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

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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Griffin McElroy?

  Did we all kinda cue up a burp at the same time there?

• 0:02Speaker 01

  That's crazy dude. I definitely had one in the chamber.

• 0:05Griffin McElroy?

  Crazy.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Wow, Russ had, said he had a cold open and he was time sensitive, he really wanted to do it, but then we all fired off. We all had one in the chamber when we did our count.

• 0:13Griffin McElroy?

  We didn't launch it, like, we wouldn't, we're audio professionals, we wouldn't, but we all got a little choked up there.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  It was funny, it was like, oh, we all burped, and now Russ can't do the one that he wanted to do.

• 0:22Griffin McElroy?

  No, I do want to hear it.

• 0:24Russ Frushtick?

  Guys, I want to talk about persecution.

• 0:26Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, just the idea of it?

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Honestly, if I need an expert in that, Russ, you are the one I turn to.

• 0:32Russ Frushtick?

  What do you guys know about me? What do you think, what, if you were thinking of facts that you know about Russ Farshid and things that he likes?

• 0:39Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 0:39Russ Frushtick?

  What's one thing that you would say he likes?

• 0:41Speaker 01

  The steam from scrambled eggs.

• 0:43Griffin McElroy?

  The, the steam that comes off an egg, when that hits your eye like a big pizza pie. He loves that, we know this.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  His chill dren, one child, it's tough to keep track.

• 0:54Russ Frushtick?

  No, no, you hit it one, you hit it in one.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  I got, I got one, one kid, uh, likes that, likes video games.

• 0:59Griffin McElroy?

  Rogue like.

• 1:00Russ Frushtick?

  The, the secret-

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Likes hurting himself with video games.

• 1:03Russ Frushtick?

  That's true. The secret, uh, about, uh, the egg steam is that it does require eggs, which is to say, I like eggs. Indirectly, I like eggs.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  It's funny, from the reflection of Griffin's glasses in his computer monitors, I can tell what his mind is wondering, and that's interesting, because I can just see the flashes.

• 1:18Griffin McElroy?

  I'm looking at nothing-

• 1:19Speaker 01

  It's like he's looking for any tab that might alleviate-

• 1:21Griffin McElroy?

  Nothing but my boys right now.

• 1:23Russ Frushtick?

  So, I don't know if you guys are aware, but there's been a bit of an egg shortage in America lately, uh, such that for certain supermarkets, including the one that is in, within walking distance of me, it's a Trader Joe's, there's been a sincere egg shortage such that you have to kinda get there right at opening to get a carton of eggs, you're limited to one carton. I get that, I'm, I have no objections to that, obviously, the eggs should be shared among wide and all.

• 1:49Griffin McElroy?

  I don't feel that way. I feel like if I get there early and have the most money, I should be able to buy all the eggs.

• 1:56Russ Frushtick?

  Hmm.

• 1:57Griffin McElroy?

  I realize that's-

• 1:58Speaker 01

  I also don't think vegans should be buying them, period. I need those.

• 2:02Griffin McElroy?

  Those are for Justin and Russ. Russ needs them to live.

• 2:05Russ Frushtick?

  I don't think vegans can buy them, right?

• 2:07Speaker 01

  So was there a point to your story? Or was there?

• 2:11Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so I went to the supermarket. This is the week leading up to Easter. I went to Trader Joe's to go buy eggs. Right at opening and I arrive and there is a line of, no exaggeration, 312 people in line at Trader Joe's.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Wait a minute, hold on, hold on. How did you? How could you say no exaggeration then say 312?

• 2:37Speaker 01

  Did they give you a ticket that said 313 on it? Or did you go head by head?

• 2:40Russ Frushtick?

  They were counting people as they went through the door. They had a counter, a ticker to make sure it didn't get over flooded.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  Legit, legit, I'm sorry, Russ. I was out of line.

• 2:47Russ Frushtick?

  Talking, speaking of persecution, here we are.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  This is a cold open.

• 2:51Russ Frushtick?

  So I arrive and I'm like, this seems odd.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  We should be recording this.

• 2:55Russ Frushtick?

  There's too many people here for right early in the morning just to buy eggs. Normally there's like a dozen people that are pretty jazzed about buying eggs, but otherwise no. Turns out Trader Joe's was selling an Easter themed tote bag that was specially released and people were really fucking jazzed about it. You knew who wasn't jazzed about it?

• 3:16Speaker 01

  Who?

• 3:16Russ Frushtick?

  The guy who came just to get eggs.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Oh, fuck. Yeah.

• 3:20Russ Frushtick?

  And I had to wait in the line. It took like 25 minutes to wait in this line.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Now, Russ, there, why wasn't there two lines? They know there's an egg problem. I would be really TO'd if I was you.

• 3:32Russ Frushtick?

  That's what I said. Why isn't there a tote bag line and an everything else line?

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:37Russ Frushtick?

  But honestly, I think it was fitting for the holiday for me to be suffering in this way.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:44Russ Frushtick?

  I thought it was an appropriate connection to the holiday that at least one person was being subjected to something truly awful. And in my case, waiting 25 minutes in line.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:57Russ Frushtick?

  To buy a tote bag.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  And then three days later.

• 4:00Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, and the worst part of it is by the end.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  The worst part of it was, I do know already, but go on.

• 4:04Russ Frushtick?

  No, the worst part of it was after 20 minutes of waiting in line, I gotta be honest, I kinda wanted the tote bag. And they announced, I was five minutes away from the end of the line. They announced, "I'm sorry, everyone. We're out of tote bags."

• 4:20Griffin McElroy?

  Did that at least clear out the line? So you could go on, finish your exhibition?

• 4:24Russ Frushtick?

  People were like pot committed at that point. They were like-

• 4:26Speaker 01

  I hope, I hope they have video epitaphs by the time that you die. I want a video tombstone that just plays you telling that story about your, just like, this is, this is the rest rush experience.

• 4:36Russ Frushtick?

  It was the worst day of my life.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  Did you try to buy one off of somebody else, or?

• 4:40Russ Frushtick?

  No, I should have fucking eBay that shit.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  What were they charging?

• 4:45Russ Frushtick?

  It's like $3, idiots.

• 4:47Griffin McElroy?

  Damn, that's-

• 4:48Russ Frushtick?

