Edge Guard

This week, we play Otteretto, a puzzle game about making palindromes from colored tiles. We swap strategies, agree that puzzle mode is best, and take a closer look at some of the game’s UI choices. Blake reminds us of a previous puzzle game we played for the podcast, and how a bug in the leaderboard fooled him into believing he had the world’s highest score.

Find the game here: https://csklimowski.itch.io/otteretto 

And follow the creator on Twitter: @csklimowski

It’s another Edge Guard Seminar special episode! This week, we take aim at the many Wordle clones that have taken the world by storm in recent months. We chat about what makes the original Wordle so popular, as well as what makes it so easy to clone. Then we discuss some of our favorites: a math Wordle, an adversarial Wordle, and more.

Links to games featured in this episode:

• https://qntm.org/files/absurdle/absurdle.html

This week, we play Bloodborne PSX, a “demake” of the original game in the style of a Playstation 1 game! We talk about the game’s impressive fidelity to the PS1 era: everything from sound, to mechanics, to artificial loading screens. A discussion of the poison sewers prompts Blake tells us about Miyazaki’s love of poison swamps.

Find the game here: https://b0tster.itch.io/bbpsx 

And follow the creator on Twitter: @b0tster 

This week, we play Below the Ocean, an unusual take on the puzzle platformer genre that features an old-timey deep sea diver affixed to an oxygen tank. We talk about the game’s “watery” physics, and Jordan provides game therapy to Blake.

Find the game here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1663270/Below_The_Ocean/ 

And follow the creator on Twitter: @ishyrodriguez

This week, we play a series of Slovakian text adventure games from the late 80s, which were recently restored and translated as part of a cultural preservation project. The games are surprisingly fun, with a lot of charisma. We talk about their subversive sense of humor and how they manage to find interesting mechanics given their extreme technical limitations.

Find the games here: https://scd.sk/clanky/playable-english-localizations-of-slovak-digital-games-from-the-late-80s-period/ 

This week marks the debut of our new recurring segment: “From Jam to Gem,” an exploration of game jam games that later got a full release. For our first game, we play “Sacrifices Must Be Made,” a Ludum Dare 43 submission by Daniel Mullins that later became Inscryption. We compare the game to its predecessor and explore what the differences and similarities of the two versions tell us about the game’s development process.

Find the game here: https://dmullinsgames.itch.io/sacrifices-must-be-made 

And follow the creator on Twitter: @DMullinsGames

This week, we play Mot’s Grand Prix, a retro pseudo-3D F1 racing game that hearkens back to classic racers from the 80s and 90s. The game is an impressive technical feat — built in PICO8! — and talk about game designers who like technical constraints. We also talk about 3D graphics and the culture of Formula One.

Find the game here: https://tommulgrew.itch.io/mots-grand-prix 

And follow the creator on Twitter: @tommulgrew 

This week, we play Mot’s Grand Prix, a retro pseudo-3D F1 racing game that hearkens back to classic racers from the 80s and 90s. The game is an impressive technical feat — built in PICO8! — and talk about game designers who like technical constraints. We also talk about 3D graphics and the culture of Formula One.

Find the game here: https://tommulgrew.itch.io/mots-grand-prix 

And follow the creator on Twitter: @tommulgrew 

How Video Games Were Made Part 1: https://youtu.be/jqyC_S56B3k

This week, we talk about Courage: The Videogame, a game that purports to be built from the files of an unfinished PS1 game about Courage the Cowardly Dog. It’s… quite something. Actually, saying anything else would be a spoiler. So… just check it out!

Check out the game here: https://neithernathan.itch.io/courage-the-video-game 

And follow the creators on Twitter: @NeitherNathan, @Ciscookiess

This week, we explore “i wish you were not here,” a virtual art exhibition built inside Google Streetview. We discuss the creativity of the premise, as well as the dreamy, bizarre style of many of the exhibits. Jordan describes a sculpture as a “glassbown Cronenberg.”

This week, we play (it’s a mouthful)... “[fr0g] clan official server 24/7 zk map (for stranger),” a game designed by mkapolk for the 2018 Secret Santa at Glorious Trainwrecks. It’s a devilishly difficult game about descending large structures in a Counter-Strike-esque game engine. We talk about why this game is so hard, swap strategies, and speculate about whether its levels were randomly generated.

Find the game here: https://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/11388 

And follow the creator on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarekKapolka