Citizen Sleeper 2 Blends Game and Story Into One Complex Dish

We loved the original Citizen Sleeper, but were intimidated when we first heard the news of a sequel that would be more complicated — and presumably more difficult. Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector is just as complex as we expected and yet, once we got our feet beneath us, we couldn't stop playing. What makes a game difficult? Is it fun to lose? What does it mean to be “in the mood” for a game? We have the answers! Plus, Loco Motive — an extremely Justin McElroy game.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  So I'm, I got all my All Hallows' Steves here, and you guys know that they're all character actors named Steve, right?

• 0:08Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  But you guys can see on the camera, but I'm betting that you guys will be able to identify my All Hallows' Steves.

• 0:15Chris Plante?

  Can I play this game? Cause I know you're All Hallows' Steves.

• 0:17Speaker 00

  No, you obviously can't play this game.

• 0:19Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 0:19Russ Frushtick?

  And you, and you did already tell us some of them.

• 0:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, but if you could, but I wasn't like pointing at a specific cube.

• 0:26Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, okay.

• 0:26Chris Plante?

  So some things that I, we know you have, we know that you got Steven Yoon. Great choice. I think frankly.

• 0:32Speaker 00

  Well, we need to see. This is a cold open. We don't need to turn it into a full one act play. Listen.

• 0:37Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. Who is that?

• 0:38Chris Plante?

  Oh, I see the game.

• 0:40Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, I'm not playing this game.

• 0:43Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I don't want to play this game.

• 0:44Russ Frushtick?

  I don't want to play this game.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  That's Steven Yoon. That was a gimme. That's a, that's Steven Yoon.

• 0:47Chris Plante?

  That's beautiful. I don't, this bit is very visual.

• 0:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know. That's why it's a good cold open. Okay. So what about this one?

• 0:54Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 0:55Chris Plante?

  Okay. Steven Root or Steven Faw?

• 0:58Russ Frushtick?

  Wait, wait, wait. No, no, no. Steven Tobolowsky.

• 1:00Speaker 00

  Fuck yeah, Russ. You got it, buddy. You got it. You got it, dude.

• 1:03Russ Frushtick?

  Well, let me just say, for those that don't know, Steven Tobolowsky, he was Bing and Groundhog Day.

• 1:08Speaker 00

  That's the one. I mean, that's cool, but he's in everything good. He's also a great like storyteller. He's got a great podcast anyway.

• 1:14Russ Frushtick?

  It's interesting that you're mixing Steves and Stevens.

• 1:16Speaker 00

  Also, this is cold open. Nobody's hearing this.

• 1:18Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. Uh, that's Steven Root.

• 1:20Speaker 00

  Like pretty good for somebody who's like not good at art, like.

• 1:24Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:24Chris Plante?

  And these are little pumpkins that Justin's drawn.

• 1:27Speaker 00

  That's not important. This isn't in the podcast phase.

• 1:29Russ Frushtick?

  They're like stipple drawings. It's like.

• 1:30Speaker 00

  Who are you saying that to, Griffin? Everyone who will ever hear this is seeing it.

• 1:33Russ Frushtick?

  Profiles.

• 1:34Chris Plante?

  But the cold open is.

• 1:36Speaker 00

  Steve Jobs?

• 1:37Chris Plante?

  What?

• 1:38Russ Frushtick?

  That, I was gonna guess Steve Jobs. That was also my guess.

• 1:40Speaker 00

  Steve Jobs? That's not one of my favorite character actors.

• 1:45Speaker 00

  This is, I'll admit, this is from his later Silver Fox era. Okay. Does that help? It's from later.

• 1:51Russ Frushtick?

  I'm still guessing Steve Jobs.

• 1:52Speaker 00

  It's from later Silver Fox.

• 1:53Chris Plante?

  Steve Segal.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  No. Come on. Character actors named Steve. Later Silver Fox.

• 1:58Chris Plante?

  Steve Carell.

• 1:59Speaker 00

  There he is. You got him in the first guess.

• 2:01Chris Plante?

  Okay.

• 2:02Russ Frushtick?

  He doesn't have the hardest one. Oh, God.

• 2:06Speaker 00

  It's the hardest one, but if you did.

• 2:07Chris Plante?

  Justin's holding up a pumpkin with a really.

• 2:09Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so here's.

• 2:10Speaker 00

  Are you telling Griffin, this isn't in the podcast?

• 2:12Chris Plante?

  This is the first thing in the podcast.

• 2:14Speaker 00

  This is not in the podcast, Griffin. This is just scraps on the editing floor for Rachel might hear, but no one else. Okay, now.

• 2:21Russ Frushtick?

  Here's, here's what it looks like. You know that guy who's a ghost in Ghost and is teaching Patrick Swayze how to be a ghost?

• 2:27Chris Plante?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, that guy.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  Vincent something, but it's not, he's not a Steve.

• 2:33Chris Plante?

  Is it, is it Stephen King in?

• 2:38Speaker 00

  The best. This is the best number one. This is the best number one.

• 2:41Russ Frushtick?

  The best.

• 2:41Chris Plante?

  Steve Buscemi.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  There it is. You guys got all five of them. So like, can I ask a serious question now?

• 2:46Russ Frushtick?

  Should be bigger eyes.

• 2:47Speaker 00

  This wouldn't be in the podcast, but like, what do you guys think? How do you think of me as an artist or a drawer now?

• 2:55Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, on the future of Shami, I gotta say.

• 2:57Chris Plante?

  Five Steve faces? Pretty good.

• 3:00Russ Frushtick?

  Are we doing an average or are we doing?

• 3:01Speaker 00

  Griffin knows whether or not I'm a good drawer, so he can't base.

• 3:04Chris Plante?

  I've seen Justin do many drawings.

• 3:06Russ Frushtick?

  I would say hit or miss.

• 3:08Speaker 00

  I just wanna say, I'm just curious if you think I'm a good drawer.

• 3:11Russ Frushtick?

  Some of them great and some of them not so great.

• 3:14Chris Plante?

  Like a hobbyist.

• 3:15Speaker 00

  Okay, yeah, that's accurate. That's.

• 3:17Chris Plante?

  That's what he is.

