Stardew Valley vs. Fields of Mistria? Everybody Wins

Fields of Mistria has finally hit 1.0 after a couple of years in Early Access on Steam. Does the “official” release rise to the level of Stardew Valley? Or is this anime-inspired small town simulator doing something different? And is 1.0 just a new beginning? We discuss all of that and the hot new handheld!

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

• 0:00Russ Frushtick?

  I want to be clear, this is not a sex thing.

• 0:02Chris Plante?

  Oh, okay.

• 0:03Griffin McElroy?

  I

• 0:04Chris Plante?

  I always assume it's not a sex thing with you.

• 0:06Russ Frushtick?

  But I want to be very, very clear that it's not.

• 0:09Griffin McElroy?

  I'm glad, don't get me wrong, glad to hear it.

• 0:11Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 0:11Griffin McElroy?

  Stoked.

• 0:13Russ Frushtick?

  I do want to marry Dozy the dog in Fields of Mistria. And I'm worried that it might not be supported, but it's not a sex thing. It's more a life partnership thing.

• 0:22Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 0:22Russ Frushtick?

  And I just want to be really clear on that.

• 0:24Griffin McElroy?

  No, I'm so glad you clarified that it's not a sex thing on that one. You do want to marry, you said you want to marry the dog in Fields of Mistria.

• 0:34Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 0:34Griffin McElroy?

  Why not the chicken?

• 0:36Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, just, I don't know, not my type.

• 0:40Chris Plante?

  Is it because you want like cheaper visits to the bath house? Is it because?

• 0:46Russ Frushtick?

  It's not, it's not all transactional with me, Chris Plant. I want a life partner. And I think Dozy the dog is the perfect life partner.

• 0:55Griffin McElroy?

  Well, it's all, it's all make believe, huh?

• 0:57Russ Frushtick?

  Is it?

• 0:58Griffin McElroy?

  So like, we can get, we can, me and Chris can turn up our noses and we can make yuck faces and say, why not one of the more traditional and in fact intended programmed in life partners that you can get in Fields of Mistria? But it's all make pretend, huh?

• 1:12Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:14Griffin McElroy?

  There's no difference if you marry a chicken or if you marry a human, a human woman. It's, or a dragon man.

• 1:21Chris Plante?

  Or dragon.

• 1:21Griffin McElroy?

  It's, yeah, it's all, it's all.

• 1:24Russ Frushtick?

  They're halfway there with the dragon, why not?

• 1:26Griffin McElroy?

  It's all pixels and sprites and animations and stuff. None of it's real, so marry, marry a dog.

• 1:32Russ Frushtick?

  And, and can we just picture for a second what Dozy would look like at a cute little veil?

• 1:37Griffin McElroy?

  Cute.

• 1:38Russ Frushtick?

  Right?

• 1:38Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. That actually took it too far for me, but I'm, but cool.

• 1:43Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I have, I have a lot more questions now, you know?

• 1:47Russ Frushtick?

  I don't have any more answers.

• 1:48Chris Plante?

  Runaway bride scenario. Can, can I, can I just make one recommendation? Cause I think, I think this will save you a lot of headaches. I think it's closer to what you actually want. Can you please open, uh, our, our chat right now? And just look at what I found for you. Cause I think what you're actually looking for is this.

• 2:09Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, a Dozy plush.

• 2:11Griffin McElroy?

  Of Dozy, yeah.

• 2:12Chris Plante?

  But I think what you're looking for, and I can see how you got confused because you're still learning about marriage, um, sex things, verbs. You wanted, yes, you wanted a thing to cuddle during bedtime.

• 2:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. That's, you don't have to marry to do that.

• 2:29Chris Plante?

  You don't have to marry to cuddle a thing during bedtime, especially a toy, a toy.

• 2:35Griffin McElroy?

  Unless that's part of your beliefs, Russ.

• 2:37Chris Plante?

  Unless that's what you want to do.

• 2:39Griffin McElroy?

  Into what you believe, but.

• 2:41Chris Plante?

  Besties is never here to yuck your yums, Frush. We would, I don't think.

• 2:46Griffin McElroy?

  Or your deeply ingrained religious beliefs. I'm not here to do any, to point any fingers or.

• 2:51Russ Frushtick?

  Fine.

• 2:52Chris Plante?

  Have we had a single episode ever yucked your yums?

• 2:55Russ Frushtick?

  Fine, well, fuck the chicken. Are you happy?

• 2:57Chris Plante?

  Okay, yeah, no, I'm pretty into it.

• 2:59Griffin McElroy?

  I'm extremely deeply not, I'm not, I'm not eject.

• 3:21Griffin McElroy?

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

• 3:25Chris Plante?

  My name is Christopher Thomas Plant and I know the cuddliest plush toy of the week.

• 3:31Russ Frushtick?

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

• 3:34Griffin McElroy?

  Welcome to the Besties, where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a game of the year club. Just by listening, you've become a member. This week, we are discussing the new farm sim slash cozy life sim slash fantasy Stardew Valley game that is known as Fields of, Fields of Mistria. We've definitely talked about it before because it was in early access, but now we got that 1.0. That 1.0 is out, it's been out for a couple of weeks and we've spent a bunch of time with it. And so we're going to spend today talking about it. We'll talk about other stuff too, but Chris, what's Fields of Mysteria?

• 4:09Chris Plante?

  I mean, you pretty much nailed it. Uh, imagine, uh, the Stardew Valley Harvest Moon formula, throw in a little bit of like eighties, nineties anime. I would say specifically shojo and you're there, baby.

• 4:22Griffin McElroy?

  You're there, we're all there.

• 4:23Russ Frushtick?

  Saying there's so much shojo in Mysteria. Always saying that.

• 4:27Griffin McElroy?

  You're always making that exact observation, uh, in that exact way. And I can't wait to hear more exactly like it, Russ, shortly after this break.

• 4:37Russ Frushtick?

  This episode of the Besties is sponsored by Alienware. You know, gaming today isn't one thing. It moves between cozy, chaotic and everything in between. One minute you're exploring something slow and immersive, the next you're in a fast paced match. And somewhere in there, you might be creating, streaming, or seeing where the session goes. That's why Alienware systems are built with the performance to handle it all. With Nvidia GeForce RTX, it delivers powerful graphics that bring every world to life while optimizing battery life. So whether you're playing, creating, or jumping between both, everything runs the way it should. No interruptions, no slowing down. You don't have to adjust the way you play. You just keep gaming your way, however that looks in the moment. Be more Alien at alienware.com slash game your way.

• 5:25Griffin McElroy?

  Can I, I want to frame this first up by saying, I, I really have been enjoying Fields of Mistria. The existence of the 1.0 kind of, uh, progress checkpoint for like where a game is in its development cycle has become more and more sort of functionally useless, the more companies kind of like pursue this exact model. Because, and maybe this is my own thing, and I think we all kind of are somewhat aligned where if we play a game and it's in early access, we don't want to spoil ourselves on it. And so we'll play it for a little bit and bail. I, I want to say upfront that like, I've spent a ton of time with Fields of Mistria.

• 6:08Griffin McElroy?

  I'm about in winter year one at this point.

• 6:11Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, that's probably like 30 hours, something like that.

