Mixtape Is a Musical Magic Trick

Mixtape arrived alongside a flood of euphoric reviews and a variety of discourses across various social media platforms and gaming groups. With a tiny bit of distance, we talk through what does and doesn’t work about this riff on the modern musical with the help of Friends Per Second co-host Lucy James! Heads up: After the main conversation, mailbag, and honorable mentions, we’ve included a full spoiler convo on the game. We hope you enjoy it!

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

• 0:00Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I'm glad you're all here. This is a very important moment. Lucy, especially, I'm glad that you're here because I've uh come up with a business proposition that I think you're all gonna be very interested in.

• 0:12Russ Frushtick?

  You know, when you're waking up in the morning and you feel like you want fruit and you don't want normal fruit, like a blueberry or even a raspberry, you want something quasi tropical, maybe a little bit tangy. That's got seeds in it.

• 0:27Russ Frushtick?

  The

• 0:27Griffin McElroy?

  That you that feeling.

• 0:28Russ Frushtick?

  You know that feeling.

• 0:30Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, so your your business proposition is the kiwi.

• 0:34Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin, people have already invented the kiwi. So the idea that I would bring the kiwi seems like a pretty simplistic idea. You guys are getting on the ground floor of something that I don't think anyone has come up with.

• 0:47Griffin McElroy?

  Jeff kiwi?

• 0:49Russ Frushtick?

  That's pretty good.

• 0:50Speaker 02

  Pretty good.

• 0:51Griffin McElroy?

  Is it that?

• 0:52Russ Frushtick?

  It's not Jeff kiwi.

• 0:54Griffin McElroy?

  It's better than that?

• 0:56Russ Frushtick?

  Appealable kiwi.

• 0:58Griffin McElroy?

  Appealable kiwi.

• 1:00Speaker 02

  What, it's just nice to look at?

• 1:02Russ Frushtick?

  No, no, no.

• 1:03Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:04Russ Frushtick?

  Jesus Christ. Like an orange.

• 1:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 1:08Russ Frushtick?

  Like an orange.

• 1:10Griffin McElroy?

  More of a rind than a skin.

• 1:12Russ Frushtick?

  Yes, so, so, so you don't need a knife, you don't need a peeler, you're just peeling it off and kiwi is inside. So instead of being stuck with an orange, you've got kiwi, which is

• 1:22Griffin McElroy?

  It's great.

• 1:23Russ Frushtick?

  Right?

• 1:23Griffin McElroy?

  It's it's great. I'll invest. I'll tell you why. I don't like touching the hair. I like eating a kiwi. I don't like to touch the hair. It looks like a gonad and I just can't, I I don't, it's not my favorite fruit to touch. It all fruit I think should have a peelable rind. Apple, give me the choice of do I want to go nuts on it? And I know I'm not one to talk about eating fruits with the rind on. I realize that this opens up old wounds, but give I give me the choice whether or not to remove it. That's all I want.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  What do you say to those people who eat, you know, who just eat it like an apple, who don't peel the kiwi and just go straight in?

• 1:59Speaker 02

  I'm not one of those people, but I know that it exists.

• 2:01Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, I was worried for a second because you might have to be booted off of this guest spot.

• 2:04Griffin McElroy?

  That's wild, yeah.

• 2:05Russ Frushtick?

  That would have been horrible. For every normal person on the planet, I think they're going to be thrilled. And the good news is I've also already got branding figured out, which I know.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  Okay, hit me.

• 2:16Russ Frushtick?

  You know, if you're just in the supermarket, you see a kiwi, you wouldn't necessarily notice, you know.

• 2:21Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 2:22Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so think about a hard boiled egg, also peelable, right?

• 2:25Griffin McElroy?

  Right, right.

• 2:26Russ Frushtick?

  So what we're doing is we're mashing up the two and what do we end up with?

• 2:30Griffin McElroy?

  Hard boiled kiwi.

• 2:31Russ Frushtick?

  Frag.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Can I, can I, can I, what are you, what are you mashing up again?

• 2:38Chris Plante?

  Frag.

• 2:39Griffin McElroy?

  Where's the FR coming from?

• 2:42Russ Frushtick?

  Egg. It's a fruit egg.

• 2:43Griffin McElroy?

  Fruit egg.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:44Russ Frushtick?

  And it's in the shape of an egg. Because it's a kiwi. Frag.

• 2:47Griffin McElroy?

  So kiwi's not, kiwi's not a fruit egg.

• 2:49Chris Plante?

  You don't want to like split the, the, the money because there's a lot of money to be made here.

• 2:54Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 2:55Griffin McElroy?

  With fruit egg.

• 2:56Chris Plante?

  I think we do need to go find a partner and we go with, um, Jeff Keely's peelable kiwis, appealable peelables.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  That's cool.

• 3:10Griffin McElroy?

  That's, okay, so Chris is on branding.

• 3:12Russ Frushtick?

  But wait, wait, wait.

• 3:13Chris Plante?

  Or frag.

• 3:14Russ Frushtick?

  Or frag.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Frag.

• 3:15Chris Plante?

  Okay. Frag. Now your eyes, I do see what you're getting at.

• 3:18Russ Frushtick?

  Frag on a shirt. You can't fit what you just said.

• 3:21Griffin McElroy?

  Jeff Kiwi, Jeff Kiwi presents. Frag.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Frag.

• 3:27Russ Frushtick?

  I like that.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:28Chris Plante?

  It's a world exclusive.

• 3:30Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Can we get the R and D team on next getting the fuzz off of peaches? Otherwise, perfect fruit, weird mouth feel when you go in the skin. Just if, give it to me smooth and shiny, please.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  I got the man from Del Monte on the phone.

• 3:43Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, good.

• 3:44Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  He says yes.

• 3:44Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, no.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  He says yes.

• 3:46Griffin McElroy?

  Well, you can fault.

• 3:47Russ Frushtick?

  He's got a lot of, a lot of time on his hands.

• 4:09Griffin McElroy?

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

• 4:12Chris Plante?

  My name is Christopher Thomas Plant, and I know the best game of the week.

• 4:15Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Russ Rouschek. I know the best game of the week.

• 4:20Griffin McElroy?

  Let it rip, Lucy.

• 4:20Russ Frushtick?

  Go for it.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  My name is Lucy James, and I know the best game of the week.

• 4:24Griffin McElroy?

  Welcome to the Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive intergame-ment. It's a game of the year club, and you, just by listening, have become a member. This week, we are talking about a coming-of-age, charming adventure, music odyssey called Mixtape with Lucy James from Friends Per Second. Thank you for joining us for this conversation.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me. I like that there's no better guest for someone with the experience of growing up on the US West Coast than a British person like me.

• 4:58Russ Frushtick?

  Well, it was made by, I think, an Australian person.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're Australian.

• 5:03Griffin McElroy?

  Also, the childhood depicted in this game was had by nobody. So, Chris Plant, what is Mixtape?

• 5:09Chris Plante?

  Mixtape is an adventure game about a trio of teenagers in Northern California in the 1990s on the eve of their last night together before they part ways into adulthood. It plays a bit like an interactive movie where largely swaths are animated film, the controller being handed over for the big emotional beats. It was made by the Australian developer Beethoven and Dinosaur and published by Annapurna, the two previously partnered on the artful escape in 2021, another music game-soaked adventure. Did I write that down this time?

• 5:40Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it was right off the dome.

• 5:41Chris Plante?

  I'm trying something new. It's called Being Prepared.

• 5:44Griffin McElroy?