• 3:17Speaker 00

  It's not.

• 3:18Russ Frushtick?

  Enthusiast, if you will.

• 3:19Speaker 00

  My bones. You wanna see how I make my bones?

• 3:22Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 3:23Speaker 00

  Here I go.

• 3:25Chris Plante?

  Oh shit, he's growing. Whoa.

• 3:26Speaker 00

  Oh God, Jack, I'm about to cast.

• 3:29Chris Plante?

  Juice, no.

• 3:31Chris Plante?

  Too bad they can't see that dance.

• 3:32Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's a shame.

• 3:51Speaker 00

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

• 3:54Chris Plante?

  My name is Griffin McElroy and I know the best game of the week. My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the best sequel of the week.

• 4:01Russ Frushtick?

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

• 4:04Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive intergamement. It is a video game club in actuality. And by listening to this podcast, you've joined our ranks. This week on the show, we're gonna be talking about a follow-up to a Besties fan favorite and Besties favorite, I guess, just Besties favorite overall, Citizen Sleeper 2. Chris Plant, what on earth is that?

• 4:32Chris Plante?

  Citizen Sleeper 2.

• 4:34Russ Frushtick?

  It's not on Earth.

• 4:36Chris Plante?

  It's not on this Earth. Sequel to a beloved sci-fi narrative game by Gareth Damien Martin. They are one of the more interesting designers out there. And I can't wait to talk about how this game blends tabletop with just incredible amounts of daring frustration. I say that largely is a good thing after the break.

• 5:00Griffin McElroy?

  We love, we love the first game.

• 5:02Speaker 00

  We did love the first game. If you missed that one, basically you're an android, well, a rigorous robot, right? There's no difference.

• 5:09Griffin McElroy?

  Well, you're a clone.

• 5:10Chris Plante?

  Well, it's confusing.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  You're a synthetic human. How's that? Synthetic human.

• 5:15Chris Plante?

  You're a consciousness in a robot body.

• 5:17Speaker 00

  There.

• 5:17Chris Plante?

  Yeah. In a robot body that's basically going to destruct if it does not maintain. And it is very expensive to maintain.

• 5:24Griffin McElroy?

  So you're doing jobs in gritty space stations in this sort of post-war galactic environment. And just basically getting by by the skin of your cyber teeth.

• 5:35Speaker 00

  Right? It's very much an experience about like balancing some resources, things that you can and, and what you can and can't do without and making like really hard choices, I think.

• 5:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  Not a lot of like getting comfortable. It's very much about like what sacrifice and it's very, it's very, very cool.

• 5:56Griffin McElroy?

  Mechanically, you have like a character sheet with like, you know, five stats that you have different scores in. And then you have different D6 dice rolls that you can do for different checks, which come with different sort of like danger ratings. And so like, it's a, it's a question of like, how much do I want to push this day? Cause I'm dying. So like, I need to make a little bit of money so I can afford my special robot medicine. That was basically Citizen Sleeper in a nutshell. Bunch of different endings, bunch of different stories, bunch of different ways that it could go. Very, very cool. Citizen Sleeper 2 seems to kind of blow the roof off. Blow the roof off the thing a little bit. Roof can be blown off in many ways, Griffin. Can you clarify how the, in what way the roof has been blown off?

• 6:38Griffin McElroy?

  That I would say the biggest differentiator between Citizen Sleeper, and this may have been like a component of Citizen Sleeper that I don't remember. I think you guys probably got a little deeper into it than I did. Now you have a ship with a crew and you go out on jobs and you basically have these little microcosmic experiences that are short, very fucking stressful, like encapsulations of the whole loop of the game. So you'll be going through the space station. It's like, oh my God, we need these special tubes for our ship before this guy catches up to us or we'll die. You can either just do a bunch of work around the space station and try to scrounge up enough money, or you can go out on a contract job

• 7:21Griffin McElroy?

  and have a little five day jaunt into the, the inky blackness of space that might not go, probably won't go great for you. But it adds all these different systems. You have like crew that get their own dice that you can spend. They have their own stats.

• 7:40Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, the first game was, as far as I remember, entirely based on a single space station. And this is, you've got like, there, you start on a large space station, you go on missions and then you'll go to other space stations. So it's much more mobile. And as Griffin said, those mini missions feel like a much more focused version of the entire game. Whereas I think in the first game, you would look at a screen and you'd have like 16 different options of places you could go. And I think by having these missions, it kind of narrows your focus into a few select options.

• 8:13Griffin McElroy?

  I'm way more into this game than I was the first one, for this very reason, because I feel like the first one, it got a little bit, after, I was, I was loving it, loving the story. The writing is like still insane, like so, so good, so, so, so top flight good. But I would have, like Russ said, like this huge map and it's like, man, it's another day where I'm gonna go fucking grind out some cryo. So I can afford to buy some food. So my dice aren't so shitty next time. Like there were all of these systems that it got a little bit samey for me. These missions really break it up, especially as you get further in the game where. Going out on missions is a necessary thing to avoid being caught by the people pursuing you.

• 8:57Griffin McElroy?

  It's a really, really cool way of handling the tempo of the game that doesn't make it feel like there is this doomsday clock that is counting down and I have to finish all my shit before it hits zero or I'm dead. Because now it's like, well, that doomsday clock's getting a little low, better get the heck out of Dodge for a little while. Like you have, it feels like you always have options to kind of like put time on the clock.

• 9:18Chris Plante?

  Yes, I think the ambition of the storytelling. Okay, so the first game, I think, is a game about like literally just getting by day to day in a really shitty world. And I think like the political metaphor there was like very obvious. It was a game largely about what it means to have to be effectively people who are doing jobs like an Uber driver, where it's like you are on commission, constantly working dollar to dollar in a system that like is being updated basically daily to take advantage and exploit you. And then you like ultimately can build a community and like that is your reprieve from that experience,

• 10:01Chris Plante?

  which is a great story and a very like, I think, personal one. I feel like where this game is going is something much bigger, which is how do you actually like go out into the world once you have created that stability for yourself and like start to actually create change and start to like work with other people. And I think that is harder to do. And what I think is incredible about this game is it captures that it's harder to do. And that's going to be the divisive thing about this is this game is, it's weird to say difficult, you will lose a lot in this game. But losing is kind of the point.

