Baby Steps is Video Game Heaven and Hell

I fucked up pretty bad.

You guys remember how I was talking about there's so many games out to me, games to play and master and complete.

You were talking about that.

I remember that.

And how I was going to do a

multiplicity machine so that I could clone myself.

Wait, are you the dumb one?

And I didn't realize this is the problem, Russ.

So I did it.

I made it so I could platinum all the games.

And I have forgotten which one was the original sort of per the original guy.

I don't even know if I'm him, which is like there's actually there is a trick to this

because I've actually seen the source text,

multiplicity, which is what you study to be an expert in the multiplying of people.

You need to look around and kind of look like, is there a sexy one?

Because if it's a sexy one, they're all pretty.

I mean, they're all pretty.

Stop.

They're all pretty sexy.

That's true.

Russ, you can't say that.

You can't agree agree with that.

I'm allowed to say it about the married man.

Yeah, is there?

Is there kind of like a clown one that's always like getting into pranks?

No, there's five sexy ones.

One of them's just been grinding away on Silk Song, trying to platinum that one.

And he looks sexy while he does it, but it's like me, but not me.

Sweatier.

Super duper duper sweaty.

Super sweaty.

I'm going to guess that's not the original one.

Yeah.

And I don't have a belly button.

Like, I don't have a belly button.

So,

and no, and no nipples and smooths down there.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

Griffin.

Yeah.

Do you mind just taking your headphones off for a second?

Sure, sure.

Hey, guys,

this one doesn't have a belly button, so I'm pretty sure it's Griffin.

Yeah, that's true.

Right, Justin, you remember.

Okay.

You never had a belly button.

Is it okay?

Can I come back?

Can you come back?

Yeah, yeah.

I have some great news for you.

Okay, cool.

You're the original Griffin.

All right.

Yeah, okay, yeah.

No, that makes sense.

Good.

Awesome.

Well, I'm going to go put the other ones in the incinerator.

If I seem like I didn't know what you guys are doing, it's because I wasn't listening to that part.

It's not part of the show, so I don't think I should have to listen to that one, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, if I'm uninvited from the talk, then everyone can pretty much.

Okay.

Michael Keaton was just fucking non-shooting it, dude.

Non-stop.

I mean, literally, like, he's just like him and Andy McDowell.

Just like every scene.

Yeah, dude.

With a different hat on.

Fucking bird man.

He won.

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

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 game of the week.

My name is Russ Rushik.

I know the best game of the week.

Welcome to the Besties, where we discuss the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment.

It is a video game club.

Just by listening, you, my friend, have become a member.

On this week's episode, Long in Development is Baby Steps from the people that brought you Quop

and

Ape Out.

Getting Over It.

Getting Over It and...

Majora's Mask.

That's not right.

That's that one I made up.

What's Baby Steps again, though?

I've forgotten.

Baby steps is a game where you take baby steps from the bottom of a mountain to the top of the mountain.

One big problem, this isn't your papa's video game.

You're going to have to take each step individually, one leg at a time.

Is that it?

Yeah, that's traditionally how steps are.

That is my strat for steps, IRL.

Cool, cool, cool, cool.

So, baby steps, a game where walking is hard.

Absolutely the funniest tutorial moment I've ever experienced in my entire life.

There is nothing funnier than when this game says press the stick to move forward and you press the stick to move forward and you fall on your face.

You immediately be frightened the mud.

It's so, it's so good.

It's so good.

But that is how baby steps says hello to you.

No longer will push forward to move forward that good old classic standard of ambulation in video games.

It has failed you because you are steering the legs.

Yeah, you will literally have direct control, one-to-one control over your two legs.

You don't have to worry about the arms pretty much.

You can pick stuff up, but that's it.

But all of it is in the legs.

And the level of control you have is like every, there's the X, there's the Y, you've even got the Z in there.

Yeah.

It's really, really great.

I had a fun experience actually yesterday.

Travis and I did a stream where I I controlled the body.

Actually, we took turns, one of us controlling like the tilt and the camera, and the other person controlling the legs.

And it's horrible.

It's no, it really actually dividing up the kind of like left brain, right brain like that actually made for a really unique.

I've played quite a bit myself.

I don't know.

I really, actually like the experience because it kind of really cements how much this game requires you to,

I don't know, juggle, spin two plates very, very fast at the same time.

with, I will say for a Bennett Foddy game, fairly

unpunishing at the beginning.

Like, there's not a lot of, I mean, getting over it is the quintessential version of this where Bennett Foddy is constantly taunting you with voiceover as you like, each and every mistake that you make, you lose possibly all of your progress.

Uh, I have not had any experience remotely that rough in baby steps.

And so it is fun to play a Bennett Foddy game and feel like I am progressing and not like that is going to be snatched away from me at a moment's notice the first time that I fuck up.

There's a key difference between getting over it.

For people who remember this, the one where you're the nude bald dude in a giant black cauldron with a hammer.

He could be wearing a baby suit.

He could.

We might have full pants on down there.

He might.

He might.

That's so true.

And you're trying to climb up like a mountain of trash.

That game, to me, is a game about refining fast motions because you have to kind of sling yourself with this hammer.

This game is you can go fast, but you're rewarded for going very slow and like actually looking at the way that your legs flex and your feet take a grip on the environment.

So if you kind of lift the camera up or lift it far down, either way, but wherever you can get a good look at your toes, you're gonna spend a lot of time looking at them and you can see the ground give way beneath your foot.

So if as long as you have purchase with like, let's say your right foot, you can test out the environment around you with your left foot and look to make sure that you have some grip.

And then you can put the next foot in front of you.

As

y'all were saying with that X, Y, and Z movement, you can really place.

your foot down to an exact spot where you want it to be.

And you'll have to.

Yes.

That's pretty long start climbing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was not expecting to like this game as much as I do.

I will tell you off the bat, it is definitely in my top five and maybe in my top three of the year right now.

I am completely fucking smitten by this game.

I haven't, although I appreciate the artistry and the design of specifically Bennett Fatti's games, this is the first one I've like genuinely enjoyed playing.

Yeah.

And because

there's a few reasons you mentioned at the top, like this is not as punishing as any of those other games.

There are moments in this game where you can lose a fair amount of processes.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Yeah.

But even in those moments, like at most, you're losing 30 minutes.

It's not a fall all the way down again with a single mistake.

And I don't want to play this game anymore.

I want to hear hoops, your take, because Fresh just said a thing that was very funny to me.

