Vampire Crawlers and a Big Besties Update

Summary

The Besties – "Vampire Crawlers and a Big Besties Update" (May 1, 2026)

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Episode Overview

In this episode of The Besties, Russ Frushtick, Chris Plante, Griffin McElroy, and Justin McElroy gather for a lively discussion on two major topics: the new game Vampire Crawlers: Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors and an emotional, pivotal announcement about the podcast's lineup. The crew breaks down the new deck-building roguelite, debates the nuance of genre adaptation, reviews the upcoming Steam Controller, and wraps with heartfelt reflections as Justin McElroy says farewell as a regular host, leaving the show's future in the hands of the remaining Besties. As always, reader mail, pop culture detours, and sharp banter abound.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Cold Open & Personal Stories

• Unusual Daily Contrasts: Justin regales the team with a surreal story involving a citywide manhunt ending with his wife's intervention while he listened to a marathon recap of Yellowstone (00:00–01:53).
  • Quote: “We come home from our day… and my wife gets to be like, ‘I stopped the plot of Halloween from happening in real life.’” (01:37, Justin/Griffin)

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2. Main Game Review: Vampire Crawlers: Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors

Game Overview (05:10–06:00)

• Developed in partnership between the Vampire Survivors team and the creators of Vostok Inc. and Arcade Paradise.
• A deck-builder, turn-based roguelite that adapts the core chaos of Vampire Survivors into card-battling and dungeon crawling.

How the Adaptation Works (06:00–10:35)

• Gameplay Loop: Parallels to Vampire Survivors—survive waves, collect gold, spend upgrades—but radically pivots to card-based mechanics.
• Mechanics Explained:
  • Mana sequencing: Cards have mana costs (0/1/2...), and playing cards in mana order boosts their effects.
    • “Playing cards in a sequence of numbers in increasing mana order, they get more powerful... so you’re incentivized to play cards in the right order.” (08:17, Justin)
  • Crawlers are character cards with powerful ongoing effects.
    • “Pugnala is probably my favorite crawler in the game... it allows you to really chain that together and look for infinite combos.” (09:05, Griffin)
• Pacing: The game moves at a brisk pace, unlike more deliberate deck-builders like Slay the Spire or Monster Train.
  • “A turn will take you five seconds—unless you’re playing a Pugnala infinite combo deck.” (10:26, Griffin)
  • “It’s the perfect airplane game, the perfect subway commute game.” (12:08, Russ)

Genre Adaptation and Feel (11:04–12:57)

• The Besties praise the adaptation as more than a genre swap: Vampire Survivors’ flow and planning anticipation transfer to a new core loop.
  • “They adapted one game into another genre. And I don’t know if I’ve seen that.” (11:04, Plant)
• The "carrot on a stick" between runs — home base upgrades feel significant.

Critiques and Concerns (12:57–21:32)

• Upgrades: Early progression feels sluggish (“incremental bonuses don’t feel as impactful as in Survivors” — Justin, 12:57). Later upgrades improve things but fun options aren’t front-loaded (14:25).
• Difficulty Balance: Early stages are too easy, making the grind for upgrades transparent and sometimes unrewarding.
  • “I beat both the first and second levels the first time I attempted them… I don’t really know why I needed the upgrades.” (17:17, Justin)
• Quality-of-Life Improvements: Some core features (item map visibility) are locked behind in-game progression.
  • “Why can I not just have the thing that I need to play the game?” (16:16, Plant)
• Mobile/Tablet Experience: Navigation is clunky on tablets; the team hopes for improved mobile controls (22:21–23:10).

Replayability & Longevity (23:33–24:17)

• Not expected to have lasting hooks (“I don’t think it’s going to get its hooks in me for forever.” — Griffin, 23:33).
• For $10, it’s still highly recommended as a fun, polished, breezy deckbuilder experiment.

Broader Industry Reflection (24:17–26:15)

• The crew discusses how quickly and successfully Vampire Crawlers reinterpreted a hit, and recommends indie devs avoid overreaching on follow-ups.
  • “If you have an insanely successful, massively popular one-off indie game, follow it up with a game that costs about as much to make... Don’t make your open world MMO RPG and like break your company in half.” (25:08, Russ)

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3. The New Steam Controller (28:07–39:19)

First Impressions & Feature Rundown

• Design: Looks and feels like a dedicated controller with elements borrowed from Steam Deck (two sticks, two touchpads, four back buttons).
  • "This is going to be my default PC gaming controller, maybe for the rest of my life. I like it a lot. It's really, really good." (29:54, Russ)
• Comfort: Superior ergonomics to Steam Deck in handheld mode.
• Game Changer: Magnetic charging/pairing dock enables instant wireless connection to PC, bypassing Bluetooth pairing woes (32:43).
• Navigation: Touchpad usability is "passable;" better for menus or weapon switching than for true mouse-driven games.
• Pricing: $100 in the US, competitive with high-end Xbox and PlayStation controllers (37:43).
• Minor Quibbles: Not as effective for classic “mouse” games like Command & Conquer, though it’s a leap for living-room control and general UI navigation.

Memorable Segments

• "You press this button, it changes the game that you're playing." (32:33, Justin)
• Lighthearted controller banter and a recurring "game changer" joke (38:39).

Availability

• Launching next week, orderable on Steam (39:02).

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4. Major Host Announcement & Besties Update (39:31–47:14)

Justin McElroy's Farewell

• Reason: Struggles with long-term carpal tunnel, recovery from hand surgeries, and a changing relationship to video games (“Playing video games causes a lot of pain. It's hard for me to play a lot of thumbstick-based games…” — 39:47, Justin).
• Reflection:
  • Deep-dive into his 30+ year career in games journalism and criticism.
  • Desire to rediscover joy and personal pleasure in games without professional pressure.
  • “If you are the sort of person… you deserve someone in this seat who has that same appetite…” (42:14)
• Future: Will guest occasionally, especially for games he loves. A live Besties event is being planned for fall.
• "This will be my last episode of the Besties. I’m not dying! Sorry, haters..." (39:31, Justin)

Group Reactions

• Bittersweet rapport, affirmations, playful mock power struggles about “big brother” status (46:13).
  • "I'm the big brother now. That's the energy I'm going to be bringing.” (46:29, Griffin)
• Moving Forward: The Besties will continue with Russ, Griffin, and Plant, plus rotating guests. No fourth permanent member planned.
  • Jeff-based cameo jokes pepper this segment (47:29).

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5. Mailbag, Honorable Mentions & Closing Bits

Reader Mail Highlights (48:03–51:20)

• Discussion of Blueprints—its influences, colorblind accessibility update, and community buzz.
• Justin receives a farewell letter relating to TV show From (with characteristic ribbing).

Pop Culture Recommendations

• Film: The Hot Rock — a classic NYC heist movie recommended by Plant (53:43).
  • "If you like on-location New York City heist stuff, it’s an embarrassment of richeries if you can find it.” (54:33, Plant)
• News: The Elden Ring movie apparently in production, causing both excitement and trepidation.
• YouTube Tech Channels:
  • Damnit Jeff—fun, approachable tech tinkering.
  • Switch and Click—relatable, struggles-included hardware videos.
  • “Both of these channels…I recommend both of them.” (58:07–58:50, Justin)

Patreon Announcements

• Format to stay the same: Resties, monthly bracket episodes, with Justin as guest next week and special guests more frequently in the future.