• 6:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, and I don't, from what I understand, the 1.0 stuff is mostly fairly kind of like late, late game stuff. So if you've already played the early access of Fields of Mistria, I don't know. I've been struggling to think of what I can say other than like, it's great.

• 6:30Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I don't think we've really tackled this game since it launched.

• 6:35Chris Plante?

  Let's go back to the very beginning of the earliest early access, because that's when I played this game and I got.

• 6:40Griffin McElroy?

  You're a big proponent, you're the one who got me interested in playing.

• 6:43Chris Plante?

  Yes, and, and the hook of the game at that point was Stardew Valley with a lot of quality of life improvements and less stress. A challenge that I have with like the Stardew Valley formula is that I feel like I am like constantly trying to cram as much work into a day. And for a game that is in theory about slowing down, it never really felt that way to me. I understand it feels very different for plenty of other people. You would get into Fields of Mistria that, the earliest, earliest version, and you didn't actually need to farm that much. Farming comes later in the game. And when you do it, it is like a much smaller task. You can be managing a very small area of your land.

• 7:27Chris Plante?

  What they really wanted you to do was go out and start chatting with people and building relationships. And the romance part of it is a, is a pretty big chunk. And that's where the early access struggled because you build these hearts, you know, choir hearts, however you want to describe it for your relationships. And they were expanding that across early access. So like, I think it was something like, I don't know, six hearts during the first time of like kind of key character beats. And then they added more. And I remember there are a few points where they expanded relationships and they expanded who you could have relationships with. I remember the dragon was not part of it, or at least I believe it wasn't early on.

• 8:10Chris Plante?

  So this game, if you start to think about that, it is, you're both like, you're right that they've added a lot of stuff that's end game because they have been building out these relationships. You've been having and adding tons and tons of writing. But if you started at the very, very beginning, like I did, there is probably, I don't know, it felt like 15 to 20 hours before you hit a pretty clear like, eh, I can keep playing.

• 8:37Griffin McElroy?

  Now there's nothing left.

• 8:38Chris Plante?

  But it would be pretty silly.

• 8:39Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 8:40Chris Plante?

  And, and that's what is even more confusing about an early access for a game like this is I don't know how you were supposed to play it during early access. Because it, it was like, um, a snake that was just growing. It was extending, so like, were people restarting? I don't know.

• 9:00Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I think there's a lot of people that really, really, I like really love the early access, but also stopped because I knew that I wanted to play more when it get, when it got finished. And I think there were probably people that continued playing, understanding that yes, I can't whatever, uh, increase the relationship with this person that I'm trying to build a relationship with. But spent that time like, I'm going to max out all my armor. I'm going to find all the stuff. I'm going to do my storage. I'm going to unlock the thing, you know, have like all the materials that I would potentially need so that eventually when early access did come out, you know, I would have all their favorite foods or whatever the fuck.

• 9:37Russ Frushtick?

  So like, that's, I think people were able to find ways to keep themselves occupied, but it didn't necessarily like have in game dividends until those updates actually dropped.

• 9:47Chris Plante?

  Yes, yes. So I, I said for me, the, the story stuff is, is the selling point. I'm curious for y'all, like, what about this game really clicked for you?

• 9:58Russ Frushtick?

  I think the, the things that click for me are, you know, you mentioned it early on and it really is Stardew Valley with a lot of the quality of life things that have been considered over the years, but not necessarily implemented in the final game. Things like just simple stuff like being able to easily jump over fences or swim in water or, you know, there's some item storage stuff that makes it very easy to do that stuff. So there's so much of that, I think, makes it a more, I would say welcoming experience than Stardew Valley does.

• 10:37Russ Frushtick?

  But I would also add, I think it does a better job of making each of the occupations feel a bit more fleshed out. Where if you're cooking, like that's an actual thing that you can like use to really make a lot of money and earn new skills while cooking and make dishes that like, you no longer have to remember which characters love which items. Like you can make dishes that everyone likes and things like that.

• 11:01Griffin McElroy?

  So yeah, there's, there's a lot of, uh, really truly, truly hundreds of little kind of, kind of rough edges, little burrs on the edge of an experience like Stardew Valley that I, I think they've, they've done. Some pretty clever stuff that would probably go largely unnoticed by someone who hasn't spent a lot of time playing both games.

• 11:18Russ Frushtick?

  But I think if you were to go back and play Stardew Valley, you would miss that stuff a lot. And I'm not necessarily saying that like it, every game, certainly even Stardew Valley needs to be like an ultra smooth experience. I think burrs and, uh, issues like that can enhance an experience. And maybe as you unlock the ability to like have a, a sprinkler for your crops and things like that. The fact that like watering them previously was a little bit of a pain in the ass is part of the power curve.

• 11:45Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 11:45Russ Frushtick?

  But I think here, again, if you're looking for a relaxing experience, and I agree with Plant, like this feels much more relaxing than Stardew Valley did.

• 11:53Chris Plante?

  I, I feel like it is a game built in, how do I put this? Stardew Valley came out a long time ago, right? And a lot has changed about how we interact with video games and what we expect from them. And there are quality of life improvements that are much more interesting than just, oh, it's easier to water your plants. Like, we now know that people are just gonna Google, what should I give and not give to these characters in the video game?

• 12:22Russ Frushtick?

  As like preferred gifts, you mean?

• 12:24Chris Plante?

  That's not a good experience. Like that is not the ideal video game experience. And this game has a character that will basically answer in game for you, how you should take care of that. While staying in the game, staying in the fiction, without having to pull out your phone, without having to check your text messages, because you pulled out your phone. Those are the details that I think are the most interesting. Or it, it, it feels like a modern game and it, it understands how modern people actually play these video games. And maybe the shortcuts that they turn to that aren't actually making their experience better.

• 13:00Griffin McElroy?

  No. And I also like struggle with, I've played Stardew Valley. I, I am hesitant to look up my exact playtime, uh, partially because I played it on my phone and Switch and Steam at certain, like different points throughout its kind of like developments. I play that game a shit ton and I never really give much of a shit about the social aspect of the game. I'm really into, I'm one of the sickos who like loves to build up a farm and build like an automation engine that can be, you know, that can get me in the black as quick as possible. So I can like.

• 13:32Russ Frushtick?

  These cows will never know the touch of a human hand.

• 13:35Griffin McElroy?

  These cows know. And I don't go the JoJo route, but I, I mean.

• 13:39Russ Frushtick?

  Pretty close.

• 13:39Griffin McElroy?

  In all but, but sort of, uh, you know.

• 13:42Chris Plante?

  You create a competitor.

• 13:44Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, yeah, basically. Uh, this game does some stuff that I think really, uh, is, is an interesting kind of way to hook people like me. There are daily quests that, uh, show up, which again was a thing in, in Stardew, but, uh, it, I don't know, the quests feel a lot more achievable. They don't expire. So you can just like get a big list of like, here's a bunch of random shit that everyone in town needs. And you can have a day where you just load up your inventory with that stuff, go around and.

• 14:10Russ Frushtick?

  The quests also in Stardew didn't have like meta progressions. I think it was just money that you would get mostly from those quests.

• 14:15Griffin McElroy?