  Whoa, that's so good. So, yeah, that's Mixtape. We're going to talk more about it after this short break.

• 5:51Chris Plante?

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• 6:34Chris Plante?

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• 7:19Chris Plante?

  That's protonvpn.com/besties.

• 7:26Griffin McElroy?

  Can I start off by asking a question, which is, how come anytime like a coming-of-age sort of Tinder adventure game comes out, the conversation that sort of happens around it reveals all of us just to be the biggest fucking dorks who have ever consumed any media ever? The number of people who are like, "That's not how my childhood went." "Nostalgia? I don't think so."

• 7:53Griffin McElroy?

  You didn't spend your, your childhood flying around hovering through beautiful fields?

• 7:59Chris Plante?

  Riding dinosaurs.

• 8:01Griffin McElroy?

  Riding dinosaurs. Shut the, shut, just hush, everyone, but not us. We are here to have a, I think, a better talk about mixtape.

• 8:09Chris Plante?

  I think this is actually gonna probably be the best and only conversation you need to hear about mixtape. I think that's, that's gonna kind of promote it, is that. Uh, Lucy, do you want to tell people like a little bit of like what the hell this story actually is? Who is Stacy Rockford, Van Slater, and Cassandra Marino?

• 8:27Speaker 02

  These are a pair of, a trio of little punks. It's their last day of high school and they have this big, wonderful road trip planned, but Stacy has kind of thrown a wrench in the works and she is actually leaving the group to go to New York to find Bella Delton, who is a premier Hollywood music supervisor because Stacy's lifelong dream, since I think it's, she's done since she was in eighth grade, that she wants to be a music supervisor because her skill is to make mixtapes. So she's made this one great soundtrack that will be the backing of their one last night as they go to the classic Hollywood, Hollywood high school party. They need to find booze, be with the

• 9:10Speaker 02

  cool kids, avoid Jenny Goodspeed. Um, and they get, and they kind of have this little nostalgia fueled trip down their friendship. They talk about what it's going to be like in their, in their futures that are as yet undefined. Uh, and it's basically just, it's a, it's a kind of adventure game slash walking sim, but it has a really great licensed soundtrack that has already been added to my Spotify. And yeah.

• 9:34Griffin McElroy?

  Really good. Like, I started playing this yesterday and like finished it over the course of the day. It's not the longest game in the world. I think I was putting it off one because we're also playing another game that is incredibly compelling, but also because like, I don't know, I feel like I've played games like this in the past and they have fallen so flat for me because one of these different things, whether it's like, The soundtrack or the framing or the, you know, whatever, just if it doesn't work for you, then the whole thing kind of doesn't. I just assumed this game was not gonna be for me. But I think they do a really good job of sticking the landing on just this core concept of like, this is a person who makes soundtracks to their life. I know that sounds insufferable,

• 10:16Griffin McElroy?

  but actually for a video game, it's a really, really, really good framing device and the songs they pick are pretty dope.

• 10:24Chris Plante?

  Yes, I, for me, the music really clicked because it's not contemporary music. Like, it doesn't fall into the Garden State trap of you have to hear this new song, it's gonna change your life. And not to say that that soundtrack is even bad. I love the shins, my friends.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was just everything around the soundtrack that was bad.

• 10:42Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  Why she's doing this little thing. Oh, God.

• 10:48Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 10:50Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, no, quick, don't think, don't think too hard about Garden State.

• 10:54Chris Plante?

  People can't see Lucy did, but it was somewhere between Natalie Portman and the child in The Shining doing Red Rum.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, cuz that's, that's, I think she's like, I just like to do something that no one has ever done in this spot, in space, in time. And it's just, I can't think about it.

• 11:09Griffin McElroy?

  And then she does the thing the kid from The Shining does, like, we know that someone's done that before. The kid in The Shining did it. What are you talking about?

• 11:16Chris Plante?

  Here, the main character, I wanna get your read on this, cuz I feel like I'm not seeing this part in the conversation. She is insufferable, but I think that is the point. The character, Stacy, is your friend who makes mixtapes and is your friend who's like, um, I know you wanna listen to your favorite music, but have you actually ever heard of Lush? Um, maybe you would rather be listening to Silverchair right now. And you're like, no, actually, I wanna listen to what I like. And they're like, no, no, no, we're gonna put in some Roxy music. And then eventually, the worst thing about this friend, and best thing, is you're like, fuck, they were alike.

• 11:56Griffin McElroy?

  They're good.

• 11:56Chris Plante?

  Like, this music is good. Harper's Bazaar does, in fact, fucking rock, damn it.

• 12:01Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I, I feel like this is another part of the, the annoying part of this, like, conversation is people saying like, well, this character's so, these teens. Say the, say the most insufferable shit. And it's like, you're telling me that if a character is, in some way, has a fault, that they are, all of a sudden, like, you can't have any kind of emotional sort of connection to them, when I think it's a staple of the genre that this is, that this is, which is the coming of age kind of teen comedy, like your Superbads, like your Booksmarts.

• 12:35Russ Frushtick?

  Or like Dazed and Confused, I think is it.

• 12:37Griffin McElroy?

  Dazed and Confused, like your Ferris. Empire Records, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, right? Like Lady Bird, like Lady Bird is terrible, like, that's a terrible person who like says the, but it's like, yeah, because they're kids, man. And they're like.

• 12:52Chris Plante?

  Kids suck, dude.

• 12:53Griffin McElroy?

  Well, no.

• 12:54Chris Plante?

  Crazy. They all say crazy shit.

• 12:58Griffin McElroy?

  I think it's easy to write this thing off as like a nostalgia play, because that, that term has become so firmly like commercialized in the way that like Stranger Things is like the nostalgia show that people talk about, because they, you know, they, they eat old Eggo waffles. I'm having trouble thinking of 80s shit. They go to a big mall and everyone has the craziest hair. But like, this is, this whole game is just about like, being a, being a senior in high school and about to become an adult and having this like huge vacuum in your life that you're about to create by leaving all this stuff that you know, and trying to fill it with just like shit you think is cool. And that makes you an insufferable hipster.

• 13:41Griffin McElroy?

  That's, I don't know, that seems so, so, so deeply relatable on like a really deep primordial level.

• 13:49Russ Frushtick?

  The beat by beat might not necessarily sync with your life personally, but I, it would be surprising if anyone watched this and didn't find some relatable like, oh, here's that person I hate for no really good reason. Like, everyone has that in their life, which, I don't know. I think this game clicked for me in a really big way. Lucy earlier described it as a walking sim, which I do understand where that comes from.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  I think that's, I think that's a hybrid. Yeah, it's a hybrid of things. It's more adventure game, you know. But the thing, it's like, I would, I would, I would just say, there's just so much being thrown at the, at the wall when it comes to like describing the game, when really it's just, you know, it's just a great story.

• 14:30Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 14:31Chris Plante?

  I think I know the formula to this game and its genre. It is a musical. And where a music number, like the singing would happen is when you play. Cause in a musical, it's like you talk and talk and talk until the emotions are so high. It can't be described anymore. And then boom, you bust into song, right? And here it's you talk and talk and talk. And there's a lot of talking, like there are large parts of this game. They're just unplayable animated film. And then you get to a sense memory and it's like, oh, you have to feel this. And that could be like tongues, French kissing, that could be

• 15:06Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 15:06Chris Plante?

  digging through a drawer, like a drunk drawer for like old ticket stubs. It's these like very tactile things, making a slushy where you're blending all the flavors together. Skipping stones. Right. It's not, yeah.