Final Recap (59:57–60:59)

• Russ and Griffin recap main topics: Vampire Crawlers, Steam controller, Blueprints accessibility update, From, The Hot Rock, tech YouTubers, and the Elden Ring movie.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (With Timestamps)

• Adaptation Praise:
  "They somehow adapted one game into another genre. And I don't know if I've seen that.”
  – Chris Plante (11:04)
• Mana Streaks Game Loop:
  “Playing cards in a sequence of numbers in increasing mana order, they get more powerful… incentivized to play cards in the right order.”
  – Justin (08:17)
• Host Farewell:
  “This will be my last episode of the Besties. I’m not dying! Sorry, haters…”
  – Justin (39:31)
• Indie Dev Advice:
  “If you have an insanely successful, massively popular one-off indie game, follow it up with a game that costs about as much to make… don't break your company in half…”
  – Russ (25:08)
• What’s Next For The Besties:
  “The plan moving forward is just for it to be Griffin, Plant and I with special guests joining… we are not planning on dropping in another four.” (47:14, Russ)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Cold Open / Real-life heroics: 00:00–01:53
• Vampire Crawlers review starts: 05:10
• Deckbuilding mechanics explained: 08:13–10:35
• Game adaptation discussion: 11:04
• Critique of upgrades & difficulty: 12:57–21:32
• Steam Controller hands-on: 28:07–39:19
• Justin’s Farewell segment: 39:31–47:14
• Mailbag & pop culture picks: 48:03–55:28
• Final roundtable / recap & Patreon: 59:57–61:16

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Episode Tone & Atmosphere

Consistently warm, funny, and self-deprecating, with sharp gamer takes and honest vulnerability. The episode balances detailed game criticism with the emotional weight of a major cast shift.

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Vampire Crawlers: Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors is a clever, brisk adaptation worth playing for fans of both deckbuilders and Survivors-style games, though long-term depth may be lacking.
• Steam’s new controller is a strong hardware contender, especially for those already in the Steam ecosystem.
• The Besties will continue with its signature blend of friendship, irreverent joy, and genuine insight, but Justin McElroy exits as a regular—his legacy and affection for the community celebrated by the whole team.
• Patrons can expect continued bracket episodes and guest diversity going forward.

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Whether you’re tuning in for game picks, hardware hot takes, or the unique camaraderie, this is a milestone Besties episode not to miss.

Transcript

[Justin McElroy]

I'll tell a true story for the cold open.

[Russ Frostchik]

Oh, love it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

It's a true story. Yesterday we did a fundraiser for the Max Fund drive. And the more people donated to the drive, the longer my brother Travis would recap season two of Yellowstone. Season two. And it was three hours.

[Russ Frostchik]

How did we ask it, logistically speaking? Yeah, sure, if you. If it starts at, let's say 10 minutes.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Russ Frostchik]

And he's like, already at episode eight.

[Justin McElroy]

Well, people can go watch the stream if they want to see.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's timed out for kids.

[Justin McElroy]

Yes.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

But anyway, yesterday a patient escaped from the psychiatric hospital here who was armed in dangers and there was a citywide manhunt for this guy. And eventually he turned up at a harmony house and he was recognized by my wife, who then alerted the authorities and brought the manhunt to a close. That happened while I was listening to my brother describe season two of Yellowstone. These two events is what I'm saying to you.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. The contrast happens.

[Justin McElroy]

Happened at the same time. They happened at the same time, you know?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

We come home from our day and we look at each other and we're like, so what happened in your. I have to say mine to her. You know what I mean?

[Griffin McElroy]

I got tired from talking from hearing about Yellowstone for too long and then

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

she gets to be like the plot of Halloween. I stopped it from happening in real life.

[Russ Frostchik]

But who is the hero here? Who.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's my. Who's the real hero? Sydney?

[Russ Frostchik]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Not easy for sure.

[Justin McElroy]

Not even close.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

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

[Griffin McElroy]

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

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

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

[Russ Frostchik]

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

[Justin McElroy]

Welcome to the Besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in home interactive entertainment. It's a video game club and just by listening you have become a member. This week we're going to be talking about Vampire Crawlers. What's that?

[Russ Frostchik]

That's not the full title of the game.

[Griffin McElroy]

Justin, what is the full title of the game? I didn't know there was more.

[Russ Frostchik]

Full title of the game is Vampire Crawlers. The Turbo wild card from Vampire Survivors.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That's cool.

[Griffin McElroy]

I like that they have not enough turbo in the title anymore and I'm always banging that draw.

[Justin McElroy]

Wild card is also good.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's cool. Turbo Wild Card.

[Justin McElroy]

Turbo Card.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's a deck builder turn based roguelite. Where you crawl through the dungeons pretty much. Right?

[Justin McElroy]

We're gonna talk about that and a lot more right after this,

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

y'.

[Griffin McElroy]

All.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

A few days ago at 4 in the morning, my son woke my wife and I up by presenting us with the sandwich he made. And it was real nice of him. Unfortunately, it was inspired by Looney Tunes. So it was two slices of bread with an entire rotisserie chicken right in the middle, a knife going through all of it, which a little dangerous and intimidating at 4am Even though I wholly trust him as a chef. What I'm saying is I took a picture right away because it was the cutest thing I'd ever seen. Terrifying, but super cute. And then I uploaded it to our two aura frames because we are those people in this house. Aura frame. It is the perfect Mother's Day gift to capture the chaos that all of us have put my wife through and that I have put my mother through. It's my way of saying, yes, I'm a little stinker, but also I'm adorable and so is my son. Aura frames have meticulously calibrated high resolution displays. Unless you look really closely or see photo transitions, you'd never know it's a screen. You can change photos, view details like photos and more with a simple tap or swipe on the edge of the frame. And you can keep your display smudge free. And like I said earlier, you can upload images from the app. It's incredible. Whether that is in your house or from my mom half a country away, named Number one by Wirecutter, you can save on the gifts moms love by visiting Oraframes.com for a limited time. Listeners can get $25 off their best selling Carver Mat frame with code BESTIES. That is a U R a frames.com promo. Code BESTIES support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

[Justin McElroy]

Vampire Crawlers is made by the people who brought you Vampire Survivors, right? Yes, it's in the lineage.

[Russ Frostchik]

It's literally title screen too.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, it says from Vampire Survivors, which is cool.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah. Not from the tv.

[Justin McElroy]

I like the idea that video games are making other video games.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It's a partnership though, right? Justin, do you know what their partner developer also made

[Justin McElroy]

something I like.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I know, but Vostok Inc. Remember that one?

[Justin McElroy]

Yes.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Shooter, grinding, progressive game.

[Justin McElroy]

Okay. Why is Vostok Inc. Connected to the arcade simulator?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Arcade Paradise. They made that too.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay. Damn, what a fucking. What a hit rate.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, that's great people to partner with.

[Griffin McElroy]

Can I try and explain how they have adapted this, the leads, the manner in which this game works. It is remarkably similar to Vampire Survivors, despite the fact that the genre could not be more different. You are still going through levels where waves and waves and waves of enemies are coming at you, only now they're coming at you in a sort of flat perspective. And every turn you have mana that you can spend to use cards. And the cards are basically equivalent to the weapons and power ups in Vampire Survivors.

[Justin McElroy]

Right.

[Griffin McElroy]

So if you know the fusions from Vampire Survivors, if you know, hey, if I get the fire wand and the spinach upgrade, then I can level those up into the Hellfire. Like that shit. All that stuff works. All that stuff works.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Right.

[Justin McElroy]

But it's similar to Hearthstone, how Hearthstone benefited from your awareness of the mechanics of Warcraft already. So you know, Leeroy Jenkins, things like that. Yeah, it's a metaphorical, like, you get it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

So you're going through waves of enemies. You get to move around like a little dungeon with like five floors. Usually you see enemies in the distance. You can decide to go in after them. We're like, oh, hey, there's a candlestick. I'll smash that. Maybe it'll have coins or whatever. All that stuff. You know it from Vampire Survivors. Between your dungeon crawls you get gold and you spend that in the town to unlock new survivors or upgrade your stats at a shop. Like Vampire Survivor, like it's so much stuff is just arcana cards, all the characters, it's just one to one and they've done such a, I don't know, an incredible job of getting all of that stuff and making it make sense in the terms of like a very, very, very fast paced. This is about the closest to an arcade deck builder roguelite that I can imagine because I don't know it moves at such a clip. Justin, just like the original Justin, you

[Russ Frostchik]

play a ton of these.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Russ Frostchik]

I feel like my immediate thought was like Vampire Survivors meets Uno. And I'm curious if you think that is a fair.

[Justin McElroy]

Oh, that's actually really good. I mean, Uno. Yeah, because you're like looking for streaks, there's reverses, there's like those short little runs.

[Russ Frostchik]

Can you explain the numbers aspect? I've never seen this before in a card.

