a bunch of reader mail,

both from the comments and from various other sources that y'all reach us out at. I wanted to call this one, this comes from Krusty Nugget, specifically related to call this one, this comes from Krusty Nugget, specifically related to Split Fiction, which is a game we talked about last week, you should listen to that episode if you haven't. And I think our major criticism was specifically

to the writing, and so in response to that. I think you guys are focusing too much on the wrong aspect. Yes, the writing sucks and the story is meh, but that's not why we're here. Me and my girlfriend, we both play video games a lot by the way, are having a blast. It's just fun to see what kind of new mechanics happen next.

There's constant stimuli. It's funny you mentioned Brothers, A Tale of Two Sons. We played that for a few hours. The remake of that, expecting like a Nictaids 2, but we found the gameplay to be lacking. Conclusion, we were just along for the ride, and that is the fun for us. And that, we sort of alluded to this when we were talking about the game, Split Fiction.

I think the best experience you can have is like almost passively listening to the dialogue and story, but entirely just interacting with another person. And in that scenario, I think you could have a really great time playing this game, so long as you're not, like we all are all critics, paying attention to the beat by beat dialogue, which again is... No, no, I don't...

You don't think so? No, if you're gonna put dialogue in it, then write it, right? Like, don't ask You don't think so? No, if you're gonna put dialogue in it, then write it, right? Like, don't ask me to listen to some, like don't put something in that's designed to be ignored. My time is not yet right. I don't think it was designed to be ignored. I think they designed it to be as great

as they could possibly make it. This person's wrong then, you know what I mean? Like, if you're gonna put writing in it, do a better job of putting writing in it. We're not focusing on the wrong aspect. It was boring, because the story was boring. What did I miss? Okay, so, well, we were all for what it's worth.

A split decision. No, it wasn't even. Well, between us and the listeners, who have been wrong about Haze Light Games for a fucking decade! Guys, we're not gonna heal this rift. Everyone listening to this, if you like Haze Light Games, you are wrong.

They are poorly written. We are right, I am sorry. It's been 10 years, I'm tired of this. The dissonance of block A and block B in this episode. Not everybody has the zen ability to ignore Justin's- I thought Wonderstuff would heal me, it just made me more right. Well, you didn't finish it, man.

Well, here is the challenge. I gotta go back, I gotta finish it to be healed, dude. Here's the challenge with Hazelight Games specifically. There is nothing else that is this. No one else is making this format of game. So if you want this sort of... There are co-op games, don't get me wrong, there are co-op games. But games that are specifically designed for co-op in mind, there's no other option,

and so for people looking for this thing, they're kind of stuck with it now. I saw commenters comparing it to Mystery Science Theater 3000 approach, which is that you kind of are goofing at the expense of some pretty silly writing. At the end of the day, it's still quite entertaining. Like, the action of it is propulsive. It looks neat. Yeah.

I can't talk anymore. So I'll put that one on the queue. I just wish people would expect better for themselves. Like if someone is gonna put a story in a game for you to consume and use your minutes on, then they, and if someone's gonna spend their minutes writing it, then it should be worthwhile. It's life, man. Like you shouldn't, then we should just have AI generating

it, right? If it's just gonna be shit in the background. Now hold on, now hold on. Oh, yeah, hold on. I wanna hear's just gonna be shit in the background. Well, I would say that's not allowed in a podcast. Now hold on. Oh, yeah, good, it's actually part of our game. Let me hear this. Oh, is it? Okay, cool.

What I'm, what? I didn't know it was part of the game. It's part of the game. The story of the game is literally about, should you, should a company steal ideas from the young to fuel an AI machine to write more stories? And the irony is their stories are garbage to begin with. The story is garbage. And stories. And the irony is their stories are garbage to begin with. The story is garbage.

And this is where the contradiction is and why split fiction is getting the nasty gram in the way that like A Way Out and other games did not, is cause split fiction is all about the power of ideas and narrative and story, and then it shits its pants. So like, if you wanna make a game about the power of playing co-op games together on the couch, that's the lane you should stay in. But if you're gonna make a game about the power of playing co-op games together on the couch, that's the lane you should stay in.

But if you're gonna make a game about the power of ideas and humanity versus AI and all this stuff, then you have to have some ideas that are worth defending. And narratively, they don't. They almost would have been better off just making a Tron game where it's like, uh-oh, we're stuck at a computer, we gotta get out. That sounds kick-ass to me.