• 15:19Griffin McElroy?

  Did I play that skipping stone mini game for a long time?

• 15:22Chris Plante?

  Oh, man.

• 15:23Griffin McElroy?

  Um, because I thought like, yeah, I bet if I bet I'll get an achievement or some shit.

• 15:28Russ Frushtick?

  You know, fucking Greg Miller is somewhere crowing over his platinum in fucking mixtape for skipping stones.

• 15:33Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Uh, we, there's a, there's a, the, the nature of the construction of this game is like a, a, a story punctuated by these memories set to music. And each one of those little memories is like a tiny mini game feels dismissive, but like it is the, the, you see something and it reminds you of your first kiss and then you go into this song that you've set to the soundtrack of your first kiss and then you French kiss with two tongues and one stick controls one tongue, one stick controls the other tongue and you just slap them together until you stop. And there's not like a, you're not collecting, there's no fail state. There's no like, there's no fail state. I don't think for anything in the entire game, right? There, nothing is really up in the air.

• 16:16Russ Frushtick?

  You can like, if you, so there are skating sequences and if you like accidentally hit a card, it'll like rewind like a VHS tape.

• 16:22Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 16:23Russ Frushtick?

  That's about it. Uh, which is fine. I mean, there's been actually a lot of shitty discourse about the like, is this a game fail state? No fail state, whatever. Go back and play Journey. You can't fucking lose Journey and no one was making a big hullabaloo about whether that was a game or not. Like. It's an, for lack of a better term, it's an experience that you enjoy. And I actually think part of the reason it works in ways that like a lot of these very, very narrative heavy games don't work for me is because of the pacing, because you're never in a thing for more than like three minutes, three or four minutes is like the cap and you're always moving to the next thing. So I remember in their last game, which I liked, I thought it was a good game, but like they would

• 17:08Russ Frushtick?

  be long dialogue sequences or long, just like 2D platforming where you're walking around a ship or something and it just killed the momentum. And here you're constantly moving, even if you're just having a conversation, because those conversations lead to little interactive bits, you feel like you're constantly moving forward.

• 17:25Griffin McElroy?

  I think that the pacing is great and the, the non-interactivity, I think, kind of gives way to something really cool and profound when it starts to kind of synchronize with the, with the, the music. Like I talked about doing the skipping stone game for a long time, partially because like, one, it was, I, I thought there was something going on and also it was one of the more interactive parts of the game. But also like, there's a sequence that is so kind of lovely where she's having this memory about a, a time that her friend ditched her and this, this song, most of all plays and it goes to like black and white and then you sort of just

• 18:10Griffin McElroy?

  control her as she floats through like frozen time and can kind of just sort of sway to the music. At a certain point snaps start in the song and Stacy starts like snapping along with the, with the beat out of like, I don't know, that stuff is so like, you don't have to do any of that. There's no reason to do any of that. But the game gives you so many opportunities to just like get on its wavelength in a really kind of straightforward, simple way that I feel like hooked me more, more times than it didn't.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, I'm, I'm the kind of person who's, I, I don't necessarily deliberately soundtrack my life to music, but I have a very strong pull and a very strong tie to certain songs from certain parts of my life. And

• 18:51Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, Limp Bizkit.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Well, not like. Like, I have a very strong connection to like

• 18:55Griffin McElroy?

  Corn, sorry.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  Datic by Beck when I was playing Okami back in like 2006. I like, I have just weird connections with certain things. And so I really love the way that those moments were punctuated by songs, even if they weren't the ones that I would listen to. And it just, there is something so wonderful about the marrying of emotion to music. And I think I feel that specifically in my real life. And so even though I didn't grow up in the big suck, I grew up in the northeast of England. But there were so many parallels that I could make to my own life, especially the, the big one where you were going out over the field. And I think they say, let's waste an afternoon. It's not wa- it's never wasted, which was a really beautiful line that I thought. And it just reminded me of the amount of time that, yeah, my friends and I did waste a bunch of time.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  There was a big field at the back of our, of my house and you'd have to cross it to go to the supermarket, which we would do pretty much every day. And it's just, I don't know, it just, there were so many ways that I could relate my experiences to this game. And the music just really helped. I, I can't, I can never have silence on one of those people. So I, I loved it.

• 20:01Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's terrific. I think we're gonna do a, um, like a full on spoiler at the end of this episode, uh, after the honorable mentions, so that people, uh, can stop if they don't want to have it spoiled if they haven't played it yet. But

• 20:15Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 20:15Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I would really, if anyone like digs on narrative gameplay at all, I think this is like one of the most unique approaches to a narrative game that I've ever played. Uh, there, it just is incredibly capably put together. And, um, I think a lot of people are really gonna enjoy it.

• 20:34Griffin McElroy?

  I think so too. I, I think the writing in this game is so, uh, I don't know. It is so representative of when this coming of age genre kind of works the best, where the characters say a lot of Really kind of inane hipster shit that a senior in high school who has reached sort of the top of the, the, this very local food chain sort of succumbs to. And it's tough because it is, it is cringe worthy stuff that they say at times. And then there will be a scene that is like really, really beautiful where a character will say, uh, something really, really profound. Uh, there's a scene where Van, uh, I forget his last name. You're sort of stoner wastoid buddy.

• 21:19Griffin McElroy?

  Oh Slater. Talking, uh, Van Slater is like, uh, he's made an album. He doesn't want to play it for anyone, but he has this bit where he talks about his, the sort of creative process and what he enjoys about it and how, uh, when a superhero gets bit by a magic rat that gives them their powers, all of a sudden they have a purpose. And he's like, if you decide to make an eight minute long, like synth odyssey, like you've got some homework to do to like, learn how to do that. And that can, that feels like a purpose to me. Like I found that so to be, to put something into words that like, I don't know, I had never been able to before. And it was coming out of the like wispy mustachioed mouth of this virtual teenager. Uh, I, I, I adored this game. I'm, I really, really

• 22:01Griffin McElroy?

  loved it a lot. And I feel silly for kind of, uh, holding it at, at bay. Cause I assumed it was going to be something that it, it really was.

• 22:11Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. I think it's just a hard pitch. It's hard for you to really connect to it until you're playing it. Uh, and that's just unfortunately the nature of it, or fortunately, I guess the nature of it. Uh, so in that way, I think it's on game pass, uh, things like that, like they're, uh, and 20 bucks. Yeah. If you want to buy it. So realistically not huge investment. I'm sure if you were waiting, you might come on discount at some point, but overall like, man.

• 22:38Griffin McElroy?

  Go and play it. Go and play it right now because I want to talk about all the spoiler stuff. So go, you, you go and play it and then, and then you hit pause and then come right back.

• 22:46Russ Frushtick?

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• 23:27Russ Frushtick?

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• 23:39Russ Frushtick?

  This episode of The Besties is sponsored by Lisa. You know, we are starting to get into the cooler months of the year. And you know what I love in the cool months of the year? An incredibly cozy mattress that you can just cozy up into. You got the blankets and everything. And I will speak from experience, but maybe not my experience, because Lisa sent me one of their mattresses. But it was timed as such where actually my son, who was becoming a toddler and needed like an actual bed, needed a mattress. So we had him use the Lisa mattress. And every time that I get into that bed to read him a story at night, I am incredibly

• 24:21Russ Frushtick?

  jealous of his mattress, because holy cow, that thing is incredibly comfortable. Lisa was awarded the Best Hybrid and Best Memory Foam Mattress by New York Times Wire Cutter and is featured by West Elm as their go-to mattress partner. You can go to Lisa.com for 25% off select mattresses, plus get an extra $50 off with promo code BESTIES exclusive to our listeners. That's L-E-E-S-A.com promo code BESTIES for 25% off select mattresses plus an extra $50 off. Let them know we sent you in the survey after checkout. Lisa.com promo code BESTIES.

