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 enco…

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.By Platforms and Pitfalls

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.By Platforms and Pitfalls

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 the…

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…

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 collec…

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 …

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…

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 ga…

This month we are looking at how games make their controls easier, and the implications of that. We looked at Flappy Bird, Rhythm Heaven Megamix, Negative Nancy, Reigns, and Vampire Survivors.By Platforms and Pitfalls

This month we are looking at how games are ported and rereleased, something not quite as trivial as perhaps you might expect. We looked at Final Fantasy IX, Persona 4 Golden, 3D Super Hangon, Street Fighter III: Third strike Online Edition and the Final Fantasy I Pixel remaster.By Platforms and Pitfalls

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.By Platforms and Pitfalls

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

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 WorldsBy Platforms and Pitfalls

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.paragraphBy Platforms and Pitfalls

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 LayerBy Platforms and Pitfalls

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…

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.By Platforms and Pitfalls

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 Dung…

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.By Platforms and Pitfalls

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.By Platforms and Pitfalls w/ Conor

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.By Platforms and Pitfalls

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.By Platforms and Pitfalls

This month we are looking at the Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy games. With Jack’s assistance once more we look at the two remaining pillars of the collection, Final Fantasy Type 0 and Final Fantasy XV, formally known as Agito and Versus. Check out our guest Jack on twitter!By Platforms and Pitfalls w/ Jack Richardson

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!By Platforms and Pitfalls w/ Jack Richardson

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.By Platforms and Pitfalls and Jeremy Signor

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 so…

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 …

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 futureBy Platforms and Pitfalls

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…

Sometimes games just let you do things... until they ask you to actually try.By Platforms and Pitfalls

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 ofte…

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

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 VIIIBy Platforms and Pitfalls

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.By Platforms and Pitfalls

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 PartyBy Platforms and Pitfalls

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.By Platforms and Pitfalls

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 0By Platforms and Pitfalls and Jack Richardson

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.By Platforms and Pitfalls

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 versionThis 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 t…

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.By Bitstorm

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.By Platforms and Pitfalls

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.By Platforms and Pitfalls

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.By Platforms and Pitfalls

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