These Goofy Games Are So Good To Me
Friendslop Me; Just Fuck Me Up
Published: August 14, 2025
The banality of friendslop horror
“Friendslop” isn’t real, but it can delight you
This blog post will have exactly one apology for unironically using the word “friendslop” and this is it: sowwy uwu
Listen if you haven’t played any of:
You’re missing out!
No money but yes toilet
The appeal is probably obvious
I mean, playing games with friends is fun! Obviously. I’m really only thinking about it now because these games are such a stark contrast to the friend games I grew up playing…Things like Halo or Call of Duty or even Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. All great games that I formed fantastic memories playing with friends in high school and college.
Even somewhat recently I tried PUBG and even Apex Legends, but those didn’t stick. The only games I regularly play with friends are these funky fun sloppy friend games.
Maybe we’re all just tired adults now, and playing something truly competitive or with “real” stakes is just too much mental or emotional effort.
Maybe we just want to have a relatively interesting task to perform together, whereupon we can hang out in a box and bark at each other.
barkbarkbark bark barkbark
Maybe this is all a circuitous discussion topic that just comes back to Capitalist Society Isolation, Alienation, and Loneliness™ because every game I’ve ever seen described as Friendslop boils down to in some way: “a colorful wrapper-task around just talking to your friends in virtual space”
Oh god…is “Golf with your Friends” friendslop? That feels weird. It’s a mini-golf game…but if you’re just talking and futzing around then…slop…?? Feels wrong to call that friendslop since it’s a simulacrum of a real life activity (mini-golf). Unless real-life mini-golf is also friendslop…
Have we been slopping this entire time? How deep does this go? Good lord.
So what makes one of these games good?
I’m not a serious gamer, but I’m a busy guy who’s picky about how he spends his free time! I’ve had a good think about what makes these games gripping enough for me to organize social events with friends to play them 
There’s gotta be Skill Expression
maybe not this time
Starting off with perhaps the most controversial point, but in my opinion one strength of good friendslop games is being able to get better at the game.
Competitive games have it built in, but the competitive nature can itself drive a wedge between you and your friends’ gaming experience together (ranks, or just the serious intensity of matches). Games like PEAK and REPO can pull you in by being goofy friend games, but they hold you close by offering you ways to get GOOD at them.
Skill expression means being able to teach each other things, or show off techniques you’ve learned, on top of being able to more readily progress through the game itself.
The smart balance is when you can have that skill expression, but also build a game where it’s not needed or especially where equal skill expression isn’t needed for the group experience to be enjoyable.
It’s gotta have some scrungle
Video games with intimacy 
I say this with only love in my heart but if your friendslop game doesn’t have some scrungle to its style…some roughness some ugly stuff going on? I probably don’t trust it.
the poor guy has all of 5 pixels to his name
Not to lean too much into the “if it’s not indie it’s not good” generalization, but smaller team games tend to have more jank, or lean into it more as part of their intentionally rough-around-the-edges style, and it can lead to some very appealing interactions. Comedy springboards! Or just an excuse to pause and share a screenshot with other buds.
*scuttles @ u*
Genuine UwU energy somewhere in there
I don’t even know how to articulate this one because it might just be a me thing but it’s so important for a game to allow me to act cute with friends.
Emotes, funny faces, or just an art style that lends itself to it.
If the REPO bots don’t give off UwU energy, just wait until you play with someone you respect; the flappy trashcan heads and googly eyes are radioactive with cuteness energy
It’s gotta be funny!
Like, intentionally. At least a little. The best fun is obviously the organic jokes made up with friends, but these games do such a nice job of leaning into it in their own styles.
It’s like platform development, you’ve gotta give people a springboard for the comedy.
The funniest thing I’ve found in PEAK (the most recent friendslop) lately is force-feeding my friends poisonous fruit. For whatever reason, the game has a built-in mechanic allowing you to feed food items to your friends without their permission. Useful when they’re legitimately in trouble, but outside of that they can’t stop me from feeding them whatever else!
Herein the “friend” part of this really pulls its weight because most of the comedy of these games will come across as grief to strangers. Only you and your friends know how to really tickle each other with goofy game griefing mechanics like “intentionally poisoning each other” etc.
trade offer…!
The Horrors…?
To me, the truly funny through-line to these games is the underlying horror aspect. So many of them are just…surviving or experiencing horror-able things with friends.
When you stop and think, I suppose it makes sense because if a multiplayer game isn’t: competitive, cozy, or a literal party game, then the only thing left must be…horror? 
As a screenshot it’s kinda terrifying. As a memory, this fucking hilarious
Experiencing horrors from the safety of a video game with friends is a pretty banger combination. It naturally devolves into a comedy of errors, usually beset by attempts at a comedy of being-a-silly-little-guy.
Anyways, this was all just a ramble and excuse to share some fun screenshots from some games. Thank you for reading, and if you’ve read this far I’d genuinely love to hear about some of your experiences with these games! :3
uwu
Huge 💜 to all my friends for making these experiences so beloved. Y’all are everything to me, thank you for sharing these experiences with me.
Extra shout-out to Ochi for helping remind me tonight that I should just blog about whatever, whenever! I’m still learning to treat this as My Space :3