The Besties - 2023 Indies You Might Have Missed

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

On this extra special episode of The Besties, the gang brings forth some truly excellent games from smaller devs that may have passed you by.Games discussed: Kingdom Eighties, Jusant, Lunacid, Backpack Hero, among others. We've also got some great suggestions from the readers! For the full list, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter at besties.fan.Subscribe to our newsletter at besties.fan! 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!

Guys, I have some news. Tell me. You know, I've decided that you all should know that I've welcomed a new member into my family. Oh, congratulations. Thank you so much. And I'm going to go ahead and share a pic just so you guys can appreciate this new addition to my household.

Wait, can I ask? I told you I was going to start asking this. Is this worth listening to, everything you're saying? Like, this is worth it, right? It's hard to say. We're going to find out. Sometimes I get too invested in what you're saying, and I like to know the expectation.

And then he sweeps a leg, right? He does. He takes it right out from underneath you. And now he's not even putting in this picture. Yeah, where's the image? He's just letting us... Slack is genuinely unsure if it should share. Oh, no, there it goes.

Oh, no, it failed to send. It failed to send. You are twisting in the wind. After a disastrous last attempt at an intro, you have once again brought shame to your family. Oh my gosh. I'm ruining my whole flow. What was it last time, Plant?

It was the pronunciation of something. Yeah. Fucking slaps. Somebody pointed out that it's always some sort of vapor. That it's egg steam or gas. That Frushik is a vapormancer, I think was the term used, which, credit to them. If he is not completely corporeal, that would make a lot of sense, actually. It would.

Like, kind of like a Pixar character. Yes, a little bit. It's funny, because nobody sees us. Like, he's in our reality, but he keeps blipping out. You know? Are you going to send this image? Never. He's never going to send the image.

We don't deserve it. Are we just going to get right to the episode? We're nasty little dogs who don't deserve the image. No, this is just going to be our longest cold open ever, and it's just the Justin and Plant show. Oh, man. So, Justin, how about that weather? How's West Virginia? But, Plant, are we missing an opportunity

to talk about books you know we're finally unshackled to talk about boring crap no one cares about i finished piranesi did you yeah how was that oh man i didn't like jonathan strange and mr norrell i didn't finish it like i thought it was like way too dense i thought piranesi was fantastic like i really really loved it. It's a big investment, but you really gotta have faith that it's gonna pay off, but it definitely does. I really really loved it. Have you heard about Chain Gang All Stars?

No. Okay, I'm just starting this. I'm gonna quote a New York Times saying, it's dystopian satire in which death row inmates duel on TV for a chance at freedom. And it looks sick. I can't even tell.

I can't even tell you what is going on right now because Slack has decided it can't even send this image and it's ruined my entire morning. That's okay. I'm going to get right to the show. Honestly, I didn't want this to be a funny opening. I wanted this to be a book opening. This is a book opening. This one's books, okay? Today, we open books.

Next week, Pac-Man. The biggest... I don't even want to like... We'll save it. Plant and I have risen like phoenix from the ashes. From your ashes. Is there a phoenix from the ashes from your ashes is there a phoenix that comes out of somebody's ashes My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best games of the week.

My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I know the best games of the week. My name is Ross Froschek, and I know the best games of the week. And welcome to the besties, a interactive video game club. And just by listening, you, my friend, have become a member. We're so happy to have you in our illustrious ranks. And we've got kind of a hodgepodge of mishmash of indie delights for you today. Now, Plant, just real quick, what classifies something as an independent game? Oh, man, you really just opened a minefield and then threw me in the middle of it. In brief.

No way in hell. Here's what we're doing. We're talking about small, smaller games than Grand Theft Auto. That's it. They're just, they're games that are smaller than Grand Theft Auto. And if you have any beef with it, you can send it to russ.frushnick at eggfart.fart. You're texting the image to us what is this

no why do you have is that like caterpillar poop growing out of your foot I'm gonna report you as spam okay so the flow kind of got spoiled that's earwax

it's earwax you absolute god man It kind of got spoiled. No, I know what that is. That's earwax. It's earwax. You absolute... God, man. Just when I think I'm starting to come around, you know? Just when I think I'm starting to turn a corner. Frick. To describe it, well, one... I don't even know that you should.

No, I'm going to. Because it might cause people to drive off the road. I'm definitely going to put it in besties dot fan. But for people who don't want to see it in person, let me describe it as a picture of finger held above a city. A beautiful photograph, except for on the tip of that fingernail is a caterpillar slash turd that is it is arching its back towards the heavens in from, just the, thank goodness you have such a great phone camera. Yeah, you can see everything. Little hairs in the earwax. A dozen little hairs catching the sunlight.

And Russ, I am freaking, I'm actually not sure if I want you to answer this question. Is it yours? It's mine. Oh, man. I didn't want to know. I was wrong. I i didn't want to know i was wrong i didn't actually want to know i was wrong yeah i don't think that could come from my child it would have been like three quarters of his head i didn't assume your child i assumed some sort of fantasy gremlin that you captured in the subway i'm not not a human certainly looks. How is this the show?

But you've brought this to the show now, and we're just going to have to take a break as a palate cleanser. I've never been more excited for a sponsor to interrupt the show. Take me away. Calgon. It's not Calgon, probably, but still, take me away. It's always interesting that when you enter the biggest i always got a kick out of when you enter the biggest shopping season of the year like you are probably done with video games like there's probably new video games are few and far between at this point yes i mean we agree no there's still

games coming the big the triple a yeah there's a triple a everybody rushed to hit that that retail deadline and now there's a little bit of calm, and you can find some of these gyms that have just been lurking around. I respect those smaller games, too. I don't say that games just disappear when there's just the smaller games. No, I'm saying that those smaller games can get a little oxygen.