  They could have really raked them over the coals.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  My name is Justin McRae, and I know the best games of the week.

• 5:10Griffin McElroy?

  My name is Griffin McRae, and I know the best game of the week.

• 5:12Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Ross Rucker, and I know the best game of the week.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Welcome to The Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a video game club. Just by listening, you, my friend, have become a member. This week, we have a melange for you. Uh, one of our beloved grab bag episodes, where we talk about a bunch of different games that we're enjoying, none of which you care enough about to make a whole episode around it. That's the truth. That's the algorithm. That's not it. That's not us.

• 5:37Russ Frushtick?

  You might care about them, but not right now. Currently, you don't.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  You, the plural you.

• 5:41Russ Frushtick?

  Currently, you don't. But maybe at the end, you will, enough to be like, that should have been a whole episode.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, perhaps. Well, there's only one way to find out, and it's to take a quick break, and then come back, and then do the dang thing.

• 5:54Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin, you played an old game, a game that's been out for like 30 years at this point, with like 2D graphics and shit.

• 6:00Griffin McElroy?

  No, I understand your confusion. Um, but-

• 6:03Speaker 01

  When I saw this pop up on Steam with you playing it, Griffin, I just assumed they renamed Blueprints.

• 6:09Griffin McElroy?

  No, I have a, I think I beat Blueprints. I am gonna talk this week about RuneScape Dragonwilds. And if you say the full title of that, your underwear goes up your own butt. It kind of is like an auto wedgie situation. Are you guys at all familiar with RuneScape?

• 6:29Russ Frushtick?

  All I know about RuneScape is the Reddit community for the original game is very active and like memes will bubble up to the like homepage of Reddit.

• 6:37Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 6:38Russ Frushtick?

  But I won't understand any of them.

• 6:39Griffin McElroy?

  So I think the main reason for that is old school RuneScape is sort of the re-released version of just that old, the original RuneScape that is out on iOS, where it works like pretty well and sort of like really revived the community. RuneScape 3 is also kind of still available, but from what I can tell, old school RuneScape is sort of the supreme game.

• 7:05Russ Frushtick?

  And are those MMOs or are they just like?

• 7:07Griffin McElroy?

  So yes, they are MMOs. RuneScape was a very just primordial MMO.

• 7:11Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 7:13Griffin McElroy?

  That had a sort of like top, not quite top-down, sort of like isometric perspective. You had your character. There were no like classes or anything like that, but instead it kind of spearheaded this idea of you have like two dozen skills. And the skills can be like logging and-

• 7:29Russ Frushtick?

  Tailoring. I've seen people talking about how hard it is to tailor.

• 7:32Griffin McElroy?

  And as you like do those things, those specific skills level up to, and so like that's a lot of the game's content. And it also like sort of inspired a lot of other games that would then come after it.

• 7:44Russ Frushtick?

  Elder Scrolls for them.

• 7:45Griffin McElroy?

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

• 8:18Griffin McElroy?

  Things along that line. So you're going around, you're collecting wood and stone to make a thing to chop down a bigger thing and XYZ. However, it does have that same skilling system as RuneScape. So like anytime you do anything in this game, you are constantly leveling up these skills and unlocking these little passive bonuses or unlocking new spells or unlocking, you know, X, Y, or Z. And so like those, this game is interesting because there's a lot of ways that like the logic and rules of old school RuneScape actually lend themselves really, really well to this particular genre of game. Not only that, like sometimes you'll find a quest that is like a quest from old school RuneScape.

• 9:01Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know that you will like necessarily vibe with that if you don't give a shit about that.

• 9:06Russ Frushtick?

  Probably not.

• 9:08Griffin McElroy?

  But it does some stuff that is sort of like, it does some stuff that's interesting.

• 9:11Russ Frushtick?

  What is a quest of like, like, is it like, oh, I remember that time that guy asked me for logs and I went fucking nuts.

• 9:18Griffin McElroy?

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

• 9:35Russ Frushtick?

  I'm down with that. That sounds like my kind of thing.

• 9:37Griffin McElroy?

  And I genuinely think like old school RuneScape is free to play on your phone or iPad. And I do think like, there's a lot there that's interesting as sort of a historical document. But you know, that stuff will obviously be lost on you if you didn't play that game. One thing that's really neat is that there is magic in this game. And the way the magic system works is you like, collect these runes, which are sort of like your ammunition for casting these different spells. You unlock these spells by leveling up different skills. So like, for instance, the first spell I unlocked by leveling up my wood cutting skill, summons a magic axe that you kind of swirl in front of you and then throw forwards and it chops down every tree right in front of you that you sort of aim it at.

• 10:17Griffin McElroy?

  And then you get a spell that causes the trees that fall down to explode. So you can just grab all the lumber without having to chop stuff down. There's a spell that lets you just do one really high jump, which really sort of makes. Exploration and stuff a lot more interesting. There's, there's a lot of really interesting kind of, um, applications of, uh, of magic in the game. And I think overall, like, it feels pretty good. It was sort of a stealth launch. Uh, Jagex, I believe, is the name of the, uh, the, the team who makes RuneScape.

• 10:46Russ Frushtick?

  Those Jags.

• 10:47Griffin McElroy?

  Those Jags. They kind of just like stealth launched it and were like, yeah, give it a try. It's early access. Let us know what you think. And it's like solid. It's, it's genuinely pretty fun.

• 10:55Russ Frushtick?

  I do like that it's colorful.

• 10:57Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 10:58Russ Frushtick?

  Which is a lot, a lot of these sort of games, like even in Shrouded, which is a game I really liked, does have like a kind of a filter over it that kind of dulls a lot, uh, which is more realistic certainly, but this is like more in line with that era.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  It's also the design of like the, the main characters and stuff. It feels less, uh,

• 11:20Speaker 01

  like, there, we have gotten so klugey with character design lately, like the, the, the piling on of accessories and bands and everything. There's a lot of iconic silhouettes here. Like it feels like iconic fantasy and not like.

• 11:33Russ Frushtick?

  If you will.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  You know how like Final Fantasy games these days all want to have like, have their cake and eat it too? Like it's leather, leather jackets and swords. Like that never happened. Like I'm sorry.

• 11:43Griffin McElroy?

  They have the Uniqlo brand deal like after.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 11:47Griffin McElroy?