• 10:44Chris Plante?

  And I think that's going to be the hurdle that a lot of people run into. If you are the sort of person who goes into a game and you expect to feel the need to win, if you are a completionist and you expect to be able to see everything fairly, you will Have trouble with this game because the way that it uses loss is not like actually because you were necessarily bad at the game, but because it wants to create hills and valleys for the story.

• 11:10Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 11:10Chris Plante?

  There are times where you will lose because you did a poor job. There are times you'll lose because you were doomed from the beginning and you just didn't even know it. And that I think is um not common in video games.

• 11:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 11:24Russ Frushtick?

  I like, really love the writing in both games. I was put off in this case, and this might be something that clicks the more I play it, but I was put off in this case because it felt like the first games, the ratio of the first game was like 70% narrative, 30% doing like gamey stuff, picking dice and things like that.

• 11:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 11:46Russ Frushtick?

  And this feels like way more on the game side. I mean, there's still a ton of narrative, don't get me wrong, but I was kind of drowning in, you know, there's glitch dice and there's damage to your dice and there's stress to keep track of and there's the crew members to keep track of.

• 12:03Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 12:03Russ Frushtick?

  And I don't think the game does a very good job tutorializing a lot of that stuff to the point where like, I only real, like, at one point it says like, hey, your crew members have their own dice. And I'm like, oh, that's really helpful. Where is that indicated? And it's like in the corner of the screen to the point where I didn't even know I could use their dice until I had already fucked myself up so bad that I didn't have any actual dice. And it, I think I was just really struggling with the like onboarding of it. It got a little easier, but I still question whether the solution or the right thing for this game, which is so strong in narrative, is just like to add more interactive elements to it.

• 12:44Griffin McElroy?

  I feel that, I feel like the game, my experience with this game was I played it. I think the build we played when we first got the code was a little bit rough around the edges because I had the same experience as Russ where I hired a crew member. And then when I got to a mission that I had brought the crew member on, they weren't there for some rea, like there was some, but there's been an update and it's fine now.

• 13:03Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I had played recently, so I think it's the first, it's the latest build.

• 13:08Griffin McElroy?

  I started over though. After playing, because you can skip through all the text and get through pretty, pretty fast if you want to catch back up to where you were. Cause I, I wasn't enjoying like the class of there's three different types of sleeper you pick at the beginning that have like different special. I wasn't enjoying that, but mostly like, I didn't understand the economy of the game. There is certainly a pretty hard and fast economy of like, don't push it too. If you push it, if you go through the space station, just pushing it, making really risky rolls all the time, like you're gonna, it's gonna be bad. Sometimes you go to bed with a dice that you don't spend because like you don't want to run the risk of blowing up the drone that you're trying to dismantle. Or like X, X, Y, Z and hedging your bets is, is important. Sometimes that means like not going out on a job right away.

• 13:53Griffin McElroy?

  Sometimes that means saving up some money so you can buy extra supplies. So you have a little bit of extra time on the job. Like those things are not like, there's no way to know that stuff going into the game. And I think it's the kind of thing like Chris said, where you figure it out as you go along and you fuck up a lot at first and maybe it gets better. But I was not enjoying that. So I actually started over and had a much, much smoother ride, knowing kind of like, okay, I should not, I should not go so hard on this. And, and it has made the whole thing feel a whole lot less stressful. And I am enjoying the like different plates I'm kind of spinning and the different choices that it is sort of offering. Because you really do feel like the captain of a ship, making really tough choices all the time on how to keep your, your, you know, your crew afloat.

• 14:38Griffin McElroy?

  In a really hostile world.

• 14:40Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I'll, I'll dig into fresh what you were saying about there just being more of the game. I think that's right. What they're going for here is the game and the story being one in the same. So that means when you need to literally just get through large chunks of text, there are checks throughout it. Where you are going to pass or fail. And again, you don't have control on it. It is based off of the stats of those roles. When you are deciding where even to go in the solar system, you need to earn or buy fuel and rations. That allow you to actually have turns once you get there.

• 15:20Chris Plante?

  And before you even do that, you have to decide, do I want to leave right now? Or should I get some stuff done here and get the person who's chasing me to get a little closer to my current destination? Before I zip off to the next one.

• 15:37Chris Plante?

  Gameplay decision you're doing is also directly tied with the story that's being told. Which I, I think this is like, it is an art game and the way an art movie is difficult. And that I'm like, really, I'm really into intellectually. And it's working for me again as a player. I just really don't know how big the audience is for this game. And that's not really my problem. But the challenge with the thing that I'm describing where you connect the game, play in the story so closely, is that feeling of loss of being cheated out of the like best possible storyline.

• 16:18Chris Plante?

  When that is what you're accustomed to, I just, I continue to think is going to be very jarring for many people. The good thing is the Gareth Martin, the writer of this game, they, they do make you feel good, even when things go wrong. Like there is a richness to the story, even when things fail and go topsy turvy. And I think if you can switch your brain to embrace that and just see wherever the kind of like the river takes you, it's such a great and compelling sci fi story. It really is, yeah. But again, it is a big ask and I'm not surprised, Fresh, I know that you were, it was like kind of rocky road.

• 17:03Russ Frushtick?

  I honestly think it's a tutorialization issue.

• 17:05Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 17:06Russ Frushtick?

  I think, I think it's two things. I think one, it's a tutorialization issue. Like if I'd started from scratch as Griffin did, I'm sure I would do better. I got into a situation where I literally had like two dice. And so I would roll twice and then have to sleep again and roll twice and sleep again. And that fucking sucks. Like that is a miserable experience.

• 17:23Chris Plante?

  Something went really wrong, yeah.

• 17:24Russ Frushtick?

  Adding in the fact that I was playing on controller. And just like the first game, the controller support while there is not very good in this game. It just isn't. It should be played on a mouse and keyboard. I would strongly recommend playing on a mouse and keyboard.

• 17:41Chris Plante?

  It works on Mac on the, the current processors, so.

