The Besties - The Great Indie Game Flood of 2024 Continues

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

Here’s a short list of indie games released in May: Crow Country, Animal Well, Arctic Eggs, 1000xResist, Skald, Hades 2, Indika, and the list goes on. We’ve already discussed some of those games. We'll discuss more in the future. Today, the game we’ve fished from the Great Indie Game Flood of 2024 is Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, the latest puzzling adventure from Simogo. Bring your notepad! It’s time to crack the case! 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! Use code BESTIES at the link below to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan: https://incogni.com/besties

If I could put in a formal request. Yep. Can the next game that we cover on the besties be something, you know, like Punch Gun 99? Like something- Not a thinker. Strong guy, strong guy killed guy, strong guy killed guy 15, and just like be able to kind of just,

I've been doing so many fucking puzzles over the last three weeks. I feel like I'm in school again. I feel like I'm doing my ACT, SAT prep and I'm burning out. When my parents or Jack Thompson are like, video games are dumb, I wanna tell them like, they're actually not, you actually have to be super smart

to play video games anymore. Like they're so hard. They're really, really not dumb. I'm taking notes, I'm paying attention, I'm reading full paragraphs. What if they could do school like this? Hey guys, what if every puzzle was actually like an answer on your math quiz? You know what I mean? Like, what if learning was fun? Demental.

What if they came up with like a storyline where two trains were driving at each other? Yeah. And three days later, they arrive and de-buke. But you could upgrade the trains also if you find power cores. Do you know what I mean? That would be sick. Rocket launchers.

They should do that. In English class, you're reading Pride and Prejudice and you're falling asleep, fucking dying of being so bored. But if you could, but if the guys reading Pride and Prejudice and you're falling asleep, fucking dying of being so bored. But if you could, but like if the guys in Pride and Prejudice could find power cores to get stronger, and then they would have like different abilities and shit. Like, I don't think there's anything wrong with this idea. I think it's actually really good.

You can unlock like different punctuation. Yeah, I guess. To like really sass things up. I'd rather be, characters have powers, but I guess it could just change the sort of syntax of I don't think we're should be charged Russ Griffin and I over fun school

Learning education entertainment and unlimited. Yeah, unfortunately are gonna have to part ways with you and it has been such a journey together Thank you so much for your time. No, I get it. It makes sense. We're reinvesting the money we made on Punchgun 99 into what we're calling Cool School, in which the books can make the characters get stronger with power. We're also changing the name of the company to Brøderbund.

Yes. It was available. My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Russ Fresh. Oh my god, I know the best game of the week. That name is Griffin McRoy. I know the best game of the week. My name is Russ Fresh. Oh my God, I know the best game of the week. That's Russ Fresh dig. He's doing fine. I'm okay.

I'm a little sick at the moment, but we're doing okay. Just sick Russ? Any other maladies you want to share? I also thought I broke my toe last night, but apparently I didn't and it's just bruised and hurting. I didn't realize one that you didn't break your toe.

Yeah, you didn't tell us that. It's weird that you would tell us you broke your toe and then not circle back around for the shameful admission that it was all false flag operation. I thought I updated you guys on the toe status this morning. You did this morning, but I spent the whole night praying for my family and just sort of like channeling that power towards you.

You also sent us a picture of your toes, which sadly Russ, I do think I've seen before. Yeah, I had to add it to the directory. It's saved on my phone. What game are we doing? Well, Griffin, this week we're going to be talking about Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, a new entry from, I would say primarily mobile developer.

Is that fair? I tend to think of them as a mobile first developer, Simogo. I think they're starting to branch out to doing more non-mobile stuff, Simogo. So what is Lorelai and the Laser Eyes, Griffin? Lorelai and the Laser Eyes is a puzzle adventure game set in a big hotel where different sort of timelines

seem to have smashed into each other and is very atmospheric and cool and it's got like a billion fucking puzzles in it. Wow, that's a lot. And we're gonna talk about all of them and give you the solutions right after this. Orange, Ace of Hearts, Northwest, no. this. Orange, Ace of Hearts, Northwest, no.

I genuinely, I do wanna table set this by saying, I did find myself wishing I had had a little bit more space between Animal Well and this game. Which is not this game's fault at all, obviously, I do not hold it against it. It is stretching a particular muscle that is like right now, it is weak and feeble and exhausted. Whatever puzzle gland explains the juices I need.