  No, no, no, no. There were definitely quests that especially one of the later updates added these like big quests that were really hard to do. But you would unlock like special machines for your farm that you couldn't get otherwise. So, so, I mean, it, there's also stuff like every Friday night, everyone hangs out at the inn. Every Friday night, everyone hangs out at the inn. And it's not like the, you know, uh, tavern in Stardew where you can go and just like everyone's there. Every time you go to the inn, there's like different scenes. Like there's the game of D and D that's happening. And there's like the kids planning a heist and that stuff develops week by week. But it also means like you go and you build up relationships and you give a shit about these characters. Cause you're like getting invested in these kind of like weekly story arcs.

• 14:57Griffin McElroy?

  So it becomes a thing that like is sort of appointment, you know, television, like you can't get to the inn on Friday.

• 15:03Chris Plante?

  That is the thing where it doesn't feel Truman Show-esque like so many of these games do where every Friday night, the characters are at the inn. Why are they at the inn? Because we need to get you some story information. So you should go there and talk to 12 different characters who don't seem to be talking with each other. They're just here because we need a centralized space. Same thing with like a market, right? In this game, it feels like there, with one very big exception, these characters are living a life without you. And that they are living a life with each other, that, that the kid who is running the heist is the sibling of a character that you can romance,

• 15:43Chris Plante?

  who is also a really interesting character, who is also dealing with her own drama in the world. All of it is so interconnected. I will say the one problem that becomes more obvious in this game than it is in other games, is that once you do partner up with someone, everyone just still stays single. Like the world doesn't adapt to that. And like, I do, I know I'm asking for a lot of work and maybe this is a thing that will come down the line. But it is a little weird of how rich the relationships are between all the other characters that they're like, oh man, we can't get Chris. I, I guess we'll all just stay celibate for the rest of our lives.

• 16:25Russ Frushtick?

  Stardew does that too, right?

• 16:26Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, Stardew basically does. Even though everyone in Stardew has like a sort of, yeah, like narrative pairing that is like their suitor on the other side. Uh, I don't know that those go anywhere. I don't think that they ever really work out.

• 16:39Russ Frushtick?

  And you can get a divorce and pick someone else. So I think maybe they're leaving the door open in the future for Mistry to do that as well.

• 16:45Griffin McElroy?

  I, I've, I'm, I'm really enjoying the game. I'm gonna play it when we're done recording here. And, and I'm reaching the bottom of the like, there's mines in the game, of course. So there's like that very familiar kind of, uh, hack and slash style thing as you go in and you look for ore and you bring it home and you upgrade your weapons and tools and what have you. Um, they put the power to do that in your hands. You don't have to go see a guy and pay him a bunch of money and wait two days to like upgrade your shit. Like you can have a day where you just craft 50 pickaxes if you want to. So like, I, I agree. The quality of life stuff is, is really, really great. I think compared to some other games that have been in early access and have fully launched in 1.0,

• 17:27Griffin McElroy?

  it, it was a little bit disappointing that the additions seem to be longer tail stuff rather than broadening kind of what is available to you. And like adding stuff that you're going to see that's going to be new, like from the jump. There's probably some stuff that is small enough that I haven't really noticed it yet, but for the most part, I feel like I'm kind of playing the same game. Uh, only until now, when I'm getting to like the end of the mines thing and, you know, uh, uh, further down the town repair storyline, which is like new stuff in 1.0. My biggest kind of issue is that I don't know that it does, and maybe it doesn't need to, but I don't think it does really

• 18:10Griffin McElroy?

  a whole lot to differentiate itself from specifically Stardew Valley. And I think maybe I'm feeling that way because I have focused a lot on like the mines, going into the mines and like making progress there. And, uh, you know, upgrading my shit so I can have an easier time with every other aspect of the game that requires tools. And like going into the mines and attacking things with a sword and hitting rocks over and over again, until I find the ladder going down. It's like. That stuff has been worthwhile from a sense of like, I'm getting better tools and I'm making progress and you know, all of this stuff that I care about in a game like this.

• 18:50Griffin McElroy?

  But it feels so, it feels really uninspired, truly, to just kind of be doing the exact same shit.

• 18:58Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I think, yeah.

• 19:02Chris Plante?

  This is how desperate I was for different, slightly different, is at a certain point, I was like, why isn't it just a tower? Like, we're in a fantasy world. I understand that like, that is so superficial, but the degree to which this does feel at times, copy paste.

• 19:17Griffin McElroy?

  You unlock elevator shortcuts every five level, like, it's fucking, it's, this one part of the game feels carbon copied off of Stardew Valley. And it's, it's, and it's, there's no reason it has to be like that. There's no reason that it has to feel this way. It is the weakest part of Stardew. Is like, it's not fun really to go into the mines and dig until you find the staircase down and you hit the same five enemies a bunch of times with your sword. Like, that stuff is not very exciting. It's not very good. And of all the places to like innovate and introduce something new, there's magic in the game, right? There's magic that, uh, there's not a ton of spells, but they're interesting in that they sort of run the gamut of utility.

• 20:02Griffin McElroy?

  So like, there's one that can water your crops, so you don't have to go around and spend a bunch of energy, a bunch of stamina going around doing that. But that stuff isn't really anything you apply in like, in combat. It's not like, uh, it's adding more variety or like ranged combat options.

• 20:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, the combat is, is, I agree. I think it's slightly more palatable than what's in Stardew, but really, it's very, very close to the point.

• 20:28Griffin McElroy?

  Stardew gives you like a slingshot, for Christ's sake. Like, at least Stardew gives you like, another sort of option for attacking. They also give you like, different types of weapons. And again, a lot of that stuff came later on in Stardew's development and I, I, I don't know how fair it is to compare where this game is at, at launch, to a game that has been around for 70 years and has gotten a bunch of major updates. But it's, I, I don't know, it's, it is a part of the game that I, it feels like such a huge missed opportunity to like, just add something, something to make it more interesting.

• 21:02Russ Frushtick?

  What I've found is that when I decide like, yeah, I feel, I do feel like obligated to do the mines, because that's how you get upgraded gear and pickaxes, tools, et cetera. When I realize that, okay, I'm more or less at a point where I can take a break from the mines for a little bit, and I do other things and I mix it up and I spend a day fishing, or I spend a day like, looking for archaeology stuff, or just talking to people and finishing quests in town, like, that stuff feels like a breath of fresh air. So I agree with you, I think the mine stuff is the weakest part, but the fact that everything else I think is working pretty well, including like, the livestock stuff, which I think feels more fleshed out than it did in Stardew.

• 21:42Russ Frushtick?

  I think there is more holistic thought about the overall package, even though I agree with you, that was one area that like, take a little bit of time to freshen this up a little bit.

• 21:54Chris Plante?

  I guess the way I would, I would split the difference for me is, I agree with all of that. I just wish, again, even if it's superficial, these games of, you have the mines, you have the raise your cattle and your chickens, you have the take things to the museum, you have the general store shop, you have the town hall, even slightly different. Like, rather than a museum, can there just be an obsessive collector? Can it be the prince's dungeon? Can it be, and this is a problem that extends beyond Fields of Mistria. Like, don't, like, Animal Crossing has the museum, right? Like, it's just, it's very strange to me that there, I get that this is a genre and it has its formula.

