Besties Battle Bracket: Best Bathroom Game (Patreon Bonus)

A holiday bonus, it's our most voted-on episode from the Patreon feed. Everybody needs a little video game break now and then. Amidst the chaos of modern life, the most reliable, universal sanctuary is the humble bathroom. So, with today's bracket, we want to help you make the most of your precious toilet time. Because when it comes to #2, you deserve #1.

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

• 0:00Russ Frushtick?

  Hey everyone, we are actually on break this week, uh, but we wanted to give you a little bit of a gift, a nice little present. Actually, this comes from the members of the Patreon. They've given you a gift because they voted on-

• 0:14Speaker 01

  It's from them, their charity.

• 0:16Chris Plante?

  This is the gift that you pull out-

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Huge gift.

• 0:18Chris Plante?

  He was hiding behind the chair. It wasn't even under the tree, you know? It's that gift.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  It's the reason for the season.

• 0:25Russ Frushtick?

  It is. And it is a free bracket episode. It was the bracket episode that was voted on by the members of the Patreon. They thought y'all, the greater Besties community, and I don't mean, I mean the size wise, not necessarily literally greater.

• 0:38Chris Plante?

  Right.

• 0:39Russ Frushtick?

  Wanted to hear-

• 0:39Chris Plante?

  Digging the hole, just keep digging that hole.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, the Patreon community referred to it as pearls before swine. That is how they refer to it, so but like-

• 0:47Griffin McElroy?

  It's fire and ice over there, man.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  Gobble it up, piggies. That's what they said.

• 0:51Griffin McElroy?

  They said gobble it up, all piggies.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  If you want to join, by the way, listen, something's cooking over there. I don't love all of it. Obviously, the energy inside the Patreon is wild, but you should get in there.

• 1:05Russ Frushtick?

  It might just be you, Justin. I think you are reading into that.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  I keep trying to start fights. I want to have my own sort of-

• 1:10Russ Frushtick?

  They seem so nice, but-

• 1:12Speaker 01

  I just want to start drama.

• 1:14Russ Frushtick?

  I know.

• 1:14Chris Plante?

  I don't know if people outside the Patreon know about Justin's bot army that has been taken over, you know?

• 1:19Griffin McElroy?

  They're so fun.

• 1:20Russ Frushtick?

  They are so fun.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  I hired him because AI took over all the bot jobs. So I'm hiring bots. I'm giving him a nice place to work. Um, thanks, bots.

• 1:30Russ Frushtick?

  You can go over to patreon.com/thesties if you have any interest in a monthly bracket episodes. We also have bimonthly Resties episodes. And hey, if you have a Besties fan in your life and you want to get them a nice gift, you can go to patreon.com/thesties/gift and you can actually gift them a subscription to the show, which is cool. Anyway, enjoy this episode.

• 1:54Griffin McElroy?

  Can we make a promise? And I've, I wish I didn't have to say this, but this is like, this is the podcast where the text threads, sometimes I get pictures of somebody's ear mess, or somebody's big toenail. If we could just try to not get too in the weeds about this shameful stuff that happens in the bath. Like the, when you make dirt, like, I don't really wanna get

• 2:21Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 2:22Griffin McElroy?

  Really, really deep. And I feel like I'm being a hundred percent serious and that we'll lose, we will lose people. These are the special episodes that go right to the patrons and we don't wanna say, "Thank you for your support." Now, listen as Russ describes his latest bowel movement.

• 2:37Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 2:37Griffin McElroy?

  In great detail.

• 2:38Russ Frushtick?

  We wanna take the toilet, we wanna take the toil out of toilet time, is what you're saying.

• 2:42Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 2:42Russ Frushtick?

  Why don't we just go the British way and call it the water closet? Cause that, nothing-

• 2:46Griffin McElroy?

  A great first start.

• 2:47Russ Frushtick?

  Nothing bad.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  The ludo.

• 2:49Griffin McElroy?

  I'm less concerned about terminology.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Best ludo. Like, cause it's L U D O, but it's also L O O D O.

• 2:58Griffin McElroy?

  That's cool.

• 2:59Russ Frushtick?

  It's like a game.

• 2:59Griffin McElroy?

  And it could be, but not L E W D O. That's not what-

• 3:03Speaker 01

  That's a ludo.

• 3:04Chris Plante?

  What about, um, best play pal for the poo palace?

• 3:09Griffin McElroy?

  So I'm, Chris, and I don't wanna name names, but you are the one I am most concerned about and the one I am kind of indirectly calling out here. And I will actually, before we go on, need a signed affidavit from you saying that you're gonna be on your sort of, your best behavior.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Better behavior.

• 3:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Better, at least.

• 3:25Chris Plante?

  No, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give a shit this time.

• 3:29Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, again, like, this is the stud, like, it's making me more concerned, like, more worried, a hundred percent serious concerned, that people are gonna leave and stop supporting us.

• 3:38Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay.

• 3:39Russ Frushtick?

  I know we don't normally edit, like, for like, censored stuff, where we like, beep things out, but I would say, like, maybe if there's anything that gets profoundly gross, it's just gonna get a beep, right?

• 3:49Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, and this isn't a live show, but maybe like a tape delay, like a 30 second tape delay. Just like, cover our bases, just so we know that we're being safe, we're being smart.

• 3:59Russ Frushtick?

  Everybody does it. We just don't need to talk about it is what you're saying.

• 4:02Griffin McElroy?

  And I don't want you to hide your light under a bushel, Chris. I would never.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  We need to talk about it. This, right now, though, we do need to talk about it for the podcast, right? We've pledged to talk about it.

• 4:11Russ Frushtick?

  It's like there's a chair in a room and you're just sitting in the chair.

• 4:15Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 4:16Chris Plante?

  Say no more. Turd is the word I heard.

• 4:22Griffin McElroy?

  And that'll be the last, and that's the last one.

• 4:24Chris Plante?

  And that's the last one. And I'm done. And I'm good.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  This is, it's heartbreaking that the episode hasn't started.

• 4:31Griffin McElroy?

  And I'm already tired. I'm already like tired.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  My name is Justin McElroy and I know the best game of the week and I'm introducing this show in self-defense.

• 4:55Griffin McElroy?

  My name is Griffin McElroy. I know the best game of the week.

• 5:00Chris Plante?

  My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best game to play on the toilet.

• 5:05Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, my name is Russ Frushtick and I know the best game of the week.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Welcome to the besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. But I don't need to tell you that because you're a patron. You know what you're getting into with this. You know what you're here for. You're here to hear the world's best friends tell you the best games to play on the toily.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  The toilet, the loo, the crapper, the john.

• 5:28Chris Plante?

  Hey.

• 5:29Griffin McElroy?

  He was a guy.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  So.

• 5:31Griffin McElroy?

  You're in the danger zone.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  We're, uh, which rubric are we gonna be using for this? Which pubric?

• 5:37Griffin McElroy?

  Oh.

• 5:37Chris Plante?

  I can't wait.

• 5:40Russ Frushtick?

  That was.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Now I'm done. That was the one that I got to do.

• 5:42Chris Plante?

  No, everybody gets one. Everybody gets one.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  But the difference between you and me, Plant, is taste, class, elegance. You know what I mean? It's gotta be like.

• 5:51Chris Plante?

  Sure, yeah.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  If you can't imagine it being said by someone with a martini glass at their lips and an olive popping out of their mouth, then it's not a good poop joke, you know?

• 6:01Griffin McElroy?

  Russ, I want to hear what you've devised here, because I have enormous umbrage with at least one of these topics.

• 6:06Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I kind of strained to come up with some, uh, good rubrics for this.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  No. Wait, did you strain? Come on.

• 6:12Griffin McElroy?

  We're better than this.

• 6:16Griffin McElroy?

  It'll normalize. Once we get it out of our system, listener, it'll normalize.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  It just needs to get out of our sergeant pepper.

• 6:23Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, uh, here's what I came up with and I'm, I'm open to workshopping. Rubik A, which game is more conducive to toilet time? So this could include like, you know, maybe it's convenient to hold the device, or maybe it's a short game that goes, you know, quickly.

• 6:39Griffin McElroy?

  This is great. We're, we have no problem with this, Russ. Obviously, this is not the problem actor in this, in this particular situation.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  I will say though, the first one is hugely subjective. I mean,

• 6:52Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, yeah.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  To a point where I don't even think it's useful.

• 6:54Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, we're, we're gonna get even more subjective in a second. Which game makes you want to use the toilet more?

• 7:00Griffin McElroy?

  Now that's crazy. Like, it's harmless, it's benign, but it's crazy.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  We have to start with more. Do you mean which one most increases your desire to use the toilet? Or do you mean which one is like linger longer? Did a little bit more toilet time for me? Is that what you mean? Like pour poop for more time? Or increases the desire to use the toilet?

• 7:22Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I'm worried because it might conflict with the, with the tiebreaker.

• 7:26Griffin McElroy?

  The tiebreaker is not gonna stay, so don't worry about the tiebreaker.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Don't worry about it.

• 7:30Griffin McElroy?

  Tiebreaker is fucking deranged.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Cause the tiebreaker is not funny. So there's a problem with it.

• 7:35Griffin McElroy?

  I don't mind which game makes you go to the, wanna go to the toilet more, because it could mean a lot of things. And again, I, I don't think we're, we should shy away from these kind of abstract interpretive ideas.

• 7:45Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 7:45Griffin McElroy?

  But right. The third one.

• 7:47Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, the third one is more a health concern.

• 7:50Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, say it.

• 7:51Russ Frushtick?

  It's, what I wrote down was which game will result in hemorrhoids and is therefore the loser of this round.

• 7:56Griffin McElroy?

  Crazy. So this was a big concern in Googling, like, what's toilet games? A lot of, there's a lot of people who feel very strongly that you shouldn't because you'll get hemorrhoids. And my question is, what game are you guys fucking playing? That is, are you playing, are you playing dark, dark souls? And just like really freaking about it? Like what's your?

• 8:17Speaker 01

  The problem is like, it's the, it's the amount of time. The idea is that the longer you're on the toilet using the potty, you're increasing the amount of time that you are damaging the inner line there, right? So if you are on the toilet, if the game's too fun.

• 8:32Chris Plante?

  Yes, it really 10 to 15 minutes is the medical window. You don't want to be on it more than that.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  15 minutes? I'm in there watching an adventure time? What?

• 8:42Chris Plante?

  I like that. You know what? Y'all are saying this and wait till we get into some of these games. I know that y'all are playing Underwell. I know that you're all digging that Marvel Snap for longer than you would like to admit.

• 8:54Griffin McElroy?

  I would like to discuss the, one of the optional rubrics here is which game would you be less ashamed to be discovered playing on the toilet? And I love that as a rubric. I love that as a tiebreaker. I think that that is really, really, really strong because obviously someone walking in on me on the toilet is the, one of my great fears. And I don't need it to be made worse because I am playing, you know, a game where like the anime girl horse racing game. Like there's certain games that would be a bad, sort of a bad.

• 9:25Russ Frushtick?

  I'm just a little worried because I don't think, in looking at the final list, I don't think there's a lot of games on here that would necessarily be shameful to be caught.

• 9:32Chris Plante?

  Oh, it's not so much shameful. It's that some are less shameful than others.

• 9:37Griffin McElroy?

  Some are less shameful objectively than others.

• 9:39Chris Plante?

  If, you know, Steffi comes into the bathroom because I left the door unlocked and I'm playing chess, she might be like, oh, an erudite boy, you know, she might think like, she might be impressed.

• 9:51Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, fair enough.

• 9:52Chris Plante?

  But if you're playing Genshin Impact, that would not go.

• 9:55Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, not, not, yeah, not on the list for what it's worth, but yes. Okay, okay, okay. I'm fine switching it up.

• 10:01Chris Plante?

  So we have, which game is more conducive to, conducive to toilet time? We, we agree that that one should stay. That's our number one.