He said, it's not a whole lot.

It's just 30 minutes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was like the experience I had right before we started recording was like climbing to the top of a hill and then there was like a gap where there was a creek sort of and I took a wrong step and in the creek and I slid all the way down the creek and then through this like little waterfall person size gap where I just kind of like shrumped down perfect.

Yeah.

And then I literally, I, it took 30 minutes to walk back up to those rocks.

And I actually went backwards because I didn't understand where I was.

You know what I'm saying?

So like I went the wrong way around and ended up back where I started.

And then as I was crossing the gap, I took a wrong step and I went into the creek and I schlurmped through the creek into this person-sized hole and slid back down to the exact

goddamn place as before.

But it was like, but can I say, though,

I know my, I know my reputation.

It was a very,

I found it strangely zen.

I found it strangely sort of like, I felt like I was meeting the game.

It was, if I, like, I was meeting the game on its own level.

I felt like it was there.

It saw exactly what happened.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, it knew exactly what happened.

That was exactly as designed.

The game is designed.

First of all, it's designed for you to fall in those situations.

It's also designed for you to know

for pretty sure when you do fall at certain moments how devastating it's going to be.

Like it telegraphs that.

It's never a surprise.

If you fall in that creek, you're like, yeah, that makes sense.

That's going to go bad.

Oh, I knew 100% when I saw.

And did I walk up to that creek very carefully?

Or did I walk up to that creek?

I'm like, what's up, bitch?

I'm back.

I'm about to walk over you.

Like, that's literally.

So I think the game is fair in that way.

Yeah, for sure.

I do.

And it's also fair because

if you're just like the basic walking around, for me, it was very much like riding a bike, except if the bike changed in size

every few minutes, right?

Because I would feel like I would get in a groove,

but it would not be fast enough for me.

And I would want to push the pace.

And if I would just go slower,

probably be fine.

I'd be making a good, but nope, I got to push it.

Yeah.

That's when I would get frustrated is when I would just stand up, fall right over.

And I would feel like, why can't I get it?

Like I can't find the rhythm again.

And that's, that can be really frustrating.

So what I really like about the following of it, and this happened to me too, usually it happened when I was intentionally doing doing something very very stupid yeah i'll give you an example i was walking on my on a main path very safe no real threats around and there was a swing hanging from a tree

a tree swing if you will you have to and at the top of the tree was like a fruit or something

and

I was like, I'm going to try to eat that fruit.

Now the tree

swing situation.

I've got to get a lot of video game shit against you constantly.

It's constantly like, oh, fruit, man.

Look, there's a torch.

Don't you want that?

Fuck.

There was a cliff on the side of the tree swing.

And when I stepped on the swing, I found out for the first time that the tree swing was actually a physics object because there are apparently physics objects you can walk on in this game as well.

And that means if you put weight on it, it's going to start moving around.

It moves like a swing.

Yes.

And it was then that I continued forward attempting to it.

And I fell.

Now, when I fell, I had no way to get back to where I was.

There was seemingly no pathway to get back to where I was.

But I ended up just kind of walking and finding other pathways that went around different paths and took me to like weird fucking, I found a cardboard box fort that was full of like crazy ass platforming materials.

They want you to fall.

They want you to walk maybe a different way than the way you walked because they want you to find the weird shit that they made.

That is the game.

It's not, even though, yes, they're pressing you.

They're saying, hey, get to the top of this mountain, whatever.

It's kind of not the point.

It's more about having a fun, weird experience.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so I think, yeah.

Fresh, a couple of days ago,

after you had sent me a video of this, I, this will shock you.

I found that exact same tree with that exact same swing.

And I said, you know, now today, Satan, I know exactly what this little trick is.

I've seen this before.

And then I said, but what if I did pull it off?

And then I send the video to Fresh.

And there's like a, there's like two stones before you get to the swing, right?

I was like, okay, just step on the stones.

Turns out they had a little bit of moss, a little wet moss on them.

Slipped, didn't even make it to the fucking swing.

Didn't touch the swing.

Zipped right down this hill.

I did find a way up.

You want to know how long it took me?

45 minutes.

I made my way all the way back there, and I was like, now I'm going to do it.

Got onto the swing.

And then what I realized, Fresh, did you go back to the swing ever?

I looked at it, but no, I did not.

Here's the great trick about it.

When you put your weight on the edge of the swing, it lowers you just enough that your other leg can't get onto the tree.

So basically, you have to kind of do a hopscotch move if you want to pull that off.

It's easy in this game.

Oh, so easy.

That is when I said, no, thank you.

And that is also when I realized what the game is, which...

is exactly what you're saying.

It is, you know, you have to embrace the Zen.

It's not about finishing the game if you play this game and your goal is purely i want to get to the end and i want to get there as soon as possible you are going to have a miserable time like a truly miserable time if you play this game and you say i just want to see where it takes me it's going to be up and down i'm going to see this as a fun experience you're going to have a great time there is a moment probably like halfway through the game where you are very very very high on this mountain and you will see in the distance a little ledge coming off.

And you will walk over to it if you so choose.

And you will discover that ledge is a diving board.

And that diving board encapsulated the entire game for me.

Because you can either look at life as like punishment, as a series of like falling down, or you can look at it at it as like this playground where you could voluntarily choose to jump off that diving board and go like pursue all the adventures that are in the wrong direction, but are like the whole reason you're playing the game, the whole reason you're playing the game is to overcome these obstacles.

And if, again, if you're fighting it,

good golly, is it going to be miserable for you?

Okay, but I really struggle with this, Plant, because

I'm split, I should say, because I very much agree with you.

I think that that's right.

I think that if this was most games, what I would be complaining about is saying, well, if that is the experience that makes, if that's the mindset that makes this pleasurable for me, then the game should be doing more to put me into that mindset, to not, you know what I mean, to not make it look like that.

Because I don't think, I think there is a tension there because you do have to have the urge to move forward, right?

And you do have to have, you have to treat it as a linear experience in that regard a little bit.

And I feel like it does, if the game came out and was like, hey, don't get frustrated.

Don't worry about it.

This is just an exploration experience.

That's a different thing, right?

They want the frustration too.

But I think if they came out and said, this is going to be frustrating, just embrace it, then it wouldn't, I don't think it would feel the same.

Feel as good to find that yourself.

I think they actually very elegantly introduced this idea through the writing and the cutscenes that you will get with the characters, which are so fucking funny.

Like, it has this game, which is that is the frustration for me is I wanted to see more of them.