Yeah, man. And not having the layer of like, what's the grounded version of this? I agree. Guys, I don't wanna talk about a game I didn't play. I do wanna say we are on the outside of this, almost exclusive, us the four besties, or I guess the three besties, I don't think Griffin played it,

because this game is universally acclaimed, as was the last game that we also did, like universally acclaimed. Do you know why? Do you know why Russ? No. I'll tell you why if you wanna know. Please tell me, I'm excited.

Cause people are tired of getting yelled at and they just want people to go away. So they gave the game a nine or a 10 cause they know everybody's gonna love it. And I guarantee people writing reviews of this game, email me secretly. Shh, I know that you juice the scores cause you're tired of getting yelled at.

It's fine, I would have done it too. I used to be in the game. I know that you juice the scores because you're tired of getting yelled at. It's fine. I would have done it too. I used to be in the game. I know how the game is played. It's a five. Like it's like, you know, it's a five. It's okay though. It's a six.

It's a six. But like, you know, they're just afraid to say that because they don't want to get yelled at anymore. I get it. It's tough out there. No one's like supporting you. I get it. It's hard. It's cold. Man, I love when you uncork a bottle of fresh juice. I'm here for you. I know it, it's tough out there. No one's supporting you. I get it, it's hard, it's cold. Man, I love when you uncork a bottle of fresh juice.

I'm here for you, I know it's bad. Call me, we'll talk about it. I know, y'all fuckin' opened the genies' lamp last week while I was gone. Let the fuckin' monster out. Okay, we have a- No, cause I had to spend the whole week, I had to spend the whole episode being nice,

cause they were like, everybody's gonna like this game, and now I get to just open it up and tell you it's bad. Yeah, okay. Yeah, man. Unless you liked it, then it's good. There you go. There you go. That is a good reminder for all games we talk about if you like the game and we didn't who gives a shit doesn't matter. Yeah, it literally could not matter less. Uh, we have a real good reason to not email in about it.

I guess. And I say that because our the things we say on this show do not end up on Metacritic and impact the scores and salaries of the people who make the game right. Not yet. We're just fucking running around. Not just decision, by the way. I do for what it's worth like getting emails

from people who disagree with our critiques. Absolutely. Yes, me too. I love it. This letter comes from Kaylee. The tech bros I know say Justin needs a Linux penguin for his sticker collection to be complete. How do you not have tux on your fucking laptop, Justin?

Yeah, I am work, I saw this email, like as I was going through the, hold on, I'll show you guys what I'm looking at here. This is the pack that I just ordered pack of stickers Yeah, I haven't ordered it. Yeah, I'm gonna try to find That's what you need. I need it. Well, I need a non Bezos People can't yeah, it's a variety of tux of penguin stickers with some real classic goofs

Like what if tux was the Starbucks logo? Oh yeah, or like, do you even SSH is good. That Tux has abs, by the way. What's up with that? Yeah, I like a strong Tux. Yeah, you can't buy this on Amazon. Oh, an ultra-lamb. Yeah, I'm not gonna buy this.

The pioneer rebel spirit of this symbol. It's got a little Lennox mint on there. It's got all the great brands. That's the great thing about open, like, can you guys see that one at the bottom? Linux inside. Nope, next to it. Jesus loves Linux.

Jesus loves Linux. Oh, and that's probably true. Pux is carrying a cross. Pux does have a cross in that one. That one's going on the laptop. I do think there is something open source about the teachings of Jesus Christ. Right. Open source of the loaves and fishes, right? This is my wonder stop.

This is my first distro is fish. My second distro is these loaves. This one episode of Bessie's is challenging because they talk a lot about a challenging game and then Justin takes a huge stake on shit. They insist on an anime play important game, Justin takes a huge dump on a beloved listener. And then Griffin talks about how open source the teachings of Christ are.