• 17:45Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I'm sure. There are a number of ways you could play it. Otherwise, I'm bummed because it was a critique I had of the first game. And I think there are probably solutions like a virtual reticle or something like that that would have made controller support a little more cogent. But

• 18:00Griffin McElroy?

  It's doable. I'm playing it on Steam Deck.

• 18:02Russ Frushtick?

  It's doable.

• 18:03Griffin McElroy?

  I have not had the, I would say the worst thing about it is like all of the UI elements are kind of free floating around on the screen. So you're not, when you press left on the D-pad, you're never quite sure which way it's actually gonna go.

• 18:13Russ Frushtick?

  It needed like a Destiny style thing that you could move around the screen to act as your whatever. I mean, there are moments where like, I was like, okay, I need to go on this mission. I just accepted the mission. I'm gonna go on it. I have no fucking idea where this mission is. I have it, I have it marked in my journal.

• 18:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 18:32Russ Frushtick?

  And then finding the map button to like shut, like took me 20 minutes.

• 18:37Griffin McElroy?

  Jumping to the, there's two different maps and the only way that you know that is by press, there's a little tiny indicator at the top of the map that says if you press Y, it'll go to like the, you know, system map, which I did not know. I was like, man, where the fuck does this guy want me to go? What the fuck is flotsam? What are they talking about?

• 18:54Chris Plante?

  Funny, this is, the game is so clearly based on tabletop games and you were describing my experience of playing every tabletop game for the first time where I'm like, oh, sorry, what? Oh, oh, I gotta, I gotta go back and read the entire.

• 19:06Russ Frushtick?

  It just feels like they got a little ahead of themselves in like going in deep with all the new functionality and features of the gameplay. That they didn't do the baseline of like, oh, you have to go to the map and do this and do this to like really walk you by, by the nose.

• 19:20Griffin McElroy?

  Juice, how are you feeling about it? Have you, because I know you were really into the first one.

• 19:25Speaker 00

  No, I did such a good job. I did such a good job of not saying anything.

• 19:30Griffin McElroy?

  Okay. Do you want to continue that streak?

• 19:33Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 19:34Speaker 00

  Can I be honest with you guys? I, I turned it on and I played for one minute and I was like, I can't, I'm not in a place where I could engage with this much.

• 19:46Speaker 00

  It's a lot. It's a lot.

• 19:47Griffin McElroy?

  Reading?

• 19:48Speaker 00

  My, yeah.

• 19:48Griffin McElroy?

  It's reading.

• 19:49Speaker 00

  I was like.

• 19:50Griffin McElroy?

  It's like learn, it's.

• 19:51Speaker 00

  Guys, I'll be honest, my brain's been moving really fast lately and I couldn't slow it down enough to, to do what this game, to meet this game where it needed me to meet it. And listen, this is from, and I didn't say anything because like, this is from someone who played the entirety of the first game. This is a hundred percent just where I'm at right now, but it is just not, just not where I was at. I just couldn't, couldn't get into it. I couldn't engage with it.

• 20:16Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I had a tough time as well. Like, like, end of the day, thirty minutes before bed kind of thing. I was like, how am I gonna download all this information?

• 20:25Speaker 00

  I spent a lot of like, it's also been a lot of like, where, um, uh, it's been a lot of like stealing time for games. And when it's like those short windows, it's like really hard to like, get into a groove with something like this. But I, I will probably play it at some point, but this is not that point.

• 20:42Griffin McElroy?

  I know that you do, you know, lots of travel for work and stuff. I played this on a plane and that was the best possible place. And I got a peek into why people get like games like Civ, where once you do learn the rules, you're just like. Oh, one more turn for sure. Yeah. It's a bit like, oh my gosh, the one more turn of it is. It's got its hooks in me from an art, like a RPG perspective, which I was not really expecting from this game. Like, I know technically, I guess that is the genre. There, you have a fucking character sheet or whatever. But the, those elements were so light in the first game that I didn't feel like, oh, I'm putting a, I'm putting a thing together that's my own. Because this game is based around like, having your ship and making choices about who lives on your ship and what jobs you go on

• 21:24Griffin McElroy?

  and how you prioritize it and, uh, how well you take care of yourself. Or like, all of those choices I'm making really do make it feel like, this is my thing, like this is my thing. And I know that the first game had like branching storylines that was sort of designed to have that experience, but like. I am, I am finding it extremely compelling to like, just manage a, manage a little crew of plucky, independent space contractors, uh, right now, which I was, I really did not think this game was gonna give to me.

• 21:56Speaker 00

  You might go back and try that first game again, Griff, if, if you, if you sort of are like into the groove of this, because it was, I've forgotten, I think it was on the last episode when we were talking about this. I think I had forgotten or, or conflated it with another game, but like, I had played a lot of the first Citizen Sleeper. Um, I really liked it. And I, I will look forward to playing this one.

• 22:19Griffin McElroy?

  Is this, is it, Chris, you might be the best one to answer this. Is this a continuation of Citizen Sleeper 1? In my trying to figure this out, like, I didn't want to spoil Citizen Sleeper 1 for myself, because I do want to go back and finish it sometime.

• 22:33Speaker 00

  Can you?

• 22:34Griffin McElroy?

  But.

• 22:34Speaker 00

  I don't think you can. I mean, it's.

• 22:36Griffin McElroy?

  No, I mean, it's not like Quest for Glory where you bring your, it's not the same character. Okay.

• 22:39Chris Plante?

  Not the same character, from what, I don't remember a lot.

• 22:43Griffin McElroy?

  I know there's a lot of endings to Citizen Sleeper, right?

• 22:45Speaker 00

  That's what I'm saying. That's what I was saying. I didn't feel like you could spoil it, like.

• 22:48Russ Frushtick?

  I, my understanding is this is just in the same universe and uses the same like logic.

• 22:53Griffin McElroy?

  The game starts with an insomnia, or not an insomnia, amnesia, uh, sort of, uh.

• 22:58Russ Frushtick?

  Which is typical, like, that's sort of the background of like, that character, the sleepers.

• 23:03Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 23:03Russ Frushtick?

  All are like clones of actual people that have to like, work for those people before they can wake up and.

• 23:09Griffin McElroy?

  Awesome.