  That is not the case. Like, and, and a lot of the armor from RuneScape is in the game. A lot of the weapons from RuneScape are in the game. Um, and, and so like that is why the, that stuff kind of looks sort of like, uh, nineties camp fantasy. Uh, is because like, that's exactly where it was pulled from.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  It looks like, you know, it kind of reminds us of is the, um, Dungeons and Dragons cartoon.

• 12:08Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, for sure. And so like I have, uh, I, I didn't play RuneScape when I was a kid. I played old school RuneScape. And so like, I don't know. I've always been very charmed by that world. I, I, I think the aesthetic is, is really kind of something, something neat. Um, and I think that this game is really promising. I do think it is a bit, uh, content light at the moment. Um, you can't level up all the skills to like max level. Some of the skills are like missing. Entirely like there's no, you can shoot bows and stuff, but there's no like ranged skill to like level up alongside that. And from what I can understand, like you can get through most of the content of game like relatively quickly.

• 12:50Russ Frushtick?

  Is it, what is the like paint? Is it just like buy once and you're good? Or is there a?

• 12:54Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, no, it's not an MMO. It's, it's, it's buy once and you're good. I think it's like 30 bucks, I want to say. But like, I don't know. I, I have been enjoying it. I don't think it is hitting quite as hard as like Enshrouded, I think is in like a really good spot right now and kind of does a lot of this stuff better and has like better building and more to kind of do. But I do think that it's a really a sort of ironically, like it has a lot of original ideas, or I guess RuneScape had a lot of original ideas and this one has adapted them very smartly.

• 13:27Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 13:28Griffin McElroy?

  And so, yeah, I've, I've been, I've been enjoying it. I've been playing on my Rogue Ally. It works, uh, works pretty well.

• 13:34Russ Frushtick?

  Rogue, yeah, I was gonna say Rogue Ally, a new, new addition.

• 13:39Russ Frushtick?

  That does seem neat. Uh, you know, I get a little bit overwhelmed by all of the survive, whatever the genre is, the survival RPG genre.

• 13:47Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 13:48Russ Frushtick?

  And, but it's good to see something that does at least visually stick out from the pack in that way.

• 13:53Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. And it's also like, I don't know. I think it's fun that fans of this franchise who have not really had anything to snack on. Since, you know, RuneScape 3 dropped a million billion years ago. Just get this like huge kind of exciting thing out of nowhere.

• 14:09Russ Frushtick?

  Do they seem happy? Cause in oftentimes?

• 14:11Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, no, it's been, it's the, the response has been like incredible.

• 14:14Russ Frushtick?

  I can't imagine trying to make an audience like that. Like that's pretty fucking impressive.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  I do think it's kind of incredible that like an audience can just keep their busted, broken down thing going long enough.

• 14:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Where the great circle of time comes back around and like, wait, people still like RuneScape?

• 14:31Griffin McElroy?

  Well, I mean-

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Let's just make more of this.

• 14:33Griffin McElroy?

  Old school RuneScape really like set that ablaze and I'll say like really set the, uh, you know, the tone for World of Warcraft classic that, you know, did kind of the same thing. EQ I think did sort of the same thing. But I don't know, old school RuneScape, it just works so well on like a touch device. And I think that's why the community is still is like fired up about it.

• 14:55Russ Frushtick?

  Lord British, what the fuck are you doing?

• 14:57Griffin McElroy?

  What are you doing though?

• 14:58Speaker 01

  It's time, man.

• 14:59Russ Frushtick?

  Sitting on the toilet, doing nothing? Get in it. Make your own remake.

• 15:05Russ Frushtick?

  Lord, he's lost in his magic house. That's what happened.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Griffin, here's the great, the great question I have for you. What is your plan for this game going forward? Is this something you're gonna hang with now that you've talked about it?

• 15:16Russ Frushtick?

  Lord British was Ultima Online. I know, I was saying he hasn't thrown his hat into the ring.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  He's like not making something. Oh, I see. Whereas he needs to get Ultima back going.

• 15:23Russ Frushtick?

  He fell into a trap door in his fancy house and now he can't get out again.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Griffin and I are very close friends.

• 15:30Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, true.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  So my question to you, Griffin, because you weren't listening because you were looking up facts about Richard Gere. My question once more is now that the episode is completed. Do you think that this is something you're gonna hop right back in and play some more of? Or do you feel like we'll check back in in six months? Where are you at?

• 15:48Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I'm, it's definitely a check back in scenario. I've put maybe 10, 12 hours in it and, you know, built a cool base and done some of the story stuff and found a dope weapon and did that. But it is tough to dedicate a lot of time, at least personally speaking, it's tough to dedicate a lot of time to a game that you know is going to be better in

• 16:08Griffin McElroy?

  some amount of time, once it's gotten some, some updates. So yeah, I am probably going to put this one to bed for now until it is, it is more active. But that said, like, I've had fun with it and, you know, I wouldn't let that, let that stop you if you're interested.

• 16:24Russ Frushtick?

  With Entrouted, have you like gone back, like, I'm waiting for Entrouted?

• 16:27Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, I've gone back to Entrouted. Entrouted has gotten a ton of shit.

• 16:29Russ Frushtick?

  Cause I'm just waiting for 1.0 on that. Like, I don't wanna-

• 16:31Griffin McElroy?

  As soon as that drops, yeah, that's gonna be, that's gonna be huge. I did return to Entrouted a little bit earlier this year when I got the Rogue Ally and wanted to, you know, play some stuff on it. And yeah, it's, it's in good shape too, but same sort of thing. Like, I'm in the same boat. I would love for 1.0 to drop. So I feel like, okay, all the time I invest in this is, is, makes sense because this is like the capital G game.

• 16:52Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  What else are you talking about? I checked out something this week called Sunder Folk. It was, it was part of an Easter celebration, an impromptu Easter celebration, because I was stuck at my house while other people swam. So I, I started an impromptu Sunder Folk party. What is Sunder Folk, Justin? Well, thank you.

• 17:12Griffin McElroy?

  I was gonna, I would ask.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Go ahead.

• 17:14Griffin McElroy?

  You didn't really leave much off.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  I was being their listener, not you guys.

• 17:17Griffin McElroy?

  What is Sunder Folk?

• 17:18Speaker 01

  So, yeah, sorry. In my head, that was the listener.