This will be a fork. Let me check the feed. Yeah, no one's listening. We got, with that last one, we got everyone. Had a good fig tree joke coming, and now it's just lost. Oh, I'm so sorry. Oh, wow. I'm so sorry. Oh wow sorry. It's okay

Justin what what this drove Linux are you using this is a question from Joe's to I have switched a few times I was on Ubuntu and then I switched to Linux mint because I was interested in seeing Linux mint, but there were a lot I missed the Snap store even though there's a lot of purists that don't like the Snap Store, which is kind of like the App Store, but with a snut at the beginning. A lot of people don't like it, and there's not, in Linux Mint, there's a lot of apps

that did not have that simplicity, like Spotify or Slack. And so I switched to Kubuntu, because that's easier to install apps. So that's a distro. The amount of system administrators that have showed up in our comments is staggering. It's like me having to talk to Verge people

and all they wanna do is talk about printers. It can be kind of a drag. I'm glad you guys are having fun. I installed four different Linux distros on different things, but I'm assuming they're asking me about my Linux laptop and that is what I am. I wanna let everyone who comments on the newsletter know I love hearing about Linux distros.

And I think It Takes Two is like totally worthy of the Game of the Year award. I didn't play a single second of It Takes Two, but I think I probably would have liked it. We have a letter from Peter taking a sharp left turn. Russ from Retro Game Cor, Good Russ if you will, mentioned that he's playing Final Fantasy 16. I tried it but stopped playing the minute the main antagonist is introduced. His name is Kupka. I'm Polish. I have a

young child. Kupka is the universal word for poopy. It's not some obscured word for it. It is the word. I can't play an entire game against a poopy. I just can't. Wow. I don't know, that would've got me to stay. That's not the idea. We'll stick around for sure. I think that's basically it for Read or Mail. Do we have any-

Let's do some honorable mentions. Let's do it. I got a rogue ally X because Henry has been playing a lot of Steam games. He got very much into this game called Ogoo and the Secret Forest, which I played a little bit with him. It is a very cute little Zelda-like with lots of stuff to explore and it's very charming

and he got really into it, which meant that he was used by his Steam Deck a lot of the time. And I was like, I don't know. I guess follow-up question, can a little boy use a Steam Deck or will their arms fall off? Yeah, no, I mean, he's pretty, I mean, Justin can attest to this, like he's fucking ripped.

Oh, yeah. He's one of the strongest people I know. Like the crazy, like crazy vascularity for an eight year old. Yeah, yeah. And so like he's been playing Steam Deck and you know, I kind of realized like there's a lot of stuff in my account that I could family share that he would probably get

like really, really into. So I got a Rock Island X also so that I could play some games that do not work on Steam Deck specifically, Monster Hunter Wilds. And I did get Monster Hunter Wilds working on this bad boy. It took quite a bit of finagling, but it runs pretty smoothly, I would say, around 50 FPS or so, which is totally, totally doable.

It looks bad, but I can kill the monsters and get the stuff off of it, which is totally doable. It looks bad, but I can kill the monsters and get the stuff off of it, which is great. I'm really glad that I did this, because I've been playing this game a lot more. I simply do not have much time to sit at my computer and play a video game. I pretty much only have been playing Steam Deck for a long time now, and I fucking love

Monster Hunter Wilds now that I have had these sessions where I can sit down and really play it. There is so, like, a lot of the structural stuff, I still feel the same, like, I've gotten past the fairly boring part of like low rank story mode, and I'm very glad to be on the other side of that. But there are moments in these fights that are so radical.

I don't know if you guys ever played with a weapon that does offset strikes, but they are basically, there's like a handful of the weapons that can do them, the bigger beefier ones, where you charge up an attack, and if you hit a monster with it as they attack you, you just sort of fuck them up. You just kind of like smash them out of their attack animation and save the day, And every time you pull one of those off,

it feels so, it is the most tactile, most satisfying feeling in games, period. I'm a bowmane now, which is another weapon with lots of good, lots of good feel. It's so fun to have been playing this and Wonderstop at the same time, which is scratching, literally, like it's like a hot and a warm tap on either side of my brain lobes,

where it's like I have this one for the quiet times, and I have this one when I just want nasty numbers and gemstones and skill increases and grinds. Like I am getting all of my needs met in very different ways. I don't know if you guys talked more about Monster Hunter Wilds or if you guys are still playing it. I'm still here and there occasionally.

I think it fucking rules. I wish I don't have a wrong allies and it definitely came on on Steve X. So that is the thing. I got hooked on Monster Hunter Rise because it was a portable game because I could play it on my Switch, that got me into Monster Hunter as a franchise,

that clicked it for me. And all I can tell is like this franchise, in the way that Animal Crossing is a portable franchise, should be a portable franchise, same thing with Monster Hunter. It works so perfectly for that. So someday. I also have gotten Dragon Staghma 2

running on this bad boy. I am excited to relitigate that. Oh God. I also have gotten Dragon Stagma 2 running on this bad boy. I am excited to re-litigate that. Oh God. I'm excited to find out. Did you guys know they've added a casual mode to the game with an update? Uh oh, plant. Literally all it does is it reduces like- Every time you die it says casual.