I think it's called a brain. A brain, yes, thank you. I don't even think it's a puzzle gland, right? Cause it's not that I have to do a bunch of puzzles. It's a defilement gland. I have to do a bunch of puzzles. It's a deployment glitch. It's the, there's a greater logic to this world, to this puzzle world and all of these connections that,

because of those connections, it requires a certain amount of effort here in the like meat space, I feel like, to begin to chisel away at them. There is also a little bit of like a, it's one of those games where you walk in and nothing makes sense and you're really not given anything and you're kind of wondering like,

what's going on around here? And then the game seems to be saying, I don't know, it's a really big mystery, isn't it? You have to figure it all out. I'm not gonna give you anything. And I'm coming from Animal World like, could you, can you just tell me where, just tell me what to do, okay?

I don't actually want to do that. Like, I don't wanna do that. I do think, it is obviously a much different game. That table setting's done. Let's go with War of Wine and Lace Rises. I have not actually gotten too deeply into Simogo games, so maybe you guys can sort of like explain how it is alike or different to the rest of their-, I mean it's it's they've they've made there

I mean their game played device six right that was right that was quite a while ago. I mean, I think we're it Was that joystick time might be like joystick like some of those been been at it for a little bit I think they're most recent was cyan or a wild, which is like as different as you could possibly get. But kicks ass, fucking fantastic. Very cool game. It's much more action. This is like closer, I would say, to some of their early, more like Sailor's Dream or Year Walk. They secretly made one of the best puzzle games ever

called Split, which if you haven't played it, it's the most simple. It's one that I'll return to after like a year of not touching it. It's so good. It's S it's capital SPL hyphen T. And I know that because it's been on my phone for how many years.

But their games are almost defined by the variety. You know what I mean? It's like, there's not a ton of commonality other than really every game feels very unique. Device 6, for example, is a game that's primarily played through like interactive text. It's amazing, by the way, if you haven't played it, even though it's, God, what, 10 years old?

I don't even know if you, I'm not confident you could find it like on the app store by the nature of things. But this is a, this looks, if you're looking at it, you would think it is, think like Deadly Premonition, Resident Evil, it's like feels kind of like that, where like with angles that are almost a little bit more akin to like, like early Silent Hill stuff, where without the depth effects,

like it needed to be a lot more stark and like really dramatic, like low pitched angles and stuff like that. It's all kind of askew and surreal. And in black and white, like with some, you know, pops of color, but. Occasional color. I would also say from a gameplay standpoint,

it's basically like good mist is the best way. Interesting, yeah. That's actually, I like that comparison a lot. Obviously it's not a first person experience, but the nature of the puzzles is, as such, that there's a lot of symbols and numbers and rules to things that, much like Myst, you walk in,

you have no fucking clue what's going on, but then you'll find a thread you start to pull out, and you're like, oh, so that's how, that's how that kind of puzzle works, or, oh, these types of puzzles refer back to this thing that I found a while ago, now I know to go back to them and take another swing at those, and then it just keeps on, keeps on unfurling. But my nag on Myst was that I thought, I think Myst does not age well, like if you tried to play this today,

because the puzzles are so opaque and so vague about how everything connects. Whereas this is pretty opaque. I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean. Yeah, but it does, it felt like there were instances where I like immediately knew what I had to do. Whereas when you walk into a room in Myst,

it's like, here's three blue and green marbles. So that is actually a gripe that I have a little bit with this game. Some of the puzzles are so stunningly obvious that it's like, yeah, like that? Like, is that the kind of thing that you're expecting me to do? You find a lot of letters with like numbers underlined,

or it'll say like a hundred years later, and then I'll have a year underlined. So I just add a hundred to that, that's the solution, and that's it. And it's weird because I don't know, like when you're solving puzzles in a game that's like this abstract, there has to be a level of like, if you're not gonna tell me the mechanics,

you at least need to let me know what you're expecting of me, like the expectations of that, right? Like- Don't you think that's what they're doing by giving you those early puzzles that are like very stu- like incredibly obvious? Like it kind of teaches you the language of what to look out for.

Yeah, I guess in terms of like a basic fundamental building blocks of it, but like, I would say that the problem with that is it took a while before I even ran into one of those like really obvious puzzles. So like a lot of my initial like exploration, it's a lot of like, well, I don't know what any of this is. Okay, next room.

