Highly recommend Delicious in Dungeon, can’t recall if it’s been discussed on the show before or not. Reminds me a lot of the old indie game Battle Chef Brigade
Hello, Besties. When the topic of Android games came up in the past I mentioned a game I love called Slice & Dice, a dungeon delving roguelike where your party of heroes and the monsters are all dice. I wanted to mention that it had a major update this week, and the biggest new feature is that it's now available on iOS and Steam. I've lost a lot of time to this great little game, it's super easy to pick up and has the depth to last a long time.
I kind of feel like I'm missing something with Balatro. I'm really enjoying it, but I also have a rather low win rate (2 games out of who knows how many), and I haven't gotten the wild game-breaking runs that people have been talking about.
I'm no stranger to deck-builders, roguelikes, or poker, so I'm not sure what to credit it too, but it just feels like bad luck. Sometimes it's as simple as a boss blind annihilating a strategy completely, but often it's just not finding the synergies necessary in Jokers and not getting the planets, tarots, or cards necessary to make a run work. I'm curious if the Besties or any other fans are having the same experience, if I'm missing a critical piece, or if it's supposed to feel this way.
I think my experience is relatively similar. I have had a few completely crazy synergies that made me cackle out loud, but they have been extremely rare for me as well. Personally, I still enjoy the overall experience of it, especially because of those very rare wild runs.
I do have a general strategy that works a lot of the time (but not all) to carry me at least to one of the later blinds.
But yeah in general it feels way more luck based than similar games.
The high-level advice I've had success with is that you need three things to win: a way to boost chips, a way to boost mult, and a way to multiply mult. Playing good hands gives you a bit of a head start on chips and mult, but not that much in the long run; you can win with a deck that plays High Card every hand if you have the support for it. Early in the run you'll want an economy joker to be able to afford the engine pieces you'll need when they come up.
There's a lot of RNG, though, and playing on higher difficulty levels involves a lot of resetting until you get a start that gives you decent stuff.
Oh, also, you can rearrange your jokers and the cards in your hand. Cards are evaluated left-to-right, so make sure things that multiply mult are on the right!
Yeah, for sure. And some decks are easier starts than others when you are still figuring out combos and tactics (e.g. additional hands is helpful). Money is always important early on, to get you some jokers or some planets or tarots (or a spectral) to build up some synergies, etc.
The important thing I've found...is go into the run with a bit of an idea what you may want to build your deck around, but be ready to change on the fly. Sometimes that is built around getting certain types of cards (e.g. 8s are often bonus values in jokers, or As), or facecards for re-triggering a joker, etc.
I recently in a run had the following jokers pop up...that made me switch my strategy:
Joker 1: All hearts / diamonds are treated as same suit, all spades / clubs treated as same suit:
Joker 2: +4 mult for all hearts.
Joker 3: +4 mult for all spades.
Joker 4: Flushes and straights can be completed with 4 cards
Joker 5: not sure, some other X multi I think.
This effectively allowed me to make every card played so valuable since everything had exrta mult, + I could get some straight flushes because of the wacko synergies.
Anyways, keep experimenting. Some runs are definitely more fun than others.
“Macron”, the diacritic for long vowels in the Roman alphabet, is pronounced make-ron! We use them in teaching Latin, and to type them I (a Latin teacher) use the te reo Māori keyboard on OS X because that language uses them too. Sorry for correcting your reading of the correction of your reading of a language thing, luv u guys
Speaking of buck wild Francis Ford Coppola movies, he did a film in 2011 with Val Kilmer and Elle Fanning called "Twixt." The idea was that FFC would edit the movie live and in person depending on how the audience responded to scenes. This apparently was determined to not be feasible, so a single edit of the movie was made, which is probably why the whole movie has a weird disjointed feeling regarding the story and character interactions.
Unrelated to this current episode, this week I started and finished Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, based on Justin's recommendation in a prior episode. This book had me hooked, especially in the first half. Thank you for the recommendation and please keep sharing books!
I'd also just like to chime in that Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is really great so far. I think I have 2 episodes left, and my partner and I are enjoying it. We enjoy how the story is told, the mix of comedy, action, pathos, etc. Well worth it.
First of all, as Chris said "underappreciated open world games", I couldn't help but YELL Sleeping Dogs repeatedly, and I'm so glad it's the first one you guys brought up. As someone who doesn't typically gel with open world games, it remains one of the only ones I've ever actually finished. Great story, some fantastic performances, and gameplay and environments that hold up well. Glad you guys agree.
Second, hearing you guys talk about the violence of Rise Of The Ronin really brings me back to the Team Ninja days of Ninja Gaiden II in particular. It sounds like they're returning to that almost cartoonish level of bloody dismemberment which, at least to me, makes NG2 a ridiculously fun, visually entertaining experience to this day. I'd love to see Team Ninja bring back the mechanic of allowing enemies to continue to fight even after losing arms or legs, which really added to NG2's combat depth in addition to contributing to the over-the-top tone.