It reduces penalties for death and reduces the price of the fast travel system. As far as I can tell, it doesn't change anything difficulty-wise in terms of stats or combat. If they would just put in a normal fast travel system, I'd play 80 hours. As far as I can tell, this casual mode just kind of shaves off the annoying shit. So is casual the right word for that? If it shaved off the annoying shit, man, that'd be like a 100 meg download. It is still a Dragon's Dogma game, man.

They gotta keep a little something in there. It's just a TXT file. Anyway, I am excited to get into that. That's exciting. Anyone else? I am hosting a movie screening at the end of the month, and I wanna plug it. And people who can't come out to this,

you should just watch this movie. But Streets of Fire, have y'all seen this movie? Hoops, I have. You've seen Streets of Fire? I saw it. Fresh, is it good? It's very interesting. I would not describe it as good. It's very of ringing endorsement.

Wow, okay, so I adore this movie. But it is interesting, and it's a fun night out. I will say that, it's a fun night out. It's a movie by Walter Hill, who made 48 Hours and the Warriors. And then the pilot fun night out. I will say that. It's a fun night out. It's a movie by Walter Hill, who made 48 Hours and the Warriors. And then the pilot of Deadwood. Rock musical starring Diane Lane, Rick Moranis,

and Willem Dafoe. Dang. Jesus Christ. It is incredible. I agree with Frush that it is not perfect, but it does have, I think, one of the strongest openings of a movie ever. And our buddy Patrick H. Willems agrees, he made a whole video about this.

I'll be sure to share it in the newsletter. It also has an absolutely killer ending. This movie rocks. This movie would be one of the great canonical rock musicals, if not for the lead being an actual loaf of white bread that got left in a puddle. Not the best casting for the lead actor, but everything else is so unbelievably cool in this movie.

We'll be hosting it at the Frida, the theater that I help out with in Santa Ana, and some of y'all came out last time. It was great. I would love to see more people there too. But if you can't make it, there is a new 4K restoration or just a regular Blu-ray. And I think you can also find it on like Amazon VOD. And again, it's called Streets of Fire.

It rocks. Yeah, I got a Rock Alla X. Have you actually played shit on it or have you just been- Why would I do that? I mean, what am I gonna do on it? What, games? I'm a man. I'm an adult, Griffin.

Yeah. What am I gonna do? No, I didn't play any games on it. No, I'm not playing games on it. I opened it up and I took out the SSD and then I put in a four terabyte SSD with a cooling on it. And then I installed a dual boot of Windows. I kept the Windows partition and then I put in a district called Bazite, which is a

version of a Linux distribution that basically is like recreating the Steam Deck experience as much as possible. It basically turns it in functionally turns it into a Steam Deck from a software perspective It's it's running the same way and you know, you have the same options available to you. That's a little kludgy. Obviously, you have stuff like button indicators sometimes where like you don't have it on the wrong ally, like they'll be indicating a button that isn't there.

So it feels a little bit funky in that sense. But other than that, it's great. I have a button, I made a script that creates a non-Steam game that basically shuts the console down and reboots it in Windows mode. So it's like a way to switch between pretty easily rather than having to like get into the bios and shit. It's an easier way.

From what I have read, the main reason to do that, to get past that on there is one, if there's Windows cruft you don't care for, it is a way of sidestepping that. It is also the big sort of experiential difference, I will say, of using ROG AliEx over Steam Deck, aside from the fact that you can play different, you can play Ubisoft Connect shit on there,

or the Xbox Store on there. Yeah, Destiny. And Destiny, know, Ubisoft Connect shit on there or in the Xbox store on there. Yeah, Destiny. And Destiny, yeah, is that when you press the power button on Rogue Allie X, it puts it in like a low power sleep mode that eventually turns into a no power hibernation mode that takes a much longer time to come out of. Then you have to contend with like the Windows lock screen when you turn it back on, which there's like crazy ways of getting rid of that, that sort of post security issues.