Yeah, that's true. I do think this game has occasional sort of hiccups in terms of momentum, but when the momentum is working and you have just found some new Rosetta stone, that all of a sudden the pieces click in place and it's like, oh shit, actually, oh God, I gotta go back and find all those posters now. Oh shit, yeah, okay, and you start just blasting through it,

and a whole new floodgate opens up. It's genuinely very, very, very compelling. I found myself playing it late into the night because I would have some discovery at 11 o'clock and be like, oh well shit, I gotta see what all this is. And unlike, well I'm not gonna keep talking about Amul-Well, I will say it does a really good job also of making the world that you're in dynamic,

by which I mean that like different events happen, rooms change, like things are different. So like even a standard like, well, I'll God, now I have to run all the way back to this room because I have to do this thing. You don't actually know if you're gonna make it to that room, something else might happen, something might change.

There is a really, when you are locked in with this game, it feels kind of magical because there is so little to hang on to that when you really do grasp something, it feels like, it makes you feel very, very smart. I mean, you feel really clever. There's also like such a mix of like, I don't know, vibes and historical time periods. Like you're in this hotel that looks like it's from, you know, maybe like the 1920s,

and it's filled with relics from the 1800s, but also computers and video games and shit. Like, there is no, shit will happen, you will meet characters in this game and be like, well, that's crazy, I didn't know that that guy was gonna be here. That's a wild, wild twist for this thing to take. Which also adds to the effect.

I also like the, there's a phone in the game, it's not really a spoiler, but there's a phone in the game. And at one point you get a phone number that you can call and someone will pick up and like a scene will play out. And then you realize like, oh, all of the numbers that I keep getting seem to keep working on the phone. So suddenly I'm calling someone completely different because I found this random set of numbers

in a totally different spot. And then that unlocks like a whole string of other things. Yeah, I find it really, really, when it's doing that thing where you're in the flow and like you're making a ton of progress and it feels great, I'm like so into it. And then I'll hit walls and I'll be like, I have no idea where to go and I don't know what to do.

And getting around this world is not a blast. No. And that is one thing I will call back at Animal Well and say like, even when you're stumped in Animal Well and you have no idea what to do, just running through that world is pretty fun. Like it's a fun game. You might feel differently Hoops, but like I find it.

It is fun more times than, how would I even like by the 30th time of the zero, but like, yes, I know what you're saying. Whereas this stops being fun to walk from room to room after. It's closer though. It's close. It takes a lot less time to get around. I will say that Animal World is a lot of running back and forth. My bigger issue... We should stop talking about Animal World too, guys. It's relevant.

I find a bewildering amount of stuff about this game to be so weirdly player hostile. Yes, that is, yes. In a way where it's just like, I don't like as a game critic being like, well they should have done it this way, they should have done it, because obviously there's limitations in artistic visions, but I could not escape this feeling of like,

there's a way better game in here that is accessible through just, in this game you can move around and then you have button, just one button. The button opens up your menu. You can go into options in the menu with button. There is no back button. There's no like map button.

When you go into your menu, you have a few different things you can go into and check your inventory. You can play with a little Game Boy, which is great. And then you have photographic memory. Every clue you find, every pertinent thing that you find that's going to be useful to you at some point gets added to this huge index

that you can refer back to whenever you want. So to do that, you press menu button, go down to photographic memory, go down to the subheading you want, go to the item you want press press it to go in There's no back button There's just button and so you have to then close it go back up to X Go to the other side go back up to X and then go back up to X to close it when you do that for the

500 sounds like a nitpick what Griffin is saying but it is a constant impediment to playing the game Like the fact that you want to open your menu, but instead you interact with the thing in front of you. I missed stuff, like I missed an item once. Like I left a room before I was ready to, because like it was just so weird to, like I was turning a little bit to the left and that made me interact with something. It sucks.

It's really weird. You find maps in the game that get stored in your photographic memory. So if you ever want to refer back to the map, I mean, not a joke, it takes a long fucking time to like scroll through this index to get to the map. You want to open it and then there's no back button.

You'd have to close it manually and then go back and close that menu manually and close that menu manually. Is this on mobile? That was our theory. That was my big question. That was my theory. Because I also had that problem.

