The Back Log, vol. 58 - The Return of the Queen (Patreon)

Our Lord of the Rings Queen, Peyton, that is!

Awww, our own little Back Pocket fellowship - thank you Dolphinpants for this extremely accurate image of what our crew (and Peyton) looks like on the weekends.

A couple of pieces of housekeeping for this week: firstly, we mentioned on the show last week that we will be closing down our Redbubble store, and at the same time are changing our merch suppliers for Patreon exclusive merch. We've been having ongoing issues with using Redbubble to fulfill that exclusive merch, and have also never really seen much interest in the public storefront either. So in deciding to change our suppliers for the Patreon side of things (meaning better quality merch for Merch Pocket patrons), we decided it was also the right time to wind down the store as well. You may be wondering, why not keep the store up? Well, doing this allows us to transition our merch operations entirely to this new platform, and while we're not setting up a new store to replace it immediately, the new platform allows us to do things such as cool, limited-time merch drops in the future! So while we won't guarantee anything, it leaves us with some cool options that would not exist were we to keep Redbubble open. So, if there's anything on our Redbubble page you've been itching to buy, do it now! They won't be around much longer...

And secondly, it is, of course, a new month, and that means another batch of exclusive content that Silver Pocket people now have access to!

Alright, onto the show.

LAST WEEK ON BACK POCKET

Back Pocket Tonight: The Rings of Pocket ft. Peyton
Lord of the Rings made its return to our screens last week, and we thought that there was no better opportunity to bring back our friend, LotR superfan and archaeologist Peyton Kilgower! After hearing her early thoughts on the new season of Rings of Power in the Backup, we jumped into some juicy games in What We've Been Playing, including the brand new Star Wars Outlaws and Cult of the Lamb: Unholy Alliance, and some older favs in The Last of Us: Part One and Aliens: Fireteam Elite. Then, everything devolved as we got deep into Can You Dig It, maybe deeper than we ever should've gone. So, to stay completely uncontroversial and communal, we decided to make a tierlist! This one was a definitive, unequivocal ranking of all the LotR games, or at least the ones that this tier list had on it...

Star Wars Outlaws + Rings of Power Season 2! | Back Pocket Tonight

Post Show (link to locked post)

PocketBuds, But This Time It's Funny
In a diversion from the normally extremely serious podcast that is PocketBuds, last week Ruby sat down with Alec Robbins, comic artist, TV writer and narrative director at Squanch Games, to talk all about comedy writing in games. Therefore, it legally has to be a funny episode. It's tough and definitely out of Ruby's wheelhouse, but she got through it.

Making Games Funny (To Me) ft. Alec Robbins
Spotify Apple iHeart Acast

PocketBuds XTRA - Wait, They Were In WHAT?! ft. Alec Robbins (link to locked post)

Playback
Monkeying Around in BLACK MYTH: WUKONG

Game Night
Definitely Dressing, Sometimes Impressing w/ Ruby

Socials
Game Plan

Can You Pet It? - SW Outlaws

The Best LotR Game

SW Outlaws - The First Open World SW Game?!

THIS WEEK ON BACK POCKET

Speaking of the galaxy far, far away, Josh is streaming from its slimiest gambling corners right now, playing Sabacc in Star Wars Outlaws, to keep all those juicy spoilers out of your eyeballs...

We have yet another comedian for our guest this Thursday, but it's her first time on Back Pocket - the wonderful Lena Moon will be joining us!

And for Ruby's weekly podcast bestie, she's chosen James 'Jickle' O'Connor, writer of video game books, to chat with her about... writing video game books! Bet you didn't see that twist coming... but James might have?

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It's Spring, the flowers are blooming and a lot of the country is welcoming it in with some frankly absurd weather. So I hope you all are staying safe amidst the wind, or heat, or whatever it is this country is trying to throw at you right now! No better time to stay inside and game, I reckon...

• Ben 💖