• 23:10Russ Frushtick?

  Whatever.

• 23:10Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 23:11Russ Frushtick?

  So, yeah, no, I, I don't think it's a direct continuation of anything.

• 23:16Russ Frushtick?

  Definitely worth playing the original one. If you like the writing and you like the story. Again, it's not gonna have the like, deep gameplay stuff you were just talking about, but, uh, I personally found that more approachable, yeah.

• 23:27Speaker 00

  Cool, cool.

• 23:28Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, cool, cool. Interesting game. Uh, I think it's gonna click with a very select group of people, uh, in a really hard way. Yes.

• 23:37Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 23:38Speaker 00

  Movers and shakers. Uh, let's take a quick break, and when we come back, uh, I have a brief recommendation for a, uh, a new adventure game, if you have a thirst for adventure.

• 23:50Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:53Speaker 00

  I call it the ungooglable game. Locomotive on Steam. Search for it all you like. Search Locomotive. I'll just search Steam Locomotive. Just search Steam Locomotive as I have so many times before. And be thrilled.

• 24:10Russ Frushtick?

  Google expert, I wrote Locomotive Adventure Game and it did pop up immediately.

• 24:14Speaker 00

  Wow. Okay, so. Pro over here. This is from a first time developer called Robust Games. Um, and Locomotive is, uh, in many ways, pretty classic. This came out in November, uh, so it's, we're a little bit, uh, on and on in years. But it's not like this is a multiplayer first person shooter. You'll be fine to return to it. But it is, uh, very much that old school, sort of like Ron Gilbert, Data Technical era, uh, look of adventure games, uh, pointing and clicking and finding, you know, the, the items in the inventory. Um, this is a very, a lot of games like this really live and die by their dialogue.

• 24:57Speaker 00

  Um, and this is a pretty snappily written one. You, uh, start the game, you have three different characters that you play actually, but you start the game as the lawyer to an heiress who is about to announce, uh, make a big announcement when she is murdered moments before you could reveal or peruse her last will and testimony. Um, and she's murdered under strange circumstances. So what you learn at the beginning of the game is that there are three suspects for the murder. And in the game, you are playing as the suspects to the murderer as you're relaying the story to the police, right? So you are, the lawyer has been brought in for questioning. There's huge suspicion on him.

• 25:42Speaker 00

  He is telling the police what happened and that's sort of the framing device for you being on this train where the murder happened. Uh, and.

• 25:51Russ Frushtick?

  It's like a Rashomon kind of thing.

• 25:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 25:53Russ Frushtick?

  Everyone's telling their own angle of the story.

• 25:55Speaker 00

  For sure. And you definitely.

• 25:56Russ Frushtick?

  Right, Chris Plant Rashomon?

• 25:57Speaker 00

  There you go. Um. Great, here's your biscuit, Russ.

• 26:04Speaker 00

  Don't feel bad, don't feel bad sometimes. Play it. They say that a Japanese RPG has waffles in it. Then look at me like, right? Waffles?

• 26:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a, uh. Sorry. So this murder happens and you are trying to like, uh, retell the events of the murder. But it is that thing, Russ, where the, you could tell that the narrative is being shaped by the telling. Like there is sort of a, an unreliable narrator aspect to this.

• 26:30Russ Frushtick?

  Which you don't see a lot in video games. It's like kind of untouched territory. You don't see that.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  I think it's a neat way of introducing a kind of meta element to it, right? Because the, this genre is so explicitly gamy that I feel like not running from that. And rather kind of like hanging a hat on the artifice of it. Like there, there is certainly like a disbelief from the police that like you. So you may, you replicated the cocktail with some petals you found on the ground and some mouthwash. And then, right? So that is, uh, it's really the, the, the, this dialogue is very snappily written. It is a great looking game. If you like this era, like the, the sprites are very lushly animated. It's pretty relaxing to spend most of it on a train.

• 27:18Russ Frushtick?

  It's got that like CRT, like low res.

• 27:20Speaker 00

  Little bit of scan line, I think, at least. And then the way it's framed, it's like the top and bottom of your screen is almost always landscape. Like going by, cause you're always on this like moving train. So it makes it very sort of like relaxing, uh, uh, experience. I also like for someone who the biggest problem I always have with games like this is like backtracking. And like, when you know exactly where you need to go on, in this game, it's just one line. You've got to go one end to the other. That's it. There's only so many ways. Yeah. It is funny though, how like the, the size of the train has a little bit of like a TARDIS element to it.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  Where like when you open doors, they'll be like, wow, this does not, this should not be on the train anywhere.

• 28:08Russ Frushtick?

  Way too wide.

• 28:09Speaker 00

  What? Yes. It's like, this is like 20 feet deep. Like where is this room? It's very cute. It's very well written. Uh, it looks great. It's called Locomotive.

• 28:18Russ Frushtick?

  Is it, is it voiceover or is it just?

• 28:20Speaker 00

  Okay. So that, sorry. Yes. Thank you, Russ. I'm glad you said that. It is voiceover. And that is one of the other like. Big recommendations I can make for it. The cast, it does a great job. I searched for locomotive cast and it just castings for pieces of locomotives. So you can't actually find this information either, but the cast does a great job. It's fully voiced. Um, let me see if I can, I can't imagine.

• 28:47Russ Frushtick?

  I always wonder, cause like there are definitely times where having stuff like this, especially from this era, that level of humor, having it voiced over kinda diminishes it, but I guess that has everything to do with the performances themselves.

• 28:59Speaker 00

  They're really good. Like they're, everyone's really like leaning in and doing, doing really fun stuff. And your character, the lawyer is, uh, just like I said, one of the characters, there's also like a, uh, Sherlock Holmes style Hercule Poirot style detective who really doesn't know what he's doing. And that, that's another one, but like, like I said, super well-written, funny, well-done. It's, it's great. It's called Locomotive. I'd check it. Where are you? Totally out.

• 29:31Griffin McElroy?

  Um, it looks so good. It looks, it really, they have captured that.

• 29:35Speaker 00

  Eighteen bucks. Buy on Steam.

• 29:39Griffin McElroy?

  Do I send that directly to you or?

