[Riff] Gamertag Team: Brady + Elodie Explore BEASTIEBALL + VEIN.
Title: Beastieball
Writer: Elodie Orlando
Developer: Wishes Unlimited
Publisher: Klei Publishing
Platforms: PC (Windows/MacOS)
I loved the Pokémon game franchise as a child. For years, every time a new instalment was announced (or, as was often the case, a new duet instalment), I was right there at the game shop with my preorder piggybank. I didn’t give myself a break for years, until one day my 3DS finally broke and I was forced to become an adult.
Now, a decade on, I’ve been hit by that oh-so-familiar feeling: Nostalgia.
Like many franchises, I came to realise that Pokémon had taken on more and more baggage over the years I was gone, and now it’s on the verge of being crushed under the weight of its own legacy. It’s a common story, and I’ve learnt not to shed a tear. But then, one day, my partner unveiled the wonders of a new beastie-training game called BeastieBall. I will never stop singing praise to off-brand spinoffs; unoriginal enough to prey on adoration and nostalgia, yet completely fresh and carefree. I’ve spent hours watching my partner play this game, and I’m in love with both.
Beastieball improves on the classic formula in many ways: It humanises the creatures my partner enslaves for entertainment and almost makes me believe they’re being treated with dignity and care (no poké balls here!). They have personalities, opinions, quests and even torrid affairs with teammates. It has plenty of self-indulgent writing, and introduces volleyball as the world’s most popular animal sport (as opposed tobrutal pit fights), which is an off-the-wall idea but really works. It makes the matches far more tactically complex and, by extension, easier to watch, and it really adds to the ‘no, this world isn’t secretly super dark in ways we refuse to address’ vibe the game tries to push. Rare is any creature design that isn’t interesting; most are even downright adorable.
I often find myself slipping into tedium and second-hand gamer rage while watching my partner play videogames, because she insists on always setting the ‘Difficulty’ rating to MAXIMUM. While these feelings did occasionally slip in during Beastieball sessions, they were rare. Things like repetitive treks and boring team tactics were few and far between.
My partner agrees that the writing and design are rock-solid and adorable, and she gets a lot of mileage out of the more advanced strategies that are completely lost on me as a viewer, such as building her whole team around a tentacled MVP.
Now, I should probably try to make it sound like I’m not a paid shill (you think someone would pay this nobody to review their product?!). So, what nasty barbs can I sling?
The 2D-on-3D graphics are a bit funky. I don’t have a problem with them, but they’re just weird enough to potentially turn a few players off. There are some very obvious performance issues, but those could be due to the game not being complete (it’s currently in early access and has some unabashed rough edges) or due to the fact that my partner’s gaming laptop looks like she probably found it in a Calcolithic archeological dig. The balance also needs a bit more time to get fine-tuned.
My verdict? I 10/10 recommend forcing your partner to buy this game so you can watch them play.
See below for an overview/review in v i s u a l form, care of Trollisms (via Youtube):
(Before I get into my little blurb, just wanting to flag something for the gamers in our audience. I’m currently putting together a pretty huge podcast episode for a yearly wrap-up series named Behind Screen and Speaker. The episodes proper are often a wrap-up both of our own articles/essays, reviews etc, but also more in-depth exploration behind the category (music, gaming etc) in question.
A lot has happened in the gaming space in 2025, thus the Gaming #BSAS will be jam-packed. Be sure to follow along, fellow geeks - hoping to drop it some time in December!) - Brady.
Okay - now for a brief spiel about zombies (and on that note - separate/longer articles related to both Vein and zombie-gaming also incoming in the near future. Stay tuned, brain-eaters gamers!)
As flagged a little earlier, I plan on expanding much further both on this title and zombie-gaming in future writings etc on the blog/podcast. For now though, I’m accepting a body-doubling neurodivergent challenge to actually try and get something relatively brief (for me, anyway) alongside my esteemed colleague Elodie (great writeup, by the way! I wanna play Beastieball now).
Choosing which game to review here was a challenge, as for reasons probably most likely related to burnout and decompensation, 2025 has seen me hyperfixate on/play one game at a time pretty intensely. Historically, I tend to flit between titles with reckless dopamine-craving abandon, however this seems to be the year where the brain is craving just one well to suck neurotransmitter dry from.
Like the cerebrospinal fluid oozing from the caved-in skull of a fresh zombie victim, Vein as a title is both fluid and deceptively simple, encasing a bundle of matter with a lot more complexity than the clear ooze leaking out the sides. Hey, you’re getting a writeup on some very cutesy games from me soon too, had to balance it out.
Truth is, some of the feedback (or in relatively mild cases, dissent) towards Vein as a title is that it does indeed have that shell-casing Early Access feel that, well, frankly every fucking game brought out these days has.
Unlike the litany of half-baked survival-sim clones veritably flooding the Steam Store page like a blood-moon horde - this game is still neither lacking in content and especially not an already well fleshed-out (do I even need to say pun intended…?) realism. Seriously, the detail-orientation around interacting biological/psychological/material aspects of this game is really impressive.