• 10:09Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 10:09Chris Plante?

  Great. And that's more of like everything around the game. So then.

• 10:13Russ Frushtick?

  Not necessarily. I think it's also game, aspects of the game itself, being quick, like a quick game to play.

• 10:19Chris Plante?

  Yeah, sorry. So I mean, like the game, the, the game itself, the fun of the game. And that, I feel like that's maybe the second question, which game makes you want to toilet more?

• 10:28Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, right.

• 10:29Chris Plante?

  That's like, the games are so fun.

• 10:31Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know about using toilet as a verb, but yeah.

• 10:34Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I want to toilet more.

• 10:37Chris Plante?

  And then what was the tiebreaker? I can't say the words I want to use, so I'm trying to play by your rules. You're hemmed him in. Yeah, geez, you did hem me in. That's great.

• 10:49Chris Plante?

  Okay, I feel good about this. Are we good? Are we good with this? Yeah, I love it.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Let's do it. Okay.

• 10:54Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 10:55Chris Plante?

  Okay, so I have broken these up into some rounds that somewhat make sense. Um, should I give? No, I'm just gonna go right into it. I'm not gonna give the full 16. You'll get the full 16. Yeah, we'll go right in.

• 11:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, you'll hear them when you hear them.

• 11:08Chris Plante?

  Round one begins with the card games Bellatro versus Marvel Snap. And this is a straight up brawl, right from the top.

• 11:19Griffin McElroy?

  Brutal, brutal from the start. I've played more Marvel Snap on the toilet than Bellatro. But I've played considerably more Bellatro than Marvel Snap. So this is a Venn diagram is a little bit, maybe, maybe I should put it this way. I've only played Marvel Snap on the toilet. And Bellatro can be enjoyed anywhere, anytime, but Marvel Snap almost seems designed. Um, I, I think Bellatro is the better game, but I do think I could make a case for Marvel Snap being the better potty game.

• 11:46Chris Plante?

  Marvel Snap, it's like they Q A'd it with a toilet in mind, you know?

• 11:51Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I think they definitely did.

• 11:52Chris Plante?

  The actual timing of a round of Marvel Snap and you're like past the satisfaction. You're gonna get that during the...

• 11:59Griffin McElroy?

  It falls definitely within the medically, what I'm just learning medically agreed upon safe bathroom window. You can get through a round of that in five minutes if you're...

• 12:10Speaker 01

  I would like to, I want to fold something into toilet appropriateness.

• 12:13Chris Plante?

  Sure.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  I would not want to see people in my day to day life necessarily watching me control my different Spider-Mens to fight the Green Goblins. Like, I would not necessarily, that may be for me, a little more conducive to toilet time. In my day to day life, running around, I don't care to be playing a sort of like classy poker, sort of like, oh, look at him, a抠门man's poker.

• 12:37Griffin McElroy?

  Well, we're in the third, third room right now, right?

• 12:39Chris Plante?

  No, no, we're in both. This is, this is very interesting. What you're saying is...

• 12:43Speaker 01

  I don't want to play that publicly. There's games I won't play out.

• 12:46Griffin McElroy?

  Oh.

• 12:47Chris Plante?

  Between one and three that sometimes there are games that yeah, you would be more embarrassed for them to be walked in on. But they're kind of nice to do in the dark, private recesses of the toilet.

• 12:57Russ Frushtick?

  It's unlikely that you're gonna be walked in on, but you would be seen in public playing them.

• 13:02Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  There's a lot of things happening there. You don't want to be walked in on. You know what I mean? It's the bathroom. I don't think you want to assume that that's gonna happen.

• 13:08Griffin McElroy?

  Can I make the case for Marvel Snap and then someone make the case for Bellatro? Okay. Should my case for Marvel Snap? First of all, more appropriate for the toilet? I'm gonna say two words and this is gonna, I think, come up a lot. And I think it's gonna, for me, it's gonna be a huge, huge selling point for a.

• 13:25Russ Frushtick?

  Anal fissures.

• 13:27Griffin McElroy?

  No.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  I'm sorry.

• 13:29Griffin McElroy?

  Portrait portrait mode. Portrait mode.

• 13:32Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 13:33Griffin McElroy?

  Bellatro is great.

• 13:34Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's gonna come up a lot.

• 13:36Griffin McElroy?

  Marvel Snap portrait mode. One hand is doing Spider-Man stuff. The other hand is doing whatever it needs to do to get me in and out of that great room as fast as is possible. Um, talking about short games, talking about grinding out levels and season packs going through little dopamine hits. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. We're gonna talk a lot about a lot of phone games because they're they're built around this sort of loop. Uh, generally speaking, and I think, uh, Bellatro, obviously better game. I don't remember if it was our game of the year, but it was way, way, way up there.

• 14:09Russ Frushtick?

  It wasn't, but it should have been.

• 14:11Griffin McElroy?

  But man, Marvel Snap, that's a toilet game made for toilet users and.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  I feel like, yeah, a hundred percent. I could definitely. I would say half the time when I finished a game in Marvel Snap, and it has been a while since I played, but I don't think that should be germane to this. Uh, I will say about half the time I finished around that and I think, fuck this game. I'm never playing this again. I'm done. And then about an hour later, I'll be like, oh, what is happening on Marvel Snap? But I don't feel that way with Bellatro. Bellatro, I'm like, I gotta do it again. I can do better. And it's 30 minutes. All right. Like I'm, I'm way deep into it. Marvel Snap gives you a nice shove away. They don't want you like you could, you forgot how mad this makes you. Okay, go away.

• 14:49Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it is interesting because Bellatro, you can quit theoretically. You can quit at any time. You could, there's saving mid-round. You don't have to do a full run. But the momentum of round to round and your fear, whether this is true or not, that you're gonna forget what sort of run you were doing. Does encourage you.

• 15:05Griffin McElroy?

  That's not a fear for me. That's a guarantee.

• 15:08Russ Frushtick?

  It does encourage that you're gonna, uh, prolong the effort.

• 15:11Griffin McElroy?

  I think the thing Bellatro's got going for it is it is one of the more sort of compelling games that has come out in the last decade. One of the games where I've had the most like, oops, it's 1 a.m. And I've been playing Bellatro this whole time. I've played it so much on so many different systems. If it was portrait mode, I think maybe you could, you could make the argument, but for me, this is not what's the most compelling, most addictive game. It is what's the best sort of bathroom experience. And for me, I think Marvel Snap takes it. But can we go to the rubric?

• 15:45Russ Frushtick?

  Sure. Which game is more conducive to toilet time? I would definitely agree that Marvel Snap is more conducive to toilet time.

• 15:51Griffin McElroy?

  Portrait mode. Short, short form.

• 15:53Russ Frushtick?

  Which game makes you want to go to the toilet more?

• 15:58Griffin McElroy?

  Hmm.

• 15:59Russ Frushtick?

  I'll speak for myself. It's probably Bellatro because toilet Bellatro.

• 16:03Chris Plante?

  I think it's Marvel Snap here because Bellatro just, I want to go play it wherever. I want to go play it on my PC. I want to go play it on my laptop. Where do I want to go play Marvel Snap? I want to go play it on the toilet.

• 16:14Griffin McElroy?

  On the toilet. Secret and safe.

• 16:16Chris Plante?

  If I'm playing that elsewhere, it's like, I could be doing something else right now.

• 16:20Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Okay. Yeah, no, I.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  It's Marvel Snap. I'm shocking myself, but I really think it's Marvel Snap.

• 16:26Russ Frushtick?

  I know, I think.

• 16:27Griffin McElroy?

  Way, way, way worse game than Bellatro.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  No argument. But better on the potty.

• 16:32Russ Frushtick?

  Better on the potty.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  I think it's maybe a little better when it comes to the cam.

• 16:35Russ Frushtick?

  I think we're right.

• 16:36Griffin McElroy?

  All right.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 16:37Chris Plante?

  I feel good about that. This is good. I think, I'm feeling very good with the rubric that you set here.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  That's positive so far.

• 16:43Chris Plante?

  It's, it's taken us through this.

• 16:45Griffin McElroy?

  We got there.

• 16:47Chris Plante?

  Okay, next up, we have Tetris versus Chess at chess.com.

• 16:53Griffin McElroy?

  Tetris versus chess.com is huge.

• 16:56Chris Plante?

  I am so happy about this show.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Tetris versus chess.com is one of the funniest things I've ever heard.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  The idea, the idea that Chess would hear about Tetris and then be like, oh yeah? Well, check this out. Chess.com. And Tetris is like, fuck! He's got me. He came back around. Now Chess is the futuristic one. He's got a dot com. Go to Tetris.com? You just get hacked by Russians.

• 17:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 17:24Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin, Griffin, talk to, talk to me about chess.com, something that.

• 17:28Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I put chess.com.

• 17:29Russ Frushtick?

  Is it an app?

• 17:30Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it's chess.com as an app. And I've been a subscriber to it for, for years now. And I will go.

• 17:36Russ Frushtick?

  And what do you get with the subscription? The night?

• 17:39Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, you get the night. No, I mean, you get like-

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Hey, Russ, trust me, Griffin's right on this one. Don't go too, don't go too far out on the limb, man. You might find a wobbly-

• 17:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, you're gonna fall, fall out the tree entirely. Uh, it is, when you, when you are a subscriber, it gives you access to lessons. It gives you access to like, uh, video training from, you know, the professionals. And the lessons are like wild because they go from, you know, fundamentals to advanced concepts to like, if you just wanna learn different openings and that you can go down like a pathway where you learn, oh, today I'm just gonna learn all about the Rui Lopez opening or whatever. Um, but, uh, what does it for me? Twofold. One, asynchronous chess games. It's perfect to sit down and in the span of

• 18:28Griffin McElroy?

  10 to 15 medically approved minutes, like sending, submitting a move in the handful of games that you have going with your friends. Or alternatively, I mean, I guess you could do Bullet if you were a fucking psychopath.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  What is Bullet?

• 18:40Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, Bullet is where you have like a minute total to make all of your moves.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  See the guys at the Speed, Speed Chess. It's like-

• 18:46Griffin McElroy?

  It's like Speed Chess, yeah.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  We see these guys slapping the, slapping the clock.

• 18:49Russ Frushtick?

  And that's not asynchronous, that's you playing against someone else.

• 18:52Griffin McElroy?

  Correct, yeah. I mean, you can also play computer synchronously, I guess, but that's single player technically at that point. But what really hits me is the puzzles. Uh, there's a whole chess puzzle mode that they relaunched sort of last year with more of a grind where you're grinding for ranks and stuff like that. And it's just like, what's the best, what's the best optimal move in this moment? And, uh, not kidding, it is what I come back to when I, if I don't, I'm never without a game to play as long as I have my phone on me because I will bust chess.com out, uh, you know, a few, a few times a month, maybe once a week or so, I'm like, yeah, let's dip in. And then I'll, I'll, I'll get in there. But it's, it's just a perfect amount of-

• 19:34Speaker 01

  If you care about chess at all, I cannot over, like, overstate what a great, like, overall tool thing. Chess.com is not just like the, it is so rare that after that, like, land grab of the 90s where people were grabbing up other- Good URLs. It's so rare that there's a good URL that's actually managed by like a good company and is like actually like decent. I try, I, I once had a chess tutor for a few months and he could, when I gave him my username, he could look at my games and we could look at them together and he would load them and we could like go through move by move. To like, look at the games I was playing and then like pick them up from different places like.

• 20:11Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  It is also.

• 20:13Griffin McElroy?

  It's really, really robust.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  It's also every different like delineation of chess in terms of timing. So like bullet, like Griffin's talking about is like, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. But there's also like five minute games or 10 minute games, right? Each one's paced differently and feels differently, but there's different rankings for each one. And I cannot tell you how addictive it is to have a built in persistent leaderboard. In a game where like the rankings are actually like, would actually matter to anybody other than the people who are like playing that game. Like you are, you are increasing your chess aptitude and you have a concrete metric for how good you are at chess. It's like, it's really addictive.