• 29:40Speaker 00

  Yes, I am selling the game.

• 29:43Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, that's cool, man.

• 29:44Speaker 00

  It's bootlegs. I'm selling bootlegs.

• 29:47Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, do we wanna do some honorable?

• 29:49Speaker 00

  Do you need a cracked ROM? Leave this in, Rachel. If you need any cracked ROM of this game, I can freak you a cracked ROM of this game. You send me eighteen dollars. I'll gift it to you on Steam.

• 30:03Russ Frushtick?

  How many floppy disks does it come in?

• 30:05Griffin McElroy?

  Fully free.

• 30:06Russ Frushtick?

  Seventy-six floppy disks.

• 30:07Speaker 00

  I will give, for eighteen dollars, I will give you a fully cracked version of Locomotive on Steam.

• 30:15Griffin McElroy?

  Um, honorable mentions? I got a dooser.

• 30:19Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:19Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, man, jump in.

• 30:21Speaker 00

  Have you guys?

• 30:21Speaker 00

  Do you need to take a break so you can go to the restroom, Griffin?

• 30:24Griffin McElroy?

  No, it's not a poopy dooser. It's a game dooser. Have you guys played The Root Trees Are Dead? The root trees are dead.

• 30:34Russ Frushtick?

  So I recommended this to you guys, but only through a secondhand because friends of the show, Jason Schreier and Kirk Hamilton were raving about it.

• 30:42Griffin McElroy?

  Fuck, it's so good, y'all. It is a in the, and they're again.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  Todd Russ, can I say, it makes me mad when you nail us with a recommendation. What really makes me mad is when you nail us with a recommendation in a game you have not played. It's like, it's rude at this point. It's like, ah, here, one man's trash, et cetera. Here you go. This one's for you.

• 31:04Russ Frushtick?

  Sure, it's lovely.

• 31:05Griffin McElroy?

  It is a mystery game in the vein of, you know, an Obedin. Uh, there's, there's actually quite a few similarities, I would say. I know that we use that as a touchstone a lot. This is a game where you are basically a genealogist, putting together the whole sprawling family tree of the root tree family who, uh, are these generational candy, uh, like empire runners. And you have to basically put together the family tree of the root trees, starting from, you know, the first generation that founded the company back in the 19th century,

• 31:49Griffin McElroy?

  all the way to the current generation. Uh, the main sort of root tree family has just died in a plane crash. And so you have been hired by some shadowy person to fill out this family tree. Each entry on the family tree is, uh, there's a picture that you can put up there, a name and an occupation. Uh, and then of course, like how they fit into the family tree, who they're married to, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, and you get that stuff by getting on your computer and using a search engine or a number of search engines. One is basically like Google. One is a public library search. One is a periodicals, uh, search. So like using those different things, you have to put together this family tree

• 32:32Griffin McElroy?

  and you do that basically like swinging from vine to vine, right? If you use the Google, if you use the fake search engine, you can find stuff on the most. Most famous root trees, right?

• 32:43Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 32:44Griffin McElroy?

  You can find stuff on the, on the, the one that went off to Hollywood to become a starlet, or the one who was the founder of the company, or the one who became a famous author, right? But it's not going to turn up much else, because most other people don't actually have a Google listing. So for that, you might find something in the author's diary that got published that will lead you to another name that, and maybe they're an author too, and they wrote a book. Now you're going to the periodical section and you're typing, you're searching for that, and maybe that gives you more evidence. The whole thing is so slick and so, it is compelling in a way where you don't want to put it down, because one, it's immensely satisfying to fill out the family tree. They do the Obradin thing, where they confirm things in groups of three,

• 33:26Griffin McElroy?

  so you can't just like guess a bunch of shit. And whenever you lock in three names, three pictures, three occupations, it feels so good. It feels very, very satisfying. And the game doles out evidence to you in a steady drip. But you will have these breakthrough moments, where you get a lot of evidence all at once. And it's like, well, I'm going to be playing for another three out. Like, I can't stop playing now. I have momentum. If I stop now and come back, like, I'm not going to have this momentum. Because right now, I'm trying to put together the order of succession of the president role of this family candy company.

• 34:04Griffin McElroy?

  It's, it's really, really, really well designed, with a lot of really good sort of streamlined quality of life integration. You have a journal that you can fill out automatically by just like highlighting something you see on a Google search result, and then it adds it to your own personal journal, so you can like go back and look through it later. It adds little numbers on each piece of evidence you have, that basically like indicate how many more clues there are in that piece of evidence that you haven't discovered. They just, they have a lot of stuff in the game to make the process of filling out this family tree very, very doable. And once you get, once that boulder starts rolling, man, there is, there is just no stopping it. So it's called The Root. The Root Trees Are Dead.

• 34:49Russ Frushtick?

  I guess this is another UI RPG.

• 34:51Griffin McElroy?

  Um, no, not RPG, I don't think, because there's no like-

• 34:54Russ Frushtick?

  No, but that was the genre we came up with for these games where you're on a computer doing things.

• 34:58Griffin McElroy?

  Well, this is, I, it looks like it-

• 35:01Speaker 00

  It takes place outside of the UI also, right?

• 35:03Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, you hop around, basically. You have like an office and so you have like an evidence desk and then you have, you know, the cork board with the family tree on it and then you have all, you know, your, your computer with the different search engines on it. And sometimes someone like comes to your front door and is like, hey, here, check out this picture.

• 35:21Griffin McElroy?

  And it's, it's, I don't know, man, it slots into this genre that I adore so much, just so cleanly and is so clever and throws little twists and red herrings at you that you don't expect. And I think, I think anyone on this call would enjoy it. And I think anyone who enjoys sort of like mystery games would, would definitely get in on it.

• 35:44Speaker 00

  Some of us may have bought it while we've been talking.

• 35:48Griffin McElroy?

  Have we talked about Severance season two? Yeah. I don't know if that's the type of thing.

• 35:52Russ Frushtick?

  We're, we're, we can, here's the thing, we're not allowed to talk about it because I still haven't seen season one and I want to.

• 35:59Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, okay. Well, that's ridiculous. I'm not going to not talk about the show because you didn't watch it.