[Justin McElroy]

Me neither. So there's a mana cost to each of these cards. A lot of them are zeros, ones and twos. And basically the idea is that by playing cards in a sequence of numbers in increasing mana order, they get more powerful and that's applicable for every card. So like The Greed card, for example, will increase the amount of gold that you earn. But if you get a zero, and that costs one mana to play. If you have a zero mana card like the whip that you play before that, that Greed card will actually double in. In value. So you're like, incentivized to play cards in a right order. There are some cards that can become wild and become connectors, but that's the basic idea, is you're looking for short straights to keep momentum going.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right. There's also crawlers, which are the characters that you choose to take into the dungeon, who are represented by cards that when you play them, they will usually give you some immediate benefit and then have an ongoing sort of thing. Pugnala is probably my favorite crawler in the game. Has a benefit where you get some, like, extra might power whenever you play her card. But then the next, like, nine, like, buff cards that you play, they're yellow coated cards, also allow you to draw another card. And so it allows you to like, really chain that together and look for, like, infinite combos with not a ton of planning and effort, which is very, very rewarding for me.

[Russ Frostchik]

I think that's the big difference. And we were talking about pacing earlier. The big difference between this and slay the Spire 2 just came out and is, like, rave reviews. People are over the roof about it. Is unlike something like Slay the Spire, where you spend a decent amount of time, could be 30 seconds to a minute, looking at all your cards on a given hand and saying, oh, I could use this, and this will come out into this. The first thing you do in every round of Vampire Crawlers is just look at the mana costs and think, can I make a streak with these mana costs? Which is like a very different way of like, playing through a deck builder.

[Justin McElroy]

And you're. Sometimes there's a risk reward element, which is like, well, I have. There's a lot of cards that will draw more cards. Is it worth spending the mana to see if I get something that can pull a combo?

[Griffin McElroy]

But that loop is so short. That loop is like, literally a turn will take you five seconds. Unless you're playing a Pugnala infinite combo deck.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Then they'll.

[Griffin McElroy]

It'll just take one turn to get through the whole battle, but it'll take you a minute. But, like, it's so fast. And that is such a huge difference from Monster Train or Slay the Spire, where you're like, okay, let me run the math on this. I think I can get 20 poison on him. Then play my 2 cost double poison card. It's like, you're not. It ain't all that serious. You are. You kind of know what you're doing because your deck starts out usually with like four cards in it and you

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

know how to count up to five.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, sure.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Like, yeah. I am just so impressed because this game truly feels like an adaptation of Vampire Crawlers in like the truest sense. We're like, oh, I adapted a book into a movie. They somehow adapted one game into another genre. And I don't know if I've seen that because even what we're talking about here reminds me of that flow and feeling that you get playing Vampire Survivors where you're not having to think a whole lot. It wants you to have the thinking stuff happen before you go in to the actual mission. When you're saying, okay, this stage is a bridge and I am going to have two or three really, really long battles versus the other stages where it's a whole bunch of really short battles. When a long battle, I'm going to want to use a lot of buffs that can stack on top of each other over the course of an entire fight. But because by the end I could have 300%, 400% damage that I'm spewing before the end of this. And the actual doing of it is kind of podcast game, like you could be chilling out even.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's generous.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah. Like I was playing outside on the plane and it was like a perfect playing game because I felt like I was doing like five things at once.

[Griffin McElroy]

I've been catching up on TV shows while playing Vampire Crawlers. Which is not to say that I don't like Vampire Crawlers. I'm hopelessly, hopelessly into it. It's just for me, hitting that loop of like, like Vampire Survivors. I'm going to go in here, I'm going to smash a fucking million dudes, then I'm going to go back to base and figure out like what I'm going to spend this gold on. Because it is like significant stuff. The like things you can buff at home. Like, oh, this one just gives you an extra mana point like every time. Or like an automatic point of art. Like it's huge transformational stuff for what you're capable of doing in your runs. And so like the carrot on that stick is big and juicy.

[Justin McElroy]

See, I kind of struggle with that a little bit because I felt like my one issue that I had with this because I actually like the moment to moment a lot. I found myself a little bit unmotivated between rounds. I think where you're playing with cards, I find that the incremental bonuses on your damage and stuff don't really feel as good. They don't feel as impactful as they do in Survivors, where you actually can see that represented on the screen really quickly. Right. So for me, it's a little bit. Because it is so close to Vampire Survivors, I found myself a little bit less enchanted by it because it feels a little bit like to me, like one of those demakes or something where it's more impressive that they did it and not necessarily like, because I've been looking at these sprites and these attacks and these things for so long that pretty quickly you're like, you can fill in your own blanks with your own mind as to what it would do in this context. And that to me was like, it kind of reduced the joy and the thrill and the excitement of these upgrades and the different things you'll find because it is so Vampire Survivors. You know what I mean?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, for sure.

[Russ Frostchik]

The only thing that I noticed was that when you first start the game, the upgrades that you have access to are like kind of boring upgrades. They tend to be like, you get more gold or you get more experience

[Griffin McElroy]

and they're the ones that like, it makes sense to do first. Like the Greed upgrade, I maxed out first and it took forever. But it's like, well, yeah, I do want to like double the amount of gold I'm bringing in so I can get the other upgrades fast. It was fun.

[Justin McElroy]

If you ask me, I'd rather just have fun upgrades.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, that's fair.

[Justin McElroy]

No, that doesn't sound very fun, Griff.

[Russ Frostchik]

Eventually you do get one of the upgrades you get is the ability to have multiple crawlers in a single run. Yeah. You'll set up, you'll bring two or even three crawlers. So then you're comboing off their different passive abilities while you're playing a run. So instead of more hand size from a purple card, you're getting more hand size and more damage and more X, Y and Z. Yeah. Griffin mentioned you can add mana. Like, I think they the later upgrades, which again, I agree, should have been a little more front loaded, start to feel much more tactile and like impactful.

[Justin McElroy]

This is in early access, right? I mean, this is.

[Russ Frostchik]

I don't think so.

[Griffin McElroy]

I don't think it's out. It's out.

[Russ Frostchik]

I imagine if it follows the Vampire Survivors flow, it'll keep updating though. It'll just. There'll be a Ton of DLC and things like that.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

The way that upgrades work in games like this is, like, a thing I always trip over.

[Griffin McElroy]

So this is.

[Justin McElroy]

You didn't.

[Griffin McElroy]

I remember this. You did not care for Vampire Survivors.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

For this Vampire Survivors, I think I like. Like, it broke me in some way because it felt like here is the most successful of the. We do not value your time.

[Griffin McElroy]

Video games.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And I think my issue then, honest, wasn't even with Vampire Survivors. I think it was kind of just where I was with video games and that type of thing. I am coming at this, like, a warmer spot to that. But there are the upgrades that you're talking about, like, get more money or get more health or get more of these things where if you want to win in the game, you have to do that. I'm actually pretty fine with that. That's the name of the game here. But then there are also.

[Griffin McElroy]

Actually, the name of the game is Vampire Crawler Turbo Wild Card.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Sorry. I really appreciate you making sure that we got that in there. There are also upgrades like, oh, now you can see where items are on the map. And it's like, that's a weird thing for me of, like, why can I not just have the thing that I need to play the game?

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, that's the, like, hidden in the levels you will find, like, you will see on the map. When you were picking the level you're going into, like, oh, this one has a relic that I haven't found. And that's one of those of like, hey, here's a huge quality of life.

[Russ Frostchik]

Yes.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And it's like, okay, now the game's. It's what I wish the game just would have been. And if the idea was like, oh, well, the game's so complicated. We have to kind of pass these around little by little. But the game is in no way too complicated. In fact, it's more not having those features.

[Russ Frostchik]

Yeah. I think a lot of it is them just trying to pull maybe too much from the original source material, which also had relics that, like, seemingly should have just been in the game from the jump.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Right.

[Justin McElroy]

I also beat both the first and second levels the first time I attempted them, which felt. Which felt very different from Vampire Survivors, where it's like you get overwhelmed and those. This kind of speaks to the upgrades thing where, like, I don't really know why I needed the upgrades. I just had these two long runs where I, you know, finished the level.

[Russ Frostchik]

I think the. I think that is a recent change.

