The Besties Chris Plante, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Russ Frushtick

This week’s special guest is Mario! Or as some people say, Merry-O. The most popular plumber on our podcast returns with a remake of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. This might shock you, but Griffin is in love. What about the rest of the crew? In the back half, the Besties share their best guesses for Summer Game Fest.

Here’s a short list of indie games released in May: Crow Country, Animal Well, Arctic Eggs, 1000xResist, Skald, Hades 2, Indika, and the list goes on. We’ve already discussed some of those games. We'll discuss more in the future. Today, the game we’ve fished from the Great Indie Game Flood of 2024 is Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, the latest puzzling adventure from Simogo. Bring your notepad! It’s time to crack the case!

The Besties went through HELL to record this episode. With Griffin and Justin out, Frushtick and Plante prepared to record with a special guest. But after Plante spilled water all over his recording set up, Frushtick was left to talk about Hades 2 as the sole Besty. Fortunately, he had back up. Into the Aether's Brendon Bigley joined the show for the podcast crossover event of the year!

The gang has a spoiler-free discussion of one of the most intriguing games of the year, Animal Well. Will Griffin's life ever be the same? Probably not! We also dive into some of the horrendous studio closures happening this week.

What if you combined Dark Souls and Diablo, then added a pinch of city-building mechanics and survivor elements? You’d get No Rest for the Wicked from Moon Studios, the team best known for the Ori games. It’s ambitious and bound to inspire conversations — even in its Early Access stage. In the back half, Plante updates the team on 2024’s best nun simulator: Indika!

Special guest Lucy James (GameSpot, Giant Bomb, Frames Per Second Podcast) joins Frushtick and Plante to discuss Another Crab’s Treasure. Have you ever wondered what it would have looked like had Rare made a Souls-like in the early ‘00s? Now you have an answer! Plus, the crew shares updates on other games they’ve been playing, from Stellar Blade to TopSpin 2K25.