It even impacts puzzles. Research. Where like, if you don't know the answer to the puzzle, the only way to back out of the puzzle is to answer it incorrectly, which is crazy to me. It's so hostile. But that's what it made me think, was like, was this whole thing, which would make sense given their design pedigree,

was this whole thing designed for touch, and then they backed their way into non-touch? Because I played on Steam Deck, and as far as I could tell, there was some weird mouse stuff going on, but on the track pads, but otherwise I couldn't get any touch stuff working. I don't know if it's like more touch friendly on Switch, but it just felt very odd.

There were puzzles that, and like I didn't keep making this, I don't see it on the app store if it's on there. Yeah, I don't think it's. There were puzzles that I like didn't realize I could interact with because there was no, like I would just look at them, right? And it wouldn't occur, and I pressed the button, the button didn't do anything. It's really, really weird.

It's really, really very, very strange because that's just like, add a couple, add a couple inputs in there. Like I, maybe it's not the easiest thing in the world to do, but just give me a, give me a button to access my maps. Or give me a button that backs out of the whole menu without me having to like go through three different. There are human beings in the world, right?

They've played a lot of video games. You have to imagine that this is not catching them by surprise that it feels bad. I'm wondering if it's like a an intentional choice to Help keep you off balance or off kilter like you don't get too comfortable But like that's a straight. That's me like my most generous. I I just feel like they couldn't have You can't miss how annoying this is to play and and how much less pleasant it makes just like doing it. That shouldn't be the hard part.

I don't know if I'm gonna finish this one, partially because I am also at sort of a wall right now. I have like 30 leads and no fucking idea where to take them or do anything with them. To touch on that before you, the Animal Well at least had the, or any other big game like this, I think if you're gonna make things really opaque,

I think you at least have to have some thing, some thing that you're telling like, this is progress. Because like what we're talking about, the sense of progress fades really quickly because when you don't know what you're supposed to be doing next, you don't really feel like you progressed. Like I have no idea where I am in this story.

I don't know if I'm moving forward or not. Like, things are happening, but like, I don't feel like I'm making, like getting... I don't know, there's a very clear counter, like, on the screen, like the percentage of your memory you've recovered. I'm shockingly far along for where I thought I was in the game. I don't know if I'll finish this game. I definitely think I would if it felt better to play it. Just straight up, if it was a little bit less annoying

to just play with the game and interact with the game. And maybe they'll be able to fix that, but I don't know if coming back to this game after a while would be possible. I'd probably have to start completely over. It's a bummer because I think that this game is very cool. The aesthetic is very incredibly unique. It's like a, I don't know, retro cyberpunk,

Lynchian mystery. It's got vibes for days and it kicks ass. You don't think so? No, no I do. I agree. I was thinking about other weird, another weird thing that I wanted to mention real quick that really turned me off is that there are like fail states.

That's true. That you, and the game tells you like, if you mess up in a fail state, you will lose, you will die and you will lose your progress since your last save. Which is manual. Which is manual only. That's the only way you can save is like, is being manual only. Like that, that again, especially with navigation is such a pain, that stinks. Yeah. That's like really,

like what a weird energy to put into the game. Like that's, I don't know, man. Like I finally got to one of those situations, like one of those things, and it was not- It's cool. It was cool, it was well done, it was neat, but like I don't understand why it has to be the threat of the loss of progress,

because you don't know when those situations are gonna happen. Yeah. It's like a really weird player hostile thing to do. Yeah, it's hard to really get into the head of these developers to know like what they were going for. But it's really, I think from a puzzle design standpoint, predominantly speaking, there's some really great, interesting, thought-provoking puzzles in here. And I think art design-wise, 100%, the interaction stuff, yeah, I just, I can't understand it.

Did you guys find the instruction manual? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I don't feel like it's hard to get into their heads. Like, that was one of the weirdest things I've ever read, honestly. They're like, here's how we want you to play it. In the dark, with headphones, with a pen and pad. Hey, thanks. It's pretty dark in here.

I'm still supposed to write? Okay, this is fun. Because I'm having a good time with this. How about this, counter offer? I play for five minutes while why my toddler shits? How would that be? Can I do that? In broad daylight.

