Once you have two, it's a pattern, right? This month in PnP mini we talk about how Slay The Spire tries to get you to take on boons that are just as likely to bust your run later. In contrast, we also talk about how the "Great Force" power up in Mario and Luigi: SuperStar Saga taunts you to take double damage to deal double damage, and how that encourages you to play the game more as intended.

This month we are looking at how games help us relax. This is a bit of a warm-up episode to help up get back into the swing of things.

This month we are looking at fall damage in games, and more specifically, how games let you avoid it. We looked at Just Cause 2, Breath of the Wild, Risk of Rain 2, Dark Souls III, and Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition.

This month we are looking at Persona 4 Arena and its enhanced expansion, Ultimax.

This month we are looking at how the bosses relate or don’t to the core loops within the game. We looked at Cuphead, 30XX, Wizard Of Legend, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

This month we are looking at one of the ways in which games restrict your ability to do things, MP systems! We looked at Blue Reflection, Persona Q, Persona 5 Strikers, Tactics Ogre, and Chrono Cross. paragraph

This month we are looking at customization in games and how those systems impact or are impacted by the We looked at Diablo 2, Wild Arms XF, Deeprock Galatic, Fallout New Vegas, and Fighting EX Layer

This month we are looking at title screens! Yes really. There was a change in plans as we were unable to do the planned episode, and this has been on our lists for a long time. We looked at NieR, Saban’s Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, Asura's Wrath, Blue Reflection, and Superflight. In this episode, we’ve used chapters to change the podcast art, so when listening through a podcatcher you’ll be to take a look at the art we are talking about. We will also put them all at the bottom of the blog post that goes with this episode. This episode contains adult language.

This month we look at negative feedback loops, a partner episode to positive feedback loops, so looking at games that try to stop you either gaining too much advantage or falling too far behind. We looked at Mario Kart 8, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Curse of the Dead Gods, Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3, and Resident 4.

This month we are looking at how speed can be used to create tension and drama. We looked at Sonic, Bayonetta, Tekken 7, SUPERHOT and Bangai-O.

This month we are looking at crossovers! We are going beyond Smash to look at games that rather than bringing in lots of characters to one system, how these games’ systems intersect and merge. We looked at Professor Layton VS Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Cadence Of Hyrule: Crypt Of The Necrodancer featuring the Legend Of Zelda, Etrian Mystery Dungeon, Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark Of The Millennium and Monster Hunter World.

This month we are looking at positive feedback loops in games. These are loops where the more you something, the more you can do it! Sometimes known as the snowball effect We looked at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Torchlight II, Darkest Dungeon, Slay the Spire and Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3.

We love games here at Plat and Pit, but a lot is going on right now for us, so we are unable to craft our regular shows for a while. In the meantime though, we would still like to make some things, so we will have these bonus rants for a while on all sorts of topics that might not suit our usual format. For our sixth (and hopefully final) one of these, we look at Bleed 1 and 2, some really neat and special games Rinoa and Blue just think are neat.

This month we are looking at secret collectables in videogames We looked at Donkey Kong Country 2, Super Mario Sunshine, The Messenger, Breath of the Wild and Super Metroid. To help up we had Conor, host of the upcoming podcast Like This, Like That join us.

This month we are looking at inner and outer loops in run-based games. What’s an inner loop? An outer loop? A run-based game? All your questions will be answered in the episode. We looked at Hades, Shiren the Wanderer, One Step From Eden, Cadence of Hyrule and Monster Hunter World.

This month we are looking at double jumps in 3D games. Much like our other double jumps episode, we are really looking more at midair movement options in general. We looked at Jumping Flash!, Super Mario Odyssey, Sonic Adventure 2, Devil May Cry 5 and Doom Eternal.

This month we are looking at the Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy games. This month, with Jack’s assistance, we look at the “Lightning Saga” consisting of Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. Check out our guest Jack on twitter!

This month we are looking at queer male bodies in games. This is a little outside our usual realm, so we brought on the wonderful games writer Jeremy Signor to help us out. We looked at Dragon Age II, Altered Beast, Strange Flesh, Tokyo After School Summoners and Tusks: The Orc Dating Sim.

We’ve had a small change of plans due to things outside of our control. Rather than speed and tensions, this month we are looking at video game history a little with the Famicom Disk System. We looked at Castlevania, Kid-Icarus, The Legend of Zelda, Yume Kojo Doki Doki Panic and Murasame-jou. Because we are looking at game history, we brought on someone a little more familiar with that side of gaming to join us, Michelle from Doors and Dungeons.