• 36:04Speaker 00

  Do you know how many times the second season has been delayed? You didn't want to.

• 36:08Griffin McElroy?

  There were so, you had so much time.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  Didn't want to.

• 36:11Russ Frushtick?

  I do, I have wanted.

• 36:13Griffin McElroy?

  We don't have to spoil it.

• 36:14Speaker 00

  What is want?

• 36:14Griffin McElroy?

  They wrote a big check at the end of season one that in the intervening years, I was like, no fucking way are they gonna cash that check? And in the first two episodes, cha-ching!

• 36:25Speaker 00

  It's all cashed. It's all cashing.

• 36:27Griffin McElroy?

  Fucking hot as hell TV that I can't stop thinking about.

• 36:31Speaker 00

  Here's what I'll say about Severance. This is my personal take after watching those first two episodes, speaking in the broadest of generalities. A lot of shows that are really brainy get mad when people focus on mythology.

• 36:45Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, sure.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  And they're like, it's not about, you guys are getting hung up on all that stuff. It's not about that. It's about the themes. Like, forget all mythology and they will narratively sweep a lot of that aside so they can, you know what I'm saying?

• 36:57Russ Frushtick?

  Lost. Yeah.

• 36:59Speaker 00

  Lost is so the problem that it's almost weird to use it as an example.

• 37:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 37:05Speaker 00

  The bad house was built by Lost and then everyone else had rooms in it. But anyway, this show in the second season instead like leans fully into what it was doing. Like it knew it did not catch you by them by surprise that you got hooked on the elements of the show that you got hooked on. It is very much like entertaining, like intentionally it's trying to be.

• 37:29Russ Frushtick?

  So if I have a choice between watching the beginning of Severance or From, where am I, where should I go?

• 37:34Griffin McElroy?

  Severance or From Juice, what's the?

• 37:35Speaker 00

  From, I mean From's.

• 37:39Speaker 00

  From's only three seasons, dude, like do From, and I know you don't want to watch Severance because you would have. So you might as well watch From.

• 37:47Chris Plante?

  The answer is neither. You should be watching Paradise.

• 37:51Speaker 00

  Okay, how is that?

• 37:52Chris Plante?

  Paradise is the new From.

• 37:53Speaker 00

  Is that good? Is Paradise the new From?

• 37:56Chris Plante?

  I haven't watched it, but like calling a shot for games for fresh, I am calling a shot for TV for you. You will watch Paradise and you will say, whoa, whoa, whooga, this is my new love. I need everybody to go watch Paradise. I guarantee.

• 38:11Russ Frushtick?

  What is Paradise?

• 38:12Chris Plante?

  Paradise is Dan Fogelman, the person who created This Is Us is like, I'm going to bring all of that skill to get people, you know, like hooked on my stuff. And I'm going to make a show that's about like, I don't know, maybe space aliens and AI and the president gets killed. And the president's played by the dude from the Sonic movies.

• 38:32Speaker 00

  I just want Dan Fogelman to work with Dan Fogelman. I would like to make a recommend.

• 38:37Russ Frushtick?

  That was not a good pitch, Chris Plan. I am not enticed.

• 38:40Chris Plante?

  It's not for you, it's for Justin.

• 38:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:43Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, I thought you were calling a shot for me.

• 38:45Speaker 00

  He doesn't know, he hasn't watched it.

• 38:46Chris Plante?

  If I want to call a shot for you, I'd be like.

• 38:49Griffin McElroy?

  Yogurt.

• 38:49Chris Plante?

  Some movie that I watched with my friends. I had never heard of it. It's called Beauty and the Beast. Has anybody watched that one before?

• 38:56Russ Frushtick?

  Here's the thing, Justin said yogurt and that fucking was right on.

• 39:00Griffin McElroy?

  Actually, if you have a line on some new. I leveled him with a single word.

• 39:05Speaker 00

  I would like to, last week, we talked about the SNL documentary that's on Peacock. This week, I would like to recommend to you, because I just saw it added to the Netflix platform, the movie Saturday Night, which is a dramatization of the 90 minutes before the premiere of the first Saturday Night Live. Yep. It's a very, I think, I think it's a fascinating piece. I think it's really, really interesting. I don't feel like, I have read so much, this is not like bragging, I'm a broken person.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  Like, I've read so much about this, like, era and this time period and these events and stuff like, not a lot of it was particularly, like, surprising to me. But the movie has a spirit that seems to be in conversation with, like, Saturday Night Live, the show, there is a, like, movement to it, there is a little bit of a silliness, there is a, uh, almost a sketch kind of nature to a lot of the scenes, like, they feel like- It feels heightened. What? It feels heightened? Heightened, that's a really, uh, heightened, and it is very propulsive. Like, you are feeling like the drums, you're feeling like, uh, the, the band warming up.

• 40:29Speaker 00

  There is a great metaphor of the set designer who, going back and rereading a lot of these anecdotes about this, like, how many of them were not just, like,

• 40:41Speaker 00

  true, but verbatim based on articles or like people's recollections. But there is a great metaphor where the, the set designer who had won a Tony, before he started working this, was laying bricks for the stage, like, as people were filing in to watch the premiere, he was still, like, laying bricks for the stage for them to do the monologue on, like, out, out front, like, it was, it was coming in that hot. There's a lot of really- Great impressions, which it also feels like kind of a weird way in which it is meta in conversation with SNL, LeVron Morris, who is not related to Garrett Morris, does an incredible Garrett Morris.

• 41:26Speaker 00

  Very predictably. From Secession, Nicholas, help me.

• 41:31Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, the tall one.

• 41:32Speaker 00

  Nicholas Holt. Doing Jim Henson and Andy Kaufman? Yes. Does both.

• 41:39Russ Frushtick?

  It's just lose the beard. You're set.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  It's really, I don't, it's, okay, here's what I'll say though, like, I think it hangs together as a movie. I think it's fascinating to watch, but a lot of it is that, like, when you're excited about a movie's casting and you're just kind of curious how they'll do something, or like, you want to see what the Billy Crystal's gonna be, that kind of deal. Yeah. It's really fascinating to watch. It's a, it's a very unique film that could only be sort of like about this exact moment, but I thought it was really fascinating as a companion piece to the, the rest of it. I thought it was really interesting. Also, Chevy Chase, upon watching it with the director, Jason Reitman, told Jason Reitman, "You should be ashamed of yourself," and walked out of the room.

