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Monument Valley’s Ken Wong joins us to discuss games as art, Monument Valley, and the business of crafting meaningful games. Monument Valley Video games can never be art by Roger Ebert Journey Gone Home and why you should play it instead of Dear Esther Threes, the tiny puzzle that grows on you Numberwang 2048 Numberwang Passage Sword and Sworcery Ken’s last game, HackyCat Windosill The arduous process of making Threes The design of Zendo Antichamber

Scott Stevenson of Low Earth Orbit joins us to discuss game reviews, game-breaking bugs, and what’s wrong with Lara Croft getting impaled. IGN’s Assassin’s Creed 3 Review A few hundred of Skyrim’s bugs Double Fine’s Hack and Slash The VanCocoa meetup Polygon’s Dragon’s Crown review Polygon’s review policy Tomb Raider, Torture Porn, and Looking For an Audience That Exists by Jeff Vogel Fat Princess inFamous for PS4 Old Man Murray’s Time to Crate Review System Send us feedback on the show

Gaslamp Games’ David Baumgart joins us to discuss Clockwork Empires, simulations, and pickled fungi. Rock Paper Shotgun’s wonderful preview of Clockwork Empires Dwarf Fortress Stories Creature training in Black & White Engineering Faith, the ill-fated religion simulator Cube Drone Low Earth Orbit episode 34 on Spacebase DF-9 PC Gamer’s gameplay footage of Clockwork Empires Duke Nukem lawsuit Michael Abrash’s talk on what’s next in VR An excruciatingly detailed fungus pickling simulator

Tyson Kallberg joins us to discuss why games are getting easier, what makes us want to ragequit, and death by checkpoint. Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels Deus Ex: Human Revolutions’s outsourced boss battles The Team Fortress 2 Deathcam You Will Die Instantly!, the episode of Hypercritical that we accidentally nearly quote, then later refer to Ikaruga Rage Quit Eve Online: The Most Thrilling Boring Game Please take a minute and rate the show on iTunes

Guy English and Nigel tell tales of the hacks that make games work, from fast inverse square root to assembly shenanigans. Allen tries to keep things understandable for non-programmers, and fails spectacularly. Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 Fast Inverse Square Root The End of the World of Minecraft The VanCocoa meetup

Patrick Gibson joins us to discuss games that are too long, side quests, tearing up, and flapping. Tomb Raider 2013 Ben Franklin’s Almanac Pages The Top Free to Play Monetization Tricks Maverick Bird Patrick’s Flappy Bird high score Squarespace, the all-in-one platform that makes it fast and easy to create your own professional website.

Parveen Kaler joins us to discuss sequels, plastic guitars, and the unfair advantage of being Batman. Guitar Hero’s 20 games in 5 years Top Rated Games of 2013 Top Rated Films of 2013 Steamclock Software

Matt Kump joins us to discuss In App Purchase, what horrible things it’s done to the games we love, and what we can learn from Party Poker. Glitch Clash of Clans in the shower Matt’s upcoming iOS game Party Monster