• 25:00Griffin McElroy?

  Usually, we do a sort of B segment here. We're gonna hold off because we're gonna do the rest of our end of show business before we do spoiler discussion on Mixtape. So Russ, do we have anything from the reader mailbag that you want to dump out?

• 25:13Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, we do. We have a couple of letters from folks.

• 25:18Russ Frushtick?

  This one comes from Buckling Swashes. This is in reference to our Saros episode that we did last week, and I mentioned the game Outland, which was a Metroidvania that that team made. "Russ mentioned Outland, and the Xbox 360 version is still available for purchase and backwards compatible on Xbox One and Series consoles." So that's good. That's one way to play it. I kind of wish it was on PC, but whatever.

• 25:42Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, did you say it wasn't? You couldn't get it?

• 25:43Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, as far as I can tell, there is no version available on PC anymore. But yeah, you can play it on... I probably own it on Xbox 360, so that's something. The other letter comes from Steven. "In relation to the Steam controller conversation that we had, I was testing out a Steam controller. I continue to really love it, but I do have some notes." But I'm gonna read Steven's email first. "There are now methods of making the PS5 controller work with full wireless capability on PC. I'm curious if those on the best of you feel with this in mind, is the Steam controller the ideal PC controller?" Okay, so a couple of things. One, I just like the fact that it works.

• 26:25Russ Frushtick?

  Like, you don't have to like install GitHub drivers and whatever else to get it to work. But the note that I do have for people, and I don't know that I made this clear enough in the last episode, if you're playing a lot of games that aren't in Steam, so maybe they're on the Xbox Store, or maybe they're on EGS, or whatever, the Steam controller will not work out of the box. I think there are workarounds to get it working, but it's gonna be a little bit of a pain in the ass. For 98% of the stuff I play on PC, it's on Steam, so it's not an issue for me. But like, even like itch, I would be mindful of like, stuff on itch might not work, although I do think you can add HIO stuff to Steam to work around that way.

• 27:09Griffin McElroy?

  I also... After spending however long the PS5 has been out, I don't love the Dual Shock 5, or if that is even its name.

• 27:22Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know, I don't know what it is about it. I feel like in some ways, it's like ergonomically really great. I really despise the triggers. I think they feel pretty bad. I understand kind of the concept of there being a modular resistance there that they can use to emulate things in games, and I hate how that feels every time. Like in Seros, you get like that little bit of tension at the half squeeze, so you know when you've like switched to a weapons alt fire mode. I thought that felt really bad. I think using that makes the triggers feel like so squishy and kind of weird, and they're also a little too far away. I have like decent sized hands, they're a little far away from where I like hold the grip. I don't know. It's, I would much, much rather use a 360 style.

• 28:05Chris Plante?

  Lucy, do you get the hand cramps from the?

• 28:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can't use a Dual Sense.

• 28:11Griffin McElroy?

  Dual Sense, yes.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  I mean, the fact that they called it the pro version, the Dual Sense Edge, tells me that they don't have a single woman working in marketing on that controller.

• 28:22Russ Frushtick?

  Have they been making motherboards this whole time? Cause it has motherboard energy all over it.

• 28:27Griffin McElroy?

  The Dual Sense Edge does sound like a men's razor that has like nine blades on it and produces its own gel.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  Sounds like something you'd find at a CDO store. But no, I can't do it. I can't do it because I just get really bad hand cramping with it. And I use the, I feel like such a broken record. I have the, what is it? The Xbox Elite Series 2, because the backpedals are great.

• 28:53Griffin McElroy?

  That's my, yeah. It's a little heavy. Honestly, it's a little heavy. My favorite video game controller in my house is a fucking Power A Nano Switch controller. It's like... It's like this big, it's like a good, it's like a baby set, but like it, my hands kinda get perfectly around it and there's no extra sort of like space and everything, it just, I have to move my fingers so, so little because it's a tiny little baby controller. I don't know, I don't need much bigger than that.

• 29:20Russ Frushtick?

  Lucy, did you try this, have you tried this Steam controller?

• 29:23Speaker 02

  I did, yeah, I, I like it a lot. I did put a hold on a preorder thing, so I'm just waiting on my email. Because I, I'm just fully in the Steam ecosystem at this point.

• 29:34Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I mean, who isn't?

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Ross, have you, have you dropped it yet? Have you done that thing?

• 29:40Russ Frushtick?

  I, I heard about this this morning. Lucy, do you want to tell, I haven't dropped it, but you should tell people what, what happened.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  So if you drop the Steam controller, I can't remember the, the height that it has to fall.

• 29:51Chris Plante?

  I think about three feet.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  Uh, it'll scream, it'll get the little Wilhelm scream. Well, not every time, I think they said every six or eight times, but you'll get a little scream.

• 29:59Griffin McElroy?

  What?

• 30:00Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, the controller screams when you drop it.

• 30:04Griffin McElroy?

  Why?

• 30:04Russ Frushtick?

  They thought it was funny.

• 30:06Chris Plante?

  It is pretty funny.

• 30:07Griffin McElroy?

  Fucking why, man? Like, is the controller a little, is it a little bit heavier? I guess that's a good point, Chris. Yeah, you're gonna get a lot of smashed Steam controllers.

• 30:16Chris Plante?

  It's just like when Nintendo, you know, when Nintendo made all the, the cartridges taste so good?

• 30:21Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 30:21Chris Plante?

  And then people like had to keep eating them.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, for sure, that's exactly what it's like.

• 30:25Chris Plante?

  Don't do that, guys. Like, don't do that.

• 30:29Chris Plante?

  Do I have any more questions?

• 30:30Russ Frushtick?

  It hasn't come up. Uh, I think that's it in terms of reader mail. So, which means we can jump into honorable mentions before we dive into the spoiler-heavy mixtape conversation.

• 30:42Russ Frushtick?

  Lucy, have you been playing anything of note or watching anything? It doesn't have to be a game, you could talk about anything you're doing.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  I'm talking about what I've been playing because of embargoes, but I have been watching Widows Bay on Apple TV.

• 30:53Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah, Chris Plant is a big fan of Widows Bay.

• 30:56Chris Plante?

  I watch no TV, I watch Widows Bay.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  It is the only show that we tune in, other than Vanderpump Rules, which we are slowly getting through. We're almost at Scandival, very excited. Uh, Widows Bay is the one thing that we tune into every week, and I thought it came out on Wednesdays. It comes out on Tuesday evening, so we watched the, the latest episode. It is as if, it's, so it's an Apple TV show. You wouldn't know because Apple is notoriously terrible at promoting anything other than Severance. But it is Matthew Reese from The Americans. And he is basically playing a Basil Falty-esque character who is the mayor of a New England island. And it is basically, he's trying to promote tourism and unfortunately, the island is just haunted as hell.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  Horrible, bad things have happened there and so does this comedy horror mix up. That is absolutely hilarious. There is a joke from the first episode with a calendar. Chris, do you know what I'm talking about? I think about every day. And it just has this, um, and it, but the horror is so effective. Like we were watching the last night's episode, which is the episode all about the book. And it is fantastic. It's like edge of the seat stuff.