• 42:26Speaker 00

  Awesome. That's how you know it's a pretty good movie, is that Chevy Chase thought it sucked.

• 42:34Russ Frushtick?

  Right on. That, that sounds cool. I'll watch that. I had been playing a little more Heroes of Hammerwatch 2.

• 42:42Speaker 00

  Oh, boy.

• 42:43Russ Frushtick?

  Which just continues to be very good. They're continuing to patch it quite a bit, which is good to see. But just the, the satisfaction of like leveling up a character, getting them through an entire run, and then using that momentum to get a new character up through an entire run. It just gets quicker and quicker and quicker to the point where I can like get a level one character almost through the entire story because of the gear and the things that I've unlocked on the other characters, which I think is something that is like really missing from Diablo. I know there are elements of that in Diablo, but that aspect in particular, I think, is just really satisfying and, and great. I've also been playing more Pokemon Snap.

• 43:25Russ Frushtick?

  Now, I hadn't really mentioned it, but I will say this. I'm not really someone that uses guides when I'm playing games. This is new information to me. Yeah, I haven't really conveyed that. I did hit a breaking point, and here it is. I didn't know this about myself, but it turns out when your son is screaming his head off at you because you are unable to wake up Lugia. Yeah. You will look up a fucking god. That is the breaking point. I was like, oh, my god, I've tried everything. And I tried the argument of, well, sometimes Lugia just doesn't want to wake up. Fucking bullshit. He was not having that. No. And you know what? It was worth it. I'm glad I did.

• 44:08Russ Frushtick?

  Saved me a lot of effort and heartache, and that game continues to rule for both little kids and kids at heart.

• 44:17Chris Plante?

  I saw the new film by Naoko Yamada, or Yamada. Did any of you see A Silent Voice?

• 44:26Russ Frushtick?

  No.

• 44:26Chris Plante?

  Are you aware of this? Silent Voice came out in, I think, 2016. It's like a very, I don't know, famous anime film. But the new one, The Colors Within, is about a young woman in high school who basically has synesthesia, which is to say she sees colors expressed in ways that are like not quite literally visual. In this case, she sees basically kind of auras around people. So like, oh, you're blue, or you're green, or people carry different colors. And she's very quiet and a bit of an outsider. So far, it feels like many anime stories. She finds another young woman, another young man. They form a band.

• 45:07Chris Plante?

  Again, all of this pretty by-the-books story that you would see in a lot of animes, maybe one music anime like this a season. The big difference is, as a movie, it is structured like...

• 45:23Chris Plante?

  Like the most quiet type of A24 indie movie. It is really, really, really delicate and not presented like with all the bombast that you would see in a typical anime series. It is quiet in a way that honestly, I mentioned A24, that I don't even think they would make a movie this quiet and patient and delicate. And it all builds to A Huge Risk, which is a big music number. And considering the movie is so quiet, this music number, it has to nail it. And let me tell you, wow, the music in this film is fucking incredible. It is so good.

• 46:04Chris Plante?

  So if you're the sort of person who enjoys kind of a slow, very sweet, honestly, very wintery, cozy movie, perfect for this season, I really recommend checking it out. It probably works just as well on a TV, but I'll be honest, if you can see it in the theater where it's playing right now, that would be great because once the music kicks in, it is loud and it feels like being at a concert and it is just a, I found it like a deeply moving experience. So yeah, I recommend people check it out. Sick. Cool. That's it, right? We did it.

• 46:41Speaker 00

  Nice. Good job, guys. Proud of you.

• 46:43Chris Plante?

  Proud of us.

• 46:45Speaker 00

  Really proud, actually.

• 46:47Russ Frushtick?

  Point, you want to recap what we discussed?

• 46:50Chris Plante?

  Oh, boy. What at all did we discuss this week? We discussed Citizen Sleeper 2. We discussed Locomotive. We talked about New Pokemon Snap, Heroes of Hammer Watch 2, The Root Trees Are Dead, Severance, Season 2, Saturday Night, The Film, which I believe is streaming on Hulu? Is that what you said?

• 47:12Speaker 00

  Uh, Netflix.

• 47:13Chris Plante?

  Netflix. And The Colors Within, which is being presented by G Kids, which means it's out in theaters right now. My guess is it will be on Crunchyroll or VOD sometime soon.

• 47:26Russ Frushtick?

  And I know it wasn't in the episode, but if you want to see some of Justin's art, you can go over to besties.fan and sign up for the newsletter. We'll have a photo of his, what were they called again? Something Steves?

• 47:37Speaker 00

  All Hallows' Steves.

• 47:38Russ Frushtick?

  All Hallows' Steves. But it wasn't in the episode, but you'll have to just see the photo.

• 47:43Speaker 00

  Why would you send that to people? I don't even know why you bring this up.

• 47:45Russ Frushtick?

  I apologize. We also want to thank people over at the Patreon, patreon.com/thesties. You can gift a membership if you want to, patreon.com/thesties/gift. But we want to thank some members. We have Alan, we have Ty, we have Victoria, and we have Rue, child of Kanga. Thank you for being patrons of the besties. Thank you all for supporting the show. We have a new bracket episode coming to you just in a couple of days after this airs. So keep an eye out for that. It is a fun one. What are we doing next week? I know, maybe I should just say. Yeah, you should just say, "I ask questions, you know the answer to them."

• 48:28Russ Frushtick?

  I know. I thought it'd be more dynamic that way. We're gonna be playing a game called Ender Magnolia, which is a sequel to Enderlilies, which was a very cool metroidvania that came out a couple of years ago. And Ender Magnolia is, yeah, the follow-up to that. Looks very neat.

• 48:44Speaker 00

  Cool.

• 48:45Russ Frushtick?

  So we'll be doing that next week.

• 48:47Speaker 00

  Cool. All right. Well, that is gonna do it for us this week. Until next time, my name is Justin McElroy. Be sure to join us again next week for the besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games?