• 22:38Chris Plante?

  I just am surprised how often these games are like, well, the formula is museum and mines, so it's gotta be museum and mines.

• 22:46Griffin McElroy?

  I'll say this in defense of the game's museum. What this game does differently, that makes it a different playing experience, uh, as compared to a Stardew, and I think it's significant, is that the museum, it has collections of things that you are turning in, right? And it fills the same purpose as the community bundles in Stardew Valley. There are some differences though, one being that, uh, you are unlocking things in a sort of set order as you complete sets. It is not like Stardew where it's like, well, if you want to fix the bridge into the city, then you need to do this, this, this, and this, you have to collect these specific things, and you better fucking hurry, because if you don't get this stuff by the end of spring,

• 23:29Griffin McElroy?

  then you're gonna go the rest of the year without that bridge and that's gonna suck shit.

• 23:32Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 23:33Griffin McElroy?

  That is very stressful and it's something that is kind of constantly, it is the reason I feel like I play Stardew Valley in the way that I do, which is like, no time for Love Dr. Jones, like, I've got to get this spring bundle finished, or else I'm gonna have this big gameplay mechanic that I'm not gonna unlock, you know, for, for a really long time. Uh, this game doesn't do that, because you're just kind of unlocking rewards as you go. Uh, so it's like, if you complete one more set, you get this reward, if you complete, and then-

• 24:02Russ Frushtick?

  And those rewards are like cosmetics generally, there is some meta progression with the town.

• 24:06Griffin McElroy?

  They're not gating huge stuff. They're not gating a lot for you there. Um, that stuff is gated usually by like, quests that unlock as you upgrade your town rank, or you do, it's a lot more holistic and it, it is the biggest thing this game does that makes it a less stressful experience to play, because you don't feel these, you know, I knew I hadn't caught all the summer fish by the end of summer and I was like, that's fine. Like, it's okay, it's not like, there's some big thing that's gonna be gate-kept from me. Um, flip side, it is, the stuff you unlock doing that is a little bit disappointing, because you're not, I don't know, for your collecting, you're not being rewarded with like, really great stuff.

• 24:47Russ Frushtick?

  I like hats and stuff.

• 24:48Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, the hats are fine, I guess, the museum is kind of busted, uh, because I don't know if you guys have actually gone into any of the like, rooms?

• 24:57Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 24:57Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, but you go into the rooms and it's just kind of like, rows of tables with the shit kind of like, set audit.

• 25:04Russ Frushtick?

  And you can't even like, read what they are.

• 25:06Griffin McElroy?

  No, like, yeah, it's very, it feels kind of bare bones.

• 25:10Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, you mentioned the like, rush that you feel, like, literal rush that you feel when you're playing Stardew, because you're trying to like, keep to a schedule. I do want to mention, this game also has some accessibility features, one of which is, you can make the days longer. There's a warning that says like, it messes up some pathing or whatever it was. I did watch a video, someone was saying that like, they've played for 400 fucking hours and they'd never noticed any issues with that stuff.

• 25:33Griffin McElroy?

  I crank that shit to the slowest setting.

• 25:35Russ Frushtick?

  So yeah, you are free to do that, it takes all the stress out of filling everything in a day. Um, at every turn, it feels like the game is trying to throw you a bone to make it easier to just do whatever you want to do within the game. And again, I think there is value in that. I also think it's really pretty.

• 25:54Griffin McElroy?

  It looks fantastic, yeah. I've got the Steam page just like, open here in front of me and it keeps going through screenshots and I'm like, oh man, this is so, it's very, uh, very pastel, very like, uh, I don't know, very, very anime.

• 26:08Russ Frushtick?

  There's a grimness to winter in Stardew Valley that like, I get, but it doesn't, you don't see that here. Like, even in winter, it feels like a, it's like a charming wonderland.

• 26:18Chris Plante?

  Very, very quick, uh, tip, advice. If you are coming back to the game from early access, here is what you should do. Take a breath, chill out, don't worry. If you forgot everything, it's all okay. Use a day or two in the game to talk to everybody that you can find, that'll help you get back on track. Go to the, uh, job board that is on the east side of town, that'll help you get back on track, and go hit the mines, just to like, re-acclimate to the controls. And after like, two or three days in the game, especially if you were talking to everybody, you will remember what the game wants you to do and you will remember who all of these characters are. It is very trope-y, I say as a huge compliment.

• 27:03Chris Plante?

  Like, you will remember the, what type of person each of these characters are and will all come rushing back to you. And that's true, if you aren't doing early access, this is a game that like, I really think is best when you're not putting pressure on yourself. I don't think it wants you to have that experience, that so many of these like, maximizing the efficiency of your farm or your business, that's not it. There is so much original dialogue in this game, so, so, so, so, so much.

• 27:37Griffin McElroy?

  About shit that is happening off-screen, like, people commenting like, hey, did you see that new shit at the museum? That's crazy.

• 27:43Chris Plante?

  So you really want to be talking with people. That is, that is where I think the heart and the soul of the game is.

• 27:49Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 27:49Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, so, a final question for each of you. Uh, this game is about to get, probably, I don't think they've announced a release date, but invariably, it's gonna come to consoles as well. It hasn't come to consoles yet, because it's been in early access.

• 28:01Chris Plante?

  That's weird.

• 28:01Russ Frushtick?

  Now it's 1.0, it's gonna happen. What life sim farming game-

• 28:07Russ Frushtick?

  Do you recommend to people between Stardew, Animal Crossing, and this?

• 28:13Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, I think Animal Crossing is different, like wildly different. I would not put Animal Crossing in the same category as this. Animal Crossing is like, economy or whatever is like extremely, extremely sort of limited. For me, Animal Crossing is a much more multiplayer-focused sort of thing than this.

• 28:30Russ Frushtick?

  Sure, that's well, literally, because there's no multiplayer in this.

• 28:32Chris Plante?

  It's also just a decoration. Yeah, like, I feel like it, it's for someone who I think wants to like set their aesthetic. They're, they're, they're different for each person, you know? I, I, I think between this and Stardew, I absolutely recommend this to most people first. And that's no knock on Stardew. It's just a much older game, and this game had the opportunity to do a lot of the things that that game does better and easier.

• 29:02Russ Frushtick?

  And it wouldn't have had had a shot without Stardew providing that foundation of like, and before Stardew, obviously Harvest, Harvest Moon providing that foundation. So it's all iterative in that way, I agree.

• 29:12Griffin McElroy?

  I would give the opposite advice. I would say play Stardew, partially because like, I think it is a way bigger game that is towards the end of its kind of like, life cycle of, of development. Although I've said that before, and have been proven wrong time and time again. And it's, there's just like so much, there's so much shit to do, especially if you play the game on PC, you can really remedy very easily, like, the issues that you have with it, with the extremely robust and user-friendly suite of like modding tools that are available for, for Stardew Valley. I, my, why I would encourage someone who has not played either game to hold off on this one is that it just feels like they're

• 29:57Griffin McElroy?

  gonna add more shit to it. Like, it feels like there are cavities in this experience that are, have to be filled out in some way. Case in point, like, there's not that many holidays in there. Like, the calendar is fairly sparse, and it feels like that is a thing that is just gonna kind of come, come sort of later, later on, maybe? I don't know what the roadmap for this game looks like.