[Justin McElroy]

That's why I asked about the early access Thing, because that is something that

[Griffin McElroy]

feels like the difficulty for her feels very strange.

[Russ Frostchik]

I think that's a recent change with the genre when Vampire Survivors came out, which seemingly doesn't. I mean, it was a few years ago. It's not that long ago. But when it came out, the. The mo for these sorts of games, Roguelite games, was that you would basically fail in, like, 30 seconds, and then the next one you'd last 2 minutes, and the next one you'd last 2 Minutes, et cetera, et cetera.

[Griffin McElroy]

And.

[Russ Frostchik]

And since then, I think as it's evolved, it's made the smart choice of, you should know what a run feels like proper before you get your ass handed to you.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right.

[Russ Frostchik]

And I actually think that's a better experience for me because it tells me, oh, this is actually something I would want to spend time with.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, if you're backing into that. I mean, like, if you're designing your game around that. Yes. But this is a game that has inherited so much cruft from Survivors that I feel like it is not able to make that independently feel good. Because you're. If you look at the carrots with Survivors, it's like being able to last a few minutes longer, but also in, like, the cool synergies that you kind of figure out. Right. There's synergies here that work. That work differently. But that's part of the. That's the fun. That's like the. The. The grist of it, I think.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah. I also wonder if Survivors has changed more since the last time I played it, because the level structure here is very different. So you're right. You beat level one and two, and then you'll go to level three, which I think is the bridge. It's either three or four, and it is very clearly a. Like, you need to go back and grind point. You hit this thing, you're not going to get through it. And it's telling you, well, you should turn around. And then when you turn around, you discover that there are sub levels for the levels that you had just come from, and that there are additional tasks and there's things that you're going to unlock. So you see that, like, oh, this is the path to get powerful enough to then beat the bridge. The problem that I have with that structure, for me, is it makes it really transparent that this is not an issue with my skill, that, like, I need to go back and I need to grind it out. I'm curious for y', all, like, is there a point where you're playing these Games and you feel like, you know, oh, I made a mistake, or I feel like I am doing really well in the game versus. I need to push the button to make sure that I can now go get the gold and the health to play more.

[Griffin McElroy]

It's definitely the last. I think that that typifies the genre that Vampire Survivors created. And that's not like. I don't think it's an inherently good or bad thing. Cause I enjoy that.

[Justin McElroy]

Right.

[Griffin McElroy]

That harkens back very much to rpg classic RPG Dragon Quest shit. Like, yeah, you can't. Sorry, man, you're not big enough to come in here yet. I think where I didn't kind of realize the deficit I was working under is that exact point I got to the bridge and got my ass handed to me. I didn't quite realize that it's not just gold you're getting that you're spending on stat increases and unlocking new characters and stuff. There's also sort of achievements that you're unlocking constantly from get a streak up to this level or get this character up to this level in one run, or do this or do this. And for doing that, you are unlocking new stuff. You are unlocking the ability to upgrade your cards at the Blacksmith. There's a few other vectors, but, yeah, I mean, it's maybe possible to beat that bridge level if, you know, a few cracked early synergies that are available to you from the beginning of the game. But no, that very much felt like, yep, okay, gotta go back to the grindstone. But that's. I don't know. I like that about this game. It is a thing that doesn't bother me and in fact, kind of appeals to me about.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

There's only, like, one thing I. I want to correct in there. The game is not called Grindstone. It's called Vampire Crawlers, the Turbo Wild card from Vampire.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's true. That's fair.

[Justin McElroy]

Got me there.

[Russ Frostchik]

Very true. I. I think it is a nice. I like the fact that this game is here because it really is such a pallet cleanser from playing a game. You know, I'm coming off of playing

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

so much of what we played.

[Russ Frostchik]

Well, yeah, so I. The spire. And also, like, even, like, Mugenics. I think about playing Mugenics where every turn is like this math puzzle. And I love that I was over the moon about it, but it's not exactly something I can wind down with.

[Griffin McElroy]

No, not at all.

[Russ Frostchik]

And this is, as Plant said, like, the perfect airplane game. The perfect subway commute game. I mean, My only complaint, and I actually want to ask this to Justin. Justin, did you end up setting this on your tablet?

[Justin McElroy]

On my phone.

[Russ Frostchik]

On your phone, yeah. And that seems like an amazing way to play the game. It's just not, you know, requires some

[Justin McElroy]

heavy lifting in a square configuration. So you kind of had the game at the top two thirds and then the touchpad at the bottom.

[Griffin McElroy]

Are you using the fold?

[Justin McElroy]

I will say this, it was not a great experience. Is that because navigation really sucks?

[Russ Frostchik]

Oh, yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

On a tablet it really sucks a lot because you're tapping the arrows in the direction that you want to go with a mouse. So like, that's. It's not fun. On a tablet it's a bad experience. But presumably it runs fine.

[Griffin McElroy]

Runs great.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, runs great. Not a pleasurable way to play it. I think it would be better if I had a. Like, I think if I was able to use a controller and then had like a touchscreen and a controller, that might be like an ideal way to play it.

[Griffin McElroy]

But I have to imagine they'll come up with native. Like.

[Justin McElroy]

I don't know.

[Russ Frostchik]

I mean, that was in my sort of.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah. I don't know what. It would probably something on screen if

[Russ Frostchik]

it was natively like mobile friendly and you didn't have to use like an emulated mouse or wherever. Don't you think that would be better?

[Justin McElroy]

I'm trying to think, like, how would you get around the invite? Like, I don't know. So there's probably some way to get around the environment.

[Griffin McElroy]

Virtual stick.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

I'm enjoying the game a lot. I don't think it's gonna get its hooks in me for forever. Right. I don't think. I think that a game like slay the Spire 2 is gonna have a way longer tale.

[Russ Frostchik]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Partially because, like, it's way more involved. The mechanics are a lot more involved. But also, like I referenced the difficulty curve earlier. I feel like since I have unlocked certain upgrades or like figured out certain characters, like, it is not a challenging game. Like, it's just not. It hasn't. I haven't hit anything that's been particularly difficult in a while and I kind of need that from a deck builder so that I feel like there's a reason to keep plumbing the depths of like, strategies and stuff like that.

[Russ Frostchik]

10 bucks, though, man.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah. It's also just so cool like.

[Justin McElroy]

Like what.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

What Hoops was saying about the demake kind of feeling of like, I just can't believe they made this right away. I'm hoping that I see a few More especially indie devs try this with things that we like and that are familiar. Like this. I have no idea how this works, but I immediately was thinking of a spelunky deck builder and how I wanted that so bad. Or other versions of Take the Thing I know and put it in a different place. Because there are a lot of games where it's like, I don't need a sequel, but I do want a fresh taste of the thing I like. Justin is making a face that says spelunky deck builder.

[Justin McElroy]

Sure, sure. No, no, no. I think every IP should continue to ouroboros eat its own tail and shit itself out over and over again so we can all get a big spoon and go over and gobble up all

[Griffin McElroy]

gobble up their dookie.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I'm hungry. I'm hungry.

[Justin McElroy]

I like the circle dookie, but I wish it was squares.

[Russ Frostchik]

I think we've seen some teams kind of struggle with this. You saw the Shovel Knight team do a bunch of spin offs and none of them kind of really matched. Never quite clicked. I also want to say, like, this is a really good representation of what maybe a lot of successful indie developers should consider. Which is to say if you have an insanely successful, massively popular one off indie game, follow it up with a game that costs about as much to make. Do not make your open world MMO RPG and like break your company in half trying to struggle to get this huge like super risky project out the door. Make something that seems fun in like testing and, and just like push it out there such that it doesn't risk the success you've already had because the fact that you would get two big hits is very, very slim. So please be careful indie devs out there. This is a good, good approach.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

What was the name of this one? Before we wrap up, this game is

[Russ Frostchik]

called Vampire Vampire Crawlers the Turbo Wild card from Vampire Survivors.

[Griffin McElroy]

Great. A game about cards and life.

[Justin McElroy]

That's Vampire Crawlers, the Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors. We'll be back right after this with some thoughts from RushFreshTech about the future of video games controllings.