• 20:51Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 20:52Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. In the new puzzle mode, you see where all of your friends are on this huge board. It's like, oh man, Justin just got out of wood rank. He moved on to copper. You gotta catch up. Get, knock some puzzles out, get those streaks going.

• 21:06Chris Plante?

  This is all so compelling, but.

• 21:10Griffin McElroy?

  What are you playing Tetris on? What are you playing Tetris on?

• 21:13Chris Plante?

  Okay, so that's a great question and I, chess.com is gonna win this, but I want to make my case for Tetris. Tetris is the perfect portable game by and none. It had a great time in the Game Boy era. The problem is EA took over the publishing rights for a long time. And they controlled it during the mobile game era and it kinda stunk, but. And now it's actually overseen by Play Studios, which I don't know, but it's a free to play game that is like overall really solid. It has all the features you would want. It has good like leaderboards. It has good daily goals. It has all the things you would expect from a modern free to play game.

• 21:58Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, they got rid of the skinny piece.

• 21:59Chris Plante?

  Oh. Yeah, they did. They did get rid of that one. It's gone. Um, uh, now there's a circle one and it just fucks everything up.

• 22:08Chris Plante?

  It's a great game. It's gonna lose, okay? I'm fine with that. I just, I felt bad just letting it die on the vine.

• 22:15Griffin McElroy?

  I'll tell you, I mean, Tetris is obviously, uh, it's the only game that they sort of gave a name for the, um, psychological ramifications of playing it too much. And so like, obviously there is an inbuilt, like, it's sticky, it's a sticky game.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  It's a sticky game.

• 22:33Griffin McElroy?

  Chess.com, one hand portrait mode loving that. How am I supposed to T-spin with one hand? I fucking can't. And I need a, I need a free hand while I'm using, or else I'm gonna be like freaked out the whole time. I'm just saying, Tetris is also a little stressed, a little stressful for me. It's a little stressy.

• 22:52Russ Frushtick?

  It might expedite things.

• 22:54Chris Plante?

  Ken, I, I will say, one last thing in its defense. If you are looking for a metaphor for what your body is trying to do, if you are trying to inspire some action, I don't think you're gonna find something better than Tetris. But with that, I concede Chess.com wins this round.

• 23:10Griffin McElroy?

  Pipe Dream, Pipe Dream is better. If we're, if we're talking about simulating the, like, Pipe Dream. Or Puyo Pop.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Pipe Dream is classic, yeah. That's like having a colonoscopy in reverse.

• 23:20Griffin McElroy?

  Do we wanna go to the rubric, or?

• 23:22Chris Plante?

  No, I mean, no. It's the clear winner in every capacity.

• 23:27Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I think it does very well.

• 23:27Griffin McElroy?

  I just wanna say, special shout out, if I'm discovered playing chess on the toilet, the person, that may be the only game where if you walk in on me on the toilet and I'm fucking, it's like heated in the middle of a bullet match, you're gonna apologize to me. You're gonna be like, oh my god, I'm so sorry, Grandmaster. I've, uh, I, how embarrassing for me to walk in on you in the toilet while you are.

• 23:47Chris Plante?

  Grandmaster splash.

• 23:49Griffin McElroy?

  Gross. Chess.com.

• 23:53Chris Plante?

  What a betrayal. Okay, next up, we have Slay the Spire and Super Auto Pets.

• 23:59Griffin McElroy?

  This is, this is an interesting one. Is everyone here familiar with Super Auto Pets?

• 24:03Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Uh, basically.

• 24:05Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, but you could just.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Catch books up, uh.

• 24:08Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, Super Auto Pets belongs vaguely to the kind of like auto chess, uh, uh, genre that popped up several years ago, and that term has never been particularly useful, but it is a game where you have a team of five, I think, animals. Uh, each animal, uh, you know, attacks in a different way, or has special modifiers or special things that it does. Uh, each round, you, uh, every, every turn, uh, every battle, I should say, has a drafting round beforehand where you can spend your, your gold on a new pet, or to upgrade a pet that you've already got, or to buy some sort of item that you're going to put on one of those pets.

• 24:47Griffin McElroy?

  And then, uh, your pets battle against an actual other person's team of pets, uh, asynchronously, because it all happens automatically. Uh, hence the name Auto Pets. And so it's a game about sort of drafting strategy and, uh, just trying to get, put together the best team of, uh, of, of five attackers. Uh, and I think it's like, you win, if you win 10 games before you lose three, then you've, then you have won the, the game of Super Auto Pets. Very, very, very, I mean, it's a game that like, if that sounds like your jam, it will absolutely get its fucking hooks in you. I haven't played it in a while, but, uh, when I was playing, it was a, it was, it was hot and heavy, man.

• 25:30Chris Plante?

  Hoops, I feel like you were a big Slay the Spire person.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I, I, Slay the Spire is one of my favorite games of all time. And I, and I think about Slay the, I've played so much Slay the Spire that I, it is one of the, I think, other than Hades, it's probably the thing that I played the most. Um, for me, I think Slay the Spire is very much, uh, in the same model of its runtime is just a little bit too long for, you know, it, it to, um, uh, play on the toilet. I mean, to be honest with you, I've only ever played this thing, thing on Steam Deck or laptop. Um, and I know there is a very, uh, capable mobile version, but, uh, for me, I don't, I'd already sunk the time in.

• 26:15Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin, how long, how long is a, a run in Super Auto Pets? Like, or at least like a round?

• 26:21Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, it would be long for a, for a, for a single go, I would say. It would be, it would take you a bit. Like, it's, it's a question of how quickly you get through the drafting, because once the, the battles take seconds.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 26:33Griffin McElroy?

  Like, the battles you can fast forward times four. I actually, interesting enough, I think I've probably played Slay the Spire most on iPhone and iPad. Mostly on iPad, because the iPad version's like really solid and you get around a lot of the like, you know, thick finger.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:52Griffin McElroy?

  Accidentally picking the wrong stuff. But I actually think the phone version's really great and I've played quite a bit of it on there. Both these games are landscape mode, um, so that, you know, we're, we're talking about a two-handed situation, uh, both times. I, I don't think it's necessar- I don't know. I don't think it's, this is as cut and dry in my mind, because I also think, I think Slay the Spire is maybe the best rogue light, you know, card game ever.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Continue, sorry. I, we gotta stop here. Are we gonna continue to allow Griffin to insist that he be able to wipe and game? Because that is what he's saying. And we're all just fucking letting it go. But what my man's saying is, I might be gaming and I need the other hand to wipe.

• 27:37Griffin McElroy?

  That is not what I'm saying at all.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  And I need to be able to wipe and Griffin, it's 100%. It is all you could be saying.

• 27:45Chris Plante?

  I was so worried that y'all were doing it and then I was the odd one out.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Thank you. Okay, I'm glad we are finally taking this house of cards down, because honestly, man, just stop gaming.

• 27:55Griffin McElroy?

  When I'm in there.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Listen, I'm 100% gamer. I love to game. You know me. You just gotta, sometimes it's eat, sleep, game, but not all at once, you know?

• 28:07Griffin McElroy?

  No, I, first of all, there's a lot of stuff in a bathroom that you would need one hand for, other than just wiping your butt. Sometimes it's a gaming.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  So what of it? Do you want to be able to do while you game? Like, what if you want to game and?

• 28:19Griffin McElroy?

  Please let me finish my point. Please let me finish my point. Sometimes I have to operate the bidet. Sometimes I have to hold the door closed, because one of my kids is trying to get in there. And I, I guess I'm gonna use my.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  You can't stop gaming for that.

• 28:32Griffin McElroy?

  If I'm slaying the spire with both hands and a kid.

• 28:36Chris Plante?

  Damn, buy me some roll books.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Then it's like, quick, quick reflexes for Slay the Spire. You can't hesitate for a second when you're spiring.

• 28:44Chris Plante?

  Be real with me. When you're chasing, you know, a big win in Slay the Spire in Bellatro, and the bidet hits at the exact same time. Is that the closest you've come to God?

• 28:56Griffin McElroy?

  Dude.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  It's like, it's like hearing Lose Yourself over the speakers, man. This is like exactly the hit you need to pump yourself up.

• 29:03Griffin McElroy?

  When that, when that Groz Michelle hits while you're fucking hitting the spray? Perfect, perfect synchronicity.

• 29:13Chris Plante?

  I think both these games are gonna lose in the next round because I do think they're both hemorrhoid friendly games. They are allies to the hemorrhoids cause. But we're not in the next round yet.

• 29:24Griffin McElroy?

  Which game is more conducive to toilet time?

• 29:27Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  I think, there is one, I feel like, guys, now that we're looking at these two with the rubric, I feel like there's some honorable mentions that I would, that deserve to be in here more than this. And not, maybe neither one of these are gonna go forward and that's fine, but like, I've been playing Merge Maestro so much and that, that timing of that thing is toilet-ific. It's a magical toilet experience.

• 29:49Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that might be a better fit.

• 29:51Chris Plante?

  If we could, we could slot two different things in here because we have discovered that these two games, I don't think these are conducive to toilet time.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  I think Slay the Spire can stay because I know a lot of people have, like, do do that mobily. And I think that, and for me, it's just, that one is really one where, it's not just about a long session, it's where the game is interdependent on the decisions that you've made previously and remembering those synergies and like what you're kind of waiting on. What was the other one we were just talking about, Russ? It's kind of like that?

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Where you're like forgetting, you might forget what it's like.

• 30:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, like you're, it's the same idea, like where you, you might forget the synergies and the things you're working with. And that's really hard to jump back into, especially when there's like so many different disciplines and different like, uh, roles that you'd be playing or whatever.

• 30:38Chris Plante?

  Uh, I'll, I'll go hard for Merge Maestro because that has been very practically my fucking jam.

• 30:44Griffin McElroy?

  I think it fits better than Super Auto Pets. Uh, portrait.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  That's an incredible game. That's an incredible.

• 30:48Griffin McElroy?

  Similar aesthetic, I would say, weirdly enough to Super Auto Pets.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:51Griffin McElroy?

  I've never done the legwork to see if it's the same company that made them, but it, I don't know.

• 30:56Russ Frushtick?

  There are a ton of these, and this is of the ones that I've tried. This is the best one. The air apparent to Super Auto Pets, in my opinion.

• 31:03Griffin McElroy?

  If you haven't listened to one of the best of these episodes where we discussed it, it is, uh, it is somewhat similar to Super Auto Pets in that there is like a drafting round. Uh, and then you have a board sort of threes style where you are combining like, uh, tokens numbered one through eight. But then as you draft, you replace those tokens with like special tokens that do different shit like, oh, now whenever you put two twos together and it makes a three, it forms the headphones token, which attacks the first two units twice, uh, for this much damage.

• 31:32Russ Frushtick?

  Which is true about headphones.

• 31:33Griffin McElroy?

  But then there's like a hundred and thirty or something tokens to, to choose from. And there's just a fuck ton of synergies and strategies to find.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  There's a lot of games that do the drafting thing, but then when you get to the actual playing of it, the playing of the game is not very fun. And then I feel like that can, the Merge Maestro is the first one where like, they have that really hooky threes thing, but you also have the drafting on top of it. They're kind of like working together. So you have the like meta and the micro that are both like really compelling.

• 32:03Griffin McElroy?

  And when you have a round that you break the fuck open, it feels so, so, so, so good.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Let's go to the room break on this one.

• 32:12Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, which is more conducive for potty time. Probably Merge Maestro, portrait, portrait mode. We're loving it. I do think you're not going to get through a whole game of Merge Maestro. It's like 15 rounds. That would be.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  No, but it is more, I think the strats in that game switch up more frequently than they do with, uh, something that's so dependent, like a Slay the Spire.