• 30:22Russ Frushtick?

  I think they added a couple that you hadn't seen, that were, like, there was a summer event that you didn't see because you were past it in early access, and is now in there.

• 30:30Griffin McElroy?

  It just feels like they are going to, this game is going to be expanded. And if it is, if it follows the same trajectory as Stardew, there, there are probably times I wish I hadn't played Stardew, because if I had just waited a little bit longer for like, the insane 1.5 update that added like, the entire island to go explore, and like, I don't know, you'll want to come back and play that stuff. I, I think it makes some sense to play the game that's more or less complete. And even though this game's out in, in 1.0, it's still, it just kind of feels primed to be, to be fleshed out, to be expanded. I also know that the developer put a lot of effort, sort of towards the end of early access development, and to transitioning it to a different engine. Yeah. And I, I think

• 31:14Griffin McElroy?

  that, if they did that, which sounds like an insane amount of work, it has to be to future-proof this thing for, for, for expansion. So, yeah. I, I, I think this game's great, and I do think it is probably the easier, less stressful version of it, but strictly, if you've never played either one, I, I would still suggest Stardew.

• 31:35Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 31:36Chris Plante?

  I take it.

• 31:37Griffin McElroy?

  Let's take a quick break, and then we're gonna do a quick stop-off in the Android retro gaming handheld market for a quick, a quick update from, from the Borderlands, just after this short, short, quick break.

• 31:55Russ Frushtick?

  This episode of The Besties is sponsored by Alienware. You know, gaming today isn't one thing. It moves between cozy, chaotic, and everything in between. One minute you're exploring something slow and immersive, the next you're in a fast-paced match. And somewhere in there, you might be creating, streaming, or seeing where the session goes. That's why Alienware systems are built with the performance to handle it all. With Nvidia GeForce RTX, it delivers powerful graphics that bring every world to life while optimizing battery life. So whether you're playing, creating, or jumping between both, everything runs the way it should. No interruptions, no slowing down. You don't have to adjust the way you play, you just keep gaming your way, however that looks in the moment. Be more Alien at Alienware.com/gameyourway.

• 32:43Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, boy.

• 32:46Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, I would say we do this less now, less often, now that Juice has left the show. He was our sort of primetime Android retro gaming handheld guy. Although he has curtailed his interest in that world since the, since the surgeries on his wrists. But man, I feel like we gotta talk about the RetroiD Pocket Nova, because I'm enamored with this little guy. Crazy about him.

• 33:11Russ Frushtick?

  For people that aren't aware, RetroiD is a company that makes these handhelds. They're pretty well esteemed. We've talked about some of their stuff in the past.

• 33:19Griffin McElroy?

  They make good, what I would call like, top-of-entry tier sort of, like, the RetroiD Pocket 6 is like, the kind of recommended. It's got a great, like, set of specs, and it can run basically anything. And it's like, what, 250, something like that?

• 33:34Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah, something like that. Which is, you know, a lot, not, not nothing, but it's a lot cheaper than like, a, you know, the AYN Thor, or, you know, a lot of it. Or even the Steam Deck, obviously, you're looking at a thousand bucks. So, yeah. Yeah, so the RetroiD Pocket 6 came out, I believe, earlier this year, or last year, late last year, I believe. And that was a widescreen device. And the new RetroiD Pocket Nova is a 4x3 device. And what that means is, obviously, it's a, the aspect ratio of the screen is 4x3, which aligns perfectly with games, essentially console games from the 90s and early 2000s. So we're talking about NES, SNES, but we're also talking

• 34:15Russ Frushtick?

  about GameCube, we're also talking about PS1, PS2, that era, Dreamcast, certainly. All these games ran at 4x3. So if you're looking for a device that is natively playing games at the aspect ratio that they were designed for, the RetroiD Pocket Nova is one of those devices. There are several, but...

• 34:33Griffin McElroy?

  There's, there are a few good 4x3. I've been using, until this point, the Aion Neo Pocket Ace, I think.

• 34:42Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin is checking to see what it's actually called.

• 34:44Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, the Aion Neo, I didn't see Aion Neo Pocket Ace.

• 34:47Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 34:48Griffin McElroy?

  Which, I don't actually think this screen is 4:3, but it's like, similar enough. It's not 16:9 widescreen. It makes all the difference in the world, because when you play, you know, an older game on a RetroiD Pocket 6 with the 16:9 screen, there, some games have like, widescreen hacks, like, most of the big PS2 emulators now, there's a handful of them. They all have like, for the bigger games, like widescreen hacks you can download, so you can play these games. And up, upscaled, and in a different aspect ratio than usual, but most of the time, you're getting black bars on the sides of the screen, depending on, you know, what, what console that you're playing. And it doesn't look great.

• 35:26Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it doesn't look great. How much that bothers you is obviously TBD, it depends on the person, but it doesn't look great. And I would also say the downside for me, and part of the reason I decided, like, this is a reason to get back into this space, is because I find that when I'm traveling especially, and I don't want to lug around a Steam Deck or a Steam Deck equivalent, even another widescreen handheld still feels like a pretty beefy boy to be carrying around at that point.

• 35:56Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 35:56Russ Frushtick?

  And when you're talking about a 4x3 device, obviously, it is not as wide. So it's something that you could feasibly pick, put in a bag, or a fanny pack, or something like that, and not have it be this lugging thing that you have.

• 36:09Griffin McElroy?

  The Nova pushes the boundaries of pocketability. I would say it is just pocketable.

• 36:15Russ Frushtick?

  I wouldn't describe it, I mean, yes, you could fit it in a pocket. I wouldn't necessarily put it in a pocket, as much as I would like, easily slot it in the side of my bag and not feel like I was carrying anything.

• 36:24Griffin McElroy?

  I've gone places with it in my pocket, like, not remembering to take it out of my pocket before I left. And it's very, like, someone could clock it on you.

• 36:33Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 36:33Griffin McElroy?

  They could point at your pants and be like, "You got a Pocket Nova in there?"

• 36:36Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 36:37Chris Plante?

  Were you wearing J-cups?

• 36:38Griffin McElroy?

  You wouldn't say, "Are you happy to see me?" Because my, I don't have like, a weird rectangular wiener that goes specifically like, you know, 45 degrees to the right.

• 36:48Russ Frushtick?

  Someday, Griffin, you can dream.

• 36:50Chris Plante?

  Your AYN wiener.

• 36:52Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. The screen's amazing. It's an AMOLED screen, and the, I'm not like, smart about tech specs and shit like that, but man alive, it runs games from a certain era in a way that just looks phenomenal.

• 37:10Russ Frushtick?

  So you can run PS2, GameCube, and anything before that, in like, 4X resolution, native, like, it, it smokes those games without even really breaking a sweat. There are a couple one-off exceptions to that, but for the most part, like, it just crushes those games, whereas I think, when you're talking about like, the RetroiD Pocket 5, and the Flip 2, and things like that, like, they could definitely run that generation, but not without some problems here and there.

• 37:37Griffin McElroy?

  A lot of it is also backend, like, development on these emulators.

• 37:42Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 37:42Griffin McElroy?