[Russ Frostchik]

This episode of the Besties is sponsored by Reddit. Literally it's Reddit is the sponsor of this episode. I'm sure you've heard of it before, but maybe you haven't used it in the way that I've used it, which is to do incredibly deep dives on mechanics and lore of the games I love and strategy and just to find like a new community to talk about the game. There are over 47 million members on R gaming and Reddit is the front page for gaming news, updates, rumors, leaks, all discussed in real time by people who actually play. There are subs for every game, genre, niche, MMOs, shooters, RPGs, speedruns, modding, lore. Every single thing there is a subreddit for. It's real players sharing, real tips, fixes and discoveries. I will speak for myself. Two subreddits I use all the time are SBC Gaming, which is a subreddit dedicated to handheld gaming, the sorts of handhelds we talk about all the time here. Very, very cool subreddit. Also, the R eldenring subreddit is also excellent, has very cool deep dive lore things. If you're into Elden Ring, if you're into soulsborne games, things like that. So really, anything you can think of, there's probably a dedicated subreddit for you. And if all that sounds good, Reddit is the place to go for gaming deep dives. Download the Reddit app and dive into R sbcgaming, R eldenring for the latest gaming updates or whatever you want to learn about. Download the Reddit app today. Did you say Controlies?

[Justin McElroy]

Everyone is dying. The Steam controller. I have a Steam controller. I have one within reach. Not the one you're thinking of.

[Russ Frostchik]

I mean, I am thinking of the one that you have because this other one isn't out yet. Almost.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Russ Frostchik]

I'm kind of blown away that you still have the original Steam controller. Have you used it?

[Justin McElroy]

I used it a couple times. It was cool. I leave it in a cube. I just have a cube full of old controllers. Nobody wants them. What am I going to do with them?

[Russ Frostchik]

Yeah, that's fair. The original Steam controller, for people don't remember, had one analog stick and two very large touchpads. And the rationale was they wanted to make a controller that could run any game. Like if you wanted to play Command and Conquer or fucking Civ and also Half Life on the same controller, you could theoretically do that. Most people didn't like it. I know there were some diehard fans for it.

[Justin McElroy]

It's like they had never heard any of the many idioms about trying to do everything with one thing.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right, yeah, sure.

[Justin McElroy]

Being all things to one people would be one example. Or, you know, like we know this doesn't work.

[Griffin McElroy]

I find it to be functional on the Steam Deck. Like using the Steam Deck touch pads. Yeah, I think.

[Russ Frostchik]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

Well, that's all right.

[Russ Frostchik]

We're gonna get there. What a segue. Kevin McElroy. Well done.

[Griffin McElroy]

Great.

[Russ Frostchik]

So as we know, Steam went ahead. Valve went ahead and released the Steam Deck big success. And Steam Deck oled big success. And now they are back with their next hardware release, which is a new Steam controller. The controller is not available for purchase yet. I got an early one because I'm great and here's what I can say.

[Griffin McElroy]

You save gave Newell's life.

[Russ Frostchik]

I saved him. He was scuba diving and I came out with all his knives attached to me me and stabbed a shark.

[Griffin McElroy]

He got trapped on the coral and Russ cut him free with his own knives.

[Russ Frostchik]

For about 10 years, probably more than that. 20 years I've been using an Xbox controller whenever I play PC games because it just worked. You plug it in and it just worked. I think those days are over. I think this is going to be my default PC gaming controller, maybe for the rest of my life. I like it a lot. It's really, really good. It feels, at a glance you'll see it has the analog sticks, it has the buttons. It basically has all the buttons that you recognize from a Steam Deck if you use the Steam Deck. Two sticks, it has two sticks, it has two touchpads, it has two back buttons on each hand. So four back buttons in total. So everything that's on a Steam Deck is on here. But it's been designed as a controller. It's not been designed as a handheld gaming Linux, whatever the fuck.

[Justin McElroy]

The Steam Deck is probably worth noting at this point. It was designed almost certainly to be released as part of a suite of hardware from the Valve Corporation that currently does not make sense due to the world.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I think they've actually said something along the lines of like, why are we releasing it now? Well, it doesn't need ram.

[Griffin McElroy]

Doesn't got no goddamn RAM in it. It's just springs and wires.

[Russ Frostchik]

But honestly, if you have a gaming PC at home, or even if you have a Steam Deck and you want like a bespoke controller for the Steam Deck and you're just going to prop it up, you can just use this too. This works perfectly fine. But I do understand the rationale.

[Justin McElroy]

Hey, why'd you. Hey, cool controller. Why'd you buy it? I want to prop up my Steam Deck in front of me and play it with this controller. Oh, you're a psychopath.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, that's me.

[Justin McElroy]

Recommended.

[Russ Frostchik]

Not how I used to be.

[Justin McElroy]

Absolute decrepit maniac.

[Russ Frostchik]

Not how I would use it.

[Justin McElroy]

I want to abstract these controls 6 inches out and then stare at a tiny screen and enjoy them.

[Russ Frostchik]

There's a lot of approaches I could take in describing this, but one thing I would say is if you find the Steam Deck a little bit uncomfortable, I did not have the same experience with the Steam controller.

[Justin McElroy]

Is that a weight issue or like an ergonomics?

[Russ Frostchik]

You say both. It's both. So it's. It doesn't feel heavy. It feels like a. Like at a360 controller. I haven't done the exact weight measurements, but it's designed with like actual like grips that you would normally have holding when you're holding an actual controller. The controls are all spaced out in a way that like doesn't feel cramped. The buttons are a little bit bigger than you would find on a Steam deck. Everything is just like designed for comfort with that in mind, but with the functionality of a Steam deck, like everything that that had. But there is one feature in this that I think is a game changer. I love it so much and it is magnets.

[Justin McElroy]

It's the game changer. You press this button, it changes the game that you're playing.

[Griffin McElroy]

Everyone loves Steam Big picture mode. Well, what if you had access to that at the push of a button?

[Russ Frostchik]

The controller has a magnet in it. How does it work? Connects to a cable. And the cable does two things. The cable charges the controller handy and the cable also acts as a pairing device, wireless pairing device for the device that you have it plugged into. So the hassle of like connecting via Bluetooth or whatever, it becomes moot because you're just dropping this controller on this magnetic charging dock and instantly it's synced with the PC that you want to sync it to. And when you want to play something, you just take it off the magnet and you put it back. I fucking love magnet charging, Doc.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

So the charging dock connects to your PC directly?

[Russ Frostchik]

Correct. It's a usual way that's going to

[Justin McElroy]

work in Windows consistently. I refuse to believe it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, even the. I have the Xbox 360. This is like my go to gaming controllers, the 360 or the Xbox Elite one. And it has like a magnetic charging dock, but the dongle for pairing it is like a separate thing. Which has always fucking annoyed me. This charging dock. I don't know that I have the cord length to bring it up on camera, but like it's huge. You guys could have definitely put some sort of fucking sensor or something in there.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Right here's where I think it will work with the PC always is. You know what runs better Steam Deck often than my PC? Valve has somehow figured out how to make Windows run better than Microsoft. And I'M not sure how they do it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Well, in the case of Steam Deck, it's.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Well, it's Linux. Ah, there it is. It all goes.

[Griffin McElroy]

There it is. That's the one secret is that they don't use this really fucking terrible, terrible operator.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It always goes, one cool secret will change your world.

[Justin McElroy]

How does it feel moving a mouse around with the thumb? Does that feel, does that feel good?

[Russ Frostchik]

I think it feels as good as it does on the Steam deck, which is to say passable. It's not my favorite.

[Justin McElroy]

I always find myself taking out the index finger.

[Russ Frostchik]

Yeah, I mean sometimes you'll do that. I think it feels passable. I think if you're navigating a map or stuff like that, it'll be fine. I very rarely play games that require me to do that on the Steam deck and when I do it's like, okay, I think it's better. The better utility for those touchpads for me has been like someone made a controller preset where like I can select all my weapons on a radial menu and things like that. And that stuff is fucking great. And whenever I switched back to PC, I wouldn't have it.

