Watch Out for Fireballs!

We begin our 3D Platformer Month with a modern loveletter to 90s platformers like Banjo Kazooie and Super Mario 64. Hat Kid runs afoul of the Mafia, and she must collect her hourglasses (which are spaceship fuel) from a planet full of colorful jerks.

The game runs high on charm, but it also runs right into our fundamental problems with this genre. So we try to put on our "3D Platformer Appreciator" hats and see what's good here and what falls short.

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This is a big dispatch episode, where we spend a good deal of time on your questions before talking about why games shouldn't try to be movies. We then turn our attention to your responses to June's games.

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We round out puzzle month with the ultimate "puzzle" game, so elemental that you can't imagine it not existing. Alexy Pajitnov and a crew of colleagues in the USSR birthed the game, and it followed a long and complicated trail to becoming a worldwide phenomenon.

This episode relates that story, talks about how Tetris has changed over the years, and looks at some recent excellent Tetris games.

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The early 90s were a very strange time for PC games, almost solely because of the introduction of the CD-ROM drive. This new techology revealed two paths for the industry, both of which would be pretty short-lived: The Myst path of baroque, isolated puzzle voids, and the 7th Guest path of FMV movies with puzzles slightly attached.

The stories of Henry Stauf's infernal mansion are almost too out there to be believed, and we definitely don't recommend that you play these games to completion, but we invite you to hear all about both the 7th Guest and its sequel, the 11th Hour, here on the show.

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For Patrons only, we have this slight episode about a slight game that none-the-less has some charms to offer. 

Get ready for a day of Duckfeed. On August 31, 2019, we will gather at the Clinton Street Theater in Portland Oregon for live performances of many Duckfeed shows, and a few local podcast friends. Listen to the announcement for more.

More details are forthcoming, including ticket details.

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We begin Puzzle Month with one of the best indie releases of 2018. While it's nominally a turn based strategy game, Into the Breach provides near-perfect information, making it more of a series of chess puzzles than a traditional X-Com-alike. And the story of the game's development confirms that this was the designer's intention.

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We read your responses to May's games, and we talk about how AAA games get romance wrong.

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Hitman 2016 is a tremendous game. It's shockingly generous in scope, rewarding curiosity and ingenuity. Agent 47 heads to exotic locales to kill exotically, and we're here for it.

This episode is a preview of the full premium episode. To hear the entire thing, join us on Patreon!

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Gary and Kole enter a world of assassination with one of the most permissive, generous games we've ever played.  Big thanks to Xenolalia for producing this episode!