PixelLinkr #163: The Story Behind the Puzzle

Mafia III calls its city New Bordeaux, but the street plan, neighborhoods, weather, music, and history are built from New Orleans. It is a fake name with an extremely specific accent.

---

🟢 Easy: Set in New Orleans or a close fictional version

Games: Mafia III · Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers · The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners · The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners - Ch 2: Retribution

Gabriel Knight opens its supernatural mystery in New Orleans, with a bookshop owner investigating murders tied to the city's voodoo history. Mafia III moves to 1968 and renames the city, but New Bordeaux is not trying very hard to hide the source.

Both Saints & Sinners games put their VR survival inside flooded, undead New Orleans. The sequel keeps the city and adds an enemy known as the Axeman, because the walkers were apparently underperforming.

---

🟡 Medium: Run an airport or its resident airline

Games: Jumbo Airport Story · Airline Tycoon · Airport Tycoon · Airline Tycoon 2

Jumbo Airport Story compresses terminal planning into Kairosoft's compact management style. Airport Tycoon gives the player the facility itself, with construction and operations under one increasingly delayed roof.

Airline Tycoon and its sequel shift attention to the carrier based there: routes, aircraft, finances, and rivals. The category covers both sides of the departure board. Nobody gets to blame weather until the spreadsheet has been checked.

---

🔵 Hard: Crew members can die permanently

Games: Crying Suns · Space Crew: Legendary Edition · Bomber Crew · Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander

Bomber Crew and Space Crew came from Runner Duck. Both turn named specialists into a team the player trains and then risks, making one bad mission much more personal than replacing a generic unit.

Crying Suns gives officers traits and persistent value during a run. Halcyon 6 does the same with starbase officers who can be killed in combat. The hard connection sits between strategy and attachment: the better a crew member becomes, the more the game can hurt you by taking them.

Permadeath changes routine orders. Sending somebody to a damaged station is no longer tidy resource allocation when that person has survived six missions and has a name you remember.

---

🟣 Tricky: Titles begin with What, Where, Why, or Who

Games: What the Box? · Where Cards Fall · Why Am I Dead At Sea · Who Wants to Be a Millionaire

What, Where, Why, Who. Four question words, four titles, and no shared genre to help. What the Box? is multiplayer hide-and-seek among boxes, which answers its own question with unnecessary aggression.

Where Cards Fall builds paths from card houses. Why Am I Dead At Sea starts with the useful mystery right in the title. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire supplies the familiar television question and then charges admission to answer it.

The crew row makes every name matter; the tricky row starts by asking for one. Meanwhile, CineLinkr bends the frame with four films that keep split screens running.