[Justin McElroy]

So for UI navigation in a just world, we would be using like a Halo style, Destiny style menu navigation with like a trackpad on controllers. I think that's the most sort of like fluid, elegant. I like that on the PS5 when you can do that.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, yeah.

[Russ Frostchik]

I mean you can go into Steam big picture mode on your PC and it's designed with sort of that in mind. But you're right when you mentioned the other hardware. I'm sure a lot of this was also designed with the Steam machine in mind and running Steam os.

[Griffin McElroy]

So Steam Link, what is the thing called the headset? Steam.

[Russ Frostchik]

The Steam not index frame, Steam frame, all that stuff. Yeah. Was probably designed with this in mind. I think it's a great controller.

[Justin McElroy]

Does it bring, I mean, can it, can it bring like, would you play a mouse game with it? I mean like, does it get to that vision of like, like, would you play like Command and Conquer with this controller?

[Russ Frostchik]

If I had the choice to use a mouse versus this controller in a game like that, I would use a mouse.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, it's like long term, like lap. That's what I feel like. The struggle for me still with like the living room thing is like I have not found a good metaphorical solution that feels right, you know what I mean? Like if it is something that feels endemic to mouse and keyboard.

[Russ Frostchik]

Yeah, right.

[Justin McElroy]

Just like it always feels weird on Like a lap. Even with like a. I don't know.

[Russ Frostchik]

I do want to mention.

[Justin McElroy]

Right.

[Russ Frostchik]

You mentioned living room play. The luxury of being able to pick up the controller and if something happens in Windows and I can, like go back to the window I want to go to or launch Steam. I can do that with the Steam controller. Like, it just controls the mouse.

[Griffin McElroy]

That is. That is. Actually, I mostly play, like, Steam stuff on like my exercise bike in my office and it's such a pain in the ass.

[Justin McElroy]

Oh, God, yes.

[Griffin McElroy]

To get back that you can't do with like a controller. And there's not a. The Steam button on a, like, Xbox Elite controller or whatever is like a not reliable sort of friend in that situation.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Doesn't have the game changer button.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's what you're saying, doesn't have the game changer.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, yeah.

[Russ Frostchik]

I mean, like, I'm not playing Command and Conquer. I'm not playing Civ realistically for dorks. So for the stuff that I'm playing, it's never really going to be an issue. And it's nice to have that mouse support for again when something goes wrong. Pricing is weird. It's different for every region because of the chaos of, like, what's going on with trade right now. It's a hundred dollars in the US I've spent a lot of time looking at, like, the controller marketplace and feature sets and things like that. I think $100 is pretty in line with where things are at. If you get like a pretty high. Relatively high end, there's certainly more expensive ones than that.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, the Elite is a lot more. Wow.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yes. 170.

[Russ Frostchik]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Right now.

[Russ Frostchik]

So you're effectively getting everything that that controller had. But my understanding is those Elite twos tend to be a little bit lacking on the durability standpoint.

[Griffin McElroy]

But can it do this? You just take shit off of it. This is my rifle. This is my rifle.

[Russ Frostchik]

You can't. But Valve.

[Griffin McElroy]

There are many others like it, but this one is my.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Fuck.

[Griffin McElroy]

Hold on.

[Russ Frostchik]

How does this go back in? He just broke his.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Working. It's working.

[Griffin McElroy]

I did just accident. I did. Just open it in big picture mode.

[Russ Frostchik]

It'll be okay.

[Justin McElroy]

No.

[Griffin McElroy]

No one ever.

[Justin McElroy]

Griffin, don't panic. Everyone wants to panic when they see how you get out.

[Griffin McElroy]

Oh, shit.

[Justin McElroy]

Oh, shit. I did it again.

[Griffin McElroy]

The thumbnails are so big.

[Justin McElroy]

Sydney, get in here. Babe. I need you to turn off. Steve, Big picture mode. I. I don't know how I did it.

[Griffin McElroy]

I did it again.

[Justin McElroy]

It's so loud.

[Griffin McElroy]

Why is the opening Logo so loud.

[Justin McElroy]

You ready to game?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Hit the game changer mode. Hit the game changer.

[Russ Frostchik]

It's a good controller.

[Griffin McElroy]

Cool.

[Russ Frostchik]

I would recommend it. I think it's going on sale 100 hundo hundo. I think it's going on.

[Griffin McElroy]

Are they going to bundle it with the Steam machine, do you think?

[Russ Frostchik]

I mean maybe eventually, but they still don't have a release date for the Steam machine.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

That's some real 2027 stuff, right?

[Russ Frostchik]

There's controllers. This controller is coming out next week. It'll be orderable on Steam next week. So I don't know how long it'll take to ship. But presumably if you want to get one valve. I don't know how many they have flying around. So maybe order one if you want one.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah. Yeah. What else do you want to talk about? You want to talk about some like cool video games

[Justin McElroy]

in personal news?

[Russ Frostchik]

Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

No. Hey, I just want to say real quick, this will be my last episode of the Besties. I'm not dying. Sorry haters.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Show them.

[Griffin McElroy]

In fact, he's the healthiest he's ever been.

[Justin McElroy]

I've seen.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

He's looking good.

[Griffin McElroy]

I've seen his records.

[Justin McElroy]

No. So I. Yeah. So it will come as no surprise to anybody out there that I who is listening to this that I've been struggling with carpal tunnel syndrome since 2020 and it has been an ongoing problem for me and I have continued to try to keep up with gaming and everything as best I can while still, especially in the last couple months having to be something of a passive observer to it. And I am recovering from surgery on my left hand. I still have to get surgery on my right hand. I still can't play like thumbstick based games. It still hurts too much. So my doctor did warn me that could happen. So hey, not nothing's wrong, you know, healing wise but it does make it hard to keep up. So that is. That is like the one half of this is that it is really playing video games causes a lot of pain. It's hard for me to play a lot of like thumbstick based games while mouse based games are still very easy. But more than that, I think the. I've been covering video games since I was. It was my first writing job when I was 13. I worked for the newspaper. They had a column called Game View that was written by a guy named Chuck Minsker. Griffin's good friends with his kids.

[Griffin McElroy]

And the it was a real Nepo baby gig is what just said it was real Nepo.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah. So I got in there and I was reviewing video games. The first game I reviewed was Gods on the Genesis.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Hell yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

The soundtrack rips with the. Some of the stankiest FM keyboard I've ever heard. But man, the game sucks shit.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah, I just, I'll be honest because of like the hand stuff and also just like the way I want to engage with video games. I'm more and more interested in stuff like preservation and technology and like Linux, whatever. You know, I got a lot of other interests like that and I would like to engage with video games in a way that brings pleasure to me. And so that is part of it and I have not gotten a lot of pleasure out of it for a, for a while now because we do have to work so fast to go through these games. But I keep, I mean I've always wanted to keep doing the show because I love talking about video games and I love these, these jabronis here. But I feel like it's just, I don't want to sour my relationship to these things completely. And also I feel like if you are the sort of person that would be enough of a multi hyphenate interest in terms of like your genres, if you have a, a wide, broad enough palette to enjoy a show like this, then you, you know, you deserve someone in this seat who is like, has that same appetite and that same, like that same area of interest. I'm always going to be interested in video games. I'm always going to be playing video games. I would like to get back to playing video games that I, in the limited time that I have where my hands feel like, you know, I'm good and I'm not like doing some other thing. I'd like to spend that time like in a way that is pleasurable rather than feel like I'm having to do it for a job, which is a sucky way to think about video games. I have always loved talking about them and I always will and I've always loved doing this show and I'm sad to not be doing it anymore. I'll probably dip back in when you guys talk about a game that I really like, you know. But from time to time, yeah, we

[Russ Frostchik]

will certainly have Justin joining us and guesting where appropriate. And also we should mention we are in the works for what might very well be the only time that the besties do a live show.

[Griffin McElroy]

That's true. It's still early days on that, but what a barn burner of a moment that'll be.

[Russ Frostchik]

Still early days. Looking, looking at a Fall event, a fall release. And we will keep you guys posted. And Justin has assured us that he will.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh, he's got to come back. He's. He's the pitcher with the, the blown out arm who's like, that's right. I got to be a rookie year final game and coach, you can't do it. You got to throw your arm off. And he's like, I gotta throw the pitch.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, it'll be a rookie of the year situation.

