One day, we’ll all have a Netflix adaptation for 15 minutes…
Plus analogue cranks, competitive Easter lunches, and the future of mini consoles.
Welcome to another edition of Press Any Button. It’s been a quiet week in games, because we’re still in that weird mid-year lull where we can finally catch up on all the good stuff we missed while attempting to master Elden Ring.
This week we’re covering all the news in video games that matters, like the latest weird video game adaptation at Netflix (you will never guess what it is), a portable console with a hand crank, the future of Easter lunch board game tournaments, and mini consoles. On top of that, we have all your weekend recommendations.
Exploding Kittens is becoming a Netflix show, because why not?
By Alice
If you’ve ever read The Oatmeal webcomic, you’ll be very familiar with the art-style and humour of Matthew Inman. He’s a funny guy, which is presumably one of the reasons why his card game, Exploding Kittens, is the most backed Kickstarter of all time after being launched in 2015. It’s kind of like Uno, but you’re trying to stop kittens from blowing things up through kitten hijinks. I haven’t had a chance to play (I plan on rectifying this soon), but it looks like a great game.
That said, I cannot see how that premise lends itself to an animated series, let alone one starring Tom Ellis (Lucifer), Lucy Liu (Charlie’s Angels, Elementary), and Sasheer Zamata (Home Economics). But that’s exactly what Netflix has been working on for the last year, apparently, with a launch planned for 2023. Then again, I didn’t see how Dead Or Alive or Angry Birds could be turned into movies, and yet they still exist for some reason.
What makes more sense is that an Exploding Kittens mobile game will be added to Netflix’s game library (the one most people don’t know about). With Netflix’s subscriber numbers dropping overnight for the first time since 2011, the company is desperate to find ways to retain more viewers, given studios have accidentally reinvented the cable bundle by having every Tom, Dick and Harry launch their own streaming service. I’m not entirely sold on Netflix wading into the game subscription service arena, because that market is also getting flooded. But I can see it working well for families that can choose just the one service to cover both TV and games, presuming everyone in the family loves Stranger Things and puzzle games about women finding water in the desert.
Good video game adaptations are very rare, not everything can be Detective Pikachu, but I wish the makers of Exploding Kittens luck, because why not? This may as well happen.
What to play
Moonshot - A Journey Home is launching on Apple Arcade on Friday and it seems adorable. It’s a physics-based puzzle game where you play as a baby moon separated from Mother Earth, because, sure. The slingshot mechanics look pretty fun in the trailer, and those looking for a chill puzzle to play after work will probably enjoy it.
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion on Xbox Game Pass. I (Alice) haven’t played it yet, I have no idea if it’s good, but that name alone seems like it’s worth a try. It was supposed to launch on Xbox Game Pass yesterday, but there seems to have been some kind of a delay, so it might be up by the time you read this.
Is Need For Speed Hot Pursuit the best Need For Speed game ever? No. But it is a darn good time and totally worth playing on Xbox Cloud Gaming now that it’s launching this week. It’s a good game for escapism and still makes more sense than much of the Fast and the Furious franchise.
Bethesda has put the vast majority of its games on sale for between 50% and 67% off, across Xbox and Switch (and a few on PlayStation). That makes a lot of classic Doom and Quake games just a couple of dollars each, and brings a lot of the more modern fare down to the $20 mark or so.
Given the sale, it’s not a bad time to get into The Elder Scrolls Online if you’re looking for a new community game, or you’re a fan of Skyrim who’s wondered what an MMO version of that world would be like. On Xbox or PC you can currently get the game plus all of the expansions up to last year’s Blackwood for around $26, or the base on its own for around $10. Personally I (Tim) have played a lot of the game solo over the years and I think the settings and stories are incredible, even if online RPGs aren’t exactly my jam time-sink-wise.
With the Saints Row reboot arriving in a couple months, the series’ earlier entries are currently on sale if you’re looking for some hammy but fun GTA-like action. On Xbox the original game and its sequel are less than $3 each, and the remastered third game is $15.
You had me at “analogue crank”
By Tim
I love being surprised by an inventive play idea, or a voice or style that I haven’t experienced before, and that’s why I love the Playdate; a tiny new handheld which feels like the interactive equivalent of an independent film festival.