• 17:20Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, okay.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Not you guys who should have asked.

• 17:22Russ Frushtick?

  I was distracted by Griffin's Funky Kong shirt and couldn't ask anything. So.

• 17:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  So Sunder Folk, developed by Secret Door, who has done Sunder Folk.

• 17:34Russ Frushtick?

  You may know them from.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  You may know them from Sunderfolk. Uh, okay, so imagine a game that is halfway between, uh, like you don't know Jack and Four Swords, Legends of the Four Swords. So the idea is like you start the game on a computer or laptop or what have you. I think the ideal scenario is you're running it into a TV with an HDMI out, but you could run it off the laptop regardless. Uh, and then.

• 18:05Russ Frushtick?

  Is it on, could you do like an Apple TV situation or is?

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Oh, you know, I mean, I don't, I, as far as I know, this is just coming to Steam right now. But so, and this is part of the, I guess, Dream Haven franchise.

• 18:17Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, sure.

• 18:18Speaker 01

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

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Until Dawn, is it super massive?

• 18:45Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Some parallels to what they did with, uh, Hidden, ah, somebody look that up. You know, you know the one I'm talking about.

• 18:52Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, this, the anthology, right? That they did? Hidden Pictures?

• 18:56Speaker 01

  There was like one where you had a, it was a investigation thing where you had a secret agenda that you were trying to complete and the other players, anyway.

• 19:03Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  You, as you play through the game, the main interactions of it are basically a hex.

• 19:08Russ Frushtick?

  The Dark Pictures Anthology.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Thank you. That's not the one you're talking about. I was talking about, but anyway. In Sunderfolk, it's a hex, the combat is like a hex based system where you choose a character class, all pretty bog standard stuff, right? You got a bard, you got a wizard, you got a fighter, what have you. And then the campaign starts, each person is controlling a character, um, and they can make like dialogue choices, stuff like that throughout on the phone. But then when you're playing the game, the phone becomes basically like a touchscreen controller where you're.

• 19:44Speaker 01

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

• 20:02Griffin McElroy?

  Okay. I was gonna ask, it doesn't, I don't understand why this needed to be a phone and not a controller until you.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Well, the, the thing is, if you are, it's the setting, right? It's the, it's the, it's a phone, not a controller, because people have phones. And so you can get, it's the same model as like, I mean, you don't know Jack could be a controller too, right? But the, the model is different because you can bring people in for a couch co-op thing where the phone, you don't have to pair a bunch of controllers and hook it up and everything.

• 20:32Griffin McElroy?

  Is it adversarial at all? Or is it?

• 20:34Speaker 01

  So there is definitely an aspect of collaboration. But there is an aspect where the first person to touch the gold, or the first person to interact with the treasure chest keeps it. And then your gold is specific to you. So there's definitely this element of like, I really should come help you with that, but I really want this gold. And so there's a little bit of like back and forth as far as that goes on. And you've got, the, the, there's a story being told, right? There's a campaign story where you can like hop in and hop out and control the characters. What I don't know is like, I played it with Slice for like, an hour and a half, I would say. And it took us just a little bit to kind of figure out the basics. Mechanically,

• 21:18Speaker 01

  if you were playing this like solo, if it didn't have the other elements, I think you would be like, I don't know what the, you know, most of it is just kind of functional, right? It seems like the focus was just making it happen. But it was a really interesting way of like playing together without having to like, it's very similar to, I think, a lot of board game experiences, just, you know, in a digital way that makes it easier to set up and easier to play. You can do a lot of the sort of boring character management stuff on your phone where it's not slowing people.

• 21:54Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Right. So when you both level up, you're doing your own level up stuff on your phone. You're waiting for the other person to do it, but you can actually like go to the shop and buy things while they're doing that.

• 22:03Russ Frushtick?

  It sounds like playing multiplayer Baldur's Gate 3 was a similar, obviously this is easier because it's just on phones. But like from a logistics standpoint, it does seem kinder in that way.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  So the, my issue, I think the thing that worries me after playing it, the thing that I'm like unconvinced about, this is out, by the way, you can go play this, try this if you want.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  I don't know how easy it would be to like onboard someone who wasn't already in the room. I'm not sure this is like a party game.

• 22:33Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 22:33Speaker 01

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

• 22:54Russ Frushtick?

  Intentional.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  If you have friends that would get into this kind of thing, um, I think it's, it's, it's, it's pretty accessible. And I think it's well worth, well, well worth trying. I think it's, it's pretty cool.

• 23:04Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, there aren't too many of these that are, you know, like this format, but also like pretty approachable. I guess Jackpox is the like, the epitome, but this feels like a different experience entirely. This is more of an RPG.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  I also think if you have kids, this would be a really great balance between like interacting with screens, but still like interacting with each other. I'm always looking for stuff like that, then kind of engage them, but we can still sort of hang out throughout. So I think that would be a good fit if the kids are a little bit older. I think it's not super, I feel like 12 plus if I had to guess, like it's not super. And, and, and you know, I don't send that not just ages, but like familiarity with games overall, right? This is not something you're going to hand it to your grandmother who just likes. Peggle or something and she's gonna be able to play, play in the same. That's not judgmental. Like you could hand Jackbox to, you know, you can get, you can onboard someone with that in 10 seconds. And this is not that, but it is very cool.

• 24:01Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it looks neat. It's a, is there like a long campaign or is it just like individual play sessions where it's like here's?

• 24:07Speaker 01

  That's the thing that I don't know. It feels like we have a campaign that we could return to.

• 24:11Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  I don't know if I started a different campaign, if it would be that different.

• 24:15Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  And I assume it would have, I mean, obviously there's branching narrative choices. So like, yes, it would be very different, but like, I don't know the long tail on it.

• 24:22Russ Frushtick?

  But sometimes those branching narratives are like, not really.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Right, right. It may be the Dragon Age thing of like, I don't know. It's just a bunch of AI generated crap. Doesn't mean anything. Not to say Dragon Age is that, but yeah, you get it.

• 24:35Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Interesting. Um, yeah, that seems cool. I think we have one more game we can talk about, uh, and we'll do that after the break. Okay. So the last game today that we are talking about is called Bionic Bay. And this is a 2D platformer puzzle game in the style of games like Limbo. And inside, if you're into those games, if you've ever played any of those games, you will feel instantly very, uh, at home here. The game.