The game I'm going to talk about today, it is so wild that I did not have any clue that it existed, that it is a failure on mainly your guys. I hate to say your guys, and I mean both my co-hosts and my listeners. Everybody failed me. But it's also a failing of the fact that social media is not a viable way for me. I don't know how I find out about video games anymore, actually. What do you guys – what do you want to talk about, guys? what do you want to talk about guys i mean

first well here's the first thing i think we should talk about uh june 26 at 9 33 a.m justin here's your kingdom 80s steam code and let me see it appears that only russ frushtick gave a thumbs up to that post oh my god well then you know i didn't see it that's on you right that's on you because i don't see it i obviously it was in june june it's in june 26th june 26th so you guys didn't likely that justin wouldn't actually failed me even worse than i thought this is yeah yeah, Justin has never missed a Slack message in his life. This is actually a bigger failure. So can I just get this straight? You'll Slack the Kingdom 80s code to me,

but you text the picture of your earwax. I tried Slacking it, but Slack decided it was inappropriate for its service. Oh, they heard the cold open, they know. How about, Justin, how about you kick it off and tell us about kingdom 80s i was uh yeah i would love to do that uh okay so kingdom is a it's it's an interesting series because it's one that has been sort of like iterated and expanded on in what i would say

is like non-traditional paths like there is not a uh two, for example, there is this sort of like base idea of what a kingdom game is. And then that's sort of been like iterated and evolved on. Let me tell you the base idea is there, there is this force called the greed that is represented by these little monsters and who get increasingly large and, and, and mean, and they are trying to basically wipe out your little kingdom. You are the leader of a small group of people who you can assign to tasks like archer or a builder or what have you. And as they complete these little jobs in your kingdom, they earn coins and you take the coins from them and use those to hire more people to build better barricades because every night the greed comes to attack you. And it is in a 2D plane and the greed is usually attacking from both sides.

So you're on a horse and you're sort of running back and forth between your two – the two fronts that you're fighting this war on. You're collecting coins and upgrading your forces as you proceed. In the typical Kingdom game, you are trying to, like, wipe the greed off each individual island by finding its sort of cave that it is based in there and then wiping them out. And that is, like, it's a very loose strategy, I guess you would call it. It's almost like a, kind of like a tower, like a light tower defense, like a 2d tower defense. Yeah.

Cause you're really only running left and right in all of them. Right. Right. Yes. That's, that's always the case. And you do build, in addition to using coins to like reinforce your barriers, you can also use coins to upgrade. Uh, you, you can put archers in towers uh and and like upgrade that

so it makes it easier to defend uh okay but kingdom 80 so that's kingdoms right there's been they have done all kinds of like there's a uh sort of like fantasy yeah like fantasy one i'm trying to think the other there's a norse that was a pretty big expansion that was kind of like a vikings thing they did a sort of like samurai era, you know, that sort of deal. But there – so there have been several different versions of this. Kingdom 80s is maybe the biggest like departure both in terms of aesthetics and in terms of gameplay. So you are a – they just call you the leader. And you're basically a kid.

They just call you the leader and you're basically a kid. You're a teen in what appears to be the 80s and you are basically the greed from these old games that have always been in sort of an ancient fantasy setting. The greed is awakened by someone in your era and you are the descendant of this line of other leaders that have protected people when the greed tries to attack. So basically it was like, they try to tie in this like family lineage thing that you have, but you are a teen who rather than a horse, you have a bike and you can find new bikes throughout that are faster or have better skills or whatever. But you're just like recruiting teens to fight the, uh, the, uh, to fight off the greed teens and kids. It starts out at a summer camp.

Uh, so you're like a camp counselor and you're finding other, uh, you know, young kids that have been, uh, trapped in this situation and you're recruiting them to be your archers and your builders. Um, you also find older kids that are like fellow counselors that have special skills. Like there's one guy that can further upgrade your towers. There's somebody that actually can push a dumpster that you can use as a siege engine. That's sort of like a new mechanic in Kingdom 80s because you are pushing this dumpster and it's like a moving front for your fight against the greed. But the vibe is very like Stranger Things.

It's very Goonies and that sort of deal. When you make the barricades, for example, they're always out of whatever junk the kids have lying around. And I've seen like hoverboards. I've seen the door from Pee-wee's Playhouse used frequently in them. There's all kinds of like little easter eggs like that um i'm curious like outside of the aesthetics which you've talked about and you mentioned like the the barricade thing is a new feature how how much of a difference is this from the other kingdom games. So the core kingdom loop is incredible.

I mean, it's incredibly satisfying. It is maybe, uh, it isn't like top five games I've played like the most. It is the perfect thing to have on an iPad or a phone or whatever, and be listening to something else. It's like basically pretty chill.

If you want to keep it chill, if you want to make it a little bit more intense and push it harder, or whatever and be listening to something else. It's like basically pretty chill. If you want to keep it chill, if you want to make it a little bit more intense and push it harder, it can be pushed harder. But it's very, very satisfying loop. And they have not changed that basic loop. The idea of like pushing, expanding your base, pushing into the wilderness, carving out like more defenses for yourself it feels like

great it always feels great it's the little things in in here that like it is the aesthetics are a big change like that that basic loop is not affected by those uh aesthetics um it is streamlined in a lot of like uh so for example your horse um in the in the previous games uh what you'd always be fighting against stamina it's not always horses by the way you'd get different mounts um and that seems to be a lot more forgiving early on here because it's just the leader like you're powering your own thing uh when you go at full speed too long you need to take a quick break to uh the leader just whips out a giant lemon-lime Gatorade and pounds it, and it's perfect and great.