You’ll hear early Steam Store page reviews and elsewhere essentially boil this game down to ‘3D Project Zomboid’. Super helpful if you’ve ever played that game, less so if you haven’t. Erm - 7 Days to Die? DayZ? Head still scratching…? Okay.
Vein pits you against a fantastically thought-out array of difficulty options, a humorously diverse character creation process and more before you’ve even clicked through to start your adventure in the apparently very-geographically-accurate-for-video-games rendition of upstate New York, USA.
And even on medium graphics settings, there’s some lovely vistas to be found. At this moment above, though, I opted for scoffing a packet of chips/crisps to resolve my peckishness, lest I leave myself exposed in terms of visual range, smell, noise etc by fishing.
Next time.
I hesitate to speak too much about specific mechanics and would also honestly caution against the same prior to playing - but I have to also outlay a bunch of in-play examples of hilariously ‘oh shit, they thought of that?!’ moments I’ve had whilst playing the game:
Contracting diabetes after hamfistedly scoffing myself sick with all manner of chips, donuts, cake and the less boring foods available around the place. Foods which, by the way, you’ll not only need to contend with a decomposition process and thus a form of cool storage, but also the notion both power and water will shut off, eventually. You can have your cake and eat it too, but not too much and not forever unless you figure out a way to become off-grid within a month.
Over-exerting myself and causing both immediate strain and later more acute/chronic physical injury by loading my car up too fast with too many barrels of XYZ. Mostly, beer. Oh and on the beer front - yes, alcohol both gets you your usual drunk-screen effects but also increased thirst (alcohol is a diuretic after all) and health effects such as weight gain in the longer-term. Thanks for that reminder.
Spending more time than I’d care to admit hunting through the right points of interest in order to obtain the relevant tool required for the job. No, your average trusty wood-axe not only isn’t automatically present/easily craftable for most classes, like most survival games - it’s also far from what is required to get the job done when wanting to deconstruct and/or access more hefty materials, such as storage lockers. Soldering, industrial cutting, pliers, screwdrivers, hammers - if you’re a trash-goblin like me, you’ll need a slew of both manual and powered tools (and batteries) to get your ‘Destroy Everything’ fix. Turns out when you have a hammer, not everything is a nail…
Cursing the fact you dumped aforementioned tools in storage to save on weight for salvaging stuff, when the car you randomly hacked into putts out midway between Saranac and Lyon ‘cause you damaged key electrical components via hot-wiring. As well as yourself cause, y’know, toying with electrical systems in vehicles IRL isn’t risk-free either. Free Spoiler: Find gloves, but find the right ones to insulate yourself from electrical shock.
Sighing with relief in popping the hood and realising said part is replaceable by grifting it from another vehicle. Then cursing once more as you realise you actually did need that humble Phillips-head screwdriver in order to pry the part from your new-found car-cass.
Pulling up with slightly less zombie-gamer ‘I can take ‘em’ bravado when hearing a small horde encircling a power plant. Not because I couldn’t manage the feat, but because thermodynamics kicked in at 2pm on a Northern Hemisphere April afternoon, necessitating me stripping off the cool-but-thick armour that was rapidly leading to hyperthermia and dehydration/exhaustion.
Watching said bravado diminish further as an errant thwack from a nearby Joe Blow Zombie (who had an ID card on him with a proper-sounding name, date of birth etc - and a debit card I later used to purchase soda cans from a vending machine with) leading to an infection, signalling a likely inevitable infectious demise. Not every fight leads to infection, and in fact most don’t - but by virtue of being near/around zombies, bodybags, unclean items etc, it’s almost inevitable.
Piddling the last of said bravado away as I suddenly remembered ‘oh yeah, shit - it’s been days since I washed my clothes’ . Then realising with horror that a circle of this zombie’s friends were either crawling, ambling or sprinting towards me from the nearby woods. Yeah, hygiene is important for gamers, even in the apocalypse.
Thwarting a potentially worse medical outcome from an ankle sprain related to running barefoot, by ‘wonder if they thought of this’ quick-thinking. Specifically, dousing my ankle in whiskey, threading a suture for the wound with needle/thread and cautiously, slowly returning to the more forgiving tarmac nearby until I found shoes. Shoes I wore out quickly ‘cause they were being worn by a sprinting zombie, ergo pretty worn-out.
Surviving a pretty sizeable run-in with the Zeds and thinking myself a true Fallout-styled apocalyptic hero - only to succumb to psychological shock in-game due to a combination of severe pain and under-sleeping.
Feeling a serious and real sense of accomplishment the first time I was able to scrounge up enough of a safe space and plot of farming land to slice some vegetables. Seriously - this took multiple in-game days, securing a house with enough pots and planters, finding soil bags/shovels, quite a bit of intricate salvaging and crafting and more before finally being able to dice up some home-grown veg with a cleaver. The game is chock-full of small-win accomplishments like these with everything from prying open a lock, completing an oil change using a can of coffee you refilled with motor oil, and many more.