For $240 you get the system (eventually, orders are backed up at the moment), plus a full “season” of two dozen games. Every seven days two mystery games arrive over Wi-Fi while you sleep, giving you a week to poke and prod before you get something new.
And you know these games are going to be eccentric, because the hardware is so lovably limited and distinct. Graphics are monochrome, the display is reflective rather than backlit, and in addition to the usual handheld inputs there’s an analogue crank, which as far as I’m aware is a first for any game system.
But while this could easily have become a home for janky experiments, I’ve played all 24 games and was thrilled to find the hit rate extraordinarily high. One week you may be in charge of managing an RPG hero's extremely limited inventory slots as she fights creatures and collects every single useless item she can, the next week you may be using the crank as a mortar and pestle for a magical, comedic riff on Cooking Mama.
There’s also a Pokemon-style bird photography adventure, a Bejeweled clone about a dog working in an Amazon warehouse, a branching visual novel about summoning demons with friends, and a turn-based strategy game where instead of fighting wars you’re spotting local cryptids.
While most of the games throw an artsy story or quirky crank conceit onto a familiar genre, others are pure arcadey play or more focused on spinning a tale through text,. Playdate’s creators have made all the right moves in encouraging a stream of interesting future games, by investing in underrepresented developers and making it easy for creators to distribute games directly to players however they want. I really hope it takes off.
Bricks, Boards and Beginnings
by Alice
Thanks to covid, the Kirkman/Clarke family has been having much more chill major holidays. In days gone by, my wife and I (or one of the aunts, depending on whose house we were at) would spend most of the day slaving over a hot kitchen, preparing food for 25-30 people and barely getting to relax. While I desperately miss spending these holidays together and can’t wait to start doing them again, we have found a peace in having it just Karma, me, and my parents.
This Easter we took that chill vibe to a new level. I still made the traditional turkey, but rather than having my mother set the festive table two days in advance (I am not joking), we decided to eat more casually while having the most organised round of board games I have ever seen, and it really showed how differently people can approach games.
The meal started at Carcassonne, where mum had dealt out the cards in four neat piles next to the hand-made Easter napkins. Then we moved down the other end of the table for Settlers of Catan, where mum had carefully arranged everyone’s pieces, and dad brought over printed sheets of strategy. After that, it was over to the coffee table for chocolate and Azul.
Through all of this, mum agonised about each move (frequently winning through the agony), dad ran his board like he was in the military, Karma casually drew nearly every monastery while trying to control the fields, and I gently tried to convince others to do my bidding.
Because of the games, togetherness, food, and fun, I think this will go down as being one of my favourite Easters ever. There should be more board game tournament family events. We’re already planning how we can make this a thing when we get the extended family back together again. It’ll be a nightmare bloodbath, but I can’t wait to see how everyone else approaches these games.
Retro Esoterica
by Tim
A few years ago it seemed like retro microconsoles were going to be huge. They’re adorable, look good on a shelf, and give the casual nostalgia fiend easy access to a library of memorable games without worrying about emulators or original hardware. Their main downside was that they all came with brutally short USB cords on the controllers, but the likes of 8bitdo and Retro-bit came through with easy wireless options for most of them.
Nintendo’s move to a retro subscription, and the difficulty of manufacturing little computers during the pandemic, seems to have more or less killed the idea off. But as I’ve recently been testing a tiny Amiga (more on that soon), I’ve been reminded of how great these devices are for a lot of people. It’s just a shame they’re so perpetually hard to get.
The NES and SNES Classics remain two of the greatest examples. The essential Nintendo titles are all there, supported by some greats from Square, Konami and Capcom, and the entire production from menus to save states is really slick. Unfortunately you’re looking at around $120 minimum on the second hand market.
The Mega Drive Mini may be my personal favourite, with a huge collection not only of Sega’s own best 16-bit games but some surprisingly generous third party picks like Street Fighter II, Castlevania, Mega Man and Castle of Illusion. It was a home run after years of really awful mini Segas made by AtGames, but second hand prices are even higher for this one.
The PlayStation Classic, despite looking so dang cute, was a disappointment. Sony just doesn’t own the rights to a lot of the 90s powerhouse’s best games, and made some weird decisions when it came to emulation. But they are easy to hack and add your own games, which is why they still go for more than $100 online.