You know exactly what it is. But that's a little... It's faster. It feels less restrictive, and it seems a little less punishing. I've played a lot, a lot, a lot of Kingdom. I played it on hard and have not had any issues yet with like,

I haven't died. I don't think so. It's, it is, you know, the loop is not that much changed, but if you love this kind of thing, like if you just want to keep playing kingdom and this is like a different

way of doing it and it looks great. There's more narrative also in this one. The, the other has always been like super light on narrative and this has like actual characters and a plot line and what have you. It also looks great. Yeah, it's gorgeous. It's really, really

great. There are a lot of games that are chasing the pixel art aesthetic and to mix results. And this really, really looks beautiful. It's got great, the pixel art looks good, but it's really super well animated. Like they do really great stuff with the animations that make it seem like very fluid and alive. And the environments that you go through – in previous games, it's all just sort of been like vaguely different islands.

In this one, you're like in their much more distinct locations. So there's like the summer camp, and then you are at at the school and then you're like in a downtown area. And that is cool. Oh, the other thing that's kind of neat in the previous games, there's always been like builders, hunters and farmers. And farmers are basically like your coin generation. They set up at a farm and they just generate coins for you. at a farm and they just generate coins for you. This has chores that you, once you build a wall that encapsulates one of these chores,

there's like a lemonade stand, right? A lawnmower. There's a pool with a lifeguard. Idle people that don't have assignments will take on these chores for you and start generating coin that way, which also makes it feel more alive to see some kid like working at the pizza place and serving the other kids are like, there's one kid that's always at the recycling center. And he's like, Hey, hey boss, another day, another dollar. Right. Like, yeah, I keep hearing about the green. You don't let them get here. I'm just kind of working in a recycling center. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I

appreciate it. But you got my three coins or okay gotta go so that's a cool new change it makes it it's like a little you don't have to assign people to be a farmer anymore it could just be like you know kids are you ready for them to like kind of innovate a little more

at this point or are you cool with like if they just keep coming up with like different settings for this prize it's almost like like I really don't know like it's sort of like when people come up with a new twist on crosswords you know what i mean like the rubik's cube now it has like four levels and it's like oh that's not really what i want but if you want to like make the cube in cool colors or whatever you know what i mean like yeah yeah there are small tweaks they can make and those are if you play it's it's not unlike you know dota or or stuff like that where the small changes in a game where you play so much of it uh are seem very meaningful like it's a big deal and it keeps the experience fresh it is not it, it is like, it's so hooky.

It is so satisfying. And I think this is a great, you know, if you've never played one, just start here. There's not like anything you're missing. It looks great. It's the most fun one. Lots of great Easter eggs and fun and looks good. And I don't know, it's cool.

It's fantastic. So that's Kingdom 80s. I think it's on everything right i played on ipad uh that is my preferred way to play the kingdom games but i i think you could play it on on whatever oh that's a good choice i have a flight to chicago this week oh yeah kiss that flight goodbye yeah that's that's the good stuff um hey i've been playing Jusant. Have either of you played this yet? No, I don't. Yeah, I played it actually.

I played it a little bit yesterday. I don't actually know how to, is that how you pronounce it? With the hard T? Jusant? Jusant? It's French. It's a French word.

So maybe the French people can write in. Maybe? I don't know. Soussant. Soussant. It is a climbing game, and it is by the team at don't nod which you might remember from the uh the life is strange games but this is much more interested in mechanics uh the goal is to climb this giant colossal tower and when i say colossal i mean imagine like multiple new york city

blocks worth of space you know what it reminds me of i don't know if you guys have been or seen it and if you haven't you should google it devil's tower is this insane geological structure in wyoming and it kind of reminds me of that because people actually climb that as well like free climate in terrifying ways and i saw that once you know up close in person and it was like awe-inspiring and that's what this tower has the same vibe of yes but like three times as high it's so high and it's surrounded by other. What I found really kind of almost jarring at times is I couldn't tell which way was up. Because there's so much verticality all around you. And everything kind of looks like the ground.

That actually is a compliment. I think that makes for this really kind of trippy vibe. Anyway, it's a climbing game. And it is very much focused on the climbing. The goal, you use the left and the right triggers as your hands, and you kind of automatically reach out for areas to grab as long as you're aiming in that direction. And you have to clinch down on the controller to be able to climb. You have a stamina gauge, kind of what you would expect from something like Breath of the Wild. But it feels much more tactile tactile than breath of the wild um yeah you actually need to like go for

handholds and things like that you can't just like go straight up yes and there is a room for creativity it is not um assassin's creed where there's like a fully predetermined path because you can create pegs that you you know push into the the the rock walls and these give you a place to refill your gauge like kind of recenter yourself you can also um raise or lower off of them so say you have a big open expansible wall you can jump and then slam a peg in at the end of your jump let yourself kind of drop catch climb back up and then intentionally lower yourself swing and then jump to the other side of the cliff so you end up having a great deal of creativity in terms of how you explore this world there's also a little bit of a fantasy uh. There's a character named Ballast, who is just an adorable Disney-style sidekick that's a glob of water that hangs out on your shoulder and can point you towards secrets, which is great because the game is sometimes a little hard to navigate.

And then also can interact with nature. So there are these buds, like plant buds, throughout the world. And when you trigger ballast, it can make vines grow out that you can use to climb on or it can make little extra grips appear from the walls like little plant grips. just stringing all these things together it is a kind of classic learn one thing at a time and become an expert and by the end you're you know putting together 30 little tiny mechanics to get across a seemingly insurmountable rock wall um yeah i like the piton stuff in particular i thought was really strong because it felt like i would get to the point where i had like a really tricky jump to make and so i would drop one down acting as like almost like a save point and you have freedom of like you could put those basically anywhere but you were kind of mentioning like there are moments where you need to put it at kind of a specific spot so you can use that as like a new swinging

point as it were and that's the only way to like solve a puzzle is by like having a new pivot point so that like mix between using it as a save point versus using it as like a puzzle solver i thought was like fucking genius and so cool i also really liked how uh minimalist it was like the very little ui very little hud um you really can just like kind of absorb the entire world around you which was great i definitely had like shadow the colossus vibes in that way and there's still a lot of storytelling happening here and you can like find you know little notes full of text and the writing is pretty solid i mean what would you expect from a team that it's kind of built their identity around it? But this feels like them playing with environmental storytelling in a way that is prioritized over the text.