In broad daylight. With a muted. Can I, yeah, exactly, on a mute, is this an option? Yeah, I don't know who I would recommend this game to. I'm enjoying it, I think it's very cool. I do wish I had played it maybe a month later, and maybe I would be even more into it, and I hope they can fix some of the interaction stuff,

because it's really, it detracts a lot from what is otherwise a very unique experience. I think there are a lot of people out there that like the Myst thing, and don't get a lot of fodder in that genre at all. Absolutely. Would be a good one to play with somebody else too, if you play with a non-gamer that just likes puzzles,

like Sid, it would be a good fit for that. There were moments where I was like, I'm gonna read this whole book, I guess. They have like large- I've gotten really deep into the lore of Lorelai and the Laser. That's really good shit. The story is fantastic. The writing is very good.

Yeah. I wish it was voice acted. I will say that also. I feel the loss of it. It would be nice. Okay. Yeah Let's take a break when we get back. We'll talk about Hades 2 Hades 2 is pretty fucking good. Okay, that's our segment. Thank you so much. Any letter any read or mail? How deep did you go Russ?

So Brendan joined me in a very special episode of the Besties. And we mostly touched on the first five hours. So we didn't go that deep. I know a lot of people were curious what you guys thought of it, given that you all were such die-hard fans of the first game. So I'm kind of curious, where did it strike you in terms of where it's at in Early Access right now?

I held off starting Hades 2 until I finished Animal Well. Like really, really, really finished Animal Well. And I'm glad I did because basically I started playing Hades 2 on this most recent tour that we went on. And once I got in there, it did not, I did not get out of there until I had finished basically everything

that the early access has to offer. Wow. It's fucking great. I don't regret playing the early access version, even though I played the shit out of it, because I do think I will be champing at the bit for any new stuff that they put on this. Obviously I was looking forward to Hades 2, playing all the early access in the way that I did,

has me just absolutely out of my mind with excitement for the full release. This game is going to kick a lot of ass, because the early access version already does. That's my opinion. Yeah, it's extremely good. And I don't have a ton to add to it that I think is very useful. I will say, though, that I think the biggest thing for me about that I am learning with Hades 2 that I think is the... Maybe the biggest improvement is that

the way the different combat mechanics and the way the different like evolutions like your abilities can interact with each other is actually like a lot. I feel like I'm learning more about those just through playing organically that are making me more powerful. Like I'm less reliant on I mean I'm reliant on obviously all the upgrades and the boosts and whatever, but like learning how to use the different tools because they're all really specific. Like learning how to use the different weapons really well, I think takes longer maybe than the Hades one. I feel like to get really competent and to really learn how to best use the weapons, and there's some that I still don't like. The axe, for example, that has the counter ability as its special attack it can counter.

I don't really, I haven't really gotten a good feel for that one, for example. Yeah, I actually liked that one a lot. So yeah, it's interesting where certain weapons jump out. But it wasn't for weapons, it felt more direct for me. The things that took me a lot longer to start taking advantage of were the like gameplay mechanics like the hex thing where you have this like super powerful magic ability

that you can only use if you've burned a lot of mana in the round that you're in, in the room that you're in. So my default setting from Hades 1 was I like barely use magic, or at least we'd only use it occasionally when the build was really calling for it. And so I was just never being able to activate my hex power. And then eventually I got to a point where I was able to have a build with the cards, whatever, the tarot cards, that like regenerated my mana in a much faster way, that facilitated using the hex.

Just that one thing, there's other stuff that it adds, I think that's the biggest sort of like mechanical combat wise like thing that it adds, but it is a huge pillar that amplifies the other shit that Hades 1 already had going on, like logarithmically. Do you mean the hexes or the? Just the hexes and the use of magic and the way that magic works

and the way that you have to kind of like treat it as a resource. Yeah. It adds so much to the build, like, consideration process that I feel like I am so much deeper into than in Hades 1. Seems like you disagree. I think there needs to be a little bit more work done on the resources.

There are a lot more in Hades 2. There's a lot of resources. And at first, it made the Delves into the actual combat encounter. It made the Delves more interesting because I was going in like finding these other resources and it was just adding a little, you know, dopamine spice to the blend.