That was the only source.

I want more.

Come on.

And falling will lead you to more.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, because you'll go different routes and you'll reach different checkpoints where you will run into these characters.

And the writing is like,

the gameplay is so fucking funny.

And the writing is also very fucking funny.

Like this, your main character that you're controlling, Nate, is this sort of like socially, deeply socially inept kind of guy who lives in his parents' basement and is like binging one piece when he gets sucked away,

another world style into this, into this climbing experience and every character he meets he does not want to talk to he wants to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible uh it also does his best to appease them without having to engage with them in the conversation there's like a guy who's like an experienced avid hiker who's like did you get your map oh you gotta have the map man and but and like flashes it in your face and a little ui pops up for like two seconds and then disappears that's the best like that's good it's really really it's good and i think it introduces like it shows you the the different ways that people have of getting up this mountain

while also providing a little bit of like incentive because yeah, I wanted to see more of those cutscenes.

The game is filled with like triple-A jokes like that.

At one point, he's like, oh, just use your grappling hook.

And it like gives you a UI element of a grappling hook that you absolutely can never get.

Yeah, yeah.

My favorite of those is one that a lot of people probably won't see, but I

had seen a couple cutscenes because I reverted a save.

So I'd seen a couple couple cutscenes before so I was skipping them and when you're skipping cutscenes they change the interaction each time you do it so one time you have to hold down the button one time you're doing like a quick reload like gears of war one time you have to tap the button a bunch of times just as like that's a fucking

games thing so many funny little jokes like that I I struggled a little bit with that main character because I I couldn't tell if that was supposed to represent me as a player.

Like if that was the way I was perceived by the creator of the game and that made that put a little bit more of a mean spirited sort of thing in the initial I think stumbling that I had because it felt like I was the jerk for wanting to play it a little bit and I don't think that was the intent but that was definitely the feeling that I had early on I have some great context for that but again this is the tricky thing of you it wants you to do the hard stuff to then get the story but if you get hats like did you see the hats around the world at all hoops um no Wait, what do you mean?

Hats?

They're like, they're like hats that you can find.

I'm looking at the ground so I don't fall.

Like, how would I see a hat?

They're like little hats on each stint of your climb that you can find in hidden places.

And you'll put this hat on, and it's a challenge because the hat will come off if you fall.

And we'll get back to that in just a second.

But if you take the hat to a campfire, which is like the core checkpoint, you'll get the usual cutscene where like some dude, climber, or a donkey who is not wearing pants and has a giant dong, which we'll talk about also, will chat with you.

Is that the nudity?

Is that the nudity that you're going to be?

That's the nudity.

There are more cops in this game than I've ever seen, no joke, in any other game ever.

Let's circle back to that.

Let's put a pin in that conversation because I would like to circle back to it.

Yes, yes.

You gotta leave some spoiler meat on the bone, guys.

Come on.

Yes, sir.

To wrap up the narrative part.

So you go to the campfire, you're wearing the hat, and then it will cut to this Atari-style story where you are literally just bouncing around in an RPG-like environment, Atari visuals, and you are, I assume, this guy in his real life.

And that's where you start to learn kind of what this game is about.

And it is very much about like dudes who are too online, do not have opportunities for social connection,

feel ostracized from society, and get sucked into like basically Manosphere culture.

And the whole game from there opens up to be about masculinity and like the pressure to do certain things.

And that is how we can loop back to the tons of dongs.

Yeah, I just, I just want to say when you start this game up, it says, do you, there's nudity in this game.

Do you want to turn it off?

And I said yes, because one, I knew we were going to stream it.

And two, like, I thought this was going to be a really funny game to play with like Henry, who is eight.

And Russ forewarned us, like, hey, this game is 90% like super kid friendly and 10%, like, not kid-friendly, even fucking remotely at all.

I have not hit anything that feels like, I don't know, that I wouldn't want to play it with him.

But have you seen a donkey?

I've seen a donkey.

He didn't have

a big wiener or anything.

Oh, no, no, no.

You saw a normal donkey.

You didn't see a humanoid donkey.

No, I haven't seen that.

See the giant cock.

No, I haven't seen that.

Here's what I'm going to say.

For people,

I've played this game with my four-year-old, but in very, very selective moments.

Generally speaking,

if you're playing just the normal walking around game, you're fine.

You might want to lower the audio.

You can lower the talking audio because he does say like fucking shit sometimes.

It's really funny because he doesn't do it every time, but then like he'll do a little spill and be like, oh, fuck Christ.

It's like he gets frustrated.

It's not proportionate to whatever happened.

Like, it's really bad.

It's like small false.

Yeah.

But when the cutscenes start, it's, I would say, odds on that you're going to see at least one large cock,

if not multiple.

And I don't know what happens when you do the nudity thing.

It probably blurs them out, but still, you should probably know that there's a fair number of cocks in this game.

So much.

It should be noted, all the cutscenes are improvised, which I didn't realize until.

Oh, really?

Yeah, it's all improvised.

That makes so much sense from the fucking jump, dude.

And it's the two craters, all of the side characters are Bennett, and then the main character is Gabe.

Okay.

I love this game.

I think it offers the like level of like stuff that I nerd out about regarding like things that I felt like I earned, like I earned an experience because you are literally like deciding every step.

When I play Death Stranding, even though I really love Death Stranding, especially two,

there are moments where it just like automates the...

the hard parts where it's like you're running through a craggy stream and the AI is just deciding where to put your feet.

And the fact that you are making all of those choices yourself in this game just makes getting to the other side of the stream such a fucking

exciting experience.

If you were playing Death Stranding and you were like, ah, easy mode, just walking around is like, so like, this is the game for you.

This is where the real, the real big dogs play.

I don't know.

You can joke about that, but I also feel like if you have too much shit or your weight is misaligned in Death Stranding, it is a genuinely unfun experience because it is different.

It is so different from

how it normally sort of feels in this game.

Like, as hard as it is on purpose, as like antagonistic as it is sometimes with its like challenges that it presents to you, I don't know, man.

Like, I know how this guy moves.

I kind of know what is expected of me and how to deliver on that.

It's a question of like execution and strategy and routing and everything.

But like, I actually, I don't know.

I am really surprised at how approachable I am finding this game from.

It feels fair in a way that that training doesn't necessarily wear like and fair isn't the right word, but

you know, it's the same challenge that anybody else would have with navigating that.

Real quick before we wrap, can I share my video game achievement of 2025?