• 25:08Griffin McElroy?

  We need a name for this. It's, it's a very niche subgenre, but.

• 25:12Russ Frushtick?

  I think it's a puzzle platformer is what people call them. It doesn't seem.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  So atmospheric puzzle platformer. That's better. Yeah.

• 25:20Russ Frushtick?

  What's prob, the problem with that term is that, that instantly puts me in the mind of like, I have to shift boxes around.

• 25:27Griffin McElroy?

  Which you do in this game.

• 25:28Russ Frushtick?

  And you do have boxes.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  I mean, they're nice looking boxes, guys. And there's some moody music, but let's.

• 25:34Russ Frushtick?

  This game kicks off, uh, you're a scientist in a lab and something goes wrong and you, for some reason, get teleported to an alien world. And the alien world looks kinda like Zen from Half-Life 1. It's just like, uh, kinda biomechanical, but you know, there's a lot of like, creatures and lasers and gears that'll kill you and all sorts of shit.

• 26:00Griffin McElroy?

  It hits you with huge out of this world vibes.

• 26:03Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that was my first thought.

• 26:04Griffin McElroy?

  World vibes really, really fast.

• 26:07Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it, uh, you really just get dropped into this thing and you're like, well, this is a shitty situation. How am I going to survive this? And within five minutes, you were shot with a laser that turns you into like a springy bouncy boy.

• 26:21Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  It is a really effective, like, when you boot it up, you're like, oh my God, no, please.

• 26:27Griffin McElroy?

  It feels so shitty, yeah.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  When I thought it was the game of, like, we were just doing this game for the week, when I booted it up, I was like, oh God, I can't play many hours of this, but it's like, I mean, literally 30 seconds. It's basically a sight gag.

• 26:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, they do like a slow, you're forced to like very slowly walk, cause all your bones are broken, into this laser that like fully heals you and turns you into, yeah, bouncy jumpy boy. And from there, it just turns into like a much more, uh, platformer centric game, even than Limbo. Like, there's a lot more of these like moves where you're doing like roll into jump into dive through the air and try to land on like a tiny grab ledge thing, uh, these like just very balletic dives. And that's paired with some special abilities that you get as you play through the game. Uh, the first one that you get is a teleport swap. So you can tag any item, like any object in the game and then swap places with it.

• 27:25Russ Frushtick?

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

• 27:44Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, a really, a lot of like moments in this game where it uses this like pretty small handful of mechanics in like really clever ways. Like a lot of moments are like, oh shit, I can't believe that worked moments. It's, it's, it's quite smart.

• 27:59Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Um, later on, they do mix in, I don't know how many there are, but they do mix in other powers beyond just the teleport power. You do get like a super strength punch at one point, uh, which really helped to kind of mix things up. But broadly speaking, you are, yeah, using this jumps and the rolls and the teleport. Um, I found it just visually very compelling, like immediately grabbing. They do, I love games where you have like a very, very little character and a giant environment around them because it really gives you the sense of scale and they fucking crush that. It looks so gorgeous, uh, runs great on a Steam Deck. I real, but, and I think like, I know LED screen, uh, really helps this game as well. There's like really cool contrasts with the art. Um, did you guys

• 28:44Russ Frushtick?

  play online at all?

• 28:46Griffin McElroy?

  No. There's online?

• 28:48Russ Frushtick?

  There's online in this game.

• 28:50Griffin McElroy?

  I did not know.

• 28:51Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. So it's not unlocked at launch or right at the beginning of the game, but once you, I think, beat the first chapter or whatever, you can go back to the main menu and there's an online, it's called like Bionic Bay Online, whatever. And it's basically like ghost runs of various like levels. So you can see 30 people doing the same run that you're doing and you're trying to get the best time.

• 29:14Griffin McElroy?

  Is it asynchronous?

• 29:15Russ Frushtick?

  It is asynchronous. Yeah. So I guess technically not online.

• 29:19Griffin McElroy?

  No, I mean, that's, that, having played, you know, Mario Maker Online, like asynchronous seems obviously superior.

• 29:27Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah. It's asynchronous and just like a nice addition to, I think, this feels like the sort of game that I'm really enjoying and I will probably beat. But once I beat it, there wasn't necessarily a reason for me to go back. And this gives me a little bit more of an incentive to like go back and, you know, play. They have like daily challenges. So people can keep coming back on a daily basis. There's even like a character customization feature of that where you could like make your character look unique in that like sea of, uh, ghost runners. I really dug this game. I love games like this, games that like really use physics in fun ways to result in like stupid ragdoll effects and making you feel kind of epic.

• 30:09Griffin McElroy?

  I will also say it is a puzzle platformer and sometimes like the puzzle stuff is gets a little bit challenging, but I was surprised at how good like the parkour kind of feels. Like you can really chain together some, I bet the speedrun of this game is going to be fun as hell to watch because you can really chain stuff together in a way that feels pretty fantastic.

• 30:30Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  It feels surprisingly good, not surprisingly, I guess, but like for, for one of these games, you don't, you're not used to them being as fun to play, I think, as this one is. Like, I was surprised once you, the elastic stuff kicks in, it's like, oh, this is really like, it's, it reminded me of Cannibalts in the way that it feels like that, the joy of just like rushing and like sprinting and like throwing yourself forward. It really has a lot of that.

• 30:53Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. You compare that to like Limbo, which I think is a great game, but also like very slow and kind of pensive. And there are moments in this where you do have to like take a second to like figure out the situation, but broadly speaking, it is much more of a sprint through, which I really dig, works. Cool. That is Bionic Bay and that is also out on Steam. All these games are out, right?

• 31:18Griffin McElroy?

  Who made it?

• 31:20Russ Frushtick?

  The developer is Psycho Flow Studio and Marina Oi made it.

• 31:27Griffin McElroy?

  Awesome.

• 31:28Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know their stuff, their previous stuff, but it looks like, um, yeah, this might be their first major release.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  All right. Fantastic. These are great games, guys, and I love video games.

• 31:41Griffin McElroy?

  Okay. Sort of weird thing to, like a weird thing to assert, I guess.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  It was just silence. It was just like silence and I didn't know what to do.