[Justin McElroy]

Here's the one really important thing. For reasons that I think everyone will understand, I can't continue to promise that I will listen every week. So I need you, the listeners, to really keep something in your heart. If they get to the end of the show and they don't say the Besties is executive Produced by Justin McElroy, then I need you to email justinbmb.com and say, they're doing it, Justin. They forgot it.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

You know, you should CC your agent also.

[Justin McElroy]

Right. To make sure I can't be expected to. I will always be a listener, spiritually, metaphorically, you know what I mean?

[Griffin McElroy]

Not a patron of our Patreon.

[Justin McElroy]

Is there, like a listener, but like more aware of.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, for sure.

[Justin McElroy]

Anyway, thank you for listening to the Besties. And this is not me signing off. This is just me saying, like, it's been really. It's always been fun recording this show. And thanks for listening. Thanks for reading. This is like kind of weird for me. I was thinking about it. I have been working in video games, like pretty much continuously since I was 12 years old, 1992. So that is weird to be not doing that after. Was that 32 years? 34. Some years in the game. But yeah.

[Russ Frostchik]

So anyway, thank you, Justin.

[Griffin McElroy]

You'll be missed. I'll give you guys a heads up. I'm going to be weird for a few episodes after this. It's going to be like a God.

[Justin McElroy]

I think I'll miss Griffin most of all. Yeah. Until ten fucking minutes after I press stop here and I gotta look at his ass again.

[Griffin McElroy]

Start doing another show.

[Justin McElroy]

Just start doing another goddamn podcast.

[Griffin McElroy]

Mine's just gonna be like weird alpha dog energy that like, I'm not gonna be able to explain, but it's gonna be like, I'm the big brother now. Like it's gonna be.

[Justin McElroy]

That's the energy I'm gonna be bringing. Oh, that's good. I like it.

[Griffin McElroy]

I just want everyone to be aware.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

So do we all kind of take a step up in the ladder of brothers?

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

Congratulations, Chris. You're Russ now.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Russ, you're Chris.

[Russ Frostchik]

Oh, sweet cold dudes. That's my dream.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I like that. I thought just Travis there for a second, but I got real confused.

[Russ Frostchik]

Just a note for people listening, in case you're curious. The plan moving forward.

[Justin McElroy]

Not personal.

[Russ Frostchik]

Not personal plan moving forward.

[Griffin McElroy]

We'll still say there's some weird secret beef happening because. And there will be, but none of your business.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

And it will be fiduciary and he will get paid.

[Russ Frostchik]

The plan moving forward is just for it to be Griffin Plant and I with special guests joining. Certainly. We hope that Justin will be one of them from time to time, where appropriate, but we are not planning on, like, dropping in another four.

[Griffin McElroy]

Get on out of here. Jeff. Jeff Gersman, everybody.

[Russ Frostchik]

Oh, I thought Jeff Probst was coming in.

[Justin McElroy]

Come on in, guys. I thought. I swear to God, I thought Jeff Keeley.

[Griffin McElroy]

So many great Jeff.

[Russ Frostchik]

So many Jeffs. Could be great.

[Justin McElroy]

There's a lot of guys. What if you just only have Jeffs? Yeah, there's a lot of good Jeffs.

[Russ Frostchik]

Yeah.

[Griffin McElroy]

We should do an episode where we just talk about our favorite Jeffs and rank them.

[Justin McElroy]

That's really good.

[Russ Frostchik]

Griffin Bracket episode. Well, thank you, Justin, for sharing that news.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah. Is that the end you guys want to do? Are there honorable mentions you guys are going to do or. That's normally.

[Russ Frostchik]

Well, we have two quick reader mail mails.

[Justin McElroy]

Hell yeah.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Sick.

[Russ Frostchik]

One of them.

[Justin McElroy]

You guys miss Justin.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Who's your favorite Jeff?

[Russ Frostchik]

One of them is from Sophie. This is way off topic, but I finally started playing blueprints and I didn't realize how heavily influenced it was by the book Maze by Christopher Manson. It's a much loved book in my household. It's a great read with kids who love solving types of puzzles. I thought I'd mention it in case you guys have never read it.

[Griffin McElroy]

Didn't he cite that? The creator? I remember hearing these two get things in conversation with each other. Around the time that the game came out.

[Justin McElroy]

I saw him in an interview. It was on a carpet, a red carpet of something. And he was there. And they were like, so second game, he says it's going to be smaller. They're like, can you give us any hints? And he's like, r. I'm going to say R now. So later people can point to this and say, oh, he really was thinking about it. He said, but it's going to be smaller. But the third game, the second game, he wants to reset expectations because everybody's expecting too much after blueprints. But the third game.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah, I Can't wait.

[Russ Frostchik]

Unbelievable.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

This guy.

[Russ Frostchik]

We do have some breaking blueprints news to share. And I'm only saying this now because it will probably.

[Justin McElroy]

Is it the colorblind mode?

[Russ Frostchik]

Drown the comments. Colorblind mode is officially out.

[Griffin McElroy]

No way.

[Russ Frostchik]

On Steam as of this morning.

[Griffin McElroy]

I just googled it and there was nothing there. It's this morning.

[Russ Frostchik]

As of this morning, the patch is out. 1.7 has the accessibility mode. It has some other features that I'm sure are good, but one of them is colorblind.

[Griffin McElroy]

Have you downloaded it? Have you checked? Oh, wait.

[Justin McElroy]

We gotta finish the game, right?

[Griffin McElroy]

Russ loaded up. Russ loaded up. We'll do a live.

[Justin McElroy]

I was gonna say this is awkward, but like next. I mean.

[Russ Frostchik]

Next week we kind of should.

[Justin McElroy]

I would just like to. I would just like to know what Russ thinks about blueprints. Like and not if it's a phone call that could go on forever.

[Griffin McElroy]

You know what I mean?

[Justin McElroy]

Like, I don't know how long that'll go.

[Russ Frostchik]

That's not content.

[Griffin McElroy]

We could just record the phone call.

[Justin McElroy]

I regret already leaving our slack.

[Russ Frostchik]

I do. For what it's worth think that I will probably wait until next week when it comes out on consoles because I think I'll probably play it on Switch too.

[Griffin McElroy]

Okay.

[Russ Frostchik]

It's easier to set up on PC so it might be a minute before I find my free time. But I assure you over the next few months somewhere I will be playing about it.

[Justin McElroy]

At least when you text me while

[Griffin McElroy]

you're playing, I will text.

[Justin McElroy]

So I. I just want to know how they like.

[Russ Frostchik]

Yeah, I'm curious.

[Justin McElroy]

I almost kind of want to play it, you know, I almost want to see like what you know.

[Griffin McElroy]

I know how they have you managed to remain fairly.

[Justin McElroy]

You know there's going to be different

[Griffin McElroy]

shit unspoiled right now there's rooms. That's fucking awesome, dude. I cannot wait.

[Justin McElroy]

Dude. Next week I might play worried about

[Russ Frostchik]

being too dumb for the game. But we'll see how it goes.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Now you're going to can't believe it's going to be your game of the year.

[Griffin McElroy]

This year it might be the best he's giving.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Oh yeah, I forgot.

[Russ Frostchik]

Yeah, it is eligible.

[Justin McElroy]

Damn.

[Russ Frostchik]

We have another letter. This one comes to Justin. Maybe Justin's final reader mail letter from the besties. A letter from John. Dear Justin, as a from Evangelist, you did not mention the best parts of the show. The monsters, specifically smiley. The survival aspect is super important along with the dumb reason folks get caught outside after sundown. Please speak on paranoface you know what I'm talking about. Lastly, who is your favorite character? I'm a Jade Stan. My girlfriend is a Kenny lover.

[Justin McElroy]

Clean yourself up. This is a podcast for normal people that listen to video that like video games. Not weirdo weirdo bad shows like from. We don't do this here. We don't talk about these things over here on the Besties.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Okay.