Yeah, is it related to baby steps?

It's related to baby steps.

So there is a point, again, around halfway through, where you'll come out of a cave and you'll see this big, tall set of stones that you can climb up to get to the next area.

And you'll climb up those set of stones and then you'll get right to right before the top and the final stone will be too high for your leg to be able to get up and it's like ah you sucker you fell for it you're gonna have to go find a different path so i i go and i find a different path i do get all the way up there i'm now hiking somewhere else where i have a hoops moment i i slip whoop and i fall down and is that sort of our slang term for fucking up that we're all agreeing on

just like a hoops moment or is something where like you've made a mistake and embarrassed yourself.

Is that the

lock it in?

And I whoop and I go falling down the side of the thing and my hat falls off.

And I'm like, where the fuck is my hat?

My hat fell on the top of that one stone that you cannot reach.

So I had to, if I was like, I'm going to get this damn hat.

So now I couldn't climb up to get the hat.

I had to go all the way back around, go high, high up, and then I had to kind of walk down the side of a cliff to be able to get this hat.

I did this for an hour, maybe an hour and a half.

And it truly became that thing where I am, I am convinced that I know how to do it.

And actually

getting down the side of the mountain, doing the opposite of what the game wanted me to do to get this damn hat that I didn't even need, but I really wanted to see that little story, Pete.

I have felt like a damn video game god.

And like, even if I I don't finish the game, though I think I will, like, that was more rewarding than finishing a trillion other video games.

Yeah.

There's also something very self-directed about it.

Like, you, you can't get too frustrated because you know exactly what you're doing.

Like, my, our dad used to say all the time from this old cartoon Super Chicken, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred.

And that, like, I felt that a lot playing this game.

It's like, I mean, look at it.

Like, you, you know exactly what this is.

If you're continuing to engage with it, you're doing that of your own accord.

Like, no one's making you happen

i have one last anecdote that i'd like to share there's a moment mid to late in the game where i've uh overcome a pretty sizable challenge it's like a giant mine sequence that took like a while to figure out i was very proud i made it to the very top and at the very top there is a large girder sticking out over a ledge And at the end of the girder is a hat, a construction hat.

And I'm like, I have walked across these sorts sorts of girders a thousand times in this game.

I'm a fucking master at this.

I know how to do this.

If I fall, I lose all the progress entirely, but I know how to do that.

So I walk across the girder.

And as I'm walking across the girder, I'm like, but honestly, I'm going to hard quit the game because I'm not doing this fucking thing again.

And I'll just like reload the save.

So I made it to the hat.

I go to bend down for the hat and I fall ass over tea kettle.

I'm in midair losing all of my progress as this is happening.

I quit the game.

I reload the game.

I am in midair falling.

No way.

It auto-saved as I was falling.

And I was like, bravo, I'm fucking doing this again.

I don't care.

Well done, guys.

And I had a blast.

I found new stuff when I was down there.

I found a new way up.

It was great.

That's the magic of the game.

The fact that I kept going is really telling how much enjoyment I was doing.

It is like by making traditional progress so frustrating, it does kind of prompt you to kind of make your own.

it's like prompting you to make your own fun in the in like in the sense that like well i mean i might as well enjoy myself i'm hiking all the way up back up this way i might as well like you know you can't get too frustrated about it so it lets you kind of it's something beyond like the reward of progress it's the sometimes you'll get in a groove and that'll just feel really good like it'll just feel and if you think about it if you notice you're in a groove you will fall over it's like signing your name and someone's like hey think what are you doing with your signature it immediately like yep.

Yeah, so it is another sort of meditative thing a little bit like because you are like if you think about what you're doing It's harder sometimes like if you can sort of zero your brain out just kind of roll with it sometimes.

It's easier.

Yeah, such a good moment when you realize you're not thinking about walking anymore.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Spent so much time in doing it.

Yeah.

Good game.

We have a lot to talk about.

Can we transition seamlessly to an ad break?

This was it.

That was it.

Oh, that's fucking perfect.

Yeah.

Justin, our man on the scene, man on the street,

man in the web has prepared for us a presentation that you've been teasing out for weeks now.

It's just, it's an extremely, extremely daunting time in the world of handheld retro game consoles.

It's a world we've dipped into previously a lot.

And there's just like so much happening right now.

And it's such a really truly bizarre space.

So, I wanted to go ahead.

I've linked you guys to the document.

So, are we going to make this available to the team?

Yes, you can find that here in our

mailing list.

I will send that out.

Does that sound good?

So, this is kind of a

big picture view of things as we've sort of approached them on the show before.

I've got the four sort of biggest players in the space laid out and what they're up to.

And then I got some one off.

So, we're going to check in with.

So, let's go first up to Ambernick.

Ambernick is classic for releasing a ton of different consoles.

The first one, and this is the first two I'm going to talk about are out right now.

The 34 XX

SP

is a really, this has been since this year they've released this.

You can pick one of these up for between

$60 to $100, depending on what kind of like stuff that you, what kind of things you want preloaded in it, where you want it to ship from, et cetera, et cetera.

All these game consoles have a lot of different options depending what you want with them.

But this is a flippy kind of guy.

It's shaped like a Game Boy SP, but has the like dual thumbsticks at the bottom left and right.

Do you have one of these, Bad Boys?

Yeah, I do.

They're really cute.

If you want to, you can get one of these right now, right?

And the reason I want to talk about these that are right now is to kind of give you a lay of the land for where we're at.

The other one that's out right now is the 477M.

This is from Retroid, and this is one that I really, really love a lot.

It uh, it has a snap, well, it's the Dimensity 8300, which is kind of up there in terms of uh

like Android gaming right now.

This is probably the most powerful chipset.

There is an elite uh 8 Gen 3, I think it is, that's in some of these that are coming out now, but there aren't

as there hasn't been as much work in like the emulation front with the apps and what is the chip, this chip in particular, like what uh platform-wise, what are we talking about?

So, you could do everything, like everything with this chipset and this device, which is the 477M again, and that means

it's stupid, but it's metal shell and the four set.

Their RG is retro game.

So like to give you, it's like that's what, that's how much, and it's like a 4.7

inch display.

And it is a.

What's the second seven for?

What?

You said 4.7-inch display.

What's the second 7 for?

The second 7, I I will actually tell you, is for the generation of

devices.

So if it ends at a six, if the last number of an Amberneck device is a six, it's the generation before this.

This is the seventh generation, so it ends with a seven.

You can play anything in this.