Developing a worm infestation further down the track after mindlessly chomping on some wolf meat. This led to a cascade of medical symptoms that itself required a fair bit of travel across townships in order to find all the necessary supplies (water/fluids, bedding, antibiotics, painkillers, etc). Subsequently, being impressed that an event you’d usually have one bar/slider go down by applying one item, be a risky endeavour necessitating two whole days’ in-game of slowing down my activity levels, staying close to bed, keeping quiet, etc.
Being a great virtual-world example of ‘don’t smartphone and drive’. Sure, your smartphone has a map with the location pinged… but you also need to bring that up on-screen, which is distracting. Cue me spending a second too long mentally visualising map directions, not seeing where I was going, swerving just a fraction too hard on a straight road, fish-tailing my vehicle… and watching the crates I’d plonked on the roof go sailing through the air, crashing.
Spending almost twenty minutes IRL in the worlds’ most painfully slow duel with a zombie throwing haymakers, ‘cause it turns out after breaking your machete and being left with only a butter-knife for self defence is in itself a great example of the phrase ‘discretion is the better part of valor’.
Gleefully stabbing with wild abandon later on that day, having just affixed a pair of scissors to a wooden rod (this also took quite a lot more components, time and salvaging than you’d think).
Being mobbed to death because turns out, just like watching a horror movie, in Vein you’ll literally get jump-scares when opening a door and facing an unexpected ex-person. And once again, going Rambo won’t actually decrease this anxiety - the noise levels created might stir up zombie friends from the flanks, increasing both your anxiety into full in-game panic and severely reducing your effectiveness as a result. No seriously - my poor character was so petrified for such an extended time that the game audio included auditory hallucinations and some blanking/blacking out on-screen. Hey Ramjet, just @ me next time re: panic attacks.
Hoarding guns and bullets and opting for the ol’ trusty bow and arrow, ‘cause guns are loud and I wasn’t wearing ear protectors. Boy did that wake the block up!
Taking it a little less haphazardly with the whole shop/car break-ins, ‘cause it turns out broken glass, alarms and restricted physical space aren’t a great combo.
These are purely off-the-cuff examples and honestly, by no means portrays enough of the actual simulationist depth this game offers. It’s not perfect, of course - it is a video game, after all - but there is a level of care and TLC given to ensuring satisfying depth whilst also doing a great job on things like driving/object physics, movement, etc.
Speaking of movement - starting out, it’s very fun deciding what the move is on your character’s background occupation. To the point where I’m about five runs in so far, just to experience what it’s like with often wildly different starter items.
I guarantee you’ll have yourself a good little chuckle when going through the many, many background options and what items they start with. Some of them are hilarious (see for yourself re: Conspiracy Theorist). There’s one that is particularly relevant to ISC, but I’ll leave you to also discover which occupation that is specifically.
After being more than mildly annoyed/disappointed with the direction one of my favourite co-op survival games of all time (7 Days To Die) took recently - Vein offers immersion and realism and one of the truest realisations of the word ‘sandbox’ you’ll find from the genre.
50 hours in and I’ve only just now decided I’m sort of clued-in enough to pretend I know what I’m doing for the next run.
I’ll report back at a later time to let you know whether I’ve managed to achieve full self-sufficiency re: self-made power, water, refrigeration etc by the time those shut off in a months’ in-game time.
I’d also like to stress another thing - if I’m making the game sound too complex, it truly isn’t. You’re talking to the least min-maxed autistic gamer on the entire planet, thrown an extremely hefty sense of fast-and-loose, very non-logical thinking via your mate ADHD. You can truly duck in and out of the many complex systems I’ve come nowhere near close to describing as you like. You’re not shackled to base-building, nor are you left in perpetual nomad flight, should you be against either option.
One thing’s for certain with this game - without looking up any guides, simply ask yourself ‘I wonder if the devs thought of including this/can I actually give this a try?’ based on your own mental visualisation as to how realistically surviving an apocalypse might be. It’s extremely likely the two brainiacs behind this wonderful title not only thought of it, but you might have some surprising and novel options at your disposal.
I’ll leave my little spiel with one of many ‘wasn’t expecting that - nice’ tidbits from a recent play session. i.e. finding a DVD disc marked ‘Trailer 1’ and watching the official game trailer inside a house.
Plot twist - I shouldn’t have had the volume up so high on the TV, ‘cause I spooked the neighbours and they were none too happy.
Does the game need work? Yes. There’s a whole heap of additional features incoming including NPC’s, factions, trading and more options/depth to the gameplay experience.
Tell you what though - those fifty hours spent thus far I can wholeheartedly say have been enjoyably spent…. in Vein.
Thoroughly recommended, even in it’s very early-access state.