And again, because this tower contains all these relics of the society that came before it, as you're climbing, you'll find things kind of tucked into caves or quite literally hanging from the cliffside at times. Yeah, it's a real charmer. I am maybe halfway through and hopefully we'll finish it either on this trip if I don't immediately start Kingdom 80s. And it's really climbed up my personal list. I'm like such a mark for it, though. It is Death Stranding. I mean, story-wise, nothing like Death Stranding. But that Death Stranding feel of I am going to go on this kind of like physical journey where I'm learning how to get across a landscape.

It's really hitting those same notes I feel like Dontnod is one of those developers that is allowed to play in sort of a B game space like not B game in terms of scope right like they seem to be hovering below like the big triple A like barrier but they

do it's on a bigger scale than a lot of these games is that like about where Juscent falls like does it feel in that same territory yes and no i mean well i think what they're good at is just knowing yeah scale because when you're in the game it doesn't feel cheap by any means or it doesn't feel like they're cutting corners but i i also don't think they're making 40 hour games so yeah i think this is probably like six're cutting corners but i i also don't think they're making 40 hour games so yeah i think this is probably like six or seven hours if i had to guess yeah yeah and and i think that is what they're really gifted at oh i'm kind of worried isn't quite the right word

but i i hope this finds its audience because it's gotten really good reviews it doesn't seem based off of like steam reviews or kind of the metrics you can do to guess at sales that it's been a huge hit hey hey guess what yeah it's on game pass oh never mind hey hey that is actually that's where i played it was on xbox game pass i imagine it's on pc game pass as well um and i think this is like the perfect platform because it is you know no no franchise new ip tied to it it's like a vibey uh exploration game and i think for people that are looking for something new that isn't like oh i'm gonna sit through 16 hours of cut scenes before i can actually do anything. Kaboom. Jusant is exactly that. And it was really just like the perfect place to check it out.

If you do happen to subscribe to game pass. Yeah. Yeah. And on the budget thing as well, like, you know, there's a version of this game made by whatever naughty dog, where they spend an extra two years and an extra 30 million dollars

on it and like every bit of the climbing feels like fantastic and every bit of the like mantling feels insanely good and there are like some jankier moments that i've run into while i'm like trying to solve that stuff but honestly like i think they overall succeed so tremendously in what they were trying to do with this game that the idea that you could sink a ton more and get maybe 10% more, quote, polish out of this game. Right. It just wasn't. It doesn't make sense to me. So I'm glad they they went with what they did. And I think a lot of people are going to really dig this one.

Game Pass helps with games like this too, doesn't it? It really does. They don't have to be the gigantic. Okay, do you want to take another break? No, let's do it. All right, perfect. We'll be right back after this. Okay, so I am bringing a game that I hadn't't heard about uh it came out uh actually end of

october but i guess it's been in early access for quite a while um and it is called lunacid and lunacid is basically i mean very directly like in the description on steam and they're very directly inspired by from soft games but not the ones you might be thinking of oh no this is directly inspired by from soft before they started making the dark souls and demon souls games uh specifically shadow tower and kingsfield um these were first person rpgs that came out in like the play era. And they have a lot of the same elements that you see in their later games, specifically, like, a focus on secrets

and hidden doors and, like, NPCs that you meet along the way and character development and, like, challenge. This game is pretty hard. But because it's all presented in um you know from first person and in these much more confined uh corridor type levels it has a very different vibe from uh dark souls and demon souls um i had never played those games and but i've watched them on youtube and if you watch kingsfield on youtube you'll notice those games play at about 10 FPS

because they were running on PlayStation and 3D games running on PlayStation could not do a whole lot back then. So Lunacid is sort of like a modern take on those games. And I've been absolutely smitten by it. I think it's fucking great. If you are interested in that era of from soft games or really just interested in like first person rpgs you know the ultimas of the

world stuff like that definitely check out lunacid how much of that cruft that like that that jank that that good that good old flavor is is brought forward it actually doesn't intentionally it doesn't feel janky to me um it the aesthetic is like playstation aesthetic so you look at you know you can check it out on steam you'll see this the art style that they're going for but from like a world like moving around the world and and like interacting with the world combat stuff like that it feels good like it feels very natural and fluid and um i don't know i've just been like in the same spirit as like you want to jump into something with like very little like exposition and like you just kind of jump in and

start doing stuff i jumped into this i wasn't i was trying to like not look stuff up um and i was just like kind of absorbed by the world of like you start fighting these giant snails and then you get a ring and you can summon a snail that like follows you around and you can use its shell as like as like a platform and so they they just come up with like some really interesting ways to interact with the world that is very cool and then if you dig deeper i found like a fucking vhs tape and i was like what am i gonna do with this and then eventually i found like a secret wall that opened up into like a giant tv room with a vhs player whoa and you can like discover secrets that way so there's this whole like layer underneath the

main game that's really cool to uncover that's cool the one thing that i think i'm missing and this is not really a knock, I understand why it's not there. You know, so much of Dark Souls feels like a multiplayer experience because of the notes that get left or the ghosts running around, stuff like that. And a lot of the secrets you can kind of uncover

because of those notes. And none of that is in here. There's no multiplayer. There's no notes. It's all kind of down to you to understand and explore there are very good uh wikis and stuff like that online so you can like look a lot of that stuff up but if you feel like you need a little help you will probably need to look online because it's very easy to get lost there's no map uh that shows you where you are at any given

moment so you kind of have to like keep it in the back of your head. I go through levels in this game, like I go through like a corn maze where it's like, okay, I'm going to just like stick to the right wall for a while and see what I find. Rusty, you find yourself in many corn mazes? That's not something I've ever cared to imagine.