I’ve got a group of friends where we pick a game, play it in chunks together, and discuss each section bi-weekly (video game book club, if you will), and our current game we’re working through is Remember Me. Justin gave a nod to it (no pun intended) on the Unicorn Overlord episode, and hearing the title was wild. I’d love to get Justin and the other Besties quick thoughts on this strange 2013 game. It’s certainly been a subject of much dunking by our group of Gen Z gamers. Love the show, love the Patreon, y’all are wonderful!
During the discussion of Rise of the Ronin I was surprised to hear the pretty universal criticism of the quantity of loot. Having just finished Baldur's Gate 3, I was struck by the sheer amount of loot-able objects, many of which seemed not to be worth the time, but this criticism was not brought up during the discussion of BG3. What makes that games loot system different than Rise of the Ronin?
I haven't played BG3 but Ronin has some Borderlands level of stuff dropping off every enemy in the game, but unlinke borderlands I'm using gear that I picked up 10 hours ago because the rest of it is garbage.
I picked it up off the back of Chris talking about it (and another creator on Youtube, Framework) and the loot is really my only complaint. the thing I don't get is all the hate for the look of it, people out there comparing it to PS3 games, when was the last time any of them looked at a PS3 game you think? Sure it's no Ghost of Tsushima but I like the combat of this more.
Wanted to put in a quick shoutout to "dicebuilding" roguelite Slice & Dice, an itch.io/android game that just released on Steam and iOS! It plays as a series of monster encounters in which each turn you roll a unique die for each of your 5 characters, allocating the results to deal damage, defend, gain mana for spells, and so on. It's delightfully puzzly with a lot of variety in character classes (each with a unique set of die faces) equippable items that modify or change a character's dice, and a ton of enemies and encounters.
It comes from a solo developer who has apparently been working on the game for 7 years.
Have any of you played Worldless? It’s a search-action game, but with turn based combat. The combat has combo stuff and different weapons you can use that you can switch on the fly. It looks and sounds beautiful and you get the dash very early on, which is very important to me. I heard about it from Windette on YouTube, and I highly recommend it.
Question for the Besties;
With the update 1.6 for Stardew Valley, adding mayonnaise we can finally eat, what are your all’s most stand out food/consumable in a video game?
I’m not a Bestie except in my heart, but imo FFXV has the best looking food of any game I have personally played.
Highly recommend Delicious in Dungeon, can’t recall if it’s been discussed on the show before or not. Reminds me a lot of the old indie game Battle Chef Brigade
Agreed, my partner and I also loved it.
Hello, Besties. When the topic of Android games came up in the past I mentioned a game I love called Slice & Dice, a dungeon delving roguelike where your party of heroes and the monsters are all dice. I wanted to mention that it had a major update this week, and the biggest new feature is that it's now available on iOS and Steam. I've lost a lot of time to this great little game, it's super easy to pick up and has the depth to last a long time.
I picked this up as well based on someone recommending it as well, and played before and after this update.
The update has seemingly added a lot more content, and even more flexibility which is fun.
It is right now my go to idle game when I have a few moments, and I'm really digging many of the modes.
Well worth the purchase on mobile, but it is probably fun everywhere.
I kind of feel like I'm missing something with Balatro. I'm really enjoying it, but I also have a rather low win rate (2 games out of who knows how many), and I haven't gotten the wild game-breaking runs that people have been talking about.
I'm no stranger to deck-builders, roguelikes, or poker, so I'm not sure what to credit it too, but it just feels like bad luck. Sometimes it's as simple as a boss blind annihilating a strategy completely, but often it's just not finding the synergies necessary in Jokers and not getting the planets, tarots, or cards necessary to make a run work. I'm curious if the Besties or any other fans are having the same experience, if I'm missing a critical piece, or if it's supposed to feel this way.
I think my experience is relatively similar. I have had a few completely crazy synergies that made me cackle out loud, but they have been extremely rare for me as well. Personally, I still enjoy the overall experience of it, especially because of those very rare wild runs.
I do have a general strategy that works a lot of the time (but not all) to carry me at least to one of the later blinds.
But yeah in general it feels way more luck based than similar games.
The high-level advice I've had success with is that you need three things to win: a way to boost chips, a way to boost mult, and a way to multiply mult. Playing good hands gives you a bit of a head start on chips and mult, but not that much in the long run; you can win with a deck that plays High Card every hand if you have the support for it. Early in the run you'll want an economy joker to be able to afford the engine pieces you'll need when they come up.
There's a lot of RNG, though, and playing on higher difficulty levels involves a lot of resetting until you get a start that gives you decent stuff.
Oh, also, you can rearrange your jokers and the cards in your hand. Cards are evaluated left-to-right, so make sure things that multiply mult are on the right!
Yeah, for sure. And some decks are easier starts than others when you are still figuring out combos and tactics (e.g. additional hands is helpful). Money is always important early on, to get you some jokers or some planets or tarots (or a spectral) to build up some synergies, etc.