• 32:32Russ Frushtick?

  It's also a little easier to tell the build on a quicker rate than you can with like, digging into a Bellatro build and like, oh, how many enhanced cards I have.

• 32:41Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I mean, you have eight tokens and like a handful of permanent items that, like two permanent items that you will find throughout the course of a, of a game. So like, just looking at it at a glance, you, you, you're able to kind of piece together what it is you're doing. Yeah. I think Merge Maestro, I would actually love to, I didn't want, include that because I didn't think it was as known of a.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  I've been playing a ton of it since you, yeah, it's, it's really great.

• 33:00Russ Frushtick?

  The only thing I would say, I kind of, mm, yeah. I would say if it got to the last round, which was, which should you be less ashamed? Merge Maestro looks like a fucking joke.

• 33:13Griffin McElroy?

  It looks like a child, like a child's game.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  It might need that edge. I don't think it needs that edge for this round. It may, it may need it later.

• 33:19Griffin McElroy?

  But I think also if, if my wife walks in on me on the toilet, which in our, we've been together for, like 14 years has never happened, which I like.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Continue to bring it up.

• 33:31Griffin McElroy?

  Great pride in. I think if she spots me playing Slay the Spire on the toilet, I also don't think that that's gonna look pretty. I don't think I'm gonna come out of that looking like fucking.

• 33:40Russ Frushtick?

  Bird people with spears.

• 33:42Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 33:44Griffin McElroy?

  So, Merge Maestro.

• 33:46Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 33:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 33:48Chris Plante?

  Okay. Next up, we have Vampire Survivors versus Downwell.

• 33:56Griffin McElroy?

  Just give Vampire Survivors a quick check. Make sure, I do think it's portrait mode.

• 34:00Chris Plante?

  Yeah. So Vampire Survivors, I think everybody listening to this show knows the general idea there. It is a game where you move around the screen and you have these auto firing abilities. And as you earn XP by killing enemies, those auto abilities get stronger and stronger and stronger. Downwell, maybe less known to the audience. We talked about it maybe, I don't know, eight years ago. Frush, do you wanna tell people about it?

• 34:26Russ Frushtick?

  Sure. Downwell, uh, you're like a little cute little guy and he jumps into a big well. And it's basically a rogue-like where you're constantly falling, falling, falling. You're looking for upgrades. You're trying to bounce off of enemies and create these combos of multiple kills in a row, which nets you gold and then you spend the gold at these various shops and you just keep going down, down, down, down, down. Uh, super cool art, very minimalist art style. I wanna say that it has gyro controls in addition to like touch controls.

• 35:00Chris Plante?

  Oh, that sounds right. Yeah.

• 35:01Russ Frushtick?

  So, uh, just from a comfort standpoint, like there's that aspect as well. Um, I played, yeah, I played a lot of this game on the, on the potty, for what it's worth.

• 35:11Griffin McElroy?

  It is great for that. Great game. Uh, I was never great at it.

• 35:15Russ Frushtick?

  It's a hard game.

• 35:16Griffin McElroy?

  It's a pretty hard game.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Really hard.

• 35:18Griffin McElroy?

  To, to, because a lot of the success depends on like, uh, accruing currency and like getting every edge you can, which the best way of doing that is to chain your bounces against enemies, uh, together, not like ever landing on the ground. So it's actually a pretty frantic and like stressful game to play. I had a lot more luck. With it, when it came out on like Steam Deck and I was able to play it like with a controller, I had a little bit more of an easier time. Um, I definitely played it a lot on the potty, but it's, I don't like my games to be quite so twitchy.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Do you feel like, uh, um, that playing this on the deck or like on a controller was a good experience? Cause it seems so minimal. I don't feel like that's the kind of thing I would want to like, sit in front of a TV for.

• 36:04Griffin McElroy?

  Um, I mean, I think, I think that it, it works fine. The biggest, the biggest knock against it that I would say is like, it is such a vertically oriented game inherently that playing it on a portrait mode thing, this is not like a bathroom, single-handed preference. It's like, that's the way it was. It's like one of those, um, you know, arcade shoot'em ups where it's like, yeah, that's the screen that was designed for is a tall, is a tall screen.

• 36:29Russ Frushtick?

  You need like a Tate Mode situation.

• 36:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 36:35Russ Frushtick?

  I would, I would also add to that point. I actually think the game is easier with gyro controls. It's one of the very, very few examples because I think you need such twitchy control over the situation. And an analog stick will not be as responsive as you tilting your hand. So.

• 36:51Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Um, Vampire Survivors fucking rules. I played that game a lot on my phone. Beat the shit out of it on my phone. Played it more on the phone than any other thing. It's by default 30 minutes.

• 37:03Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 37:04Griffin McElroy?

  So I, I struggle with that a little bit.

• 37:08Chris Plante?

  Vampire Survivors scares me on the toilet because not only is it by default 30 minutes.

• 37:14Russ Frushtick?

  A lot of monsters.

• 37:14Chris Plante?

  You could say, hey, I'll, I'll pause halfway through. No, no, no. You lose track of time when you're in that.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Those things are deep late. They remind me, I don't think, they're up there with like, remember when everybody was playing game development story for, on the phone? That was one where I'd be like, holy shit, three hours. Wow. I was on the toilet. There's a big ring. Oh no, Sydney, is this ring permanent? I was on the toilet for three hours. Help. My butt's inside out.

• 37:44Chris Plante?

  Downwell, on the other hand, is the one game on this entire list that I know where I was when I finished it. I was in Vox Media's bathroom, the second stall over.

• 37:56Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, what a bathroom. Straight on the warning.

• 38:00Chris Plante?

  Let me tell you, Midtown, it was the good bathroom, too.

• 38:03Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, dude.

• 38:03Chris Plante?

  And, and I went in there and I didn't know that that's what was gonna happen. And I beat it. And let me tell you, it was such a defining moment in my life. I kind of backed down off of playing games in the bathroom after that, because I was like, this feels like, maybe I went. Yeah, I went too far. I went too far. I probably should not have done this.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  I would actually say Downwell.

• 38:29Russ Frushtick?

  I think Downwell is better. The length and the fact that you can't save a run in Vampire's Revival until it ends.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:38Griffin McElroy?

  Is a brute. But can you save a run in Down, like Downwell?

• 38:40Russ Frushtick?

  No, but they're so short that it's like, kind of doesn't matter. Like, a run is like five minutes max.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  I thought this rubric was so stupid when we started, and now we're halfway through these, and I feel like 100% confident about every single one. I feel like it might be the best rubric we have. Elemental and ephemeral, and we have captured it. We have captured like the little prince wrapping his net around a comet.

• 39:02Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Okay, next up, we have. Yeah, because this next one's fucking. This one's tough. There's no way we get to the end of this round without swapping out one, or perhaps both of these games. Let's go.

• 39:15Chris Plante?

  Okay, next up, we have Pokemon Go and WarioWare Inc. Mega Micro Games.

• 39:20Griffin McElroy?

  Are you crazy?

• 39:21Griffin McElroy?

  Where to start?

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Pokemon Go?

• 39:25Chris Plante?

  Let me explain this, and I'm not the person to put Pokemon Go there.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Pokemon, stay, man. Pokemon, stay.

• 39:30Chris Plante?

  I know how this happened. I, and I'm guessing Frush put this here.

• 39:34Russ Frushtick?

  I put it on there, yeah.

• 39:35Chris Plante?

  Speaking of games played in a Vox Media bathroom, when you are in New York, and you are in a big city, your Pokemon Go reach, I guess, is extending. You can, you can accomplish a lot.

• 39:49Russ Frushtick?

  Forget reach. Everything within 10 feet, there's like 60 fucking mods.

• 39:53Griffin McElroy?

  It comes to you, yeah, for sure.

• 39:55Chris Plante?

  Right, right.

• 39:56Griffin McElroy?

  If I do this in my own personal bathroom.

• 39:58Russ Frushtick?

  Probably not as productive.

• 39:59Griffin McElroy?

  It's gonna be me and fucking two oddishes, and then I'll be, that's it for the content. I'm done with the content at that point.

• 40:09Chris Plante?

  So let's see if we can keep either of these. What's the problem with WarioWare Inc. Mega Micro Games? Griffin, you want to take that?

• 40:17Griffin McElroy?

  Um, it's just not, that's such a, uh, little encapsulated gaming experience. I've, I will go and I will play one of those games and that's fine. For me, a, a true bathroom friend is something that I have been returning to over and over again. And I think that's true of, of all the games we've discussed so far, they have all been games that I have played multiple times throughout, throughout my life. I can't think of like a WarioWare game that I'm like, I gotta keep this one around just to see how I, just to see how I do it. It not being on a phone is also kind of a, kind of an issue for me.

• 40:59Chris Plante?

  So is there, oh man, guys, this is a real long shot, but nevermind, I'm not even gonna ask. Is there enough passion here for Tilt to Live? That's, that's a good, I, I, oh.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  I don't know if you guys remember Tilt to Live. It was huge in the joystick days. We had like a couple of years where everybody was so deep in Tilt to Live. Cause it was, you know what it was like? Uh, it was kind of like the same vibe as like Geometry Wars, which I don't know if it has ever had really its toilet moment, but it was a great, it was one like super crate box, like early mobile thing that really like felt.

• 41:33Chris Plante?

  Tilt to Live is, for people who have never seen it, a schmup slash Geometry Wars old school arcade game where you are a little arrow and you don't actually have any offensive, oh no, you do get offensive moves.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  You know what's crazy? It is so much like Vampire Survivors. Like it's, it's almost exactly like Vampire Survivors, except it is tilt based. And so you're like avoiding a lot of other dots, but you're like avoiding the enemies by tilting rather than shooting them. But like theoretically, it's a lot like Vampire Survivors.

• 42:04Griffin McElroy?

  I'll tell you what's missing from this list for me, and maybe this would be a good sub for WarioWare, is anything in the idle game sort of category. And I don't know what that would.

• 42:16Chris Plante?

  I mean, we already said it, game dev developer. What is, what was that called?

• 42:20Griffin McElroy?

  Game dev story is not really an idle game. That's like a management sort of sim. I'm talking more in the vein of like a Mel War Idler. Fallout Shelter, Cookie Clicker, something, something in that category. I just don't know that there's a universally kind of like, there isn't a Slay the Spire of that genre that comes to the top of my mind.

• 42:45Chris Plante?

  Yeah, that's, that's tough because like, I love Universal Paper Clips, but I wouldn't recommend it for this.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  It's hard because for me, idle, so many idle games are like, I know what you're saying though with like checking back in on them periodically.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  But like, they're something I tend to have in the background rather than like completely focus on.

• 43:05Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 43:06Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I would check in on my idle games at the desk. Like, if I'm at an office, I don't mind just popping it open, taking a quick look, doing two or three things.

• 43:16Chris Plante?

  I don't need a full bathroom break for it, but it's a good instinct. Okay, well, let me tell people about the honorable mentions and why a lot of great games are there.

• 43:26Chris Plante?

  A problem that we ran into when coming up with this list of games is, one, a lot of the games aren't available anymore. Because I think a lot of these classics actually came out from the early days, like Drop 7, and you just straight up cannot download it anymore. Do you know Flight Control just isn't on iOS? That's weird. And then the other thing is games that are like kinda just console games that then got ported to mobile and they technically work, but don't quite feel right. So that's like the Hotline Miami, Super Meat Boy space. There's still some stuff though that we can throw in, so. Like Hellsing's Fire, I think could maybe make a case here. Space Invader Infinity Gene.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  I don't think there's real, like, looking at the list, there's a lot of games I love on here, but I don't know if. The not. Chain. Did you guys get into Chip? Was that one?

• 44:21Griffin McElroy?

  Chip Chain was great. Dungeon Raid was a big one for me, like that puzzle quest, RPG puzzle sort of style thing, but that's another one that like Dungeon Raid hasn't worked since like iOS 11 came out.