Not many, but I've done a few in my days, as I'm sure you have. No, never, never, ever. Really? You've never done a corn maze never but i live in west virginia i don't know it's wild yeah there's a corn maze uh about 20 minute drive for me as it were is that upstate i hear a lot of people talking about upstate is that what upstate is just corn mazes i there there are probably a few up there this one the one i'm thinking of is in long island um but uh upstate, we have some... That's not upstate. Long Island's not upstate.

Got it. Thank you. You're welcome. Lunacid is the game, and I really fucking dug it. It's kind of a steal at like $13. I think I've played for probably about 10 or 15 hours at this point,

and runs great on Steam Deck, as you would imagine it would, looking like a PlayStation game. But I'm sure it'd run great on really any gaming PC or whatever you got. I think it's only on Steam right now. Hopefully it comes to Switch

or other consoles. I think it'd be really, really strong on other platforms as well. I see one more game listed here. Who is this? Backpack Hero. I think it's just called backpack hero you added a the there like he is like did i yeah i i heard the backpack hero and that is what i heard too but it is not relevant i believe it's just backpack hero

because i downloaded this one and on steam deck and i played it for two minutes and i decided you cannot play this game on steam deck i oh, I did. Really? Really? I was really struggling. I played it on Steam Deck. I desperately wanted a mouse. Interesting. Well, I mean. I mean, I legitimately couldn't have spent less time. I mean, like a minute.

I should return to it. It provides plenty of mice. Let me just say. Oh, yeah. It is a game about a mouse who goes into dungeons with a powerful backpack and collects items in a Resident Evil style management system

and then with the items that they're able to fit into the backpack, gets in little turn-based combat events. And it is as simple as that. There is other stuff like a big open open not open world like

village building kind of game how would you describe that like i'm at a game where you're you know enhancing your character between runs where you would uh you know like hades where you're upgrading your skills and stuff like that similar to that yeah but i i wish i had more to say about this game other than it's a delight to play especially if you like that that weird feeling of organizing a inventory it really does that well and as you go through the dungeon and you defeat enemies you uh gain the ability of adding kind of blocks to the inventory, adding more space and designing the actual shape of your inventory. And then there are bonuses based off of how you organize things. So it's not just, hey, fit as many items in the bag as you can.

It's, well, if this sort of item, if this sword is near any other weapons, it loses power. Or if you can line up this weapon with lots of accessories, each accessory adds an extra hit point to it. So it becomes kind of like a puzzle almost of how can I maximize my inventory and kind of create a build or a deck almost of the items within the shape of the inventory i have you you kind of end up in that i mentioned that physically designing your space you can create like a backpack that looks almost like a pot like on a kitchen stove where it has this long handle because maybe you get a really really great item but if it is touching any other item it becomes on like useless um so you

have to kind of like build a little pocket for it yeah there's also like you'll get pickups that when you drop them into your inventory they always float to the top of your inventory so you kind of have to use yeah there's a lot of strategy and figuring out what's the most optimal way and you are throughout the run constantly getting rid of stuff because you run out of space. So you're like, oh, this is slightly more useful. So I'm going to get rid of this thing. But maybe this thing,

I know I can sell back at town for a lot of money. So I definitely know I need to keep this thing. And so like that organization stuff is good. And then there's also like a really strong like combat system, a turn-based combat system built in that feels very Slay the Spire where you're just-

What's the challenge of the, what's the like the hook of the combat part? Cause that- Basically, it's similar to Slay the Spire insofar as you can tell like what the next few turns are gonna be. Like, you know, Oh, the enemy's gonna attack next.

So I'm gonna use my shield in my inventory twice and then maybe attack once. You have like a set number of actions per turn and so there is strategy there of like how am i going to deal with it i don't think it has nearly the depth of slay the spire but it does uh kind of have that hook and again because the organization it adds like an extra layer of kind of a meta layer yeah i think it gets at the depth that needs to be in the organization um i i i wish that like a lot of triple a game developers and designers who have to worry about organization play this game because a challenge that i often have in especially like looter shooters is that system or even the new god of war remake at times where

you you you collect so much stuff and then you just auto like well i think this is the best one so i'm just going to use that and you're right there's not really like a pleasure in building out your character that's even even like resident evil 4 which obviously this game was inspired by the resident evil 4 inventory management doesn't have any real thought beyond i just need to fill everything in my inventory like there's no oh if i put this gun next to a fish it gets double damage or whatever so like adding that i wish that were the case i wish i wish we hadn't all made professional choices that led us to hearing that last sentence. Adding that extra layer really does make it a little more interesting.

And I think it's, yeah, it would be really cool to see larger projects kind of adopt some of these ideas. Because inventory really generally feels like more of a chore than anything else. And this is a smart way to handle it. Yeah it yeah yeah um hey should we get into reader mail yeah we have so many good indie recommendations from people in the reader mail section um this letter comes from ricardo g uh hey besties great episode loved hearing felicia as a guest she She was great. Thank you, Felicia. For the next week's Indie Roundup, which is now, I need you all to check out Void Stranger by System Erasure. It's a Sakoban-style puzzle game.

Oh, God, I hate Sakoban so much. That was me. Cool editorializing. Love that. Love that energy. With an insane amount of depth, story, challenge, and secrets, it takes and evolves simple mechanics

into tough puzzles with some really cool meta mechanics. With gorgeous art and addictive gameplay, it shouldn't be missed. My friends and I played it earlier this year and found it to be one of the most enrapturing games we've ever played, spending many nights writing out lore documents and sharing thoughts on gameplay. Thanks for all you do

for my entertainment. Happy holidays. Yeah, but if I wanted to talk about it, who would I talk about it with? You know what I mean? I don't have a bunch of friends sitting around. It's just me over here. My kids don't want to hear about it. That's true. You guys haven't heard or played Void Stranger, have you? No, that is a new one on me.