This month we are looking at sequels and how they maintained or change from the works they came from. We focused much more on direct sequels as opposed to more broad “entries in mostly disconnected franchises” which a similar but different topic. We looked at Disgaea, Mass Effect 2, Street Fighter 2, Risk of Rain 2 and The Legend of Zelda : A Link Between Worlds.

We are back to our regular non-dominant strategies this month with something super accessible, double Jumps! Although really we are looking at mid-air-activated mobility options… which does not quite roll off the tongue so easily. We look at Super Ghouls and Ghosts, Super Mario All-Stars, Sonic Advance 3, The Messenger and Ori and the Blind Forest.

Answering questions, chatting and looking both back and to the future

This month are continuing our dominant strategies series, a long-form series looking at dominant strategies and how games prevent them. This is sixth and final of five intended episodes, and where we will wrap up on all the techniques we’ve discussed so far. If this is your first episode, head back 5 episodes to Repetition mitigation in January. We look at Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy VIII.

We love games here at Plat and Pit, but a lot is going on right now for us, so we are unable to craft our regular shows for a while. In the meantime though, we would still like to make some things, so we will have these bonus rants for a while on all sorts of topics that might not suit our usual format. For our fifth one of these, we look at the new Melty Blood's UI, and give a small bonus history lesson too!

Sometimes games just let you do things... until they ask you to actually try.

This month are continuing our dominant strategies series, a long-form series looking at dominant strategies and how games prevent them. This is third of five intended episodes. In this episode, we focus on how games encourage players to try new things, buy always giving them different tools to try, and avoiding giving them the same options too often. We look at Magic The Gathering, Shiren The Wanderer, Lost Dimension, Unlimited Saga and Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2.

Looking at how games use content and patching to encourage players to change up how they play, beyond simply balance.

In this episode, we focus on encouraging players away from the typical dominant strategy of never taking risks. We look at Bloodborne, Bayonetta, Final Fantasy XIII, Battle Moon Wars and Final Fantasy VIII

No one wants the thing that feels like "the best tactic" to be just repeating the same nonsense over and over. We look at games that try to prevent this occuring.

This month we look at past games of the year from Polygon, IGN and Giant Bomb, and try to learn what makes a “Game of the Year” game, and use that knowledge to fail to predict Game of the Year from any of these. At the end we also include our own personal Game of Note, not a best, but just one that meant a lot to us this year.

This month we look at how asymmetric gameplay, focusing on titles that use or allude to a single person or small team playing against a larger team. Pac-Man Vs, Dead By Daylight , Crawl, Werewolf (and variants), Spy Party

This month we look at how combos, why games have them and how they can be used both to empower a player but also encourage them to play in certain ways. We looked at Melty Blood, Killer Instinct, Devil May Cry 5, Bravely Default and Final Fantasy XIII.

This month we talk about… stuff…. Both of us are in great moments of change in our lives right now, either moving between countries or to opposite sides, so unfortunately our traditional format wasn’t really possible in the time we had. So, this time we spoke about some of the conversations that are going on in gaming.

This month we take more a narrative focus looking at how open worlds are used to tell stories. With special guest, Jack Richardson. And we talk about Horizon Zero Dawn, Final Fantasy XV, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII and Yakuza 0

We love games here at Plat and Pit, but a lot is going on right now for us, so we are unable to craft our regular shows for a while. In the meantime though, we would still like to make some things, so we will have these bonus rants for a while on all sorts of topics that might not suit our usual format. For our fourth one of these, we look at collectables and expectations in games, featuring the excellent Grapple Dog and its exceptionally minor flaw.

This month we look at how games escalate, how they keep pushing us to inevitable end points. We looked at Tetris, Cthulu Saves the World, Slay the Spire, Universal Paperclips and Lethal League.

Continuing in our unintentional series of experiments, this month’s episode is actually a liveshow we did for the Tasmanian GameDev Society. We looked at antagonistic co op, where your friends are a part of the challenge! Using Overcooked, Snipperclips, Super Mario 3D World, Kane and Lynch: Dead Men and SpaceTeam.