I've played PS2 games upscaled 4X

with like all the shaders.

There is not a lot of work that has been done playing PS3 games on Android, but if you can do it, you can do it with this.

Are these all Android?

I thought Ambernik was Linux.

No, Ambernik does a variety of them.

This one you can pick up to give you, again, a range.

You can between 270 and like 400, depending on

what you want preloaded.

All these devices, a lot of them at least, you can buy them with an SD card that'll come preloaded with a lot of games on them.

If you want to do that, you can certainly do that.

In my experience, those cards are one, filled with a lot of crummy ROMs, and the quality of the cards is really bad.

So, I don't know.

No crap out.

You're better off getting a cheap card from an established retailer.

Um, the other one that's kind of cool from Ambernik that is on the way, it's almost exactly like that other device.

The one we just talked about, it's got the that same four by three uh aspect ratio, which is great for pretty much all the retro gaming stuff, except for you know, unless until you get into true widescreen content.

Like, this is a great way to see your games without a lot of uh uh extra extra black space wasted on them.

But this is the very same device, but the 4-7-6

H,

H means horizontal.

And what does that last six mean, Russ?

Degeneration.

Model degeneration.

Six generation.

So this is less powerful than the last.

What?

Yeah, see, you're getting it.

This is the last powerful.

Yeah, the problem is this only works for Amritch.

All the other companies have different naming conventions.

No, buddy.

It actually gets worse.

That one you can pre-order now

is available to pre-order now.

I think it's going to be shipping out soon, but this one will be closer to like $140.

So this will not be able to do your

like your upscaled PS2 or GameCube.

You would be able to do with this like most low-end PS2 stuff and most GameCube stuff at just sort of like a 1X.

uh a thing and it's always a trade-off with these you know if you want more shaders that make it look like an old you know close to the old experience and that's gonna slow your frame rate down or whatever but that's that's amber net i neo another a company

i neo is

go ahead what is the difference between ion and i and neo

is a different company i neo is a i neo is the up that they're the the priciest one i neo is the is the the the the the lamborghini the sleek lamborghini of these devices these are the ones they will put uh their their device the pocket S2, is probably the priciest, like latest new thing that is out right now.

So they, and that costs like $700.

And that's like terabyte of storage, can run everything, like, including most Switch stuff.

Like, it's, it's, it's, it's out there.

So INEO has a bunch of new consoles.

The two that are getting the most discussion right now, and the reason it will become obvious.

This is, this is the year where flip consoles are becoming more of a thing, where dual screen devices.

Um, and INEO has two of them, and this is confusing, so I wanted to mention it.

So, there is the INEO Flip 1S DS.

I shit you not, that's what it's called.

I mean, easier to understand than the Ambernick name in convention, arguably, yes, except for they have a device called the INEO Pocket DS.

So that does, that does complicate things a little bit.

Which is, from a layman's sort of perspective, nearly fucking identical.

It almost looks nearly identical the difference is that the INEO flip 1s costs about twice as much it costs over $1,100 because it is a Windows

handheld crazy yeah so it's a Windows it's a Windows handheld it's a Windows one so it's seven inch OLED on the top and then the bottom screen is is not an OLED the bottom screen is is is an L C D

uh and if that's gonna mess you I mess you up I think the both of these are in the same I think this is an Android limitation from what I understand.

The Flip 1S is like a,

it is Windows-based, so it is like a much pricier thing.

These range from, let's see here, the lowest

is 16 gigabytes of RAM and one terabyte of storage.

And you can get that early bird for $779.

That's the pre-order price right now.

And that's in the black configuration.

If you want a 64 gigabyte one with two terabytes of storage, you can get that in the retro power colorway for $1,500.

For something that like, it's wild to me because you look at the Steam Deck, which has been around and obviously is getting long in the tooth, but like has been around since 2020.

And like it still can more or less do it.

And the fact that these come out every single year,

if not six months.

I threw this.

That one's kind of an outlier in in the space like i threw that one in because that i ando is also making the pocket ds because that is the one that i think is probably most comparable and russ like i know you're a flip an owner of the retroid flip 2 which kind of kicked off this whole thing this year um this is probably a closer competitor that uh you can pick it up for 500 bucks early bird you have two screens right the there's a seven inch oled at the top screen that's 1080p and then a four by three uh lcd this is for the pocket ds right

it's in the lower configuration so and it also has two thumbsticks uh a d-pad four buttons on the right you know so you can play all of your this is really making like

ds and 3ds in a form factor that is is closer to the original experience that to me is i think why a lot of people are excited about these is it android as opposed to windows this one is android yes okay android and two screens right now is still a little bit more difficult.

Yeah, it's a little bit

quite sure how it works.

I actually wasn't already was kind of struggling with one screen to some extent.

I've got quite a few of these bad boys.

I simply cannot be bothered to fuck around with a Windows-based retro gaming handheld.

That is a lot of that is a lot of toggles to flip for a machine that is arguably not built for that.

I mean, that's what the ROG is.

Isn't the ROG that?

The ROG ROG is that, right?

But I switched over to Bazite because I couldn't fucking stand trying to navigate Windows.

I should mention, though, the Windows consoles are on a different trajectory price-wise and PowerWise.

The most recent

that new Lenovo thing is like,

I think it's more impressive.

It's like $1,800.

And it's like twice as much as their last handhelds.

The Windows handheld space, I think, is...

frankly it's fucked man it's it's crazy the the rog ally is like 650 bucks and i can play pretty much anything on it.

That's why we're here in the Sewers.

Iano is, so those are the two flip things from INEO.

They are also doing, this is great, The Conquer Pocket Fit, guys,

is

this is the way it's pitched, the first masterpiece from Conquer.

This is Cap

Capital K-O-N-K-R Conquer.

Who is the Conquer?

The Conquer is a new, it's a new company.

Now, don't be confused just because they are available at Ianeo.com.

Oh, I see.

And it is a sub-brand, right?

It's a sub-brand because INEO's whole thing is that they're too expensive.

So Conquer is the pocket, like the Conquer Pocket Fit is their first, under this label that they're calling Conquer.

This has a Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile platform, Snapdragon G3 Gen 3.

That is the...

Best chip in terms of what is available right now for the the the drivers that are available, driver's port, your term drivers, whatever, that is the best chip, in my opinion, is available right now.

And this, and it is in a handheld widescreen presentation, two thumbsticks.

It's a six-inch 1080p L C D screen.

So you're not getting the OLED thing.

Nice and holes.