[Justin McElroy]

We'll go do a from podcast and talk about from shit. I'm not going to say you're mad at me that I didn't spoil from People need to go watch. Like, do you understand what you're mad at? Like, you didn't tell them all the best parts. I know. That's like you watch the show.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Yeah.

[Russ Frostchik]

You know, I want to know what the smiley is. Who is that?

[Griffin McElroy]

A spoiler.

[Justin McElroy]

After people die, they sometimes come back and they have a huge smile on their face.

[Russ Frostchik]

Like the movie smile.

[Justin McElroy]

Like the movie smile.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Like movie smile. Yeah.

[Justin McElroy]

This season got so nasty. This is the dumbest show on tv. I cannot believe how much I enjoy it. It's like it makes below deck look like the queen's camp. It is unbelievable. Unbelievable.

[Griffin McElroy]

Was there a break between seasons? Because my algo has been so thoroughly inundated.

[Justin McElroy]

They're back season four. And the grand twist of the whole enchilada has been revealed. You can say this about from that you can't say about Lost, at least from called it shot and said, this is what's happening. You can like it or you could not like it. But here's what's happening and here's the answer, folks. I did not like it, but I am still watching. It is the kind of show where Sydney and I have watched every episode. And every once in a while, one of us will still be like, who the fuck is that?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Who's that?

[Russ Frostchik]

Okay, that's the reader mail. Any honorable mentions from people?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

There's a movie that I want people to watch because I think you can actually stream it now on Hulu and I think everybody here will enjoy. Is called the Hot Rock. And it does not look like you can stream it on Hulu, so good luck seeing this movie. The Hot Rock is a heist movie written by William Goldman, who made the Princess Pop and all sorts of amazing stuff. And it stars Robert Redford and what's his name. Is it George Siegel? Yes, George Siegel.

[Justin McElroy]

It's so weird that it's not a bigger. It's like. It's weird that it's not a bigger movie.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

It should be a huge movie, but I think it had some weird rights issues, so it just was like, not put out anywhere. Hoops, have you seen this movie?

[Justin McElroy]

It's one that I watched. I watched pretty much every heist movie I could find before Steeplechase. That arc, it kicks ass. It's really good.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Unbelievable. It has five on location heists in New York, including. I saw this in a theater while I was in New York in the theater surrounded by people like, wow, this is such a great movie. And like, hey, you know what? Now we're gonna go rob a police station. And I'm like, oh, okay, this will be interesting. And then they go to caseit and it is my old apartment in New York City.

[Justin McElroy]

That's awesome.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Which is wild. And they proceed to land a helicopter on the actual. It's wild. It is such a cool movie. If you like on location New York City heist stuff. It is an embarrassment of richeries if you can find it. Maybe it's on Hulu, maybe it's not. If it's not, I have bad news for you because the Blu Ray or DVD or whatever costs like a trillion dollars, but if you're in New York, it's currently playing at the Metrograph. So there you go.

[Justin McElroy]

Nice.

[Russ Frostchik]

I wanted to mention the fact that the fucking Elden Ring movie is actually happening. Like, they're actually shooting it right now.

[Justin McElroy]

So crazy.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

Unbelievable.

[Russ Frostchik]

I think this was accidentally included in the newsletter last week, so I apologize. Nothing got cut. We just didn't get a chance to speak on it. I was like, maybe they'll do like a side story or something about this movie. Because how else are they gonna fucking know? The stills that are coming out are like, of fucking Marika walking around like they're gonna just do the. I don't know how this story, it's one of the most complicated narratives in video game history, and they're just gonna go fucking right at the gut. It's directed by Alex Garland, who's one of my favorite directors and writers in the world. And I'm just massively excited in. In this. On the same token, I am as excited as I am for the Elden Ring movie. I am negative excited for the Zelda movie, which I think is going to crush my soul. I don't know. There's a way to do Zelda live action and not have it be goofy as fuck. I don't know that there's a way to do it. I could be wrong.

[Justin McElroy]

I'm glad you're not directing it then.

[Russ Frostchik]

Me too. I'm thrilled. I'm not Directing it. I hope it's great.

[Justin McElroy]

Even Zelda.

[Griffin McElroy]

Yeah, how am I gonna do this?

[Justin McElroy]

I don't know how to direct a movie.

[Griffin McElroy]

You guys be there. Yell louder when you swing the masters. I don't know guys.

[Russ Frostchik]

I think they both come out in the same year, so that'll be an interesting year.

[Griffin McElroy]

I bet there's gonna be a lot of very thoughtful think pieces written about video games and movies.

[Justin McElroy]

I bet you're right.

[Griffin McElroy]

I can't read them.

[Justin McElroy]

Wait, I want to talk about my honorable mentions. It's YouTube channels. I just want to say I've been watching a couple this week that people who are sort of like tech tinkerers who are approachable, easy ways into tech if you want to start messing around with stuff. One channel that I just started watching this week is called Damnit Jeff and this guy's great. If you want to go over the channel, it's called Damage. Recent videos include stuff like how to repurpose your home cameras, how to repurpose like your Amazon Alexas to make them your own, setting up your own home servers, stuff that you can like the idea of becoming more like digitally independent. Another one that I love is called Switch and Click. And this woman takes a much different approach to these tech projects because she really expresses the like frustrations that she goes through as she digs into these rabbit holes which is very common when you're messing around with tech and electronics and stuff. You know, you spend a lot of time banging your head against a wall because you don't have the proper documentation and stuff. And so her videos, which are similar in terms of like, you know, how to use old monitors or getting into like self hosting your own movies or music or stuff or replacing Google's apps with your own self hosted things. But she really explains like how the parts that are challenging and the parts that are, it's much more relatable and it makes it seem a lot more approachable. And both of these channels I get a lot of thoughts for stuff that I want to do in my own setup. So I recommend both of them.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sick.

[Russ Frostchik]

Awesome. I love it. Patreon. Okay, real quick on the Patreon. So the Patreon is going to stay basically the same insofar as content. We're still doing resties twice a month. We're still doing a bracket episode once a month. Justin will be on the bracket episode that is happening next week, so keep an eye out for that. After that we're going to continue doing bracket episodes. We'll have a few special Guests joining us for brackets over the next few months. So get excited for that. They will be very fun. I'm very pumped. Not as fun as Justin, of course.

[Justin McElroy]

Yeah.

[Russ Frostchik]

But close. Very close.

[Griffin McElroy]

Super close. We've engineered it so it's going to be as close as possible without ever going over the top.

[Russ Frostchik]

That's right. So yeah, I think that's basically it. On thebesties patreon.com thebesties Some new members that just joined Ty, Chris, Magnus and Trevor. Thank you for being members of the Patreon. This show wouldn't exist without the Patreon.

[Griffin McElroy]

Thank you.

[Russ Frostchik]

Simple as that. Literally. So thank you so much for all your support there and everyone else's support. You make it all happen. Plant. You want to recap what we talked about?

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

I can't. I don't have access to the document.

[Russ Frostchik]

I don't really anyone access to the document. Oh, what a disaster. Vampire Crawlers, the Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors was the first game we talked about. We also talked about the Steam controller. We talked a little bit about blueprints and the fact that it is getting the accessibility mode. It's actually already in on Steam and coming to consoles next week. We talked about the Greatest show on Earth from. We talked about the Hot Rock, which is a movie you can maybe stream somewhere maybe. We talked about The DamnIt Jeff YouTube channel and we talked about the Elden Ring.

[Justin McElroy]

Switch and click also.

[Griffin McElroy]

Switch and click.

[Russ Frostchik]

Love it. I think that's everything we talked about.

[Justin McElroy]

Do one of you guys want to practice before I wrap up? That's gonna do it for us. No, no, no, no, no. Not too bad. No, no, no.

[Griffin McElroy]

Look at Mac Justin's.

[Justin McElroy]

No, no, no. Just the EP credit. I don't know if anybody wants to practice my EP credit.

[Christopher Thomas Plant]

This podcast.

[Griffin McElroy]

This has been a podcast brought to you by Justin. No, fuck. This podcast wouldn't even be possible without his ass. Justin.

[Justin McElroy]

That's good. I like that too. Thank you for listening to the besties. Be sure to join them again next time for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends pick the world's best games.

[Griffin McElroy]

Sa.