• 32:11Chris Plante?

  What I think they get with like the, the horror writing is that horror and comedy are both the same thing. They both are gonna work because they surprise you. It's not what you would suspect. Or expect.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's all about the buildup and then the payoff.

• 32:24Chris Plante?

  Yes, and because of that, they can build up. They can be like, we are building up something, but you don't know which it is. So it's gonna catch you off guard either way. And, oh, it's so good. Like they're like, they're literally just like shaking it in front of you. Like they're like, it's coming for you. It is coming for you. Please just tell me what it is so I can know if I can be happy or really upset. Um, and the writing is just, I love seaside horror. It's some of the best stuff.

• 32:51Griffin McElroy?

  Why is it, why is this seaside? I mean, I feel like so many different examples from classical literature have tapped into this, but there, there's something about the seaside where everything's a little spooky.

• 32:59Chris Plante?

  It's because it's so big and deep. We don't even, as people know, what's at the bottom of it. Like at the bottom, it could be. Yeah, I didn't know this about my wife until like literally a year ago, we were at the beach and she returned to me and she's like, It's what I'm most scared of. And I was like, what? Out of nowhere, she comes to the beach and she's like, it's what I'm most scared of. And I was like, why? And she's like, you could just keep falling forever. And she's like, anyway, I'm gonna go get our kid.

• 33:27Griffin McElroy?

  Popsicle time?

• 33:28Speaker 02

  Uh, my favorite thing about Widows Bay though, so it's, I, I never saw Parks and Rec, but I know that, uh, some of the writing staff worked on Parks and Rec and my friends say that you can definitely feel that. Vibe, the creator of the show, Kate Diploïd, I believe. Dipold. Um, is maybe most famous for the infamous, um, thought I was going to a Halloween party, went dressed as the Babadook, but it was more an adults drinking wine vibe. Um, she's the Babadook from that incredible tweet. And so, yeah, it's fantastic.

• 34:00Chris Plante?

  That is incredible. Um, also, the director is Hiro Marai, who is the like longtime collaborator of Childish Gambino and Flying Lotus, director of Atlanta, really one of the best directors working today. Um, and you feel it big time. Like, on top of it being well-written, there's a tough needle to thread between the balance of humor and scares, and, and they nail it. Also, I will say, there are people who are like, I don't like horror. I think you will still like this. I would put it more in the thriller camp, the kind of like 60s, 70s thriller than.

• 34:35Griffin McElroy?

  It's not weapons.

• 34:37Chris Plante?

  It's not weapons. No, you're not getting, no, not even actually remotely weapons.

• 34:43Griffin McElroy?

  Okay. Sometimes Rachel, my wife, Rachel wants to watch weapons, but she doesn't remember it very well. She hasn't seen it. She doesn't remember what it's about. So she'll watch a trailer and she'll be like, no fucking way, man. That's the scariest goddamn trailer I've ever seen. And then like a month will pass and she'll be like, let's just watch a trailer for weapons, just to see if I'd be into it. It's just like, no, why is that guy like, yartsing in that guy's face? Holy shit. No, no weapons. Get out of here. I love Matthew Rees, man.

• 35:11Chris Plante?

  Let's go someplace nice like the beach.

• 35:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, right.

• 35:14Chris Plante?

  Big open ocean.

• 35:16Griffin McElroy?

  I, I mean, I've, I think we're all playing the same other game right now that is embargoed and can't talk about at the moment. Well, I'm not.

• 35:23Russ Frushtick?

  Well, I am, but I'm also playing another game that I can talk about, and that game is called Blueprint.

• 35:28Griffin McElroy?

  Yay. Oh, fuck yeah. That's it. This is our weekly blueprints update.

• 35:32Russ Frushtick?

  Progress is being made, folks. I'm on day 12.

• 35:36Griffin McElroy?

  Are you still playing with Alex most of the time?

• 35:37Russ Frushtick?

  Still playing with Alex, my wife. Uh, we are playing, uh, yeah, usually a day or two a night. Now, uh, that the runs have gotten considerably longer, it's usually one day, cause a run could take like an hour or more.

• 35:50Griffin McElroy?

  True.

• 35:51Russ Frushtick?

  We're on day 12.

• 35:55Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, how do I mean, does it ma- I mean, I guess I can do this without spoiling anything.

• 36:00Griffin McElroy?

  How many permanent upgrades?

• 36:01Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 36:01Griffin McElroy?

  That's like for me, the big metric.

• 36:03Russ Frushtick?

  We just got the server room, uh, unlocked.

• 36:08Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, cool.

• 36:08Russ Frushtick?

  As well as we just unlocked the, um, gem mines. That's permanent upgrade. We also have the orchard and the, and the side house. Um, we have the basement key stored in the, uh, what's that, Kochek room? Basement key is living in there while we figure things out.

• 36:26Griffin McElroy?

  That's smart.

• 36:27Russ Frushtick?

  We are, uh, are viciously taking notes on.

• 36:31Griffin McElroy?

  Have you finished? Have you made it to room?

• 36:33Russ Frushtick?

  No.

• 36:33Griffin McElroy?

  Thirty-nine again? Okay.

• 36:34Russ Frushtick?

  No, so, uh, I think it's room forty-six and, uh, so we have not made it there. But man, the notes are thorough and we've made a lot of progress on it and it's delightful. I will say this though, as far as I can tell, the color blinds patch is still not on Switch two. Uh, I check every single night.

• 36:54Griffin McElroy?

  That's so wild.

• 36:55Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, so far, I will say, there's really two major things that I've seen that like for sure I cannot do. One of them is the billiard, uh, the, the dartboard puzzle. And one of them, uh, relates to the breaker room. There's like a light thing in the breaker room. Neither of those at all possible for me to do until that patch drops. But thankfully I have my wife who, whose eyes work. Good for her. Um, but it is, I think for people that are still waiting, if you want to play it on console, just a heads up. As far as I can tell, it's not at least on Switch two. It might be on the other platforms. Google seems, uh, confused whenever I ask this question because it keeps referring back to, yes, the patch is out, but it's only out on PC. So keep an eye on, on that, but, uh, that's a good video game. I'm glad I'm the first to play it.

• 37:40Russ Frushtick?

  It's fun.

• 37:43Griffin McElroy?

  Um, I've been watching, I, I, Rachel and I watched, uh, almost all of the Martin Short documentary, uh, called Marty, Life is Short, uh, on Netflix, which like. There's been a real sort of a huge generous crop of this exact type of documentary for different people lately. We watched the John Candy one and the Steve Martin one. And there's just, this is an era that is being pretty heavily plumbed for documentary fodder. This Mel Brooks had another good one. And man, I could watch, I think, an infinite amount of home movies of like that Second City TV, all star cast, all fucking hanging

• 38:27Griffin McElroy?

  out together. I would watch just that on a loop, basically forever. It goes into like his, his whole career, not quite as like exhaustively as some of these other documentaries. The, the, the movies made by Lawrence Kazdan, who is, you know, a very prolific writer, wrote like a bunch of Star Wars movies and a bunch of movies that Martin Short was in that were not successful, that a lot of people haven't even heard of at all. And so they're like old friends who have known each other for a while. And he's the one making the documentary about Martin Short. And so it's, a lot of it is far more kind of like personal. Like there's an extended sort of bit of the movie where they talk about how his wife bought

• 39:10Griffin McElroy?

  this lake house, I think in Toronto, sort of sight unseen. And they just have parties and they have a lot of home movies of like Tom Hanks coming over to play bingo, or Catherine O'Hara coming over to, you know, play, play croquet in their yard. Like so much of the movie is just these people who are gods in my mind, all like hanging out together and trying to make each other crack up. And like, it's interesting to, to learn about Martin Short, but there's not a, I think, I don't think there's a ton to learn here. Did any of you guys watch any of these documentaries, like the John Candy one?