But now that I'm not really hurting for some of those cheaper resources, it can make some of the runs like early on in each run feel kind of uneventful or kind of dull because I'm getting is like stuff that I need a hundred of to do anything. And it's like, do you want five of this thing that you have a hundred of

or five of this thing you have a hundred of? And it's like, I don't really care one way or the other because none of these helped me on this run or in the meta because I pushed the meta to a point where they're not really meaningful. So I'd love for them to adjust that. I'm not really sure how to make it work. Yeah, I've been looking at the patch note updates. I guess, I don't know if they've released like a full,

huge patch yet, but they have released notes. And the areas that they're looking to adjust, one of them is resource gathering. So, you know, you have to bring a tool to gather resources specifically. And if you don't bring the right tool, you just can't pick up that resource, basically. And they kind of realized that, like, oh, that doesn't feel great.

And maybe there are ways around that that would be a little more appealing. The other thing that they mentioned was mobility. And they said that the sprint mechanic, which is new to this game. It's fucking wild. So how it works is basically you have a dash, which works pretty much like the dash in Hades one, but if you keep holding that button,

the dash button, you will enter a sprint, which is like a very fast run as you'd expect. You don't have a second dash, um, or even a third dash or whatever, however many you could get as, uh, Zagreus. So in my experience, like, that doesn't feel great. It kind of depends on what your build is, but like, even builds built around sprinting

didn't feel great. And that's kind of- I got it to go to, one time I stacked buffs, I got it up to like 180% sprint boot. Like, it was literally, it was almost unplayable because I couldn't like position myself greatly because I'd just fucking fly across the screen like a bullet.

Right. How do you all feel about Melanoway as the main character? I like her a lot. Versus Zagreus. Yeah, I do too. I was more immediately drawn to her as a character than Zagreus, which I'm not sure why that is.

I think Zagreus, you jump in and it's very mysterious and then it kind of like uncovers itself over the first five to ten hours. Whereas here, you kind of know exactly what you're trying to do very early on. Yes. And you have a power structure. You understand, oh, I'm working for Hecate and I have to, you know, rescue people. And there's, it just felt like a more direct connection to this character.

I think that the character, I guess, is maybe not what I have as much of a problem with. And it's not a problem, it's just feel differently, but the world that Zagreus returned to after he got killed, it seemed so full of life and everybody's kinda sexy. And you know what I mean? It's like so sort of like full of life and like, uh, everybody's kind of sexy and like, you know what I mean? It's like a different vibe. Her like whole thing, like everybody's like the creepy skeleton guy, you know? It's like everybody's kind of dark and twisted and everybody's kind of bummed out and it seems pretty hard down there. It doesn't seem as like fun and sexy as uh, as Hades was.

As Hades was, yeah. Yeah, the tone of this game is much darker. That is true, and that is a fair point. I mean, there's still plenty of sexy folks to appreciate in this game. There's hot tubs. There's hot tubs up in this one. I don't know how old this character is supposed to be,

though. I don't know how to engage in hot tub activities with literally anybody in the world. I have my teacher, and it's like, do you want to ask your teacher to a hot tub? I don't think I do. I don't, that feels inappropriate. What about Odysseus?

I don't know. Am I 180,000 years old? Or am I 16? I have no idea. I think it's great. I feel like, for me the big question wasn't like, is this game going to be good? For me it was like, do I want to play the early access?

Because I know it's gonna be good, I know I'm gonna wanna play the full version. But genuinely I think in this case, and this isn't just like coping, I do, I am glad I played it, because I forgot, it's been a while since I played Hades 1. This has only kind of like kindled my interest and excitement for Hades 2, while still I think

leaving enough to the imagination. Is there any way to sort of like signpost how much is here like maybe in comparison to Hades 1? Well, Griffin, you said, yeah, that's a good question. Griffin, you said you played what's in the early access. So what is your play? I would swear on a stack of Bibles, I think there's more here in the early access of Hades 2 than there was in Hades 1.

That's what they've said. That is my impression. Do you know how many hours I spent playing Hades? Okay, but when I say that, there is certain, I would say on the economy side of things, on the progression side of things, on the story side of things, there's not as much. But on the playable content side of things,

it's a fucking feast. How many hours would you say that you spent to get to the point that you're at? Oh gosh. 30-ish, 30 to 40 maybe? I think the big differentiator here, and I'm not going to go into details cause it does get pretty spoilery is Hades one, your runs

will differ in Hades one based on the things that you pick up, uh, the, you know, your boons, whatever here, I get the sense and Griffin is further along than I am, but I get the sense that you can deviate your runs in different ways to make them feel more different than a normal run. There's like less momentum or more flexibility