• 44:36Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I mean, well, this is the case for WarioWare Inc. staying in is that you can just play it forever.

• 44:42Griffin McElroy?

  You can just play that one.

• 44:43Chris Plante?

  It will be there. Not necessarily part of our rubric, but in a weird way it is. I think they're, they're important games, even if they're not gonna win.

• 44:52Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I will say this about Pokemon Go. It is a great sort of pick up and play small, small form game. And so I do think it belongs in the category. I play a lot more Pokemon TCG Pocket. Let me tell you why that's great. One, if you want to do a battle, it has this short form battle mode where you can knock one of those out in, in the approved amount of time, if not much faster. But the big thing is in Pokemon TCG Pocket, you get two packs every day free to open up. And I tell you, man, there's been a Pavlovian sort of instinct that has been trained into me. As much as I love playing a short form game on a Pocket, I also really enjoy doing my video game chores

• 45:33Griffin McElroy?

  on the toilet because it's like, well, I got nowhere else to go and it's been 24 hours and I'm trying to complete this set. So I'm gonna crack these two, two cards packs open, see what I get, do a little wonder draw. That, that slots into that window of time very, very cleanly for me. I know it's not as established as Pokemon Go, so maybe the substitution doesn't work, but I also think I'm the only one on this call who's ever played it, so.

• 45:59Chris Plante?

  I.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:01Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I, I would keep Pokemon Go just for this. Adding TCG Pocket to honorable mentions. I think we can keep Mega Microgames for one big reason, which is more and more of our listeners have emulator handhelds that they carry with them wherever they go. And maybe there's a chance that they're bringing them into the loo. It's possible. But I want to get on the other side of this.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  They're in the pocket anyway. Pockets go in the loo.

• 46:25Chris Plante?

  There you go.

• 46:26Griffin McElroy?

  Two hands, pretty frantic gameplay, so you won't catch me playing that in there, but I mean, more power, more power to us for giving it its flowers.

• 46:36Chris Plante?

  I think Pokemon Go wins this round and will unlikely survive the next.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Unhinged choice, truly unhinged.

• 46:44Chris Plante?

  Truly.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Truly demented. By definition, such a wild inclusion.

• 46:49Griffin McElroy?

  What do we got next?

• 46:50Chris Plante?

  Up, we have Threes, a number versus Wordle, a word game.

• 46:57Griffin McElroy?

  Damn.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  I mean, here's what I'm gonna say. Merge Maestro is like Threes, except with pandas. And it's like,

• 47:05Griffin McElroy?

  And combat.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:07Griffin McElroy?

  Combat pandas and bugs and sandwiches. Wordle, if they released, if they released a morning time Wordle and then an after dinner Wordle, it would get me, it would really get me where I needed it, when I needed it, for the block, for the block, you know what I mean? As it is now, I could, I could do one of my, you know what I mean, with the Wordle waiting for me, and that's great. That's cool. I love it. A new word puzzle made for me by the bright minds at the New York Times, where, where,

• 47:41Griffin McElroy?

  what is it? Censorship goes to die? What's their thing? That censorship dies in the, in the, in the dark?

• 47:46Chris Plante?

  Democracy dies in darkness.

• 47:46Griffin McElroy?

  They're making puzzles for me? Thank you! Two a day and we'd be in the money. As it is now, it'll get me half the time.

• 47:55Chris Plante?

  It would be a shame for Threes to get knocked out simply because it is on the same list as Merge Maestro, a game that does its thing well, when Threes has a long history of getting knocked out.

• 48:08Griffin McElroy?

  Being ripped off?

• 48:09Chris Plante?

  Yeah, by being ripped off. That would be, that would be a bit of a shame. I do agree that Wordle is maybe the only game on the list that's too short, that, you know, I, I get, I get that done. And then my fix is like not, I'm not sated, I'm left wanting. Now I pop open, you know, Downwell or whatever, and then I'm frustrated because I'm halfway through Downwell. Now I'm done, and my whole timing's been thrown off.

• 48:38Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  It'd be, me, just be dumber. Takes me longer.

• 48:42Chris Plante?

  That's, that is.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  You know what I mean?

• 48:44Chris Plante?

  Or.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  It just like takes me longer.

• 48:45Chris Plante?

  I guess.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Don't be so smart.

• 48:47Chris Plante?

  You move on to like the other New York Times games, right? That's the path.

• 48:50Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 48:51Chris Plante?

  If you finish Wordle, you go into spelling bee.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Go backwards to something easier like Wheel of Fortune, you know, like I'm. Can't hang with those other puzzles? That's a, that's a hexagon dude. What do you want me to do with those hexagons?

• 49:01Griffin McElroy?

  I do think a connections fits into the window a little bit more cleanly, but I don't also. I don't also, people know when I've just like, Rachel knows when I've just played connections. Cause I'll be like, fucking stupid. Like she'll hear me say stuff like, that doesn't make any fu- how the fuck was I supposed to know that? Wordle doesn't do that for me, but connections definitely does.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Can I, can I make, can I make a suggestion?

• 49:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  Sure. I play this, I play these games in an app called NYT Games, right?

• 49:31Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  And I feel like a lot of people probably do that, right? I don't see why chess.com.

• 49:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Doesn't have to go up against NYT Games.

• 49:41Chris Plante?

  That's a fair point and I, I think I'm okay.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  Cause what you're saying, cause I think the, the thing that I would say there is. You are discounting the pa- like what you're saying in that case is that chess does not, the power of chess does not equal the power of like connections plus Wordle plus whatever. And I would say chess is a 800 pound gorilla in terms of like game. But if you're talking about like the way that they have taken these staples and made them like a toilet friendly experience.

• 50:13Russ Frushtick?

  It just seems like a, we're making the orange box case at this point and I kind of agree with you.

• 50:18Chris Plante?

  I think it's different though, because there is a long history.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  Toilet, I would probably want to give it an award, Russ.

• 50:23Chris Plante?

  Yeah, if you think of like.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  Really kicks ass.

• 50:25Chris Plante?

  Books that would be in the bathroom back when people kept books in the bathroom. There'd always be like a collection of like Hunter S. Thompson stories.

• 50:32Russ Frushtick?

  Those books must be so fucking gross.

• 50:35Chris Plante?

  What?

• 50:36Russ Frushtick?

  Those books, paper, gross, fucking gross.

• 50:38Chris Plante?

  Yeah, Uncle John's bathroom readers. They always have the tactile cover. Some classic stories, you would have like a sports almanac, you know, the funniest things that happened in sports in 1974.

• 50:48Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, if you're Beth.

• 50:48Chris Plante?

  Then you would have a book of games and it would be like crossword puzzles, mazes, a whole bunch of other stuff. This is making me feel very old, but, but the game is saying it wasn't just like one puzzle. It was a whole bunch of variety of stuff. So I think.

• 51:05Russ Frushtick?

  So maybe we should nominate that puzzle book.

• 51:08Chris Plante?

  Okay. Okay.

• 51:10Griffin McElroy?

  I always, I only ever go to the Wordle website because I'm 100 years old.

• 51:17Griffin McElroy?

  But I do think you can play the Wordle and the Connections without having to subscribe to anything, which is, I think, a mark in the column for.

• 51:24Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I also think like if we're talking about chess.com, let's just just include playing chess and not all the other features of it.

• 51:31Griffin McElroy?

  Fuck that. No way, man. The puzzles are so good. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna shortchange this great app.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  I want to reward the way that both of these have taken like these games and made them like more clicky.

• 51:43Chris Plante?

  They're like modes.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  And, yeah.

• 51:45Russ Frushtick?

  But come on, Wordle and like the crossword, it's not modes of the same game. They're completely different games. Chess, if anything, chess.com, modes of chess. Like effectively, they're all using the same rules.

• 51:58Griffin McElroy?

  Chess.com was like, and do you want to play some backgammon?

• 52:01Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 52:02Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 52:02Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, guess what? The fucking pawn, it moves 50 pieces now instead of one.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  But okay, but this is the, I think, but this is what I'm saying though. Chess has bullet and long, like there's a lot of different variations of chess that I am arguing are at least as powerful as Wordle, you know, and, and, and. I, okay, I will say this, I was not thinking about the crossword. I think the crossword does make it unfair because crossword is huge. Like.

• 52:27Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Crossword? That's tough.

• 52:31Griffin McElroy?

  Here's. So the category we are giving this is the New York Times Games app, but only the free, unsubscription free Wordle Connections, maybe the one that's like a honeycomb.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  A crossword minis, but not full crossword.

• 52:46Griffin McElroy?

  Spelling bee, Connections, Wordle. Don't fuck with crosswords. That's unfair.

• 52:52Chris Plante?

  Before we go any further.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  The inclusion of crossword minis is a nod to the fact that human beings defecate. Like crossword minis should be called humans poop.

• 53:02Russ Frushtick?

  So maybe crossword mini should be the, let's just pick that.

• 53:06Griffin McElroy?

  No way, because that's nerd shit. I don't fuck with that. I play Wordle and Connections like a cool, smart man.

• 53:12Chris Plante?

  Do we think Threes has a chance here? We have not.

• 53:15Griffin McElroy?

  We should give it to Threes just so we don't have to keep fighting about this. Cause it's been 25, 30 minutes just talking about this.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  I love Threes, but it does not have the staying power that these other things do. I mean, like Wordle, I, I, I, I think Threes is really, really good, but I, I, I think in terms of like, the, okay, I want to say one more other thing about Wordle I was about to include. You shouldn't play Wordle in public. It's rude.

• 53:40Griffin McElroy?

  It is so rude. Someone will see it.

• 53:42Speaker 01

  So if you are not playing it on the toilet, I think you're being rude. Honestly, cause people could see.

• 53:47Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, but the people are snooping on your phone. That's rude.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Nope. If I'm, I have to look at everyone's phone. I'm a human being and if you're doing the Wordle on there, like I saw it already before I knew I should, you know?

• 53:59Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  It's too late.

• 54:01Chris Plante?

  So Wordle, Wordle will, will, yeah, Wordle will win this round. And then we will continue this conversation.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  Wordle will win this round.

• 54:12Chris Plante?

  Mr. Wordle, Ted, I'm this Wordle.

• 54:22Chris Plante?

  Okay, next up, we have the golf round.

• 54:25Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I see what's going on with the golf round. I'm here for it. We got what the golf and we have desert golfing. I really think what the golf we sub with, with a super stick man golf, something in that. Cause I feel like that way, way better fits.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  That's really good.

• 54:40Griffin McElroy?

  That way better fits. I think it fits as a toilet game a whole lot better than what the golf, which is for me such a, it doesn't, the genre is not even the same, right? Like it's not an infinitely replayable sort of grindable, like.

• 54:54Chris Plante?

  I hear you and I'm willing to concede this, but what the golf is pop in for 15 seconds and see whatever new twists the, the levels give you, you know? And they're all the user generated levels at this point. It, it is very digestive.

• 55:10Griffin McElroy?

  But every game we've talked about at this point has sort of, I don't know. It has felt what the golf feels like packaged in a way.

• 55:19Chris Plante?

  Sure.

• 55:19Griffin McElroy?

  That, that none of the other games we've talked about.

• 55:21Chris Plante?

  I do think you're right.

• 55:22Griffin McElroy?

  I know. I think it's a great game. I just don't think of it as like, I don't know, in this.

• 55:26Chris Plante?

  So super stick man golf, we think for this? I think that's fair.

• 55:29Griffin McElroy?

  I mean. Uh, yeah, I, we can, we can just, but do we need to specify like super stick man golf? Three, I think is the latest noodle cake one. Is that right?

• 55:39Russ Frushtick?

  I don't remember which, yeah, yeah.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I really feel like these are like service enough that I don't think you need to differentiate.

• 55:48Russ Frushtick?