• 31:50Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, but we can be comf- we've done this show for so long, we can be comfortable being silent with each other for like little spurts, little spurts of time.

• 31:57Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 31:59Russ Frushtick?

  Reader mail?

• 32:00Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I'd love that.

• 32:02Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, we have one letter. We had many letters, but this is a long one, so I thought it was worth just focusing on this one. This comes from-

• 32:09Griffin McElroy?

  Nice, I'm excited.

• 32:10Russ Frushtick?

  Bass Toad, or I guess Base Toad.

• 32:13Griffin McElroy?

  Podcast me to heaven.

• 32:15Russ Frushtick?

  So apparently, I wasn't here, but apparently you guys were talking about building games last week?

• 32:22Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 32:23Russ Frushtick?

  Does that sound-

• 32:23Griffin McElroy?

  I also wasn't here last week.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  So there was a question last week about games that were about sort of like free-form construction, where you can play together and make things.

• 32:32Russ Frushtick?

  Cool. So Bass Toad had recommendations for some other games to check out.

• 32:38Russ Frushtick?

  Vintage Story is a take on the Minecraft voxel game with more in-depth building tools. It has a creative mode, so you can build freestyle. There's also Planet Zoo and Planet Coaster with great customization and building tools for designing very intricate landscapes. Tiny Glade is a great game where you build these little castles and ruins. I played that one. That one is really neat. I like that a lot. Summer House and Townscaper, also in the vein of Tiny Glade. And a throwback from my childhood is Blockland, a Lego-style building game where you are the size of a minifigure. And finally, The Sims 4 has very good building tools, just like a ton of stuff, especially if you type in the console, you can just generate whatever you want.

• 33:21Griffin McElroy?

  God, Blockland.

• 33:23Griffin McElroy?

  I remember playing this game. It is kind of a trip to see it, because I have not thought about it in, well, 18 years, I guess.

• 33:34Russ Frushtick?

  It's on Steam. Crazy.

• 33:36Griffin McElroy?

  Perfect. Great.

• 33:37Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it looks very blocky, but-

• 33:41Griffin McElroy?

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

• 33:58Russ Frushtick?

  No Man's Sky is pretty good. I think the best that I've ever played is probably, oh, fuck. What's the name of the scuba diving game?

• 34:07Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, Subnautica.

• 34:08Russ Frushtick?

  Subnautica has really incredible base building that I think, I think where a lot of the base building in games like No Man's Sky get a little distracted for me, I know a lot of people like this, is they lean on like a little more of the roleplay-y stuff where things that you put in your base don't necessarily have like a ton of utility, whereas essentially everything in Subnautica has like some utility to it, which I thought-

• 34:32Griffin McElroy?

  I think that speaks to the fact that like Subnautica has a lot of plates you have to kind of spin and you build things that make spinning those plates a lot easier. I really think Entrouted has cornered the market on this. You can build some stuff in that game that looks truly pretty fantastic and really make a space your own.

• 34:51Russ Frushtick?

  I remember feeling very intimidated when I first started playing. This is like right at early access launch where I felt like my shitty block castle was like very pathetic in comparison to what it could be.

• 35:02Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I remember.

• 35:05Russ Frushtick?

  It left a mark.

• 35:07Griffin McElroy?

  Have you guys been playing or watching anything else? Maybe we should say that Oblivion Stealth dropped very recently as we are recording this, and I think we're gonna talk about it next week, so I don't think we've spent a ton of time with it, but early impressions are quite positive. It's crazy how good this game looks.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's weird. I haven't thought about, it's weird to think about returning to Oblivion.

• 35:31Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  That, it's a big one.

• 35:34Russ Frushtick?

  We are gonna-

• 35:35Speaker 01

  For a long time, I said it was my favorite game.

• 35:38Russ Frushtick?

  Whoa, really?

• 35:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, for a long, it was, it's a, we will end up talking about it next week.

• 35:43Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, we're doing an episode on next week. But that's incredible.

• 35:48Griffin McElroy?

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

• 36:15Russ Frushtick?

  Oh.

• 36:16Griffin McElroy?

  And the big conceit of the show is that when they get there, they lock their cellphones in a locker that they can't access until the 10-day trip is over. And so all correspondence, all courtship, all planning and stuff like that has to take place either face-to-face or through letter writing, because there's a little mailbox with the box that you lock your phone in. And that seems like, oh, that seems kind of stupid. That seems not enough to hang an entire show on. But instead, you get these thrilling moments where they have a map that they will show to people, walking closer and closer and closer together, and then they'll just miss each other.

• 36:58Griffin McElroy?

  And they'll walk right by each other, because there's a meeting place where they all drop their letters, but there's no guarantee that you're going to see anybody any given day. And then, once you do, if two people ask you out on one day, you can't text that first person. You have to write them a letter and hope that they see it, so that you don't stand them up. It has a lot of drama.

• 37:21Russ Frushtick?

  You could just not accept the second date, like a classy person.

• 37:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, but if you get two letters in your mailbox, you have no... Right? So there's a lot of really great moments that come out of that core idea. It has huge chill, terrace house vibes. I know that the shine kind of came off that apple pretty hard. But it is really, really polished. I don't really have much affinity for... I've never traveled to France or really prioritized that. But it has a lot of great virtual tourism element to it. The commentators are really, really fantastic.

• 38:04Russ Frushtick?

  Is language a factor?

• 38:08Griffin McElroy?

  So it's really interesting, because they all speak Japanese when they're with one another. And then they will get in moments where there's one couple that go on a date to a winery, and they have to like... Try and stitch together any kind of conversation with these, uh, this married couple that owns the winery, but they don't speak Japanese.

• 38:26Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 38:26Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, and, uh, the people on the date don't really speak a lot of French. They all speak a little bit of English. And so like they're just bouncing between conversation, uh, between different languages as they, uh, as they converse.

• 38:38Russ Frushtick?

  Have they done that reality show where no one speaks the same language?

• 38:42Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, they have done that reality show. I think it was called The Language of Love.

• 38:45Russ Frushtick?

  The Language of Love?

• 38:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 38:47Russ Frushtick?

  So glad you got through here.

• 38:48Griffin McElroy?

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

• 39:06Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, fittingly for the name.

• 39:08Griffin McElroy?

  What's that?

• 39:09Russ Frushtick?

  The name of the team. It's fitting.