in the builds? Well, in the- Not just builds, but like levels. The route, yes. Yeah, the route. I'm not gonna go- Oh, I'll give you the physical space. Yes, I don't wanna go into that,

because it is genuinely a pretty big spoiler, I feel like, but it does a lot of that stuff. It does a lot of stuff to make the runs feel very, very, very fresh. I will say another cool thing that I liked is they've made the environments, like there was always like interactivity, but I feel like the environmental activity

is very meaningful. Like it is the trees, especially like if you hit a tree, it'll sort of blast out like a really powerful attack, especially for like early on when you can't make really damaging hits, using those to your advantage, like there's circles that appear that are like shields, basically that is neat because you get a couple of seconds of free hits on stuff using those to your advantage, like there's circles that appear that are like shields, basically,

that is neat, because you get a couple seconds of free hits on stuff, you had a timeout when to use those. I thought all that stuff was really neat and helped to keep it feeling dynamic. Yeah, I do, I am stopping, though. Yeah, that was gonna say. I don't wanna play it anymore now. I'm ready to begin the mental purge.

Begin the forgetting. So they've said that the saves will carry over to 1.0. Do you think you would start from scratch? Probably. Yeah. Probably. I mean, you certainly wouldn't remember most of the story elements by the time they hit 1.0. I mean, maybe. I don't know.

My memory's not great, but I also like, there are parts of this game, of this early access, that don't feel finished, but very, very, very clearly. And I don't know, I would be too paranoid the whole time. I'm gonna play Hades 2 for hundreds of hours. So like, what's a restarting the progress I had made here in the early access version, but that's just me. It's sad.

It's sad. It is sad. It is the answer. It's a sad thing to do. Are you not going to do that, Justin? No, I'll be reading the great books. Oh, okay. Great. I mean, yeah, I sort of am of a mind

that there's a lot of tools that you unlock in those first, let's say, five to 10 hours that kind of make ones way more interesting. That is what I would have a hard time going back and doing that without. And doing that without. Yeah, I get that. Little chunks runs way more interesting. That is what I would have a hard time going back and doing that without. And doing that without, yeah, I get that. Little chunks of ash and stuff. Hey, can we jump ahead to honorable mentions?

Cause I had a game I really wanna talk about and I don't want us to run out of time. Sure. Here. I played a really fucking cool game on the flight out to Vancouver, which is like six hours here from DC, called Crow Country.

Oh. Do you know about that one? I do, I haven't played it, but I'm eager to hear about it. It is a very PS1 retro-inspired survival horror game, very much in the vein of Resident Evil, with a sort of aesthetic that is, I saw someone describe it as if the Ghost Square

from Final Fantasy VII had a full video game and it's very, very unique and very, I would say, nostalgic for me personally. Sorry, what is the Ghost Square? I don't even remember that. Oh, it's like in the Gold Saucer. The Ghost Square is like the haunted theme park. The haunted mansion.

Yeah. This is a survival horror game set in a fictional theme park called Crow Country. And you are an investigator who has come here to investigate some calamity that has occurred. And it is a pretty straight over the plate survival horror game very much like a Resident Evil, with like, I don't know, in the way that that series has evolved

to be a little bit friendlier to the player and offer more sort of clues and secrets and upgrades for you to hunt down if you really wanna go after that stuff. This game does a lot of that too. But just the setting is super duper unique and very genuinely very creepy. And I just burned this thing down. I almost finished it just in that flight.

It's not the longest game in the world, but I just thought it was so good. I know like the controls, obviously, that's the thing that people throw at random people. So yeah, there's two types of controls. You can go with tank controls if you want to, but then there is a modern control scheme that is much, much, much, much, much, much, much,

much better too. But even then you're still, aren't you still aiming with like a weird isometric camera? Sort of, basically whenever you go into like, you know, weapon ready mode, a reticle appears on screen. And the perspective shifts just a little bit, just enough for you to get over your shoulder to aim and get shots off.