• 39:46Russ Frushtick?

  The only one that I've watched that isn't an SCTV one that is similar is the Gary Shandling documentary, which was fantastic.

• 39:52Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 39:53Russ Frushtick?

  Strongly recommend that. So I'm familiar with the format of it, but.

• 39:56Griffin McElroy?

  A lot of them are like, the John Candy one in particular, obviously like he's been gone for a while. So they can't get the sort of current perspective. But like, a lot of it. Was on sort of his struggles to like have this identity of as like a big funny guy. And sort of the baggage that comes along with that. And this movie is, and bear in mind, we have about 20 minutes to go. We stopped it last night because we felt like obviously he's had some personal tragedies sort of lately. And I, you know, I don't think the movie is going to have the most sort of upbeat ending.

• 40:29Griffin McElroy?

  So like, obviously, I think that the, the, the conclusion of the movie is going to be, you know, pretty, pretty, pretty sad. But there's just so much, there was a lot in the John Candy doc too, and the Steve Martin one of just like these, these comedy people who I idolized growing up. In this like unseen footage of them just kind of like hanging out. I love that shit. Can't get enough of it.

• 40:53Russ Frushtick?

  That's lovely. Plant, do you have anything?

• 40:56Chris Plante?

  Yeah, just widows, man. I'll second that. I want to talk about the spoilers, dude. I just want to talk about spoilers so bad.

• 41:03Griffin McElroy?

  Let's say right here, friends who are listening, who do not want to be spoiled on mixtape, which I, again, I would encourage you, and maybe this is bad practice to host a podcast and to say this, but like it's a, I finished it in about three hours, three and a half hours. You can really get through this thing. So, you know, if, if that doesn't sound great to you, thanks for listening to the besties. Thanks to all our patrons on Patreon.

• 41:26Russ Frushtick?

  Wait, let me, let me shout out a couple of patrons on Patreon, just in case they are the ones that don't want to be spoiled. I don't want to make sure that they don't get cut out. Props to Jeff, Jeff C, Cam V, Cameron, and smells like fun. Thank you for being members of our Patreon. Thank you to everyone else who supports our show. We have a new episode of The Resties out right now. And we have the racket battles episode, which was the pre Justin departure racket battles episode. Forever in our hearts, our EP, Justin McElroy. We thank you for all.

• 42:00Griffin McElroy?

  We didn't give him credit last week.

• 42:02Russ Frushtick?

  And you know what? I think it's important that we internalize that credit from now on. So that even though it might not audibly.

• 42:11Griffin McElroy?

  Big ups to you, sir. Thank you for everything you do.

• 42:14Russ Frushtick?

  We'll have it in our hearts.

• 42:15Speaker 02

  Maybe you could make a jingle.

• 42:16Griffin McElroy?

  In our mouths, we got us.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  Just like something you just play.

• 42:18Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 42:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 42:20Griffin McElroy?

  Executive producer, Justin McElroy.

• 42:25Griffin McElroy?

  Something like that. Yeah, that's strong. Okay, so if you don't want to be spoiled on mixtape, understandable. Please turn off your device or change it to another thing.

• 42:34Chris Plante?

  Turn off your phone.

• 42:36Griffin McElroy?

  Turn off your phone completely.

• 42:38Russ Frushtick?

  Before we, before we get into deep spoilers, I want to hear briefly from Chris Plant because Stacy, my read on Stacy is that she is basically him going into college, but for snobby films. Is that a fair assessment?

• 42:55Chris Plante?

  Um, kind of. I was snobby, but I don't know if I was actually snobby about film in that way yet. I think I was just annoying. I think that's what you're getting at. And the answer is yes. That, that was me. So, the game, like we said, is about Stacy who is about to go off to New York and they had this road trip that they were going to do because her friend Cass is going to go to college in Southern California. I think probably like USC, UCLA, maybe UC Irvine. And Van is going to-

• 43:28Griffin McElroy?

  Name five other Southern California universities.

• 43:31Chris Plante?

  UC San Diego, Chapman.

• 43:33Griffin McElroy?

  Please don't do this.

• 43:34Chris Plante?

  I'm, I'm ready for it. Um, but yes, the,

• 43:39Chris Plante?

  what is relatable about that to me is I loved my high school friends. But many of us were friends, and I think this is common by circumstance. Like you are making friends with people who are like, well, this is the closest to who I am that is available to me from this pool of 300 to 700 people at my high school. 669 people went to my high school. I will never forget that number. Nice. Thank you.

• 44:11Chris Plante?

  But there is that feeling of, I found in the game-

• 44:16Chris Plante?

  Oh, these people are a good fit for this moment and they are realizing that they will probably never see each other again, at least in this capacity. And I think that is like the sadness of the game. And I think that's why Stacy being insufferable is important because she doesn't really belong here. All of them don't necessarily belong where they're at. And seeing somebody have to tell that to people that they love or not tell it, but tell it in so many words is like a hard thing. That's a really tough moment. And I think that's what I found really relatable about it. And in like that mix of

• 44:58Chris Plante?

  like sadness and not wanting to hurt people and them not wanting to hurt you and like the hurt is inevitable is kind of what this game is getting at.

• 45:06Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, the game doesn't show this, but I can picture the like, oh, it's the first time back it in town for a holiday break or whatever it is.

• 45:15Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 45:16Russ Frushtick?

  And oh, I actually had this other thing and oh, we can do like 30 minutes here and get a coffee and catch up. Oh, and that's actually not going to work. No, we'll, we'll catch up again. And then six years passes like that's.

• 45:27Chris Plante?

  The game doesn't show the game. I think very purposefully, the game doesn't show that. It also doesn't, since we are in full spoiler territory here, like

• 45:37Chris Plante?

  the, the, the game starts to sort of dabble in, not dabble in, that sounds like a, a sort of accidental way of approaching it. Like there is this sort of unspoken romance angle that I felt coming off of all the main character. There's this sort of like light, light polycule sort of suggestion that that is happening here. And you spend the whole game saying like, oh, and that, you know, Stacy's ruined these plans. She's canceled this road trip. They've been planning for years now. And you think like, you know, at the end, maybe she'll cancel her trip and.

• 46:14Griffin McElroy?

  You know, they'll, they'll, they'll, she'll show up and be like, we're gonna hit the fucking road. That doesn't happen. Like, everyone kind of sticks to the path, right? Everybody sort of stay, the, the suggestion is that, yeah, tomorrow, they're not gonna see each other. And, you know, may, may never again. Uh, I thought that was, I don't know, bold, I think. If the ease, the much easier answer would be to do it the other way. But like, it also would feel like a, um, a contradiction to the sort of entire bittersweet vibe of, of the entire thing.