  Has, has come a long way, even in the last year. Getting, getting certain PlayStation 2 games to work on like, an Aether SX2, or now, what's the new one is, I think ARM SX2?

• 37:54Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know. Now you're getting into it.

• 37:57Griffin McElroy?

  It's, the compatibility is like, so much better, and these games run like a dream. I've spent the most time playing, you know, I had my big Dragon Quest retrospective before I went back and played all the games in the series, but I never really played 8 very much, because the PlayStation 2 version, I couldn't get to run on any of these, and the 3DS version, I found to be quite boring, and not fast-forwardable in any of the things that I had. But now, it runs on this thing, and it looks phenomenal, and you can overclock that shit, so your little Dragon Quest guys run around 15 times speed like they're just zooming through these slime fights.

• 38:36Griffin McElroy?

  It's anything I've thrown at this thing, it has, it has been ready for.

• 38:40Russ Frushtick?

  So.

• 38:40Griffin McElroy?

  Down, down for.

• 38:41Russ Frushtick?

  Here's the, here's the caveat. And part of the reason that I got this, why I got back into it was, we've talked a little bit about this, but the prospect of Steam OS natively running on this thing, which theoretically it should be able to do when that actually happens.

• 38:58Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 38:58Russ Frushtick?

  Is very enticing to me. Um, because I fucking hate Android so, so much.

• 39:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 39:05Russ Frushtick?

  I hate interacting with it. Every time I need to do, use the touchscreen for anything, I get sad. And so the prospect of it eventually just being a Linux device, which it can install Linux, even past generations of Retroid can have Linux installed, uh, is very enticing to me. I could theoretically install RocNix, which is a Linux, blah, blah, blah, and do that whole thing. But what I want is the official Steam OS running on this thing. And then suddenly, poof, I have a baby Steam Deck that granted, won't be able to run most 3D new games.

• 39:38Griffin McElroy?

  Well, yeah, especially because not every game is set up to support 4x3 aspect.

• 39:43Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. So I was going to mention that. You're right. Uh, there are a lot of games. There's actually like, uh, Steam Boards that actually keep track of the games that support 4x3.

• 39:51Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, there's curators who specifically focus on.

• 39:53Russ Frushtick?

  Which is great. That's awesome.

• 39:54Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I love that.

• 39:55Russ Frushtick?

  I will say for me, I am able to play some widescreen games on this without a problem. And that kind of makes sense because if you look at the PSP Go, which was a version of the PSP that came out a while ago, that was also a widescreen device. And from a screen real estate standpoint, it basically matches.

• 40:14Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 40:14Russ Frushtick?

  In line. So you can, I would say, if you don't have a problem with small text, or there are certain games that don't have any text, I think widescreen games on this are totally viable. So long as you accept the fact that there will be black bars on the top and bottom of the screen.

• 40:29Griffin McElroy?

  I think it's silly. I think there's way better ways to do that. Like I, I understand what you're saying.

• 40:35Russ Frushtick?

  I don't want to carry two devices around is the thing. I think that's the differentiator. It's like, what's the best way to not have to carry two devices around?

• 40:42Griffin McElroy?

  This is, I don't know. I, I think the, I like the idea of, you know, I've got my Rog Ally X that I can play my widescreen shit.

• 40:49Russ Frushtick?

  That's a big boy.

• 40:50Griffin McElroy?

  And it can handle the big boy games, right? Like most, I, I, this, this thing is so fucking diesel and it surprises me how much shit, like when I got Beast of reincarnation to run on it. I was like, wow, really? Okay. Interesting. Uh, so like I, you know, I, I see a few where I have that for whatever. But then there are a lot of games that work in 4x3 that are not necessarily pushing the envelope. Uh, you know, hardware requirements wise.

• 41:15Russ Frushtick?

  Sure.

• 41:15Griffin McElroy?

  Like I, if I want to get Dead Cells, well, I could get the Android version, I suppose. But like, uh, you know, the, those sort of lighter weight indie, uh, 2D games usually will support 4x3 resolutions. Uh, if that's the, the direction you want to go with it.

• 41:30Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. I want to be able to use my Steam library that I have already. So.

• 41:33Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 41:34Russ Frushtick?

  I don't know. It's all speculative because we have no fucking idea when Steam is going to release this Steam OS for ARM devices. So maybe I made a big fucking mistake, but even if I, if it doesn't happen, it's still probably the best time I've ever had playing that generation of PS2 GameCube games. Like it's a blast.

• 41:51Griffin McElroy?

  Game Boy Advance too? Like there's so, there are so many, this is my, I don't think I'll ever use another, uh, you know, until some, you know, years in the future when some new shit drops maybe. But like, this is the perfect console for me to play so many different like old, old consoles. Like from, from Game Boy Advance, like, uh, I love Game Boy Advance. It's such a great library. On a 16 by nine screen, it looks a little busted just because it's not 16 by nine. Uh, so like it, it just works so well for almost everything, like almost everything before, uh, you know, the PS3 or whatever. Uh, I think Xbox emulation, there have been some strides.

• 42:33Griffin McElroy?

  I'd noticed that in some like setup guides for this one. I've not fucked with that at all. Not that that's a library that has so many games that I'm like chomping at the bit to return to.

• 42:43Russ Frushtick?

  Well, Blink's the cat.

• 42:44Griffin McElroy?

  You got, you got to go play Blink's the cat. Yeah, for sure. Um, yeah, I really, really, I dig this thing a lot. Which color did you go with, Russ?

• 42:52Russ Frushtick?

  I've got the 16 bit, uh, SNES styled one.

• 42:55Griffin McElroy?

  I got the clear one, the like crystal clear one with the, the, the see-through shell. Looks really cool.

• 43:01Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. Um, uh, we have a couple other reader mails I want to call out, uh, from our lovely readers. This one comes from Brian. Hi besties. Since you all love mystery games, you have to check out the mermaid mask. It's the third in the detective grimoire series following the excellent Tangle Tower. And it's easily the best one yet. You can beat it in one to two settings and features incredible music and art. And the best voice acting since Baldur's Gate 3. It's on my go to list. So don't let it slide under your radar.

• 43:30Griffin McElroy?

  I have not played any of these games and I, I, I feel silly having not done that. Cause I know so many people who are big Tangle Tower. And what was, what's the other one?

• 43:41Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I don't remember the first one.

• 43:43Chris Plante?

  I, I have actually played about an hour and a half of this game. And what I can say is both of you should play it. It is weirdly not a game for me because it is so puzzletence and I just cannot get into puzzles. But the writing really is as good as they're describing. The voice acting is fantastic. It, it's very neat, fresh. This, I, I, I think I messaged you already about this game of like, this should be your blueprints follow-up. It's not the same type of, uh, puzzle mysteries, but I think this is a great game to do co-op with someone on the TV and play together.

• 44:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that's, that certainly seems like it is. Uh, so it is very enticing. We've got a long list of things to consider after we finish Blueprints.

• 44:27Griffin McElroy?

  That's true.

• 44:28Russ Frushtick?

  If we finish it, who knows?

• 44:31Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, okay. We have another, uh, bit of reader mail. This one comes from Colton. I don't know whether to thank Griffin or curse him for idle obelisk minor recommendation. Uh, I am completely hopelessly addicted, he says. And a big thank you to a listener who recommended Revolution Idol in the mailbag earlier this year. My wife and I played it to death. It's also excellent and respects the player.

