gameing

Hello and WELCOME to the long-awaited page dedicated to my new favorite game of all time!! It's BEASTIEBALL!!!

This page is essentially a love letter to the game, which was made with love and released in early access on November 12, 2024, by Wishes Unlimited, the creators of Chicory and Wandersong :) I highly recommend everyone experiences Beastieball themselves, so I will not be posting any spoilers except for images and names of Beasties and characters!

I could probably give you a thousand reasons why I love this game, but I'll try to stick to what matters most.

The Charm

Beastieball is exceedingly charming. One of the first things I fell in love with when I saw the trailer for the demo was the sheer amount of personality and love put into every little detail. The hand-drawn sprites, the beautiful landscapes, the silly dialogue, the meaningful relationships Beasties forge with one another, the references, the lore... everything is just so lovingly crafted and I'm so happy to have backed this project and watched it come to life!

The Gameplay

Of course, you can't have a good game without good gameplay, and Beastieball takes it from good to fantastic. The premise is deceptively simple: it's a creature collector where the creatures play 2-on-2 volleyball. However, you don't quite realize what you've bargained for until you're knee-deep in it; You can't just capture Beasties, you have to gain their trust by displaying your skills in a match and offer them a jersey of appropriate quality. Yes, you have two Beasties on the court, but you also have three in the back waiting to tag in and turn the tides. Like any normal volleyball match, your Beasties can touch the ball up to three times, but they can do special volleys and attacks, use support moves during offense or defense, and even have unique traits that influence the match, and don't even get me started on feelings! On top of all that, your Beasties can only know three plays at a time, so you have to determine your strategy and choose your 15 total moves wisely while balancing all the possible things that could happen in a match to wipe you out (much more intensive than some popular creature collector games that let you have up to 24 moves and present nothing even remotely as intimidating as the possibility of your fielded Beasties feeling angry, shook, or tired).

The Music

It needs to be said: the Beastieball Original Soundtrack, composed by the amazingly talented Lena Raine, is one of the biggest selling points of the game. There are hours of music to be enjoyed, plus more on the way, and they are all so, so beautiful. I'm struggling to keep the number of favorites I pick to a reasonable minimum! You can see my top 15 in the "faves" section below :) Just go listen to it here and consider purchasing it for yourself on a Bandcamp Friday, okay?

The Story

Saving the best for last, the story of Beastieball is absolutely genius and may be the best usage of the creature collector genre I've ever seen, or will ever see again. It takes the premise of training animals for combat and turns it entirely on its head. Yes, you are training Beasties, but they also play Beastieball on their own in the wild for reasons researchers are still trying to understand. Various towns have their own Beastieball coaches who participate in the Beastieball League, but they have a very real and tangible influence over the League and the prosperity of their homes. The game makes fantastic points about how the monetization of sport in a capitalistic society leads to socioeconomic corruption and environmental damages (and I spent years studying these topics, so this game was basically designed for me specifically). I won't get into how the story pans out, because that's for you to discover if you so choose, but just know that it hits HARD and I haven't stopped thinking about it.

That about covers my overview of the game! I really hope you enjoyed reading and that maybe it inspires you to check it out :) Feel free to ask me anything about the game, and please check out the fan-made wiki, called Beastiepedia, and the ever-growing Beastieball.info, which lets you view an interactive Beastiepedia, world map, playbook, and more!

Naturally I have to dedicate a section of this page to my favorite... everything!

Top 10 Favorite Beasties

• Humflit
• Kichik
• Skibble
• Sprecko
• Pubber (they'll be back...)
• Woollie
• Diggum
• Leobro
• Armantis
• Mudslee

Top 10 Favorite Characters

• Kaz, coach of the Raging Blazes
• Riley :)
• Celia, coach of the Wild Flowers
• Marcy, coach of the Party Pirates
• Elena, coach of the Hello Freaks
• Valerie Stride, coach of the Radical Queens
• Reese :)
• Gene :)
• Sunsoo, coach of the Golden Gods
• Riven, coach of the Mythic Dreamers

Top 15 Favorite Tracks (because 10 isn't nearly enough)

• VS. The Radical Queens
• NOW THAT'S! BEASTIEBALL!!!
• Game, Set, Match!
• Downtown Throwdown
• VS. The Golden Gods
• Sandy Footsteps
• VS. The Hello Freaks
• The Radical Queens
• ROWDY!!!
• VS. The Mega Beasts
• Spontaneous Sport (which you might be listening to right now!)
• Livestream Beat
• VS. The Midnight Machines
• Ready, Set, Ball!
• Dingy Dust-Up

Top 5 Favorite Teams

• The Magic Moons
• The Midnight Machines
• The Mega Beasts
• The Rutile All-stars
• The Party Pirates

On my very first playthrough of the game, I decided to go with my heart and use whatever beasties called out to me the most. Way back when the demo was initially released, I reset for countless hours trying to get a raremorph Kichik. It took days! When I finally found it, though, I named them Comet and my Sprecko Nebula, and I knew that would be the file for my first playthrough when the game came out. Fast forward several months and three playtests later to November 12: the time had come.

Although I had played through each playtest with a new team and had various positive experiences, I knew that the Beasties I had used probably wouldn't make it into my final team. All I knew was that I wanted to use Comet and check out the third Sprecko metamorphosis option (and, as it will quickly become clear, I have a strong bias towards body-based Beasties, so I knew I would love it).

Early on, I found myself a Servitt that I named Soleil. I figured they probably wouldn't make it onto my final team, especially since I had Comet, but I think Servitt is cute and they helped me make my way north and meet my first lifetime new recruit: a white Wagdash- er, I mean Woollie, since they changed the name to make it distinct from the Chroma Sea's new Waglash (which replaced my sweet darling Pubber...).

Anyway, I named my new Woollie Neptune and we became great pals :] They had the Fetch trait, which was constantly in use due to my opponents targeting them. Neptune would quickly become one of my primary attackers and be soooo cute doing it. It was with this team of four that I faced and defeated Kaz, the coach of the Raging Blazes in Jasper.

Continuing on north, we ventured into the Jasper Mines to find my absolute favorite Beastie from the original demo: Skibble! I just find them so cute and little and I love their little tongues and funny tails :] I've always had a soft spot for lizard-type guys, so this was a no-brainer to me from the very beginning. I named this one Saturn, and it is at this point that you may have noticed a space theme.

At some point after this, I made a quick U-turn and went back south towards Beryl. By the time I challenged Riven, the coach of the Mythic Dreamers, Comet had metamorphosed into Ostrisigh and was looking very grumpy.

After defeating two ranked coaches, I decided my Beasties were strong enough to venture further into the Rutile Nature Preserve, where I would find my next recruit and metamorph my Sprecko into a form I hadn't seen yet. First, I sought out my new friend, another Beastie that I fell in love with early on. The first time I saw it was in the form of Kaz's ace, Crimson. Being that Kaz is my bestest friend, it was only natural that Humflit was, too. I named mine Stardust :]

Now, I won't give all of the details of my run, because that would require telling you about all the cool story points you go through and people you meet. So instead, I'll just put the details about my final team down here :)!

The Astral Wings
#MBYZJKNAGF

Relationships

Sweethearts:
Comet ♥ Nebula

Besties:
Comet ♥ Neptune
Comet ♥ Saturn
Nebula ♥ Stardust

Partners:
Comet ♥ Stardust
Nebula ♥ Saturn
Neptune ♥ Saturn
Neptune ♥ Stardust
Saturn ♥ Stardust
Nebula ♥ Neptune