• 46:46Speaker 02

  I think what makes that ending so effective is the setting being that nineties, pre-online era where, you know, like even when I left my relatively small city, let's be real, but you know, to move to London, you know, that was still, Facebook was around, you could text people. Whereas at this point, your world was so small, and it was, you know, those friends of convenience who were around. And the fact that someone leaving would, that would be the end of things. Like, you would miss so, so much. There wasn't an easy way to catch up on everything. And I think that's what really resonated with me is because I missed when my world was that small, you know? I miss when

• 47:27Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  Being, you know, going and hanging out at the Green in Newcastle was the big thing that you did. You know, those stories that they do little vignettes of, of just like a random, what could be a random night, are the things that you still hang on to years and years later. And so, for me, it was kind of this, this sort of longing for that time, even though I never experienced it. And then when it comes to the friendships, like I had friendships like that. And I think the, particularly in the final third, when it's the, the, under the bubbling sadness between all three of them. It's like, it's like they are approaching every conversation as if it's gonna be the last, which I think makes that ending moment, which is the, don't let go, let go. Oh, that really hit.

• 48:12Chris Plante?

  Can you describe like how that works?

• 48:15Griffin McElroy?

  Like, yeah, not, not the first time a game has pulled that, that idea, I think, where you're holding your friend's hand and you have to hold in both triggers to do it because it's sort of a mini game and it says, don't let go. And then the don't disappears after a while. And I kept on holding it just because like, I still had this part of my brain that was like, I bet if I keep holding on, I bet there's another ending where I do go, but like, no, I'm can tell you all right now, there's no sort of bonus to be acquired for holding the, maybe there's an achievement for like, you held on to Van's hands for, for four hours or something, but it, you got to, uh, and it immediately pans out to this like needle drop moment that like hits.

• 48:58Chris Plante?

  Yeah. That, that controlling both hands and controlling two things at once is one of my favorite tricks of the game. And it reminds me of what, um, Haze Light Studio was doing before they started doing co-op with Brothers. Because when you control two things, you end up telling a story. So like you have the, the tongue, the French kissing game where you zoom in and you are just two giant tongues. And how engaged those tongues are is telling you who was interested. There's another moment where, uh, Slater and Stacy, when we flashback before Cassandra had entered their little trio are taking, um, a photo booth, photo

• 49:40Chris Plante?

  set together. And you are controlling how they lean into one another. And there is like story there. Are they both leaning into each other? Is Stacy leaning in more? Is Slater leaning in more? And you end up taking photos of this and those photos mean something very different depending on how you do that. You, you don't have to read it that way. That's like, the game isn't forcing you to think about that, but it is giving you that opportunity to kind of. Cast your own version of the story with that, that, that subtext.

• 50:12Russ Frushtick?

  And I think the, the, yeah, the romance stuff ties into that. It's like, I think to Griffin's point, I agree. I think it's all done intentionally. There's like a real logic to it, but the fact that no one is acting on anything makes, tells you either like, they weren't ready, or it wasn't actually like it was purely platonic. Like your, your mind kind of goes to a lot of different places. And the fact that the game doesn't give you a set answer of, oh, here's that moment when Stacy and Van are departing and they have a big romantic kiss. Like I would have killed, it would have ruined the ending for me if that's how it ended. Cause it's not a game about that. It's a game about experiencing the moment they're in and then realizing you have to let go.

• 50:53Griffin McElroy?

  And it is, it is also, I think a reason why I, I've read a lot of writing about this game of people who were not sort of able to connect with it on a sort of nostalgic level. And I joked earlier that like, no kid had this life. And that is also, I think purely intentional. The place that the game takes place in is not real, it's not a real place, but it's also not necessarily set in a very specific part of, of the country. I guess there is the map that you do see.

• 51:25Russ Frushtick?

  Pacific Northwest, Northern California.

• 51:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, there's lots of redwoods and pines. So you could do the math from there.

• 51:29Chris Plante?

  It's time is also placeless.

• 51:31Griffin McElroy?

  The time period, right.

• 51:32Chris Plante?

  It's 1999, but it really is.

• 51:34Russ Frushtick?

  Is it 99? I thought it was earlier than that.

• 51:36Chris Plante?

  I, I think it's 99, but, but they have even said, I mean, you have a cassette player, a vinyl player, CDs, you have.

• 51:44Russ Frushtick?

  CD burning.

• 51:45Chris Plante?

  CRTVs, but like, it is, I think a little bit displaced from time, but it is, I would say elder millennial.

• 51:55Griffin McElroy?

  Uh.

• 51:56Chris Plante?

  What would you, or Gen X?

• 51:57Griffin McElroy?

  It's a little bit of.

• 51:58Chris Plante?

  Gen X?

• 51:59Griffin McElroy?

  I would say the somewhere in that gap, I would say between late Gen X, early, early elder millennial.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  Like the fashion is very.

• 52:07Griffin McElroy?

  It felt like the, the time that the game was taking place was around the time I was like a toddler. And so like, I didn't, I didn't know when Portishead's debut album Dummy came out in 1993, I was six years old. So I wasn't necessarily in that, that vein, but I, I think the reason that some people kind of fail to not fail, but don't have trouble connecting with it sort of on a nostalgic level is that I think the story and a lot of these sort of like the coming of age genre that this game is, I would say, pretty closely modeled after, like a Ferris Bueller or a whatever, uh, like a Booksmart is it is like, uh, wish fulfillment.

• 52:44Griffin McElroy?

  It's like aspirational in a way like I never, uh, I never went to a fucking kick ass party, uh, with like 200 people at it.

• 52:55Speaker 02

  Do they exist by the way? That's, that's such a.

• 52:58Griffin McElroy?

  I, I don't think so.

• 53:00Russ Frushtick?

  They do. I went to one when I was in high school. It was my last, I was pretty straight edge in high school until my graduation night.

• 53:08Griffin McElroy?

  And voluntarily, were you in, in cell straight edge or?

• 53:12Russ Frushtick?

  No, it was just, I was, you know, it was like a mu, it was theater, a theater kid. So like drama school, pretty straightforward. Like, oh, we're just going to hang out at the diner and drink sodas, whatever. Anyway, I, I went ham on that last night and in my memory, probably not 200 people and probably not burning a cottage down. But like, that's what it felt like in my memory.

• 53:33Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it's played, it's played up. So much of this game is cartoonish, including like its art style, right? It has that, um, Spider verse 2.5D.

• 53:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:42Griffin McElroy?

  Kind of, uh, choppy animation style that is like really fucking slick, really well done here. But also it's like at that party, the Camilla Cole, who's like the coolest girl in town comes down in a beam of light from the sky. Like there's, there's so much deeply unserious stuff happening here. So it's like, this is the last day that everybody would love to have. Like, I would love to have memories of me fucking going down a mountain on skateboards with my friends and doing fucking. And then go into this kick ass

• 54:09Russ Frushtick?

  Cass having that standoff with her dad in the road.

• 54:12Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, like, yeah, like, that doesn't, that's, that doesn't happen in real life, but it's still, you can still kind of like, love that because it, you understand that it's like, good and it represents something that is so desirable.

• 54:26Chris Plante?

  It's also a mixtape of teen movies, like that party that you're talking about is dazed and confused. I think there's moments that are borrowing even from some moments from like last of us.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  This is the Ferris Bueller escape through the, escape over the fences.

• 54:40Chris Plante?

  Right, right.

• 54:41Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 54:41Chris Plante?

  There's a good chunk. The, the other thing I'll say about the nostalgia of it all is like, it is quite literally the point of the game. It's not running from that. It is a game, structurally, and I don't think we've actually talked about this, that is about reflecting on memories. The entire structure of the game is going from one person's room to the next, and then looking around the room and remembering moments that have already happened. So the game is really playing with, how do we, Big Fish style, remember things?

• 55:16Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 55:17Chris Plante?