Yeah, it's got the handles.

It's got the inline triggers

for all, you know, whatever games you want to play on it.

It's got an 8,000 milliamp battery, which is, I know it doesn't mean anything, but it's pretty good.

and you can get this guy you can get this guy for 240 bucks that's crazy why would ionio partner with that i feel like that really

shows how crazy expensive a lot of ionia's other stuff was are they all the same company like aren't they like there is some debate about this one is definitely absolutely the same company like this is a hundred percent the same company because it is

a lot of these companies it is confusing because they are order they're they're all kind of dipping from the same well in terms of parts, which is like

phone parts that are not used anymore, right?

That's like the source of this stuff.

Like the panels and the and a lot of that, those things, that is where we're getting the hardware and everything.

These are, this is phone hardware that is being repurposed.

So a lot of them are coming from the same place.

You see the same

screens and chipsets used a lot, which is raised some questions about like how independent are these companies,

whatever, which gets even more confusing because do we all understand this device right the conker

pocket fit is probably the best like in terms of like a deal but make way for the ionio pocket air mini

a flagship dna entry level price premium experience from ioneo finally this is the tagline an ionio retro handheld that everyone can afford oh

they're doing everyone it's no man it's the same thing again they're They're just doing, they're directly competing in this case.

They're saying, this is INEO, the same company making a device very much like the Conker Pocket Fit, which is being made by their sub-brand, but this is their own INEO bargain device.

Yeah.

How much is that one?

This one is going to be start at.

And I've included a link because this isn't part of the pre-order thing.

This is just coming down.

I've included a link because the company just recently revealed the pricing.

A lot of these companies are doing these press releases in Discord channels.

That's where a lot, and like they're just talking directly to CEOs.

So like, but you can look at the pricing in this, but basically you could pick this guy up for the early bird 32 gigabyte version is like 75 bucks.

Now, oh, yeah, that's not bad.

This is much, much, much, much, much less powerful than the Pocket Fit.

In $70 is actually a pretty good price for what they're offering here, which makes it an even more confusing product.

Right.

I don't know, man.

I don't know.

AYN has two products.

There's the Odin 3, which is in that same like high-end.

People call it a candy bar.

So, if that is helpful to you, screen in the middle, controls on either side, versus a handheld where the Game Boy form factor where the screen's at the bottom.

How is candy bar a relevant analogy?

It's to help people visualize.

You hold it rectangular.

I don't hold a fucking candy bar like that.

Are you crazy?

I hold a candy bar by the sides horizontally and smash my face into it.

That's how I eat a candy bar.

The Odin 3 is their big

six-inch, 120-hertz OLED, top-of-the-line,

great guy.

And that guy is coming out for,

let's see, 330 is the base early bird price on that.

And you can, I'm sure it goes all the way up.

But that is also,

that has an eight Elite chip in it, which is interesting just because the Snapdragon Gen 3

chip that is in the other devices that we've talked about.

There's been more work on the

drivers and stuff available for them in terms of retro gaming because a lot of this, like the gaming work, hasn't been done on this hardware because it's being used for phones and there hasn't been the same demands, right?

So it'll be interesting to see if some of that work catches up when you have the Odin 3 out because that's going to be a big

release because the Odin 2 is a huge one.

And then AYN is also doing their own dual screen thing the AYN Thor if that's something that you want to get into if you want to try the dual screen thing this has a six inch OLED at the top and then a smaller screen on the bottom

and this is that one out are any of this one is not out dual screen ones out I don't think so right pre-order this is on pre-order yeah optimistic none of these dual screens are out the only one that is out that I want you guys to look at because it's you're gonna think uh retroid hasn't done anything this year that recently that is very interesting.

They do have a dual-screen add-on

out for $70 that Griffin mentioned he is waiting on.

Griffin, can you talk about this real quick?

Yeah, it's been apparently out for delivery for the last two days because you order these things, and I believe most of them come from mainland China.

Hey, I think China's making exactly as many of these things as we buy, guys.

I think that's the secret keeping the stars apart here.

Fair point.

It is $70, and there's two models: one that is made for Retroid devices and one that is made for, quote, other devices.

I heard from a few channels, Good Russ specifically mentioned that it fits really nice on the INEO Pocket Ace, which is my sort of like off-court buddy of choice, but it attaches and it,

from what I've heard, the hinge is pretty decent.

Obviously, it adds quite a bit of bulk, but you can turn your, you know, Retroid

Pocket 5 into a dual-screen handheld.

It is Android-based, and so like there is quite a bit of tweaking that you're going to have to do to get it to work, but

it seems like a really solid option.

And considering how none of these other DS style handhelds are out yet, it's kind of like the only game in town.

And it's $70, which is

for this market, not

too terrible.

So I'm excited.

As annoying as I think it's going to be getting one of these handhelds to work with the second screen, I'm looking forward to getting it i i have a question about a thing i see in the list one of these is just called game console what is that oh yeah that's the hottest new player will you guys click on that one this is the hottest new player in the space a company called game console

that rules it how is that not taken this company's called game console and this device is the everyone remember say it with me now the xf40h

Okay, what about the

website?

So nervous what's going to pop up.

Here's the chip.

You should look for this one on AliExpress.

That's how we're playing with this guy, okay?

If you're looking for a game console, this comes in like five different colors.

There's a pink one.

There's a blue one.

But I threw it in here because it's like crazy format.

I can't sell it for like 40 bucks.

And it's got tooled, you know, it's got two thumbsticks.

It's got all the controls and it plays a lot of stuff.

It's not going to play like your latest, latest and greatest PS2 and GameCube upscaled, but it's going to cost 50 bucks.

It'll play almost everything.

Yeah.

It's got a unique one by one screen, which I have no known that I've ever seen before.

Yes, it is a one by one.

It looks kind of like Amberdick had a device called the RG Cube XX.

It's in a similar style to that, which is another one by one.

But this is a budget.

It's like $50.

The reason I'm mentioning this is because

to give you an idea of what sub-100 bucks is going to get you.

There's also the Mangme M-A-N-G-M-I Air X, which sucks that they, I have to read all these fake brands out loud.

You know, people make up fake brand names all the time, but they don't think about the common folks like me.

They're going to have to say them out loud repeatedly.

But the Mangme Air X, you can get for 80 bucks plus a free carrying case.

It just like comes in there.

It's got a really, it actually looks really, really good.

I like the look of this thing a lot.

Yeah.

This is one that, actually, hold on.

I have one here.