• 44:53Griffin McElroy?

  To a certain extent, Revolution Idol does a thing where when you finish it, it preaches at you for wasting so much fucking time. So I don't know how much, I don't know how much respect you get from that. But it does, I mean, that's a solid one. Yeah. Idle obelisk fucking rules, man. We got an email, I also think from someone who's like a mod in their, uh, their, their Discord, on the dev Discord. And it's what's up, shout out, what's up, hit me up with some gift codes.

• 45:19Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. So I'm, I started to, off of Griffin's recommendation, I started playing this game. And, uh, I was enjoying myself and continue to enjoy myself. It's quite a good game. But I did go as recommended by the game. I went on their Wiki page and spent like a good 15, 20 minutes entering every gift code on that page.

• 45:37Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 45:38Russ Frushtick?

  And ended up with like 500 gifts. And then I activated all those gifts and now suddenly like, the world is just flying by.

• 45:47Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, no, you, you.

• 45:48Russ Frushtick?

  I kind of broke it a little bit.

• 45:50Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 45:50Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, maybe too quickly.

• 45:51Griffin McElroy?

  Don't worry, pal. It'll slow the fuck down.

• 45:54Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, sure.

• 45:55Griffin McElroy?

  Don't you worry about a thing.

• 45:56Russ Frushtick?

  I'm sure.

• 45:56Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. I, I just think it's, uh, I think it is mathematically the best kind of idle game I've ever played. Like it just, it has the perfect pace, the perfect like interconnected sort of systems where you always feel like you're making progress, even when it slows way, way down. I don't know.

• 46:13Russ Frushtick?

  And I like, I, I like that there is some, and maybe all of these have these to some extent, but I like, I feeling like there's some strategy into what upgrade am I going to pick next to get the best ROI out of it?

• 46:25Griffin McElroy?

  Dude, it's so important. It's hugely, hugely important because you will hit walls in, in the game. And there are, you know, good ways to try and get over those walls. And there are very wrong ways to try to get over those walls.

• 46:36Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 46:37Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. It's great. Um, we want to do honorable mentions?

• 46:42Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 46:44Chris Plante?

  Yeah, I've been playing my emulator handheld, the true goat, the AYN Thor. I'm glad that you brought a, a humble competitor to the arena. Uh, but my AYN Thor, or Iron Thor, or whatever I want to call it, has just been a delight. Being able to have that clamshell where I can throw it in the bag and not get super stressed about it. Wonderful. Being able to have Persona 3 reload on that and gradually work through that game the way I remember playing through, uh, Persona 4 Golden on the PS Vita. Also wonderful. We have so many games that we're supposed to be playing right now that are embargoed that we can't talk about.

• 47:25Chris Plante?

  But it's game season is here and yet I still want to play Persona before bed every night. Or whenever I am like, I go to get coffee and it's taking a while and I need something to just pick at. It's, it's right there. It's waiting for me and it is so damn good. I really, really, really, really love that game and I love that device and how it has kind of changed my gaming habits.

• 47:51Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, yeah, it's still great. That is the other one that I kind of cycle back through. Like I'll never play 3DS and DS games on anything else. Like obviously.

• 48:00Chris Plante?

  Yeah.

• 48:00Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, again, because it's just the best way to kind of do that. Um, which I guess I'm further kind of pigeonholing myself into, well, if I want to play this, I have to reach for this, this gaming handheld. And at that point it's like, well, maybe I should just own all the, maybe I should just own all of them. If I'm going to be that granular about it.

• 48:20Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I think now is the time of the show where we call out Chris Plant.

• 48:24Griffin McElroy?

  Uh oh.

• 48:24Russ Frushtick?

  For committing maybe the worst crime in the history of cooperative gaming.

• 48:31Griffin McElroy?

  What?

• 48:31Russ Frushtick?

  Because we're gonna talk about Big Walk.

• 48:33Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:34Chris Plante?

  I did great and we all played together. What are you talking about?

• 48:36Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah. No, we did play together. We'll get into it. Don't worry. Uh, Griffin, Plant, and I played Big Walk along with some other friends and it was a lovely time and I think we'll continue to play. It's been so much fun.

• 48:47Chris Plante?

  Oh dude, I'd love to.

• 48:48Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, and we had some amazing moments where one person disconnected and we used their frozen corpse to mark off a bad node in a puzzle and it was just fucking delightful.

• 48:59Chris Plante?

  It's all checked out so far.

• 49:01Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, all great. So, as we were playing, uh, the last time we had played, I'd played with Chris Plant, we found a set of coordinates and we're like, oh, that's interesting. Chris Plant, you should write these coordinates down.

• 49:13Chris Plante?

  Oh my god, I can't believe, you are such a little baby. The littlest baby inside.

• 49:19Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, hold on.

• 49:20Chris Plante?

  No, no, no, no.

• 49:21Griffin McElroy?

  You gotta let him finish his story.

• 49:22Chris Plante?

  For the littlest baby.

• 49:24Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. So, we were all like, Chris Plant, write those coordinates down. So he wrote the coordinates down on the previous time that we had played. So when we came back, I said, Chris Plant, oh, we should check out those coordinates. Let's go to those coordinates. Chris Plant, you still have the paper, right? And he's like, uh, yeah, no, yeah, yeah, I have it here. Okay. Yeah, yeah, I have it here. I have it here. And so we proceed to go on an adventure following Chris Plant's coordinates that he wrote down in his notebook from the previous session. And where it leads us to is a giant wall that we cannot actually cross over. Huh, that's weird. It eventually comes to light that Chris Plant didn't write, or at least didn't save the note that he had from the previous session. And when he

• 50:09Russ Frushtick?

  realized his shame in not being a good note taker.

• 50:12Griffin McElroy?

  Did you make it up?

• 50:13Russ Frushtick?

  He Googled the coordinates and wait for it, Googled the wrong coordinates.

• 50:19Chris Plante?

  Okay, okay, okay, okay.

• 50:21Griffin McElroy?

  We spent like 25 minutes looking for that shit, man.

• 50:25Chris Plante?

  Let me explain, let me explain. I was like, oh, the coordinates puzzle, surely I can just Google coordinates puzzle. And then I saw a headline that was like coordinates and I was like, I know Russ Frushtick. If I click this article and see any clues, he will be so mad. So I won't click the article. I'll just, those must be the coordinates. What I realized days later is, uh, guides are probably using coordinates to describe the position of every puzzle in the game. So I think I just picked a random set of coordinates from like a list of, I don't know, like 50 of them. So I don't know why we went where we went.

• 51:07Griffin McElroy?

  We're talking about a Fellowship of the Rings style hiking, skyrim mountain climbing, like trying to get up this sheer rock face, looking for some way up that we never did find.

• 51:19Russ Frushtick?

  And fittingly, we have our own Gollum right here, who is working against us at every turn.

• 51:24Griffin McElroy?

  Taking us into fucking She Lob's Lair.

• 51:27Chris Plante?

  I, it is a game about adventure and surprises and I think I brought that to the experience. Please don't kick me out of the group.

• 51:36Griffin McElroy?