The important thing I've found...is go into the run with a bit of an idea what you may want to build your deck around, but be ready to change on the fly. Sometimes that is built around getting certain types of cards (e.g. 8s are often bonus values in jokers, or As), or facecards for re-triggering a joker, etc.
I recently in a run had the following jokers pop up...that made me switch my strategy:
Joker 1: All hearts / diamonds are treated as same suit, all spades / clubs treated as same suit:
Joker 2: +4 mult for all hearts.
Joker 3: +4 mult for all spades.
Joker 4: Flushes and straights can be completed with 4 cards
Joker 5: not sure, some other X multi I think.
This effectively allowed me to make every card played so valuable since everything had exrta mult, + I could get some straight flushes because of the wacko synergies.
Anyways, keep experimenting. Some runs are definitely more fun than others.
Ok you had me at "cat collection"
I seriously had a dream last night The Besties was only available to paying listeners. Sorry, I mean nightmare.
I miss the resties already. F
If only it was free to produce :(
I know. :(
“Macron”, the diacritic for long vowels in the Roman alphabet, is pronounced make-ron! We use them in teaching Latin, and to type them I (a Latin teacher) use the te reo Māori keyboard on OS X because that language uses them too. Sorry for correcting your reading of the correction of your reading of a language thing, luv u guys
Speaking of buck wild Francis Ford Coppola movies, he did a film in 2011 with Val Kilmer and Elle Fanning called "Twixt." The idea was that FFC would edit the movie live and in person depending on how the audience responded to scenes. This apparently was determined to not be feasible, so a single edit of the movie was made, which is probably why the whole movie has a weird disjointed feeling regarding the story and character interactions.
Unrelated to this current episode, this week I started and finished Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, based on Justin's recommendation in a prior episode. This book had me hooked, especially in the first half. Thank you for the recommendation and please keep sharing books!
I'd also just like to chime in that Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is really great so far. I think I have 2 episodes left, and my partner and I are enjoying it. We enjoy how the story is told, the mix of comedy, action, pathos, etc. Well worth it.
First of all, as Chris said "underappreciated open world games", I couldn't help but YELL Sleeping Dogs repeatedly, and I'm so glad it's the first one you guys brought up. As someone who doesn't typically gel with open world games, it remains one of the only ones I've ever actually finished. Great story, some fantastic performances, and gameplay and environments that hold up well. Glad you guys agree.
Second, hearing you guys talk about the violence of Rise Of The Ronin really brings me back to the Team Ninja days of Ninja Gaiden II in particular. It sounds like they're returning to that almost cartoonish level of bloody dismemberment which, at least to me, makes NG2 a ridiculously fun, visually entertaining experience to this day. I'd love to see Team Ninja bring back the mechanic of allowing enemies to continue to fight even after losing arms or legs, which really added to NG2's combat depth in addition to contributing to the over-the-top tone.
Quick question for the Besties:
I’ve got a group of friends where we pick a game, play it in chunks together, and discuss each section bi-weekly (video game book club, if you will), and our current game we’re working through is Remember Me. Justin gave a nod to it (no pun intended) on the Unicorn Overlord episode, and hearing the title was wild. I’d love to get Justin and the other Besties quick thoughts on this strange 2013 game. It’s certainly been a subject of much dunking by our group of Gen Z gamers. Love the show, love the Patreon, y’all are wonderful!
During the discussion of Rise of the Ronin I was surprised to hear the pretty universal criticism of the quantity of loot. Having just finished Baldur's Gate 3, I was struck by the sheer amount of loot-able objects, many of which seemed not to be worth the time, but this criticism was not brought up during the discussion of BG3. What makes that games loot system different than Rise of the Ronin?
I haven't played BG3 but Ronin has some Borderlands level of stuff dropping off every enemy in the game, but unlinke borderlands I'm using gear that I picked up 10 hours ago because the rest of it is garbage.
I picked it up off the back of Chris talking about it (and another creator on Youtube, Framework) and the loot is really my only complaint. the thing I don't get is all the hate for the look of it, people out there comparing it to PS3 games, when was the last time any of them looked at a PS3 game you think? Sure it's no Ghost of Tsushima but I like the combat of this more.
Wanted to put in a quick shoutout to "dicebuilding" roguelite Slice & Dice, an itch.io/android game that just released on Steam and iOS! It plays as a series of monster encounters in which each turn you roll a unique die for each of your 5 characters, allocating the results to deal damage, defend, gain mana for spells, and so on. It's delightfully puzzly with a lot of variety in character classes (each with a unique set of die faces) equippable items that modify or change a character's dice, and a ton of enemies and encounters.
It comes from a solo developer who has apparently been working on the game for 7 years.
Have any of you played Worldless? It’s a search-action game, but with turn based combat. The combat has combo stuff and different weapons you can use that you can switch on the fly. It looks and sounds beautiful and you get the dash very early on, which is very important to me. I heard about it from Windette on YouTube, and I highly recommend it.
Omg thank you!!! The Saboteur is an (of the time) phenomenal game. You've got my sub ;)