• 39:11Griffin McElroy?

  The Blues. Blues, because it makes you feel sad?

• 39:13Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 39:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sometimes they make you feel good. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's a great show and I've been liking it a lot.

• 39:19Russ Frushtick?

  Cool.

• 39:19Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, I think that's, that's it for me.

• 39:22Russ Frushtick?

  I have another show to, uh, talk about. I've been watching Daredevil Born Again, which is the new Daredevil show on Disney Plus. Um, it's basically just like bringing back the Netflix Daredevil show with basically the same cast or a lot of the same cast, uh, in a new adventure and all your friends are here except for some of them aren't. Uh, but the, but the most important-

• 39:49Griffin McElroy?

  Now you're just reading from the trailer script for us.

• 39:51Russ Frushtick?

  But the most important person is here and that is Vincent D'Onofrio because I do not think there is anyone in the Marvel Universe that is more compelling to watch than-

• 40:00Griffin McElroy?

  Get this guy in a fricking movie already, please?

• 40:03Russ Frushtick?

  Shit. I could watch him for-

• 40:06Griffin McElroy?

  Let him fight Spider-Man and let me have that film, please.

• 40:09Russ Frushtick?

  The like sad but also angry kingpin who's huge and is now mayor of New York City. Like all this stuff is working for me so well. Uh, and it's-

• 40:20Griffin McElroy?

  Is that canonical to the MCU?

• 40:22Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, is anything?

• 40:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I mean, there's a continuity of the MCU.

• 40:26Russ Frushtick?

  I know, but they like dream, oh, this was on Earth 12. So, you know.

• 40:31Griffin McElroy?

  Sure, but like I do need the bullshit. If you start hand waving it away, I would like to know the garbage.

• 40:35Russ Frushtick?

  So here's what I'm gonna say. It is, I guess, my, minor, minor spoiler. Kamala Khan, who, who is Miss Marvel, her dad has a bit part in this as Kamala Khan's dad. So I guess it is part of the MCU if you consider it in that vein.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. Yes.

• 40:52Russ Frushtick?

  Yes. I heard somewhere, and this was just like, just a short, I didn't read the article. But I heard somewhere that Vitanovria was saying there was some licensing something or other that was keeping him from movies, but that might just be like, he's being coy because he's in fucking the next Avengers movie as like Doctor Doom's best friend. Who fucking knows?

• 41:14Speaker 01

  I mean, there's always a thing, right? But there's always like a dollar value attached.

• 41:18Russ Frushtick?

  And you know who's very good at solving dollar value problems? Disney.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. They probably have to look around and they own it somewhere, whatever business it is.

• 41:26Russ Frushtick?

  So, but I've been enjoying that show. You know, it's, it's, it's fun. It's good to have something like that back again.

• 41:34Russ Frushtick?

  Justin, you have anything to share with us?

• 41:36Speaker 01

  You know me. You know me. I've just been kind of tinkering.

• 41:40Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, you love to tinker.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Making little computer, making little video game consoles. I made a little portable video game console that was a big hit at Easter too. Big, I was a real entertaining guy at Easter.

• 41:51Russ Frushtick?

  You made?

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Thanks hyperfixation. You did it again.

• 41:55Russ Frushtick?

  You made a portable game console?

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:58Russ Frushtick?

  What does that mean?

• 41:58Speaker 01

  You'll see it?

• 41:59Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I want to see it. Yeah. Hold on. Describe it visually to the audience at home.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  I showed, I showed last week, you guys weren't here, I showed, uh, plant my Daphne, uh, my LaserDisc Arcade cabinet that I made.

• 42:10Russ Frushtick?

  Wow.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Like last week. That's still, that's still within arm's reach. Just still have that little beauty. Oh, yeah, I love that.

• 42:17Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, it appears to be in a case that you would keep a nuclear football in. It's like a locked orange, uh, like a safe case, which seems like overkill for a portable device. Oh. Okay, so when you mean portable, you mean like, like, is it technically a carry on?

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Go on, go on.

• 42:37Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, it is technically a carry on. You could fit in the overhead compartment, but it's pretty close to not, to having to be checked.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  It's, I mean, it's gonna set off some alarms. What are you playing there?

• 42:51Speaker 01

  It starts when it boots up with a classic commercial from the 90s. A random one? Yeah.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  About video games, obviously.

• 43:00Russ Frushtick?

  Like the Paul Rudd commercial or the Jack Black commercial?

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, that kind of thing. Sometimes it's like Hills where the toys are. Yes, this is a Game Gear ad for Joe Montana football. Oh, the TV tuner for the Game Gear. Classic.

• 43:12Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. And this is the way you're funding it, right? Is you're getting some money from Game Gear, Sega?

• 43:18Speaker 01

  We got some startup, we got some startup cash.

• 43:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yep.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  I've got the two controllers embedded here.

• 43:23Russ Frushtick?

  And which controllers? Those look like eight bit dough.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  Those are the eight bit doughs. Then I carved some holes in the foam for those guys.

• 43:28Russ Frushtick?

  The honest description, it looks like a laptop in a case.

• 43:32Griffin McElroy?

  It looks kick ass.

• 43:33Russ Frushtick?

  It looks very, very cool. I'm very impressed by the logistics of all.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  Just to show you the inner workings here, this is a battery. That white thing you see deep in the case is a battery.

• 43:41Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  I got a Raspberry Pi 5 Velcroed to the top of that, right? And then I've got the two controllers paired with Bluetooth to this. And then I've got this monitor that's a 5 volt charge running off of the battery too. So I'm able to power both of these devices with the same battery.

• 44:00Russ Frushtick?

  How big is that monitor?

• 44:02Speaker 01

  Huh?

• 44:02Russ Frushtick?

  How big is that monitor?

• 44:03Speaker 01

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

• 44:31Russ Frushtick?

  For six or seven hours?

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:33Russ Frushtick?

  Wow.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  About that. Yeah. But yeah, if you charge it up before you head out, then you can run it for about eight hours off this. I've got another, I've got two other controllers in here. So you could do four player if you wanted to. But yeah, that's the thing. I've spent most of my time trying to get going.

• 44:51Russ Frushtick?

  Wowza. I'm like intimidated by trying to set up Android. And this is, you're running, you're running circles around me with your little workshop there.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't think of it as a competition, Russ. I think the fact that you see it that way is a little sad.