  It is also very much playing with Peter Pan and like not wanting to grow up. I don't think it's like an accident that you fly many times in this game. I think it is really aware of the Peter Pan syndrome that is kind of at the heart of the game. So, it is a game about nostalgia. Like it's not, I think at the very beginning, Griffin, you said, you know, this isn't the, here, you want Transformers, here's your Transformer slop, you little piggies.

• 55:45Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 55:46Chris Plante?

  We, yes, we're looking at the past, but we, we do actually want to think about how we think about the past, which is a, it's a different thing.

• 55:54Speaker 02

  I mean, to tie it all together, I spoke to Johnny Galvatron, who's the writer and director back at Dice, so back in February. And I asked him about, you know, why this kind of NorCal Portland setting? And he was like, well, I didn't go to America until I was in my 30s. And for an Australian who's from the outside looking in, America is like this fantasy land. And I was writing a fantasy story. So where else would you set it? Other than places like California and Portland? And I think that's. reframed how I approach mixtape because it's like it is a fantasy. It is a fantasy of these, you know, pieces of childhood that maybe someone would have had up part of it, maybe two things, but no one had this teenage life, you know, and so.

• 56:38Russ Frushtick?

  Right. I mean, look at the day that Ferris Bueller has.

• 56:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:41Russ Frushtick?

  Like, it's fucking crazy.

• 56:43Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, there's no way, man. Like, but I you watch Ferris Bueller and love it despite that. No one. This is what drives me crazy. I know I brought this up when we started talking about the game, but I really do feel like when a game like this comes out, it is part of this broader conversation. A lot of it's coming from people who are not approaching this shit in good faith, even remotely at all, which I understand that that is there. But I feel like people with these types of games have so much trouble with like, it's not representative of my own sort of experience and therefore like, who is this thing for? When it's like, this is, I really, this isn't representative. It's not, it's a cartoon, like, it's very, very cartoonishly sort of presented a lot of the time,

• 57:27Griffin McElroy?

  and it it uses the framing and it uses the the the insufferable tone of its characters sometimes, and it uses the music to like, tell a bigger thing about like, the moment that you stopped being a kid and the stuff that you've like rocked with for eighteen years is all of a sudden not as not as big a part of your life anymore, maybe gone entirely. And that's so, that's so universal. And it doesn't seem to be a gap that people struggle with in movies. Because people watch Ferris Bueller and no one's like, I don't even live in Chicago. It's like, fucking calm down, guys. I know it's bad form to talk about like, the the conversation or whatever, the the discourse.

• 58:06Russ Frushtick?

  I think it's worthy because if you look on Steam right now, like, there's a lot of downloads for, quite frankly, bullshit reasons, like.

• 58:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, right? And it's, it's, oh, man, that's, that shit is always frustrating, but it's, it's just, it's, it's embarrassing, man.

• 58:21Chris Plante?

  I want, I want, I want to wrap with a little splash of joy from each of us, which is, I would love to hear y'all's favorite, like, mini game, like playable moment from it.

• 58:33Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, it was mentioned earlier, but I think the BJ Thomas sequence in the rain where Stacy sees that Cass has lied to her about going out and spending time with Jenny fucking good speed. And then seeing that whole sequence play out in slow motion as she's like floating backwards. And there's a great beat in there where you're flying over the school and the song is playing. And there's, um, bus drivers are on the roofs of all the buses. Clapping, I don't know if it's in that sequence or one of the other ones, but that moment I thought was so fucking good.

• 59:06Chris Plante?

  Good stuff.

• 59:08Chris Plante?

  Yeah. Griffin, how about you?

• 59:10Griffin McElroy?

  That one's up there for me. I really, I love David Gray. His, his music I've enjoyed for a long time. And there's like an extended sequence where you're kind of like rebuilding. Or it's like a memory of you putting together the Ritz, which is their like derelict cabin in the woods hangout. That's like a few different things. Um, oh, fuck, no, it's the van, van trying to.

• 59:34Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, it's so fucking funny. Oh, I can't believe I forgot about it. Van and you are, you're, you're. The other two are like, hey, go in there and get us movies. He's like, I'm fucking super drunk. And they're like, please just do it. And you just stumble around and it, I don't know, if we describe it, it's not going to sound funny, but the execution is god.

• 59:51Chris Plante?

  You knock over everything.

• 59:52Griffin McElroy?

  You knock over everything and it's so funny. And you hear the warped voice of the cashier the whole time like.

• 59:59Griffin McElroy?

  Man, it's good.

• 1:00:01Speaker 02

  I feel like my answer is kind of basic because it's the very opening of the game, but going down the road to Devo. It's so good, but it's like, I, I forgot that when we were kids, we would yell car. And you know, even just that moment, like trying to do tricks and just, yeah, that is such a good Devo song too. It's become my top played of the year already.

• 1:00:22Griffin McElroy?

  Give a backup, Chris. I'm sorry. I took yours.

• 1:00:24Chris Plante?

  You check mine. I'll, I'll, bonus, the, the photo booth sequence, the flashback with Slater.

• 1:00:30Griffin McElroy?

  So good.

• 1:00:31Chris Plante?

  So good. And also I did not know that song, Witchy Title by Harper's Bazaar.

• 1:00:38Griffin McElroy?

  It's really good.

• 1:00:39Chris Plante?

  Who, it's real good. It's real good.

• 1:00:43Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, you mentioning the car thing made me think, I kept thinking about Wayne's World a lot, uh, while, while playing it. And Wayne's World obviously had that kind of like confessional style, like turn, break the fourth wall.

• 1:00:53Russ Frushtick?

  And the head banging.

• 1:00:55Griffin McElroy?

  And the head banging, but that's more, I would say like high fidelity sort of, uh. Butter. There's a lot of high fidelity in here, a lot. Yeah.

• 1:01:06Russ Frushtick?

  It's a good fucking game, man.

• 1:01:07Griffin McElroy?

  Good game. Really good. I hope a lot of people play it. Glad I played it. Uh, okay, that's really gonna do it. We've done all of our ending of show business, so we're probably just gonna wrap up. Lucy, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people find, uh, your work?

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me. I'm Lucy James Games on everything. You can find me avoiding discourse on it.

• 1:01:23Russ Frushtick?

  And you've got the Friends Per Second podcast, which is fantastic. Highly recommend it, uh, friends of the besties, certainly.

• 1:01:31Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, okay, we're not gonna do the rest of our shit. We're just gonna say, oh, wait, what's next week? Oh.

• 1:01:36Russ Frushtick?

  We're gonna play Forza Horizon 6 next week.

• 1:01:39Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:01:39Russ Frushtick?

  It's a car game.

• 1:01:42Chris Plante?

  We are coming so dangerously close to telling people what game we're playing right now.

• 1:01:48Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that's true. Uh, I'm excited to play Forza Horizon 6. The game we're talking about, ain't it, though? Keep chasing those clues, gumshoes. Uh, so join us next week for the automotive, uh, bit of revelry with, uh, with all of us. Uh, I mean, Lucy's not gonna be here. Lucy's gonna be doing other, uh, important stuff.

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  I'm with you emotionally.

• 1:02:08Griffin McElroy?

  Cars, man.

• 1:02:09Russ Frushtick?

  Thank you.

• 1:02:10Griffin McElroy?

  Good. I, and hopefully our listeners are as well. Thank you so much for listening to the besties. Keep on listening to the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends play the world's best games?

• 1:02:38Griffin McElroy?

  The Besties is executive produced by Justin McElroy. You're welcome.

• 1:02:45Speaker 04

  Besties.