With Bazite, it makes it a Steam Deck. You press the button and it turns and it goes to sleep. It's in the Linux kernel. It can do that instant suspend and then bring back where that's not an option that's available to you Windows. The other thing I gotta say is like, and I haven't spent a ton of time with it because I've been mainly like on the Windows end of it

because I've been mainly setting this up, but it's also just like Windows is not a handheld operating system. I mean, like it is so crazy to buy this device and get it and then it's Windows. I mean, it's like Windows. Do you want Office 365 family plan? It's like, no, I wanna play Monster Hunter.

They have this friend called Armory Crate where they've like tried to like make a experience Office 365 family plan? It's like, no, I wanna play Monster Hunter. What are you talking about? They have this front end called Armory Crate where they've tried to make a experience that is navigable pretty easily with the controller and stuff and it can default into it, but it's Windows and that feels so crappy. I mean, for a long time I kept here, yeah, this little, my keyboard for the, the RII keyboard I have,

like plugged into it just so I could type constantly because like that feels really bad to do on a touchscreen. And I know that they are still working on some sort of like actual Windows handheld operating system, but like, this is not, it's like, it's not there. It's really weird. It seems so counter to what Windows has become, which is like having a handheld operating system

because so much of a handheld operating system only works because you're really picking and choosing the things that matter. And Windows is like, no, we're gonna show you fucking everything. And every notification and everything gets equal priority and the idea that they could somehow winnow that into a tight experience that mimics the Steam Deck

seems so unlikely to me. I wish they can, I hope they can. But that is the challenge. What I will say, I actually think Armory Crate's pretty good, specifically in it puts all the tools sort of right at your fingertips, like a single button press away that you need to tweak the cornucopia

of performance settings that you can set globally or like per game. That process I was worried was gonna be so annoying that I would regret my purchase, but it is not that hard to toss up a little performance panel in the side that's like, okay, you're getting this FPS and these heuristics. And then you can tweak that shit really, really quickly to get it where you want it to be.

I have not found the process of getting these games that are... Monster Hunter Wild's not working on a lot of people's desktop PCs, even with fairly high-end stuff inside of it. I was like, maybe there's no way this is going to work on here. on a lot of people's desktop PCs, even with like fairly high end stuff inside of it. I was like, there's maybe there's no way this is going to work on here, but it genuinely, that that process of kind of messing around with stuff I've grown to kind of enjoy because I feel like, oh, there's definitely a way I can squeeze a little bit more juice out of this thing. I think that the the armory crate stuff is very functional, but it is.

It simply is not and cannot be the streamlined experience that the Steam Deck offers. Have you downloaded Lossless Scaling, Griffin? I did download Lossless Scaling. Lossless Scaling is a game, it's an app on Steam. You run it alongside another game that you are playing, and it basically does frame gen for you, which a lot of modern games,

like Monster Hunter and I think Dragon's Dogma offer in like the settings, but lossless scaling is like an eight dollar app that will do that with a higher level of sort of like specificity, and it is pretty fucking good. I don't use it a ton, partially because I was having some crashing issues on Monster Hunter Wilds, but with other games that I have messed around with, it is pretty insane how well it works. How do you cycle between the different power profiles, Griffin, like the boost and stuff like that? I mean, it's game by game.

For Monster Hunter, I'm using a lot of the, it goes through battery a lot faster, and it is consuming a lot more power to run it at the level that I want it to get to. Do you change between the modes manually, I guess? Or is that like, does that, is that happening? Yeah, but again, there's a quick access button on the ROG AliEx that opens up this panel

that you can customize with your most frequently used settings tweaks and stuff like that. So I have it set up to, honestly, I don't even have to do that, because I have a global setting that works for pretty much everything, and then when I launch Monster Hunter, it knows, okay, you have these settings set up specifically for Monster Hunter, we'll go ahead and activate all that shit.

So like, you're not actually having to, I'm not having to do like a lot of tweaking on the fly. It does seem though that unless you're trying to play something more intensive, you're probably better off just sticking with a Steam Deck, right? Because you can still run Uplay, you can still play Microsoft Game Studios games on a Steam Deck, it just requires like a little bit of... I will, you're talking, we're kind of bearing the lead

in that the battery's twice as big. I mean, it is a juicy guy. It's gonna run twice as long, and it's just better power management overall with the, especially if you're in the Bazite, like, oh, look at that big brick. That's what I'm, yeah, man. I don't even know what you're showing me.