I didn't have any trouble. I don't think it's a very hard game. I don't know if I died ever while playing it, but I definitely had, that didn't stop me from having a few genuinely pretty good jump scares in the mix and a few like, you know, moments of feeling pressure. Yeah, I don't know, I think it's just a very, if you like survival horror games,

I think you'll like Crow Country because it's just a very, very good, no nonsense one of those. And yeah, a lot. Yeah, looks cool, I really like it. Juice, did you play anything? Yeah, I did. I played some, in order to cleanse my brain,

to free my brain, I played some mini-shoot adventures. Have you heard? Oh yeah. You guys heard about this? We talked about it on the recipe. Did you? Yeah, well, if you guys have seen it, I put a little trailer in there in the Slack channel,

but it's like a Zelda format of a game, like the overworld looks like Zelda. Specifically, I'd say it's like a upscaled link to the past, like that's very much the aesthetic, but it plays like a bullet hell game. So you're in an overworld, you're collecting power-ups that improve your shooting and have these maps where a bajillion things are trying to kill you

in a very bullet hell style. But there's also things in the universe that you can't react to, you can't solve. Like you need certain items, for example, there's like a boost that you can get that lets you hit ramps and access areas that you couldn't before. It's a very, like, the title is very bad.

I don't know why it's called Mini Shoot. The actual name is Mini Shoot Possessive Apostrophe Adventures. Mini Shoot. I think short, my speculation was short for Mini Shooter. Like you're a mini shooter. Like that's a term that people know. I don't know.

I don't know. What made you play this game? I heard about it on Jeff Griffin's show, so I played it, that's it. Yeah. Yeah, it's a great game. We both, Plant and I both loved it. And I think aesthetically had some critiques,

but like as a gameplay game, it's fantastic. Griffin, you would absolutely adore it. Yeah, no, it's good. Yeah, we have your, Alan. You play on a Steam Deck? Yeah, it's fantastic. Griffin, you would absolutely adore it. Yeah, no, let's do it. Yeah, we have your, Alan. You want a Steam Deck? Yeah, I'd put it on a Steam Deck. Yeah, it's great. Perfect for Steam Deck.

The thing that I wanted to call out is, and it will include instructions in the newsletter on how to do this, but if you own a MiU Mini Plus, you can get Pico 8 installed on it such that you can play all of the Pico 8 games. If you're not familiar with Pico 8, it is an indie game platform that people basically create these games. Think of them like flash games, but it's in a different design scheme. Celeste was originally designed for Pico 8 and then eventually was released as a full

game. But there are hundreds, if not thousands of games that people have made of like very bite-sized approaches to here's a golf sim or here's an RPG or here's a roguelike, but in like really bite-sized format. What's cool about it is all of these are recently made, so they all use modern design sensibilities even if they might look like they were games came out in the 80s. And there's a way to set it up on the Mio Mini Plus, where you basically download a wrapper for Pico 8, and you can then download any game over Wi-Fi

that is on the Pico 8 library. You can search by creator, you can search featured, newly updated, whatever. So I was just downloading like whatever came into my mind. I played some truly great stuff. I'll give some recommendations in the newsletter. What is the thing that you're saying, Miu... Miu mini plus.

Yeah, so the Miu mini plus is one of the more popular popular like those mini handhelds that Griffin and I obsess over not that popular I didn't hear about it. I have what I fucking love it is my shit They're they're basically like handheld a lot of people you might go to Recommendation for like if you want to get into this shit like get the Miu mini plus because it's It's got a ton of support a ton of people developing for it And it allows obviously emulators and things like that, but it also allows for things like Pico 8 and playing like that whole library.

And so, yeah, it took probably 20 minutes to set up, and it's incredibly cool, and just a nice alternate use case for this device. Cool, I will get that. Games Discuss, this episode, obviously Lorelai and the Laser Eyes, Hades 2. I mean, we did talk about Animal Well a lot. And I feel like we did warn people that that was gonna happen. I talked about Crow Country, Justin talked about Mini Shoot Adventures, Russ talked about Pico-8 on the Miu Mini Plus.

Hey, we have a Patreon, and it sure would be dope if you would go and, you know, become a patron over there, patreon.com slash the besties. There's episodes of the resties on there, there's monthly bracket episodes, and it's a damn good time. Thank you all so much for joining up there. Special shout out to the following patrons. We have J.C. Grover, we have Red Baron, we have Groove Wizard and Splinter Cat.

Thank you for supporting us along with everyone else that supports us on the Patreon. What are we doing next week? Next week we're going to be playing Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door coming out on Nintendo Switch. I'm excited. I've never played that one. Oh boy. Great. Well, that sounds fantastic.

Be sure to join us again for that and so much more next week on the besties Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games? Besties!