  They're all great for what it's worth. There's no bad, super stick man golf.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 55:51Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I think the first one was called Stick My Golf. Anyway, um, yeah, I'm gonna go to bat harder for desert golfing than I think I've ever done in this.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  I can't fucking wait, man. Go off, King.

• 56:03Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I'm at, I just looked it up, hole 1,034.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 56:09Russ Frushtick?

  In desert golfing. Now.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  1,034 what?

• 56:12Russ Frushtick?

  Holes.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  Holes.

• 56:14Russ Frushtick?

  Desert golfing, for those that aren't aware.

• 56:16Speaker 01

  Are you about to beat it?

• 56:18Russ Frushtick?

  That's a very good question, Justin. No, I am not. Desert golfing is a effectively randomly generated golfing game where you basically try to get the ball in a hole, it's side scrolling, and you try to get the ball in the hole, and when you do, it scrolls on to the next hole, and that happens forever. Effectively. I think at one point you hit a lake, but it requires about 30 years of your life. Uh, and it just keeps going and going and going. And when I'm stuck in the subway, or when I'm sometimes on the toilet, this is a game that I turn to. It doesn't require internet. It works great on every single phone of the last 50 years.

• 56:56Russ Frushtick?

  And, uh, I am incredibly passionate about it. Now, there is a sequel called Golf on Mars, which I also really, really like. The sequel is more involved because you can put spin on your shots and like backspin and frontspin, etc. So I actually would not prefer it from a toilet standpoint. I think, uh, the original is better for toilets, but because it's.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  I wanna, I wanna address something, and I know we're not doing a video show, but I, I had it installed, so I wanna check. So this is portrait mode.

• 57:27Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  But can I play, I can play this with one hand, right?

• 57:31Russ Frushtick?

  100%, yes.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  So this, would you, Griffin, think that you can wipe in game with this? Would you feel okay about this?

• 57:37Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, if I was a nasty dog who wiped and gamed at the same time because I

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Sorry, you were really adamant earlier. I didn't wanna, there's, we have some confusion here. If we could run it, yeah. You were really adamant earlier that you love to wipe and game and you can't live without it. Cause you have to have one hand free to wipe while you game. So I was just wondering if this met the

• 57:57Griffin McElroy?

  If I allow myself even for a moment to not be a part of one of these incredible virtual worlds, then I like, everything's gonna fucking fall apart for me psychologically. I need to be constantly in Tamriel or Hyrule or one of these wonderful imaginary imagined worlds. Because if I start to really confront my own reality with both hands, then I'm gonna, I'll freak the fuck out. So yeah, no, I don't wipe in game. Yes, I do love a simple one-touch control scheme though. Thank you so much, Justin. That does make it a better bathroom game. It does make it a better bathroom game because I can't fucking move the screen around and control the hit of my shot and pick my power-ups and all this shit.

• 58:41Griffin McElroy?

  While keeping a hand free. That's a really good point, Justin, and you've made the case for desert golfing.

• 58:45Russ Frushtick?

  I would also add, unlike Super Stick Man Golf, it doesn't fucking matter for desert golfing. You're just on there for the vibe, the desert golfing vibe.

• 59:08Griffin McElroy?

  I've said enough. I think I've said enough. We gotta make it part of the show, like it's so, it's so unavoidable that there's a guy, Mr. Driller lives, that's the next game on the list is Mr. Driller. Lives fucking above Russ and he's like, you're talking about shitter games? Let me get up on this.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Let me drill down to you, brother. I think this has gotta be desert golfing. Super Stick Man Golf is a lot of fun, but I actually, for me, the highlights of that experience are playing in a, in a group of people and I'm not there, guys. I can't, I can't do it. Sorry.

• 59:40Griffin McElroy?

  Fair. Okay, great. I feel good about this. The last round, or the last showdown of round one, Tiny Wings versus Angry Birds.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  Now we're getting into some real fucking

• 59:55Chris Plante?

  This is, okay, this is a tough one because where is your heart and where is your mind? Tiny Wings is one of my favorite mobile games, maybe game games of all time. It is zen made real. This is a game where you just go up and down little hills. And as you fly through the air, you dive bomb into the curve of the hill to gain speed and then shoot back up the, the next little mountain and back down and up and down and up to one of the great songs from video games. The song is just perfect.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  I will also mention my friends, great news here. You can go to the designer's website and actually play this game in browser like immediately for free right now. You could just go check it off if you want. You go to the search Tiny Wings. You'll see the designer's website. I believe it's Andreas Ilenger. Andreas Ilenger, sorry, I doubled the S there. But yeah, if you go to his website, you can play it. It's a, I love Tiny Wings. So I like Tiny Wings a lot.

• 1:00:56Chris Plante?

  It's going up against Angry Birds, which is the big mainstream hit. They turned it into movies. I've now heard that the second movie is great, but it's still good. Like, let's be real, even if it is kind of a rip off of whatever that Crush the Castle or whatever it was. And even if it's really popular, there's a reason Angry Birds has become dominant for, you know, over a decade that Sega wants to buy this thing. And it's because it's really fun to throw blocks, throw stuff at towers of blocks, you know? Boom Blocks, Steven Spielberg figured it out with the Wii. Angry Birds perfected it and, and we've been chasing that thrill ever since. So I don't think we can just come in here.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Have we been chasing that thrill ever since is my point about Angry Birds? Because I swear to God. Or have the rest of us moved on to other things? Every couple of years I get a, you tried that new Angry Birds? They're in space now and I'll fucking dip into it. You know what?

• 1:01:55Griffin McElroy?

  Fuck Angry Birds.

• 1:01:57Chris Plante?

  Wow.

• 1:01:57Griffin McElroy?

  Cut the rope. Now that's a bathroom game. Now that's a

• 1:02:01Chris Plante?

  Wow.

• 1:02:03Griffin McElroy?

  That's a bathroom game. It's portrait mode, one finger. And you know, that's important to me, but also it's a bathroom game and you can dip in and you do a puzzle or two. I can't tell anymore. If Russ is thinking about what I'm saying, praying to Jesus Christ, or listening to the drills upstairs. If you just symbol with your fingers, which one of those is the correct answer? None of them. None of, oh, it's the drills. Yeah.

• 1:02:27Griffin McElroy?

  I think, I think Cut the Rope would be a better, oh, he's got a little Korok. It fell off the wall, I think, because of the intensity of the drilling. But that is what happened. That's amazing. They're really going to town on Russ's apartment right now.

• 1:02:40Chris Plante?

  So what I'm hearing is not only are you already dismissing Angry Birds right off the bat, you are saying shouldn't even be in the round.

• 1:02:50Griffin McElroy?

  I'm saying it fucking peaked a long time ago. Angry Birds, in my mind, is like equivalent to like when we all got phones for the first time. It's like, check this out. It's a lightsaber. It makes no, or check it out. It looks like I'm drinking a beer.

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  Beer.

• 1:03:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that's about

• 1:03:09Chris Plante?

  Whoa, did you check out that new fart app?

• 1:03:11Griffin McElroy?

  It sounds like fart piano.biz. Cut the Rope.

• 1:03:16Griffin McElroy?

  Is different. That's a thinking man's game.

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  That's, uh, it doesn't matter because it's gonna lose to Tiny Wings. Um, Tiny Wings is one of the best games ever made. Tiny Wings is so good that I missed, God, I miss having leaderboards on phones that I gave a shit about. It was the greatest to have a Tiny Wings score and then have someone beat it. And then that was your day. I, I love Tiny Wings so much that I retired from Tiny Wings because no one got close. And then someone beat me and then I made a song about coming out of retirement that is still on my YouTube. If you go look for it, called The Million Point Man, to the tune of a Scissor Sisters song.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  And, uh, I love, I love Tiny Wings that much. And I really, really, really miss having leaderboards where I got to see people beat my scores and I could compete against their scores. Uh, the only place that's still happening is chess.co.

• 1:04:10Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, baby.

• 1:04:10Chris Plante?

  Bathroom games. I just want to make sure that we're sticking to the rubric here because yes, I agree. Tiny Wings is a better game than both Angry Birds and Cut the Rope. Make your case. Nobody's made the case that it's a great in the bathroom yet.

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  Who, Tiny Wings?

• 1:04:26Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Okay, so Tiny Wings is, uh... The runs are perfect length for bathroom, but it is also one of those games where it makes you feel...

• 1:04:39Chris Plante?

  Chris is a child, a five-year-old boy who wandered onto our podcast for Take Your Boy to Work Day.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  Please, it's a...

• 1:04:47Chris Plante?

  No, no, please tell me more about the runs.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  When you start swooping, it goes really smooth. So if you hit the curve just right, the curve of the... Please. So you'll see a curve. It's almost like a bowl shape. So as you're going down, it has to hit the edge of the bowl. And, Chris? It swoops up through the air and then splashes down.

• 1:05:13Chris Plante?

  I'm Greg Miller, by the way. I've been Greg Miller this whole episode. I sound a little bit like Griffin, but he didn't want to be associated with this particular episode, so I'm actually Greg. That's good to know. Thanks, Greg.

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  It's not my fault. I have to work with these puerile children.

• 1:05:28Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I'm fine with Tiny Wings moving on.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's great. And you can still play it. You can go play it right now. It still works. It's great.

• 1:05:38Chris Plante?

  Okay, welcome back, everybody. We have all taken that potty break and we are ready to narrow down

• 1:05:48Chris Plante?

  eight of these games. We are going to do four showdowns, starting with chess.com versus Wordle. Our chance to really smooth out whatever this debate is over the New York Times Games app versus chess.com.

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  Guys, while I was in the bathroom, I do have a late entry. I just wanted to bring up Who Shot Johnny Rock? Now, Who Shot Johnny Rock is a Sega CD classic, and I was just playing it all. Guys, I was having the time of my life. I was a hard-boiled dick with a nose for crime. And this is real actors in this, guys. This isn't video game graphics like Pac-Man.

• 1:06:24Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:24Speaker 01

  These are like real people.

• 1:06:26Chris Plante?

  Get chess.com out of here. Put in Who Shot Johnny Rock. I think it beats Wordle soundly.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  Um, okay.

• 1:06:31Griffin McElroy?

  I think even if you

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  Who shuts down your rock out of this?

• 1:06:33Griffin McElroy?

  If you looped in Wordle, if you looped in connections and fucking the big crossword, the Sunday crossword, the Wednesday crossword, whatever the fuck, I still think chess.com takes it with

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:06:46Griffin McElroy?

  A bullet.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:06:48Griffin McElroy?

  So full featured.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  Who doesn't know what day the big crossword is published?

• 1:06:52Griffin McElroy?

  Haven't done a crossword.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  Very firm opinions.

• 1:06:54Griffin McElroy?

  In my life, I haven't done a New York Times crossword, but I had chess.com.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  You know they get bigger. You know they get bigger, maybe, because he said Wednesday too. So maybe he does.

• 1:07:04Griffin McElroy?

  Chess.com, every, it's got a lot of different ways to play chess, a lot of different time factors to play chess. No matter what, you're doing, getting better at chess, your rankings going up.

• 1:07:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:13Griffin McElroy?

  It all feeds back into you.

• 1:07:14Russ Frushtick?

  Argument sake, what if I'm like not super into chess?

• 1:07:17Griffin McElroy?

  Then play the computer at like difficulty 400 and beat the shit out of it and feel like the world's smartest man.

• 1:07:24Russ Frushtick?

  Fun, actually.

• 1:07:24Griffin McElroy?

  It is pretty good. Yeah.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  You could, you could watch the training videos and hear some of the most eastern European people you've ever heard in your entire life. These people couldn't get more eastern in Europe if they tried.

• 1:07:37Griffin McElroy?

  Get looped in on the latest drama with these, with these Swedish 20-somethings who almost certainly have got some skeletons in their closet. And listen to them tell you about, you know, their, their new crazy gambit they've got going on.