Yeah. There was a deck built one. I played Void something. But it was not Void Stranger. I played Void Bastards. Oh, that was a good game. I like Void it's good what about dark void anyway um so many voids uh we have another question this comes from cameron swingle for the indie game discussion next week little gator game is my game of the year by a pretty solid margin gameplay wise it's basically a short hike like but in full third person 3d with breath of the wild mechanics but the story is the main strength main strength in my opinion a fantastic

story about growing up game design friendship and it's wonderful oh boy i love a short hike i just recently heard about this game because chris, friend of the show, Chris Grant, has it on his top 10 games of the year list. He's obsessed, yeah. And it looks so fucking good that I need to play it. A Short Hike? Didn't we talk about that? Yeah, I'm saying the game we're talking about is Little Gator Game,

but we have... Little Gator Game is inspired by A Short Hike, or seemingly inspired. You're saying it's a clone? No, it's not. You should really play this with the kids. Okay, I'll play it. It doesn't look like something I'd enjoy, I'll be honest with you all.

No. I trust you. I get it. You see it, and you're like, Glover? No, it's not. It's like a legit game. Yeah, I didn't think it looked like Glover, but. Yeah, actually, now that you say that, this is a Glover-like.

This is basically a Glover clone. Justin, did you like A Short, now that you say that, this is a Glover-like. This is basically a Glover clone. Justin, did you like A Short Hike? Ah, it was great, yeah. Yeah, so there you go. But this game is like ripping that off? Is that what you're saying? I'm ripping it off. It's like an Android clone. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. I love when you're looking at more letters. It's like the Kinshah Hall

Short Hike. Oh, my gosh. Okay, we have another letter. This comes from Lunar. For the indie game discussion next week, I absolutely need to recommend Stars and Time. It's a time-looping RPG game that just came out, but man, its art style, music, and battle system absolutely has me captivated.

It also has such an amazing story and is overall just a charming game. Can't recommend it enough. Sounds good. I like a lot of the words in there that you said. Yeah. Stars and time is what it's called. Not Sea of Stars.

I think we're out of... Not Sea of Stars, no. I think we're out of indie recommendations from the fans. Thank you for writing in the newsletter for that. Keep those coming, by the way. If y'all just see a little... We can't find all the fans. Thank you for writing in the newsletter for that. Keep those coming, by the way. If y'all just see a little, we can't find all the gems. Please, you have to let us know about the gems.

Speaking of gems, we have one more letter. This comes from Joe Payne. The people need to know, has Frush ever been to a Ska show? Whoa. Oh, wow, you're answering it. So what is the backstory here? The vibe is that do I let off like ska fan vibes?

Is that the idea? I'll be real. I don't know. They've just been asking this for weeks. I thought you were going to make them work for at least a year. Can I say something, though, guys? I have a really bad sense here. I feel like this is like when your kids try to

trick you into saying a bad word. You know what I mean? I feel like we're falling into a trap that we don't understand here. Crumping? Is that what they do at a scat show? Did they mean scat show? No, I think what you did is you led us intentionally into

the dark space. I think they just want to see you skank yeah that's what it's called i thought it was crumping thank you yeah yeah well you need a real scott the answer to this question is not a dedicated ska show i do like ska music from time to time and i've been to like a they might be giant show where they dip into like ska with their horn section. And you know, I like the like basic ass, like mighty,

mighty boss stones of ska. Wow. Canceled. I mean, Oh, did they get canceled? Did they do something? I think,

I think, I think he's like a weirdo. Oh no. That's a weird thing to just chuck out. You know what I think? I might have heard? Let me just see how canceled he is. Is it still liable if you're pulling it out of your ass?

Can you say, like, I'm pulling this out of my ass? I love that. I was just. We try to be so careful, and you're like, actually, I heard that guy. Maybe I heard. I just find it so funny. Oh know what it was it was they broke up they broke up because he refused to get the covid vaccine oh yeah oh yeah well there's here's the thing a lot of people he's not a coward he's just never been tested

good work buddy um a lot of people were in that band my understanding is ska bands are like 16 people and chances are a lot of those people were great about vaccines so maybe i guess support those people and whatever they're yeah my dad used to say you don't join a ska band for the money you know it's really about the thrill of the camaraderie um gwen stefani is she okay what did she get canceled is she okay no she is okay but she actually pulled her back and she's she's trying to take it easy for a few days that's what she told me at least i don't know on her uh okay cool i hope that answers that question and maybe uh do we have any um recommendations also did griffin put in a bunch of oh no i i have a bunch of recommendations

that okay i thought from from the from the ghost yeah that's from the ether griffin dropped in and and had some games he played i'll start on our honorable mentions i played a game called pseudo regalia which is surprise surprise it's a metroidvania it is 3d it is playstation era graphics if that sounds familiar to the game i talked about earlier it kind of is interesting in studio regalia you play as sort of like uh uh i don't know if there's a nicer way to say it so i'm just gonna say kind of like a furry type character uh what is wrong with saying fur? What is unnice about saying furry? There's a reason he's being careful here, because it's a furry with a, like,

a big can that you're looking at the whole game. Yeah, right. Almost, the reason I'm mentioning it is this. In the settings, under accessibility, there's only one accessibility setting, and it is activate pants. And when you check that box, the character gets pants.

Wow. Anyway, it's more sinister that you can turn on the pants. Correct. We agree. I'm glad it's an option. Are you though? Because the,

it being an option calls into question that their absence, doesn't it? I mean, we don't look for that slider with Winnie the Pooh. Yeah. Or, you know what I mean? Or what have you. Yeah, here's the thing, though.