The original file was broken in a few ways, here is an updated and fixed version This month we look at the the rather curious middle ground genre of the Japanese developed Western RPG. Since this episode is a little less design focused but with a greater emphasis on history than our own knowledge really allowed, we’ve courted Michelle Belmont from the retro gaming podcast Doors and Dungeons, and Tom Lipschultz, who worked on localizing 2 of the games here. Compared to normal we talk about much more than the usual five games, but we focus on The Black Onyx, Wizardry Labyrinth of Lost Souls, Ultima III Exodus (for NES and Famicom), King’s Field and Brandish: The Dark Revenant, and their different takes to the Japanese developed Western styled RPG. It is a bit of a departure in some senses from our normal episode, and much longer. We hope you enjoy it.

This episode the team from Bit Storm takes over the show and mixes up the format a little. Ben and Trevor discuss the evolution of point and click adventure game interfaces, discussing games like Space Quest, Monkey Island, Unavowed, Leisure Suit Larry and more.

This month we look at the relationship between game loops and time. Using Monster Hunter World, Granblue Fantasy, Persona 4, Rogue Legacy and Asura's Wrath to look at how games design themselves around the time we spend with.

Opening Season 2 of Platforms and Pitfalls we talk about our last six episodes, answering questions we received over the time, and addressing points that only came to us with the power of hindsight.

Breaking our usual form, this month instead of talking about a topic using 5 games, we are talking about 5 topics focusing on one game, Final Fantasy VIII.

Looking at grappling in Ocarina of TIme, Bionic Commando (2009), Umihara Kawase Shun, Worms and Devil May Cry 4

Looking at Infamous Second Son, Gravity Rush, The Witcher 3, Journey and Persona 3 Portable

This month we look at item durability systems. Looking at The Witcher 3, Fire Emblem 7/Awakening/Fates, Riviera The Promised Land, Firefall and Dead Rising, and they use this unpopular system to make their games more engaging.

Feel free to contact us or leave a comment via any of the following

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/platformsandpitfalls/
Twitter - Rowan @link6616 or Blue @BluCrims or the show @platandpit
Email platformsandpitfalls@gmail.com

Subscribe to us via your favorite podcatcher https://www.idris-effect.net/platformsandpitfalls/?format=rss

The opening and closing song Random thoughts by Audio Binger is used under an Attribution non commercial licence, find more great audio here http://www.audiobinger.net/

We love games here at Plat and Pit, but a lot is going on right now for us, so we are unable to craft our regular shows for a while. In the meantime though, we would still like to make some things, so we will have these bonus rants for a while on all sorts of topics that might not suit our usual format. For our third one of these, we are looking at the history of rush tactics in RTS and FPS games with our dear friend Andy (@andysaurAUS).

This month we look at the highs and lows of single player modes in fighting games. Looking at Tekken 7, Guilty Gear Xrd Rev2, the Super Smash Brothers series, Killer Instinct (2013) and Dissidia Final Fantasy.

Feel free to contact us or leave a comment via any of the following

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/platformsandpitfalls/
Twitter - Rowan @link6616 or Blue @BluCrims or the show @platandpit
Email platformsandpitfalls@gmail.com

Subscribe to us via your favorite podcatcher https://www.idris-effect.net/platformsandpitfalls/?format=rss

The opening and closing song Random thoughts by Audio Binger is used under an Attribution non commercial licence, find more great audio here http://www.audiobinger.net/

Platforms and Pitfalls is a podcast looking at the Highs and Lows of Game Design. In our first episode we tackle Flexible difficulty, and how it is approached by Resident Evil 4, Pyre, Trine, NieR Automata and The World Ends With You. If you are particularly concerned about spoilers, there are extremely small spoilers for Pyre and NieR.

Feel free to contact us or leave a comment via any of the following

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/platformsandpitfalls/
Twitter - Rowan @link6616 or Blue @BluCrims or the show @platandpit
Email platformsandpitfalls@gmail.com

The opening and closing song Random thoughts by Audio Binger is used under an Attribution non commercial licence, find more great audio here http://www.audiobinger.net/

We love games here at Plat and Pit, but a lot is going on right now for us, so we are unable to craft our regular shows for a while. In the meantime though, we would still like to make some things, so we will have these bonus rants for a while on all sorts of topics that might not suit our usual format. For our second one of these, we are looking at the idea of media literacy and how it impacts both how we play and what we play.

We love games here at Plat and Pit, but a lot is going on right now for us, so we are unable to craft our regular shows for a while. In the meantime though, we would still like to make some things, so we will have these bonus rants for a while on all sorts of topics that might not suit our usual format. Our first one looks at everyone’s favourite game, Dark Souls, and the reputation it’s developed as unplayably hard.