• 1:07:53Chris Plante?

  It's an Ein Chess winner. We have a winner for round.

• 1:07:59Griffin McElroy?

  That's really great, Chris. That's just what they sound like.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:08:02Chris Plante?

  Thank you.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  Griff, I know that I had your back for this initially, for this chess.com thing, because I really did want to give the excellent chess.com its plaudits. But it is, I have to be honest and say, it is not fair. This thing is a social media network for nerds. Like you cannot compare it against one, I, one game, right?

• 1:08:22Russ Frushtick?

  Here's what, here's what I'm gonna give it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna allow whatever the core chess experience is on chess.com.

• 1:08:32Russ Frushtick?

  But yeah, we can't give it every fucking feature encompassed here.

• 1:08:35Griffin McElroy?

  If it was just chess and the puzzles.

• 1:08:39Russ Frushtick?

  And I'll give you bow and chess, whatever that is.

• 1:08:41Griffin McElroy?

  The fast chess. I don't, I don't play a lot of bow and chess. That's too stressful for a toilet experience.

• 1:08:46Russ Frushtick?

  I can't give you the puzzles. I'm sorry. I can't do it.

• 1:08:50Griffin McElroy?

  I would rather do the puzzles. I would rather just do the puzzles.

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  ChessPuzzles on chess.com, I will grant you, because those are fun as hell.

• 1:08:56Russ Frushtick?

  Fine.

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  And I think that is fair.

• 1:08:57Griffin McElroy?

  Deal. You pick them up, you play them, you're constantly chasing them.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  It would have won in the last round two, for the record. I don't think it changes anything. But I, I think it should be refined to that. That we could talk about.

• 1:09:05Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so, and we're putting you up against one game in the New York Times.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  Can I, can I actually speak on chess puzzles on chess.com real quick?

• 1:09:12Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 1:09:12Griffin McElroy?

  Please.

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  When you start learning chess, you understand the rules of chess.

• 1:09:18Russ Frushtick?

  I still don't get castling, but yeah.

• 1:09:20Speaker 01

  Fairly quickly, right? Like, casting is always a little bit dicey. And I honestly still have to look at a picture whenever I'm putting the pieces out to remember what order they go in. So whatever. But...

• 1:09:31Griffin McElroy?

  And when en passant, we all forget about en passant and knowing en passant.

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:09:35Griffin McElroy?

  And the pawn's going to remember en passant sometimes.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. What is cool about the puzzles on chess.com is that they help you realize that there is, in fact, a... It helps you to start seeing the things that will actually help you improve at the game and help you to understand what makes chess cool on a very digestible level, right? Because you are being presented with, all the other noise is gone. And you can just look at one little thing and say, okay, if you're in this exact scenario...

• 1:10:06Russ Frushtick?

  It's a red zone play. You're watching, someone's at the six yard line, not to make a sports analogy. Someone's at the six yard line, what do they do to get into the end zone?

• 1:10:15Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 1:10:16Russ Frushtick?

  Rather than seeing the whole build.

• 1:10:17Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, most of the time it is a mating move that you are having to make. Now, I hate to fucking bring this up with you fucking inexplicable sticklers, but there is the chess, the puzzles mode where you're going through the grind and you're raising your ranking and you're doing these little... But then there's also the daily puzzle that's like, this is from the famous Kasparov versus whatever match. Can you figure out what Kasparov did in this moment?

• 1:10:39Russ Frushtick?

  Same. I think I would group them together.

• 1:10:41Griffin McElroy?

  Okay. Well, I, I think it's infinite and I think it's infinitely replayable and pursuable and definitely something I come back to more often than, than the Wordle.

• 1:10:52Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, checkers.com though.

• 1:10:54Griffin McElroy?

  I, I go back to my big issue with Wordle, which is it's too short.

• 1:10:59Chris Plante?

  Wordle is too short. It's too short when you're playing it one time and it's also just once a day. So I-

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  Checkers.com does go to rally.com. Sorry, I thought I was joking, but it doesn't.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  It is too short, and if we're gonna penalize games for being too long, you can't get it done in a Wordle. If you do, you're not, you need to improve at one of them. One of them needs to get better or change. One of them's going wrong.

• 1:11:27Griffin McElroy?

  So, I mean chess then?

• 1:11:29Russ Frushtick?

  I guess so.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Chesspuzzles on chess.com.

• 1:11:31Russ Frushtick?

  The new kid on the block chess moves on.

• 1:11:34Chris Plante?

  Great. A big moment for chess. Uh, next up, we have the iOS/Android showdown of the century, Pokemon Go versus Marvel Snap.

• 1:11:44Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll handle this one. So I'm not a big Marvel Snap fan. I feel like it's a little too RNG, like luck-based, but I fully grant that for everyone that doesn't live in a metropolitan area, Pokemon Go being a toilet game is a fucking joke and it will not work. So I don't want to rule out for all the people that live in various places, not even like middle of nowhere, like a suburb is not gonna work.

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  Say flyover states and move on. Just say flyover states. It's what you mean, Russ. If people in the flyover states can't appreciate shitting while they catch Pokemon.

• 1:12:16Russ Frushtick?

  If you live in Skokie, it's not gonna be a good time.

• 1:12:19Griffin McElroy?

  No, or any, most city, almost every city. If you don't work in a downtown office building in a major, major city, then it's not a, it simply isn't a toilet game, it's a moving around game.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  Meanwhile, Marvel Snap was so good the first time on the toilet. I think there was a bit of collective insanity that set in where we all kind of felt like, maybe we just play this. Maybe we only play Marvel Snap and that's the only thing anybody plays for a bit. And it's perfect on the toilet. And guy, I did really love, there was a few months there where if you went to a bathroom, there was like a one out of five chance that you were gonna hear some very distinct noises that you knew, like where you almost want to congratulate, "Hey, nice, nice Paul, pal. Nice Paul."

• 1:13:04Griffin McElroy?

  You captured that fucking center lane, bro. Don't let, don't let Magneto push you around.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  Don't let him push you around, dude.

• 1:13:11Griffin McElroy?

  I, yeah, if that game had a less, uh, offensive, uh, sort of progression structure to it, uh, I, I think I, there was a point where I bounced off of it when they're like, yeah, you can play, get that season pass, or just give you this shiny Miles Morales car if you give us 20 bucks. And I was like, out of principle, Marvel Snap, I must away. I must away now.

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  I'm gonna ding, I'm gonna ding it for more, like, what your point about the meta is actually, I think a really huge knock against it, where I think the fun of that game, it got eaten up by obsessives that wanted more, more, more, more, more, and like faster changes and shit. Like, it's the same, I felt like it happened with, you know, Hearthstone or anything else that has like a very vocal, uh, fanbase, where if you try to check in back on it, you're like, on the bathroom, you got a few minutes to kill, you try to check back in on it, forget about it. You're gonna be watching packs open for five minutes. Like, you're not gonna even play.

• 1:14:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:04Chris Plante?

  So I'm realizing we have a bit of a problem here, which is, it seems like neither of these games really belongs in our top five.

• 1:14:12Griffin McElroy?

  I think Marvel Snap does.

• 1:14:13Chris Plante?

  You are okay with it.

• 1:14:15Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, for sure, 100%. It was a short, it was, I don't play it as much anymore, but Marvel Snap is one where if I started to hear through the grapevine, like, hey, everyone's playing Marvel Snap again, it's actually really good now, I would be fucking thrilled to get back on board.

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Marvel Snap over Pokemon Go. They should honestly drop a two or something. Drop a deuce. If they dropped a second Marvel Snap.

• 1:14:34Griffin McElroy?

  Pokemon Go, I think, is also fine, and I will also come back to that one pretty frequently. It's just simply not a toilet friend. It is an out and about, exploring the city, walking around.

• 1:14:44Chris Plante?

  Got it, got it, got it, got it, got it. Okay. Next up, Marvel Snap, by the way, won that round. Next up, we have Desert Golfing versus Merge Maestro.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  Couldn't be more different.

• 1:14:57Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Yeah, one is, one is an extraordinarily crunchy sort of, uh, experience, and one is Desert Golfing.

• 1:15:04Speaker 01

  All vibes.

• 1:15:05Griffin McElroy?

  All vibes. I, I've never been able to, I like Desert Golfing, I like it on principle. It's not even in the top five golfing experiences I would wanna have on a toilet.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  If Buddha played an iOS game, it would be Desert Golfing. But you don't have, for me though, it is a meditative experience.

• 1:15:26Griffin McElroy?

  That's what I mean.

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  And that, but that's a problem because it's not a meditative experience. It's the toilet. You're in there to do a job. You know what I mean? You don't want to zone out. Like you, you, you need something that says, you're done. Like the time has ended, right? I need, how long do you go to the bathroom? One snap. Like, I don't know.

• 1:15:47Griffin McElroy?

  One snap's worth.

• 1:15:48Chris Plante?

  Griffin and Justin, you made this great decision years ago, which was to go out into the world and run your own business and get far away from corporate America. And I think because of that, you have not had to have the experience where you are six and a half hours into the workday and you have experienced actual hell. You have seen the, the maw of Satan itself. And you just need five, 10 fucking minutes to go and lose touch with reality. And you don't smoke and it's too cold outside and you find yourself in the, on the toilet and you're just like, please, give me the zen, give me the peace.

• 1:16:28Speaker 01

  Let me just, okay. So I'm going to say a couple of things to you.

• 1:16:31Griffin McElroy?

  You do your thing first and then I also would love to respond.

• 1:16:33Speaker 01

  Let me start with one is, one, my first thing is, um, I have two children, so you can go eat a shit.

• 1:16:39Griffin McElroy?

  Justin said my thing.

• 1:16:40Speaker 01

  I hope you literally let the, light this shit on fire and eat it. You think I don't need to hide in the fucking toilet?

• 1:16:46Griffin McElroy?

  The idea that I would have to be a corporate drone to have a reason to dissociate on the toilet is one of the more offensive things you've said to me.

• 1:16:56Speaker 01

  Un- unethical. It's an ethical issue that you violated here. We just, we're, this is an ethical.

• 1:17:04Chris Plante?

  I don't need a zen. You're over here telling me, I don't need a zen. I live this magical life where I don't need to be the Buddha on the potty. And it sounds like you do need to be the Buddha on the potty sometimes.

• 1:17:13Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no, no. Plant, you understand. Sometimes my kids are so bad, I need two snaps. You know, but I need to choose. I need to stay, they've been so bad, daddy needs two snaps today, you know? I'll decide.

• 1:17:27Griffin McElroy?

  He'll tell, I'll text it. Sometimes I'll be like, hey Juice, how's it? How's everything going? And he'll be like, is it two snap day? I'll be like, damn dude, hang in there, don't let them bring you down.

• 1:17:37Chris Plante?

  Right. For real, for real.

• 1:17:39Griffin McElroy?

  Also, if Buddha played an iOS game, it would be Peter Molyneux's curiosity what's inside the box. I think we could all agree. And that would, that would be on this list if not for the fact that it, um, they, they beat it all.

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, they beat it. Or Buddha would join me in my number one toilet experience, money solitaire. Cause that's what I play on the toilet all the time. That's all I play.

• 1:17:59Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay, okay. Merge Maestro, what's the case for it?

• 1:18:03Griffin McElroy?

  It fucking rules, man. I know this is recency bias, but it truly like of, of the games I have played this year. It's the best, it's the best iOS game I've played this year by, by a country mile. Uh, it's just so perfect for the format of like what we are describing. I think it, I, I didn't have the words for what Merge Maestro was until we started to do this and now.

• 1:18:25Speaker 01

  I, I don't feel this way. I so rarely feel this way about video games anymore, but I, this is not a toilet experience, but I was in a very boring line this weekend at Great Wolf Lodge. And, and I was waiting, uh, to check in and I turned on that game. And it really was like, I just felt the time melt. It just disappeared. And once the game was done, I was perfectly satisfied and I felt like I'd had a great experience. It's like the, the perfect combo.