Wait.

Do you really?

A Mang Me?

He's going to get an Mang Me.

Oh, here it comes.

So this is one that a lot of people have been talking about because it is such a great value.

Um, this device is another candy bar, two

uh uh thumb sticks.

This is our first offering from Mangme.

It's powered by the Adreno 610 GPU, uh, the Snapdragon 662, which doesn't mean anything to you, but you can blogger it for us.

Come on, uh, come on, show

oh, it looks

like a lot of other,

yes, okay, but if you hold the device, if you feel the device it feels like a really good quality the build quality on this is really really good and like i said hold it up to the camera and i'll get the sense of it yeah can you just imagine holding it no i i'm feeling it it does look a lot like other stuff but not 80 80 stuff they all look like each other i mean that's kind of the point oh man This is pre-loaded with big ideas, VeggieTales, Larry Boy, and the bad apple.

It just has one PS2 game, and that's it.

Veggie Tales.

Crazy.

Fuck y'all.

You can get one of these guys for 80 bucks and it's going to play a ton, a ton of stuff and it looks beautiful.

It's got really nice RGB sticks.

The sound look at this gigantic speaker in the back.

I'm not normally the like the biggest fan of like I usually like an upward firing speaker, but it sounds really good.

And it has different fan modes so you can increase the speed if you want to run something a little higher end and burn through your battery faster.

It's just a lot of flexibility for not a ton of money, which has gotten a lot of people excited when you see what less than $100 will get you.

I want to make sure we have time for honorable mentions, and we're going to put all these in the email.

What are you currently

to?

Can you lead off with like, what are you currently fucking?

Sorry, can you guys just real quick before we look?

I do have to do my last one.

It's the 1X Sugar.

Will you guys please look at the 1X Sugar?

I've seen the 1X Sugar.

It's the fucking craziest thing in the world.

It's made by a company called 1X Player.

1X Sugar sounds like the candy place at the airport.

Yeah.

It is the same chip as the 477M.

This trailer is making me dizzy, man.

G3 Gen 3.

It will be,

it is a device that is all things to all people.

It has two screens, and it's a transformer.

So you can have it, so you're holding it in a DS style with the controls at the bottom and the screen at the top.

You can also flip the second screen around to the back.

So it's just like a regular candy bar device.

You can flip it so the controls are on the the sides and you just have an extra screen in the back.

So if you're like, wonderful,

it's going to be great.

Everybody hates it, right?

Everyone hates it.

Everyone who's touched it despises this thing.

That's the best thing about this space.

It looks like the Game Boy, like that had that light and magnet, like magnifying it.

It does.

It looks like a Game Boy DMG with like all the fixins.

Yes.

Yeah.

It is wild.

It is also like $700.

Love it.

And I've heard like the build quality is not that great either.

It seems like a wild product.

A truly, truly wild product.

A truly wild space.

But Griffin, you were asking.

What are you rocking with?

Like, what is your, what do you take with you if you are, when you are traveling?

What is your current sort of go-to guy?

The RG477M is a really nice form factor.

It's a really nice, like, that's the one that was out in the more recent months, like $250.

It's not so expensive that

it makes me nauseous to carry it with me.

Like, I do have a case and I protect it, but it's not like, I don't know, there's some stuff that it makes me have palpitations just to leave the house with it.

So I feel comfortable and it's durable.

It feels more durable in that sense.

So I don't mind taking it with me.

A lot of these devices, you pop them in your bag.

And if it still has all the buttons,

when you've reached your destination, then it's like a pretty

pretty big triumph.

But yeah, that one is the one I've liked the most.

uh have used that to like explore a lot of older uh game libraries that i wasn't like really familiar with before but uh that one is one that is like out now um if you you want to get one to start out with, I mean, a lot of those budget ones are great.

And then the 476H seems like a really good middle ground if you don't want to spend quite so much as the 477M.

Where are we going to post this master list that Justin is going to be?

It'll be at besties.fan.

You just subscribe.

If you get the newsletter, it'll be in this week's issue of the newsletter.

What won't be in this week's issue of the newsletter, though, is, Griffin, there's something that you missed in Baby Steps.

I just wanted to make sure you had a chance to take a look.

It's in our Slack right now if you want to give a look at that.

Hope it's not a wiener.

Tell me what you're seeing.

Yeah, it is a wiener.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

I just wanted to make sure that you saw it.

Want to talk about other stuff we're playing?

I don't think in today's modern workspace, I don't think texting people, just messaging pictures of baby steps.

To be clear, this is not just a normal wiener.

It is the donkey from the game.

And this is what happens when you restart the game.

Okay.

And it's useful that you're recording this so we have a record from a loster standpoint

to just like point back to it.

Right.

Thankfully, it was just sent to all of us and no one else.

Thank goodness for that.

That is a miracle.

I have been playing so much stuff this week.

It really is Cup Runner Thrower.

I finished Silk Song 100%.

I know Rust did.

I also did, yes.

Fucking Fire, Absolute Banger.

Really, really good.

I'm sure we will have much more conversations about Silk Song in the future, but

I'm really happy with my time with it.

I've been playing a bit of Final Fantasy Tactics, the Evil East Chronicles, which I believe we're going to talk about more extensively next week.

Correct.

So I can save some of it for that, but I'm really enjoying that too.

It's a game I've

tried to break into a lot of times, and it has never really clicked for me.

That is the remake of the original PS1 Final Fantasy Tactics.

That is correct.

Yes.

So like some of the stuff from War of the Lions, the 2007 PSP game

is missing.

But what is there is really

I'm enjoying a whole lot, and it has smoothed off a lot of the rough edges that have maybe bounced off the game before.

Slime Rancher 2.

is now out of early access as of this week.

It's out in 1.0.

And I don't, we probably did an episode on it when it was like first in early access

like two or three years ago.

And I really, really, really enjoy that game.

It's very, very chill.

It doesn't ask, it doesn't ask a lot of you.

It's like a farm management game, but you have this like vacuum gun you use to suck up slimes and you build little pins for them and feed them to get their plorts, which you can sell at the market that you then use to upgrade your pins and your tools.

And

you go out and explore and do all that stuff.

I don't really know how much is new in the 1.0 version, but I didn't play a lot of it originally because I was waiting for this.

And

it's really been a lot of fun.

My boys have been enjoying it a lot too.

And the only other one I wanted to talk about is Mega Bonk, which Chris Plant posted in the Bessie's Slack, I think like

yesterday or the day before.