Winnie the Pooh don't have this cake. You don't look for that with Stitch. Justin, I dropped a photo for you in Slack. Yeah. So, Pseudo Regalia. Okay, I got it. Got it. It's pretty, it's fun and and has like good mobility options uh the combat

feels like a little janky but if you're looking for a 3d uh metroidvania of that era um kind of a cool approach so long as you're okay with the uh i guess visual choices that were made uh the other game i wanted to call out was a game called rocket league what it's a car ball soccer game that came out i guess it came out a few years ago um no i'm joking i'm i'm well aware of rocket league but i hadn't touched it in like seven or eight years and there's a mode coming out to fortnite called rocket league racing i was like huh interesting maybe i should just like check out rocket league and i gotta be real that game is still fucking fun as shit i it hasn't changed did you have much i feel like the learning curve for a game that old would be here's

what i thought i thought that too but i think what they've done over the years is made the onboarding for people that haven't played in like many many years very easy to the point where similar to fortnite they fill you with like bot matches and stuff like that to make like it not totally miserable to start out with right i've played a bunch now and i'm starting to like get new you know actual players and they are doing like ridiculous stunts and shit and i can't do anything like that but man that game is fun and good and uh i think a lot more people might be getting into it just because of that fortnite connection so if you haven't checked it out it's still free obviously like the cosmetics and things are uh pay for pay but there's no like pay to win elements or anything like that i feel like

the easy way to separate players is can you fly or not yeah well not you would think so but i can fly but i can't uh do the shit they do which is jump off the fucking wall and then do six air dribbles to like guide it into the goal yeah thankfully the matchmaking broadly speaking is okay such that i'm not playing a lot of people that can do that but that is you're right the determiner on uh whether you're good or not so yeah rocket league dope game cool um justin you have anything uh yeah two things uh one for uh i had some people to play board games for my birthday that's what it takes uh and i had i had uh some friends over three three fellows we played a game called forgotten waters that was uh uh recommended to me uh by a guy named alex on tiktok that does like board game recommendations so he is somebody you should uh follow if that's the kind of thing

you're looking for alex a board game sommelier so he goes by but he didn't recommend this game so it's a um sort of cooperative uh but like uh still somewhat self-interested pirate game you and your fellow players uh join the crew of a pirate ship you each are given individual roles that are very different on the pirate ship you somebody's like for example the quartermaster who has to be in charge of cannons and the first mate is in charge of the crew and their hunger and their discontent or whatever. And you are sailing through a world that is basically sort of randomly generated. You have a bunch of – there is one main quest and then there are like randomly generated encounters. And when you're running into these, they are fully voiced with the companion app that comes with the game. So basically you and your friends or your players, fellow players, are laying out a

hex-based map by overturning tiles. The tiles have numbers on them. When you overturn them, if you go to that tile, then you push the number into the app and then you hear like the little story or whatever. And each thing is played out through basically challenges. You have to do roles versus stats that you have. Everybody has their own individual stats that they're tracking, like stealth or combat or navigation exploration. And as you do these challenges, you're also like improving your stats on your own personal little stat sheet. So it's bringing like kind of a big amount of RPG energy.

There's like personal advancement. You're even filling out a constellation as you like advance in the game in your skills that you need to complete this constellation to actually win for yourself. But then, so you have to balance these individual goals with the overall goals of like not letting the crew get so hungry that they mutiny or your ship getting destroyed by enemy pirates, et cetera, et cetera. You have to keep track of the hull.

You're keeping track of the food on the ship and the supplies and all that stuff. But the app really streamlines a lot of it. it. So really, if you have any familiarity with like any sort of role playing, like modern role playing games, it's very much leaning on those tropes, but it's doing it in a, you know, in a way that gets everybody around the table and has a lot of like fun little trackers and things to keep track of. And the division of labor makes the rules a lot easier because everybody just has sort of the one thing that they're very focused on. it was a very very cool it took like two hours to do the uh the campaign that we're going through but it's so neat there's background noises in the app and and stuff like that um you have to they have a cool thing where you have to randomly generate your own story so you're filling out like adjectives

and nouns in a mad libs type style and then as you advance to your own personal story you're pulling from those mad libs so like your own story that you're reading aloud like adjectives and nouns in a Mad Libs type style. And then as you advance to your own personal story, you're pulling from those Mad Libs to like your own story that you're reading aloud to the other players is being colored by those. But it was really, really a lot of fun. And did not, it was not as dense as I was worried. It might be looking at it.

That sounds really cool. What else? Forgotten waters. It's by Platt hat games. It's the name of that. Justin, do you have a book called Piranesi. It's great.

If you like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, it's by the same author, Susanna Clark. It's a lot shorter, and it's very weird. So when you start reading it, you have to trust me that it's going somewhere. Nice. Nice. You never dislike books.

I played a little bit of other games. I played some some thirsty suitors which is uh a mishmash for a video game yeah much better than juice on if i may be so bold honestly yeah um it is french nah just because like if you're wondering why people a bunch of people aren't doing it maybe you should call it climb game you know what i mean or something not juice on i don't know what that means what does the legend of zelda mean it means it's a legend of zelda what are you talking about zelda's a princess what do you mean zelda's the princess from the game you know i know you played it go ahead plant

basically a young woman returns what's aop? Like, what are you talking about? Not making any sense. It's RoboCop 8, you know what I mean? A young woman returns to her hometown and has to stay with her family ahead of her sister's wedding. Meanwhile, we throw in a little bit of skateboarding, like Tony Hawk style skateboarding. There's some cooking mini games there's a scott pilgrim uh style story of like confronting exes and um and that's all tied into turn-based combat this is i'm so far so torn on this game because the story is awesome and it is um interested in exploring uh south asian families and all of that is like so engaging and rich and the art is absolutely killer the art in this game is incredible the skateboarding is a blast but the center of the game is the turn-based combat that just it just is not fun