  I, I, I, this is gonna continue to be a problem. The specific puzzles in this game are so fun and the moments that those puzzles kind of like create are so incredible and I would be really hesitant to talk about any of them in any amount of detail because it is the surprise of like, uh, that one puzzle we found in the barn. That's all I'll say, right? The surprise of that and trying to like then unfuck that situation. Like, it's so good. It's such a brilliant like pearl, just a condensed like moment about, uh, coming up with new forms of communication, uh, that I don't think hits as hard if you

• 52:19Griffin McElroy?

  are expecting it. If you like think, if you know that something is coming up. Uh, but man alive, it's really, really, really unique. It's a really unique game that is pulling off stuff that I've never seen a game really do before.

• 52:31Russ Frushtick?

  And you did get the sense that like, do you think it started really clicking more so when you played with, I guess, three or four people?

• 52:38Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I've, I've played with, uh, y'all and I played with another group of friends and it's, it truly like, you need a, you need a bigish group. I don't think it's, it's fun in two-player, but I think four plus is kind of.

• 52:51Russ Frushtick?

  Even three, I think is passable, but yeah, four, four starts getting pretty zany. Uh, I would be curious to know how it plays if anyone at home wants to write in, how it plays if you've got like 12 fucking people and they're all like scattered around the map. That seems like chaos to me, but could be fun.

• 53:06Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 53:07Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that's a good fucking game. Uh, the last thing that I will mention is I've been playing a game called Blueprints. It's a house. Uh, the, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm.

• 53:16Griffin McElroy?

  Have you made significant progress since last week? Have you?

• 53:19Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 53:20Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 53:21Russ Frushtick?

  Yes. I got to something that would be, I think for most people, considered an end end.

• 53:28Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 53:29Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, that I'm not gonna allude to.

• 53:31Griffin McElroy?

  We'll talk after this.

• 53:32Russ Frushtick?

  But, uh, yeah, I got to that and then I'm, I'm chasing this other thing that is like, I think for the real, true, dedicated sickos of the world, like the Jason and Griffins of the world, uh, and that is the thing I'm chasing and we have a very, very strong lead on that thing. So I'm very excited. Uh, and it feels like, who fucking knows? 20, it feels like 20 hours from now, maybe we'll be able to stop playing this game.

• 53:56Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 53:58Russ Frushtick?

  But it's fun.

• 53:59Griffin McElroy?

  Um, I've been playing a little bit of a game called Offbeat that is out in early access and it is a music making game. Uh, you run a music studio that is basically just like your home office with a desk and you get calls on a phone where people give you jobs to make songs like, uh, make my new ringtone or make a jingle for this thing. Uh, and for filling out those jobs, you get pay money and you can use that money to buy new instruments, but the instruments are like basically toys that you are connecting into a music sequencer, like a, a, a very, very, very primitive sort of doll. It's like

• 54:42Griffin McElroy?

  the first thing you get is a keyboard that's a cat and it has a few different sounds on it. And then like the first percussion thing you get is a cymbal monkey and you can connect that to like be the, be the percussion track and you can fuck with it in certain ways. Uh, but it's a game that, I mean, it, you truly are making actual music using this, this kind of like sequencer tool and, you know, trying to follow the instructions that get more and more sort of arcane, uh, as, as the game goes on.

• 55:12Russ Frushtick?

  Does the game know if you're like making, I guess, good stuff?

• 55:17Griffin McElroy?

  So yeah, well, not good stuff, right? But it, it'll say like, someone will call and be like, we want a, a jingle for our commercial for our, you know, used car dealership and we want it to be, uh, you know, plucky and we want there to be lots of claps. And so you know that like notes need to be kind of short. It will identify like, okay, there's plucky sound. And then the claps is like, you have to go into the monkey and change certain settings so that it like outputs the clap noise and you put those in there. And then as you like play the song, it shows you the tags that appear that are kind of like.

• 55:51Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, cool.

• 55:51Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, that, that your song sort of achieves and then you can turn them in and get money. It's very neat. And then it also saves a copy of the songs you make to your computer.

• 55:59Russ Frushtick?

  That's great.

• 56:00Griffin McElroy?

  So you guys like, uh, play, play around with those later. Um, I really, really have been digging it and also think I'm gonna stop playing it until it's out of early access. Uh, because I, I, I think that it's a game I would have a lot of fun getting deeply into. Um, but I just wanna wait, wait until it's more there, you know?

• 56:17Russ Frushtick?

  Tale as old as time.

• 56:18Griffin McElroy?

  True.

• 56:20Russ Frushtick?

  Cool. Um, we're doing a live show, October 9th. If you haven't heard about it, seems unlikely since we've talked about it a lot, but we are. It's happening in New York City. You can go to besties.fan. We have a giant post at the top of besties.fan where you can click through and buy tickets if you want to join. That is the week of New York Comic Con, so you could do a twofer if you wanted to do that. Uh, it'll be really fucking fun. We are planning some very fun stuff, uh, with our very own executive producer, Justin McElroy and, uh, it's gonna be a blast. So please join us if you haven't yet. Uh, I think orchestra seats are all starting to sell out. We're pretty close to selling out. So if you wanted to get some of those going, but, uh, please, uh, join us. Cause yeah, again, it's gonna be really super duper fun.

• 57:01Griffin McElroy?

  Cool.

• 57:03Russ Frushtick?

  Over at Patreon, real quick, we have patreon.com/thethebesties. We have not forgotten about you friends. You make the show happen, including some of the new members that I wanted to call out. We have Robert M., we have Morgan H., we have Lucas, and we have Sarah S. Thank you for being members of the Patreon. Thank you to everyone else. Uh, we have a new Resties episode up most recently and then we have another one coming at you, uh, this coming Tuesday. So, um, yeah.

• 57:30Griffin McElroy?

  Chris, do you wanna go through the games that we talked about real quick?

• 57:33Chris Plante?

  I most certainly do. We talked about Fields of Mistrya and we talked about Stardew Valley a fair bit there too. We also talked about Big Walk, Offbeat, and Would You Believe It: Blueprints. And I mentioned my precious I A Y N Thor, that's how it's pronounced, and Persona 3 Reload.

• 57:50Russ Frushtick?

  And the Retroid Pocket Nova. Did you say that?

• 57:52Chris Plante?

  Oh yeah, the Retroid Pocket Nova. Thank you.

• 57:54Russ Frushtick?

  I feel like you're putting a thumb on the scale of not.

• 57:57Chris Plante?

  I know.

• 57:58Griffin McElroy?

  A little bit.

• 57:59Chris Plante?

  Comment.

• 58:00Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, next week, brace your freaking asses. We're doing Blood Dungeon. The new, uh, new game from the new auto shooter rogue-like from the studio that brought you Nidhogg. Uh, and it's, it's gonna be a, it's gonna be a fun one.

• 58:18Russ Frushtick?

  It's gonna be bloody.

• 58:19Griffin McElroy?

  Play that.

• 58:19Chris Plante?

  My favorite experience at Summer Game Fest was that game. It's that demo, which I, I don't know if you can.

• 58:26Griffin McElroy?

  You can find out if it holds, you find out if it holds up.

• 58:28Chris Plante?

  It does.

• 58:30Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, well, we'll talk more about it next week. So join us again next week for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends play the world's best game?

• 58:56Speaker 03

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