• 45:05Griffin McElroy?

  That's who I am.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  Speaking of though, I'm running Oblivion on my Android device here. You should check it out. It runs so smoothly.

• 45:13Griffin McElroy?

  Wait, is that remastered Oblivion?

• 45:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, remastered. It's like, it's like, it's per- no, man. I got it up and running on this Android. I had to move around some ones and zeros. Some bits and bytes, but I did get it up and running. Todd called me and he was like, J-Man.

• 45:27Griffin McElroy?

  Show me, what was that? What was that device?

• 45:29Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, why don't we save it for next week? Cause I'm also testing that device. So I think we.

• 45:33Griffin McElroy?

  Well, I don't want to be the only one without a device. What's a fucking call?

• 45:37Speaker 01

  You didn't even, you didn't even, spoiler for the listener. Griffin didn't even have his fucking camera on. And then he saw my cool game boy. He was like.

• 45:45Griffin McElroy?

  Show me your cool game boy now.

• 45:47Russ Frushtick?

  It's also funny. You don't even have a device, Griffin. Griffin.

• 45:50Griffin McElroy?

  I have a lot of devices.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  It's the Retroid Flip 2.

• 45:57Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, we will talk in depth about it next week as I've spent, I need to spend more time with it, but.

• 46:02Griffin McElroy?

  Are you still able to buy one of these without paying a hundred thousand dollars?

• 46:06Russ Frushtick?

  Probably not, uh, cause it would need to ship and land in the United States before I think May 4th is the cutoff. And certainly for the people listening, you're going to even have less time. I would not be optimistic. This might be the last, uh, China manufactured handheld for quite some time that we can actually get on the shores for reasonable dollar amount.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  I refuse to let that reality infect this podcast. The device will be taken on its own merit.

• 46:35Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, realistically, what here's what's going to happen is these Chinese companies will find manufacturing companies that aren't in China and then just ship them to America. Once that works out, but we live in a world of chaos. So who fucking knows?

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Great. Cool. Uh, what are we doing next week?

• 46:50Russ Frushtick?

  Wait, I want to know what the name of your handheld is. Your portable. Sorry. It's not a handheld. It's a portable.

• 46:55Griffin McElroy?

  Oh yeah. Have you named it?

• 46:56Speaker 01

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

• 47:15Russ Frushtick?

  Can I suggest something?

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, please.

• 47:17Russ Frushtick?

  What about the Just Box?

• 47:20Griffin McElroy?

  No, you can do better than that.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  No, that was re- ooh, I mean uniquely bad. Yeah.

• 47:24Russ Frushtick?

  Oh no. Okay, go on, go beat the juice box.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't, I don't have to.

• 47:30Griffin McElroy?

  The juice, the juice drive.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  You can't, that's a false.

• 47:33Russ Frushtick?

  Juice drive is pretty good, actually. I like juice drive.

• 47:37Griffin McElroy?

  Juice box, juice box.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  I mean, it's the juice box.

• 47:39Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, no, it's the juice box. I was so close.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  What's cool about it is you can find a different, like, I could have different, uh, it's just based on the SD card that's in the pie as to like what it is. So I could put in a different SD card with like a different suite of games or different setup or themed differently, whatever. It's pretty easy.

• 47:58Russ Frushtick?

  Have you done like, like, how much like, when you start a new device, how much work do you have to do over again? Or have you gotten to a point where you've like, have the baseline settings?

• 48:10Speaker 01

  I mean, I have the, I have all my stuff organized to like drag games on. I used to be more fixated on like, I want to try to play everything on this one thing. And now it's more like, what makes sense on this thing? And I'm trying to take more of a curation approach. So like, the setting it up is like, the reason I'm doing it. You know, like, that's the part that is making.

• 48:31Russ Frushtick?

  The Lego part.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  The, yeah, that's the part that I, that I enjoy. And then, yeah.

• 48:35Russ Frushtick?

  And honestly, like, from a pricing standpoint, maybe not in the future, but for right now, kind of comparable to Lego pricing.

• 48:41Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  I modded a cabinet too, an arcade one cabinet. I sent Griffin a video that.

• 48:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it looks kick ass.

• 48:48Russ Frushtick?

  I think we've done it. Congrats. I wanted to thank the patrons over at Patreon.com slash the besties. Uh, we love you. You can buy gifts for people if you know someone in your life that would enjoy a patron subscription. You can go to Patreon.com slash the besties slash gift and do that, which is very cool. Some members to thank, we have Dustin, we have Jennifer, we have Mark and we have Lindsay. Thank you for being new patrons of the besties. We really appreciate you. We appreciate everyone else who is patrons of the besties. You all have a new Resties episode, which is already up. You also have a Bracket Battles episode, which is coming up on Tuesday. That is the best grunt, video game grunts.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  So, oh, that's funny, yeah.

• 49:33Griffin McElroy?

  Cannon fodder enemies, not like, we're not like, saying like.

• 49:36Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, we're not, we're not, not those.

• 49:39Griffin McElroy?

  We could do one on that. I feel like most iconic efforts.

• 49:44Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. That'll be next.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  And that'll be next time.

• 49:48Russ Frushtick?

  The next Besties Week, what are we playing, Justin?

• 49:51Speaker 01

  We're gonna be doing, uh, some Oblivion.

• 49:55Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  Which we talked about.

• 49:56Russ Frushtick?

  It's on the thing.

• 49:57Griffin McElroy?

  It's on the, you could just read it.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I'm not looking at it right now. Okay, so if I was looking at it, okay, we're gonna be doing the Oblivion remaster. And we're gonna talk about Skin Deep, the new Blindo game that I've been talking about for literally years on this show, and I can't believe it's finally out.

• 50:10Russ Frushtick?

  Their last game came out 10 years ago.

• 50:12Griffin McElroy?

  Was that Jazz Con?

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Quadrilateral Cowboys.

• 50:14Russ Frushtick?

  Quadrilateral Cowboys.

• 50:15Griffin McElroy?

  Holy shit.

• 50:16Russ Frushtick?

  Years ago. Christ.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's crazy. I've had that thing wishlisted for, I mean, literally, I mean, I think it's eight years. Uh, that's gonna be next week. Be sure to get it next time for the Besties. Because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Besties.