so far which is a bummer because it's very clever the combat is like you are using like men or women are coming up to you and uh wanting to win you over and you're using like flirt systems or you are kind of like shaming them or you are uh trying to seduce them or you're using different systems to trigger their weaknesses so you thirsty being an example you can make an enemy thirsty and then they're like drooling over you and then you can like use a special thirsty attack on them i gotta be real that sounds like mystery the game mystery or like psychonauts no no i mean like mystery the the the seduction yes i know what you mean uh yes we're talking about the same thing i uh you're talking about i think the client was confused oh yes you're talking about the pickup artist

yeah pickup artist yes i would say the big difference is these people are trying to come onto you, and you are fending them off. Got it, got it. So, yeah, everything about it is so cool and clever and thoughtful and interesting, but the actual playing of the combat just does not click for me. playing of the combat just does not click for me. That said, a strong endorsement for checking it out because for a game to have so much right, if you, and I'm not a big turn-based combat person in general, so that might be the issue. If you like turn-based combat, everything else here works and works really well. And it's really impressive how many things it's doing that are enjoyable. Like, it would be easy for the skateboarding part of this to feel weak, but it feels killer. It would be easy for the story to kind of fall to the wayside. None of those things are true.

So yeah, it's really interesting. The other one that I've been picking out is Bomb Rush Cyberpunk because our listeners have been asking us to play it and give it some time i am trying my best and this is a real like how i'm how is this not clicking for me it is a kind of modern spin on jet set radio and i think the biggest problem is i i didn't like jet set radio i love dreamcast games that game controls like ass like it looks talk about a game that looks great has all the right parts and then you play it and it is a headache this game controls better but it is going for a dreamcast era feel um so i'm still early in it, to be honest.

Like it could click at any moment. And I am going to spend more time with it because, again, it's hard to – it's one of those games that you look on Steam and you see thousands of overwhelmingly positive reviews. And you're like there must be a part where this game clicks and I'm just not there yet. Yeah, I bet that's there for dwarf fortress too you know not everything's for everybody yeah so i'm gonna i'm gonna keep picking at that there's one last thing that i wanted to call out um so we did a godzilla minus one screening for polygon and that's a that's a separate thing y'all should go see that's great that movie rules and it is now

in theaters i think think, nationwide. So go check that out. Subs or dubs? I don't even think that they do dubs. I think it's only subs. He mostly just roars. I don't think you really need. You get it.

He's mad. He's hungry. Lightning bolt, lightning bolt. But afterwards, after the movie, I'm walking out of the theater, and these two people come up to me and they're like dressed very like L.A. cool. Like I was immediately like, oh, these people are cooler than I am. I should probably put my head down and keep walking. Yeah.

And they're like, hey. No direct eye contact. Yeah. They're like, hey, we got to talk to you. I'm like, oh, great. Now they're going to like give me a squirrely. What did I do? And I'm like, yeah, what's up? And they're like, hey, we brought you a gift. And I now they're gonna like what does that do and and and i'm like yeah what's up and they're like hey we brought you a gift and i was like oh what and they handed me three little

books that are like fantasy books and i was like oh okay thanks and they're like yeah we made a fantasy books and fashion combined line uh and we would like you to have this cool beanie in these books that tells the story behind them. And then I like went home and looked at the books. And like, they're, they're like pretty well written. They're quite interesting. So I'm going to share this with besties.fanreaders just because I think people will get a kick out of this stuff and be interested in it. They're at LA Comic Con this weekend, so if you are in that area, you can check them out. But here's the detail that really meant the most to me.

One of them, he told me that he's been a diehard Besties listener despite living in Antarctica for three years and having to listen to our show off of a USB drive. That's the coolest fucking thing i've ever heard isn't that great fucking thing you ever heard yeah i was like i

was sure he wasn't a thing i i well you mean nothing or awesome that thing is i was in close proximity to him he handed me those books if he is a thing i'm probably a thing. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one downside about the thing. That is the one downside about the thing. Do you feel like you're a thing expert because you had a thing come out of your ear? Ooh. Are we really going to subject the newsletter to that? I don't think it's a good idea. There's no way.

Are you kidding me? We cannot. Maybe there's a way to put a spoiler-blurred image. Spoiler of your life. Yeah. Because your life will be spoiled. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe I can put a poll.

I'm going to be pretty mad about all of it. I mean, I'll put a poll in the newsletter this issue, and people can vote if they want. I do want to say, though, as a representation of a healthy relationship, when I mentioned it to my wife she was like please let me see it and her response was wow instead of like she was proud as i was gotta be proud of something yeah you know otherwise it's like what am i doing

uh this has been so fun i didn't miss griffin all. No, not even a bit to say anybody review our show this week. Yeah. We have a number of people who wrote reviews for the besties on Apple podcast. We have chemo, smotic, Hamill trash, number one,

an EEM M sun 19. Thank you for writing reviews for the besties on Apple podcasts. Thank you to everyone else who's showed the show or subscribe to the newsletter on besties.fan uh please keep those indie game recommendations coming there are so many fucking games that came come out every year or every week and uh we miss a ton i was just going through polygon's top 50 list and there were so many games i didn't get a chance to play um so please keep the recommendations coming and and we'll try to check out whatever we can uh next week i'm not entirely

sure we might be talking about the avatar game it is dependent on when we can get it uh if we're able to get it early or not we will at some point be heading into the midst of pandora you do not need to worry about that yeah yeah we're definitely yeah. We're definitely going to have to talk about it, but it might have to wait until the new year. What if it's the best game? It might be. So many game of the years are being decided before this game comes out,

and it would be quite the turn if it just came out and was the best game. Yeah, like Twist, this is the best game there is that we've done so far. They'll have to throw out all the writing and story that exists in the avatar universe for that to happen so we'll see how that goes that's a pretty harsh word for an 18 billion dollar

grossing franchise I guess you got him okay that's gonna do it thank god hey thank you so much guys this is a lot of fun this has been a great time great time go see God in the game today give it a nice home

this is going to do it for us for the besties be sure to join us again next week for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games besties Besties!