• 1:18:54Chris Plante?

  So just to confirm, you were taking a shit while you were online at the Great Wolf Lodge?

• 1:19:00Griffin McElroy?

  I'm gonna guess you were in the Dunkin' Donuts line in the morning or, um,

• 1:19:04Chris Plante?

  Oh, cause it's not like you're on the potty.

• 1:19:06Griffin McElroy?

  First thing.

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  I did clarify that beforehand. Um, you may have forgotten like how you forgot that I have kids a few minutes ago.

• 1:19:15Chris Plante?

  They're pretty adorable, too.

• 1:19:16Griffin McElroy?

  And fundamentally forgot that kids sometimes make you dissociate.

• 1:19:20Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay, okay. So what, if I'm translating this right, what you're saying is, in a way, Merge Maestro is, it's given you both. It's both got that crunchy game and it's helping you dissociate, helping that time pass by.

• 1:19:34Speaker 01

  It's, it's got both. It's helping you help the time pass, but it's also paced to where it's, it's digestible and you feel like you've gotten a complete experience.

• 1:19:45Griffin McElroy?

  And also Russ can't talk. They're drilling so much at Russ's apartment, he can't talk to defend desert golfing. And so like, it seems like we're just wasting time right now.

• 1:19:53Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  Congratulations.

• 1:19:55Chris Plante?

  To Merge Maestro. He wants to say something. He wants to be like, but it's boring and that's fucked.

• 1:20:00Griffin McElroy?

  No, I've seen some videos of Russ's nasty shit on Merge Maestro. I know he knows. He can grin us all he wants. He knows.

• 1:20:07Russ Frushtick?

  No, they are both great. I do have a fondness for Merge Maestro. That is true.

• 1:20:13Chris Plante?

  That makes it easy.

• 1:20:13Griffin McElroy?

  Next.

• 1:20:14Chris Plante?

  So Merge Maestro wins.

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, Merge Maestro wins. Tiny Wings versus Downwell.

• 1:20:20Chris Plante?

  Who's a tough one, actually.

• 1:20:21Speaker 01

  This one's really, like, both of these are exactly scratching the same. I will say that what, Downwell for me, the immediate like pros and cons, Tiny Wings had that like very sticky leaderboard thing that actually made you want to go to the bathroom because it's like, you would notice when you weren't in the bathroom. It's like, okay, I'm going to need a few minutes. Let me hit the bathroom real quick. But Downwell, the variability and the weapons and stuff did make like every run feel a lot like, like you really wanted to see the next combo and it made it like really hooky.

• 1:20:56Chris Plante?

  Downwell has a problem that no other game on this final grouping has, which is there is an end to Downwell. I did beat Downwell in the bathroom and after that, did I have a desire to play more Downwell in the bathroom? No, because I was finished with it. Where Tiny Wings, I'm still playing Tiny Wings today, you know? It never, it's never been taken off my iPhone, but I don't think I have Downwell on my phone at this point.

• 1:21:25Griffin McElroy?

  But is it, Downwell goes up and down and Tiny Wings goes side to side. And for me, the toilet, a toilet game goes up and down.

• 1:21:36Griffin McElroy?

  And that is hard for me to move past. And you can say all you want about gaming and wiping, but toilet games should go up and down.

• 1:21:41Chris Plante?

  I feel like I'm in much of my position.

• 1:21:43Griffin McElroy?

  Toilet games should go up and down. They shouldn't go side to side.

• 1:21:46Chris Plante?

  And you know why?

• 1:21:47Griffin McElroy?

  So. And you don't need me to explain why. Thank you, Justin. Yeah, no.

• 1:21:52Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:52Griffin McElroy?

  Tiny Wings, it does go up. The bird goes up sometimes, but primarily, we are talking about a left to right action.

• 1:21:57Chris Plante?

  You know, I feel pretty good about Downwell going in for that reason, because I think there's something beautiful about all four of the winners of round two going up and down and not side to side.

• 1:22:10Griffin McElroy?

  I also think we could easily bring Tiny Wings up.

• 1:22:12Chris Plante?

  And then I think we bring Tiny Wings in.

• 1:22:14Griffin McElroy?

  Fifth place spoiler.

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  I love this. I think that is more than fair.

• 1:22:18Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 1:22:20Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, so.

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  Both of those are slam dunks.

• 1:22:22Chris Plante?

  The.

• 1:22:22Griffin McElroy?

  This is a good list.

• 1:22:23Chris Plante?

  Four games that we know are moving on are Chess.com's Chess Puzzles, Marvel Snap.

• 1:22:30Griffin McElroy?

  Can we just say Chess.com and know we're talking about the Chess Puzzles? It feels insane to have something so asterisked out on this list.

• 1:22:38Speaker 01

  I would actually disagree because the first time it was Chess.com, and in the second round, it was Chess.com's Chess Puzzles. So I do think the distinction is important for posterity.

• 1:22:49Griffin McElroy?

  It just feels like we're talking about an activity at that point. Like, at this point, we should consider, like, looking at old pictures of some friends you had in college is my favorite toilet game.

• 1:23:02Chris Plante?

  Moving forward for posterity is Chess.com's Chess Puzzles, Marvel Snap, Merge Maestro, Downwell. And then we need to pick a fifth. And we should have the conversation because Tiny Wings could... Desert Golfing is right there. I don't want to, you know, rush to take that game off the board.

• 1:23:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:32Speaker 01

  Tiny Wings just has more, I just for me, I feel like Tiny Wings has more broad support amongst the group, but that's just me.

• 1:23:42Griffin McElroy?

  That's certainly my feeling.

• 1:23:44Chris Plante?

  That's me too. That would, that makes it three and Fresh can't be heard right now. So we're just gonna assume that he was saying yes.

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  Well, if we're going passion for passion, I have a lot of passion for Tiny Wings. He's got a lot of passion for Desert Golfing. Cancels out. Just gotta go with the better game. And that is, let me see if Fresh disagrees. He's nodding Tiny Wings, he's saying.

• 1:24:03Chris Plante?

  Oh, yeah. The drill just comes through his.

• 1:24:05Griffin McElroy?

  I, let me say this. I adore Merge Maestro. When we look at the games on this list, I feel like we gotta put it at five, just because it is sort of the young buck. And it hasn't, it hasn't earned its bathroom stripes.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  I would put Chess.com's chess puzzles in that slot. Honestly, I think it's a really crazy. It's a really smart, really inventive way of making chess digestible, but it is the sort of experience that like after you do it a little bit, um, it's kind of frustrating and sometimes it takes too long and sometimes it's annoying. It's not, they don't have the variability of the fun. It's not as addictive as.

• 1:24:45Griffin McElroy?

  I'll ask this Juice. Have you played it since they remodeled how all the chess puzzles and all the ranking and score chasing and stuff works? Cause it is more gamey now. It is less sort of like a, yep, thank you. Welcome. Uh, it is more gamey. It is more leaderboardy. It is more, I don't know. It feels more like a game than, you know, do these, do these little.

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  Uh oh, this is good.

• 1:25:09Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, it's gonna get you.

• 1:25:13Chris Plante?

  I, I don't have a whole lot of religion here on these two. I, I like them both at five and four. That feels good to me. So Merge Maestro at five.

• 1:25:23Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, wait, we have a break in the drawing.

• 1:25:24Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, break in the drawing to say, I think Marvel Snap should be higher on the list, like five.

• 1:25:32Chris Plante?

  Oh.

• 1:25:32Griffin McElroy?

  And I'm gonna bust through the joint just to say this because it's a PvP game and you're kinda at the whims of like.

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  That's true. You could go to the bathroom and not have a good experience.

• 1:25:43Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:43Chris Plante?

  Also, we've said that like, we are not thrilled with where it's at right now.

• 1:25:48Griffin McElroy?

  True. Yeah, no, for sure. It's the game I have played the least recently of these five, the least, the most not recent.

• 1:25:56Chris Plante?

  Five Marvel Snap, four Merge Maestro, three Chess.com's Chess Puzzles. We feel good about all that.

• 1:26:07Griffin McElroy?

  And then we just get back to Tiny Wings V Downwell again? Cause it seems like we've made our feelings known about this.

• 1:26:12Chris Plante?

  I think we have. I think this is actually gonna come together very quickly. This is, man, the rubric was on point.

• 1:26:19Speaker 01

  Who knew?

• 1:26:19Griffin McElroy?

  Not me. I thought it was dirty dog water, but now I know I was wrong.

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  Wait, hold on a second. This can't be right.

• 1:26:27Griffin McElroy?

  No, we've swapped Tiny Wings and Down- wait. Downwell.

• 1:26:31Chris Plante?

  Downwell beat Tiny Wings. You're right, you're right, you're right, you're right, you're right. That was my mistake. That was my mistake. For, people couldn't see what happened. I swapped, I may have let my heart speak and put Tiny Wings at number one, which definitely would not make sense considering it only barely stuck in.

• 1:26:49Speaker 01

  Recently lost to Downwell.

• 1:26:51Chris Plante?

  Yes, that's not right.

• 1:26:52Speaker 01

  Marvel Snap, Merge Maestro, ooh.

• 1:26:57Griffin McElroy?

  I am surprised that Chess Puzzles didn't go higher. It's crazy to me. It's my number, it's my, it's probably my number one, but I know it ain't gonna get there in everyone's hands.

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  Guys, I have to say, if I could just show you this interface that we're looking at here.

• 1:27:10Griffin McElroy?

  This is a UX win at this point?

• 1:27:12Speaker 01

  It's, no, you see like rankings, like you can see how your friends are doing in the puzzles, like in their journey. You can see how far they've come. Like, you can see where they are on the path. You can see how your, your friends are comparing to you. Like, look, we've got a little journey here that's showing my progress in the chess puzzles.

• 1:27:29Chris Plante?

  That is nice. Yeah, it looks like a-

• 1:27:31Speaker 01

  Too, right? It's like a fully formed thing.

• 1:27:34Griffin McElroy?

  It's like a fully formed thing now.

• 1:27:35Chris Plante?

  It looks like a little mobile game, puzzle game, but with like chess, cutesy chess art.

• 1:27:40Griffin McElroy?

  And if we took away this arbitrary restriction that you fucking narcs put on it saying, you can't have the rest of the chess in there, this thing would be number one, I do believe, just its sheer tonnage of the offering, but.

• 1:27:56Speaker 01

  That's just me. I'm happy with it. A third place finish if that's where it lands.

• 1:28:00Chris Plante?

  All right.

• 1:28:01Russ Frushtick?

  I'm also submitting steam, the entire steam library, if that's okay.

• 1:28:05Chris Plante?

  I'm also submitting steam pouring out of the pipe in Russ's ceiling that was recently drilled through. It looks like, oh, it's all plaster and steam just boiling out of there.

• 1:28:15Speaker 01

  I like this list.

• 1:28:17Chris Plante?

  It's a great list. Thanks so much for listening.

• 1:28:18Speaker 01

  Can you give it to us one more time? Cause there was some confusion at the end, Christopher.

• 1:28:23Chris Plante?

  Okay. So the very final list is number five, Marvel Snap. Number four, Merge Maestro. Number three, chess.com's chess puzzles. Number two, Tiny Wings. Number one, Downwell.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  Yes. And number six, who shot Johnny Rock on Sega CD? Thank you so much to everybody who, who made a game this year. Uh, you all really left it all out in the field. Congratulations. Thanks for supporting the, the besties. We genuinely appreciate you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

• 1:28:55Chris Plante?

  Oh, and you should check out the blog post because we're going to include a ton of honorable mentions. So many more great games that you can play on the potty.

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  That's going to do it for us. Uh, until next time, be sure to join us again for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends play the world's best games?