What is that? It's a battery. It's a huge, I love that. I mean, I have the small version of that one. It's amazing, I love that battery. It's the battery that allows me to play Steam Deck from Los Angeles to New York. Oh, oh, it's a portable, you were showing us a portable battery that allows me to play Steam Deck from Los Angeles to New York. Oh, it's a portable, you were showing us

a portable battery that you got. Does not look like a portable battery, it looks like an actual brick. I would agree that if you're not playing super high end stuff, Steam Deck is the easier, in a lot of ways, better option to do that. But I could count off the top of my head a dozen examples of games that I really wanted

to play on the go. And the Steam Deck simply did not allow. And that was enough to kind of push me over the edge. And I- There's also, what Griffin was talking about with that, like not having time to play games. More and more, if I'm gonna sit down at a TV, what I've been doing is plugging in the Steam Deck

to the dock and playing on the TV. So using this in that way, then there are games that I'll play a little bit more, right? Cause I can slap this into a dock and start playing it and have much better experience than with the Steam Deck. Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense for people that are forced because of a static bargain to play a new game every single week.

Right? I say static more than they make 12 years ago. I've not fucked around with like Bazite and dual booting and stuff because I think Steam, something came out where Steam OS Beta is expected before May. Yeah, pretty soon. That's what I have read.

Don't you want to get in with the Grimeses? Don't you want to get in with the Nutses and the Bolts and dig it around? Can I just say, Juice, you've done a lot of work on this character lately, this like Linux, cockney sort of street urchin. Don't you want the thrill of knowing that you could break this motherfucker?

Don't you want a tiny ribbon cable that is one hair, one micrometer thin that could destroy this multi-hundred dollar piece of equipment. I will tear down a Switch Lite to parts and I will fucking get as nasty as you want in there because those things are like 200 bucks which ain't nothing. This is considerably, the stakes could not be higher

with the Rock Allay X, so no, I have not been quite as eager to get as dangerous with it. I will say this, if you do want to, I'm like kind of joking about the customization, they make it easy and this, the ROG Ally X uses a form factor, the NVMe storage, it's 2280, and it's a little bit more universal. The ROG Ally used 2230,

which is a little bit more specific. So ROG Ally used 2230, which is a little bit more specific. So you can like find this storage pretty cheaply with the heat sink and like increase the storage of this pretty considerably. You can also put in Griffin a, like, you could put in a terabyte or two terabyte micro SD card that could share between, if you use the SD card, it can share between the boots.

That's very cool. It's very cool. It was a gigantic pain in the ass. Like took me an entire day, huge pain in the ass because I started doing it, not really paying attention and fucked something up so bad that I had to learn a lot about computers really fast. If I wanted this segment to have a happy ending,

I had to get real smart real fast. Could've been making tea that whole time. Last but not least- That's what I needed, like, shut the fuck up, man. I just broke this thing. What do you mean make tea? Hey, Boro, how about you get in there and fix my wrong Ally X?

It's just a black screen, brother, I don't know. I've been playing Enter the Gungeon, which is a game from seven years ago, and it runs on fucking everything, so we don't need a fancy new handheld. There just aren't, after finishing Star of Providence and getting close to finishing Binding of Isaac, I don't have a giant list of games

that scratch that itch for me. And Enter the Gungeon is that. If you found it too hard previously, I think they made it a little easier since last I played it. I never finished it. I love that game. I think they made it easier.

Either that or I'm just great. The final boss was such a motherfucker that I got to him a half dozen times and just got my ass whipped and was like, well, I guess it's not fun. Okay, I think we did it. I want to thank the following members. We have Kyle, we have Nicholas, we have Kelsey,

we have Bread. Thank you for being new members of the Besties at patreon.com slash the besties. We have a new episode of the Resties out. You can go listen to that. We have a new bracket episode that's live already for this month. I think next week we're going to be doing kind of a grab bag episode of smaller titles, if that's exciting to you.

You should join us. Are we not doing Assassin's Creed next week? No, two weeks is Assassin's Creed. Oh, good. That's good for me because I'll be out next week because I got game developers conference. That means I can talk about AC. I guess it'll be Griffin and I doing grab bag, because Justin is also out. Hell yeah, fuck yeah, man.

It's going to be fucking numbers and upgrades and armor sets that do class item bullshit. Yeah, baby. I love it. Live and large. All right. Well, I'll be looking forward to that. I'll be listening. I'll tune in.

I'll be there. That's two listeners you got right there. Two new listeners. That's gonna do it for us. Be sure to join us again next week for the best days. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!