But God damn, Mega Bonk is airbonk.

It is the follow-up to Bonk Bonk.

No, it is a...

Bonk's adventure?

There isn't a bonk.

What are you talking about, man?

You mean

the original name in Japan was Bonk Bonk.

And no, Megabonk is.

Bonk Bonk.

Megabonk is a Vampire Survivors, but it's in 3D.

A la Risk of Rain 2, I guess.

I didn't play that much of that one, so maybe I shouldn't make comparisons to it.

It has a sort of low-poly sort of aesthetic.

Chris compared it to EverQuest, which is close enough.

And I feel like

it looks like if they were making a PSA about games like EverQuest, it looks like the game that would be in the PSA or like

a one-on-one episode.

Yeah, it's a toothpaste commercial about video games.

That's kind of what it looks like.

But it were when you're Check's Quest.

It looks better than ChexQuest.

When you're like in it and you have a swarm of, you know, fucking nasty little skeletons or whatever coming at you and playing and just tearing ass through all of them, it feels so good.

It's so fast.

And there's so much shit to unlock.

My God, there's so much shit to unlock.

So, yeah, I've only played a couple hours of it, but it was like one of those, like, I'll check this thing out that Chris posted in Slack.

And then, like, uh-oh, I was supposed to get shit done today.

So, so you got mega-bonked.

I got mega-bonked in a big way.

Also, Hades 2 is out,

and I've downloaded that and played a little bit.

And I was like, I can't, I don't have space.

I can't right now.

Like, I will, but I can't right now.

There's too much other shit popping.

Um, have, did anybody else hit that one for I did yeah I downloaded Hades 2 uh one 1.0 and I've played a lot of Hades 2 but I did kind of stop like back in April or so because I knew that eventually the 1.0 release would be out I mean it's so I don't know how to talk about this other than to say like if you like Hades then you should probably play Hades 2 and it's really good and there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff in Hades 2 and I I wonder if you were walking into this like fresh, how it would hit you, because there is a lot of currencies and upgrades and different stuff to keep track of in Hades 2.

And I've been following those kind of organically as the game has been updated.

And even I'm kind of like, I don't know, there's a lot to keep track of.

I do wonder about that, if that's going to be kind of overwhelming for people that haven't been sort of like following along.

But maybe it'll be less confusing because they'll get like tutorialized in it in a way that like I wasn't as I came up through it.

I played

the last time I played was like a year and a half ago when it first launched on early access and so I booted up again and I ended up starting from scratch because I only had like five hours or so worth of progress and ended up like getting back to where I was very quickly And I haven't really had a problem because it's just like, oh, I need more flowers and I'll just see when I get more flowers.

Like I'm not mentally internalizing like, oh, I really need this currency.

So I'm going to chase it.

I'm sure that might happen later, but early on, it hasn't really happened.

I'm in my head a little bit because I did the same thing.

I didn't want to play it after we played it and talked about it originally because I wanted to wait for 1.0.

And now I'm playing it and I'm like constantly second guessing like, was this how it was when I played it a year and a half?

Like, I feel like I'm looking for the things that are new.

And obviously, I think it's probably like later game areas that you unlock that.

They tweaked a bunch of stuff in the whole game.

I watched a video of like biggest changes.

And a lot of it is just like balance tweaks and the way like power is.

There's also massive.

You got to remember, like, you got to know also that there were throughout the process, massive chunks of the game that were coming out.

So like there were whole

big areas that were like not available.

So those have been the biggest updates.

It's been like, now you can get to this.

When you started playing, it was like there was, you would hit a lot of walls.

Yeah.

I think it's, I, I've, I've bounced off it a little bit genuinely because there's so much shit out.

And I feel like Hades is a game that completely envelops my, my time and energy.

And as much as I'm looking forward to that, like, I don't know, there's, there's a lot.

There's a lot.

Chris, piggyback off that because it's the only other little thing that I had because I wanted to pick

Deep Rock Galactic Survivor also hit one way.

Yeah.

Jesus Christ, man.

And it's really great.

So

we will probably be talking about a number of these games as A or B segments in episodes to come.

Because like hearing about Hades 2, it's just kind of wild that we have not had time for it.

So we'll get to a lot of this, dear listeners.

Related to that, I have been playing Silent Hill F,

which is so interesting.

And I think we're going to talk about that in two weeks.

So I won't go a whole lot further other than to say, like, hey, if you've been thinking about this game,

two

pseudo words of warning.

Not very Silent Hill-ish,

but very much its own thing.

And

there's no fog.

It's louder.

A lot of fog.

A lot of fog.

You are a teenage high school girl in japan and it's and everyone's really happy and and hey for a moment they are um and also the combat is uh like atrocious

okay so you've described every sign hogan congratulations great great then as long as you have that in your head you are going i think you've got a really pretty

the music i'm like just blown away by the cam work like the framing the way this game looks is cinematic gets thrown around a lot in games because they like want to be movies, but this is like holy, holy moly, this is a gorgeous-looking video game.

So, uh, if you're thinking about checking it out, check it out because we will be talking about it in the coming weeks.

I have nothing else to add.

Everything that I've played, Silk Song, Hades, etc., has been mentioned in some way.

Go with God.

I love it.

I do want to add, actually, there is one thing.

Go over to patreon.com/slash the besties.

We have some members I want to shout out: Giuseppe, Lily, Bo, and Mary, Queen of Scoffs.

Thank you for being members over at patreon.com/slash the besties.

We have a new tier, in case you haven't heard, a $10 tier, which includes ad-free episodes of the main feed.

But if you stay at the $5 tier, you get all the bonus episodes.

So you're not really missing out.

But if you wanted to experience ad-free episodes of the main feed, and if you wanted to throw us some extra bucks,

we certainly appreciate it.

We love all of you equally, though.

And I think that's going to be it.

Juice, what are we doing next week?

Wow, Russ, that's a really,

really personal question.

I feel like we've been working together long enough now that you know that I do have some, I mean, boundaries that I'd like you to,

I guess, kind of respect.

Next week, we're doing Ghost to Yote.

Fuck.

Yeah.

Yeah, man.

Because like Ghost is Yshima, but now and later.

And different.

It's actually

a lot of different stuff.

So lots of ghosts, though.

Really scary.

From one of the scariest friends.

Every scary.

Yeah.

We'll be back with that in so much more next week on the the besties.

Be sure to join us again next week for the besties.

Because shouldn't the world's best friend pick the world's best games?

Besties.