PixelLinkr #176: The Story Behind the Puzzle
Spoilers ahead: for the puzzle and the movies/games
This post assumes you've already solved the puzzle. It reveals all categories and their connections, and discusses plot details, endings, and spoilers for featured movies/games throughout.
Super Mario Bros. 35 launched for Mario's anniversary and disappeared when the celebration ended. Nintendo threw a battle royale, checked the calendar, and removed the chairs.
🟢 Easy: Portable entries in major console franchises
Games: Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker · Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII · Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days · Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
Peace Walker brought Kojima Productions' stealth systems to PSP. Crisis Core did the same for Final Fantasy VII's backstory, giving Zack Fair a portable tragedy before portable tragedies became mostly battery warnings.
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days launched on Nintendo DS, as did Chinatown Wars before Rockstar moved it to PSP and phones. These franchises usually occupied the television. Here they fit in a bag.
🟡 Medium: Shadow and light manipulation drives puzzles
Games: Lost in Shadow · Shady Part of Me · Projection: First Light · White Night
Lost in Shadow makes the player's silhouette traverse shadows cast onto architecture. Projection: First Light lets a shadow-puppet world change as light sources move.
Shady Part of Me pairs a girl with her shadow across two perspectives. White Night uses light more harshly, rationing what can be seen and where safety exists. Darkness is level geometry with a mean streak.
🔵 Hard: Stories repeatedly reset through time loops
Games: Shadow of Destiny · Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology · The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D · Raging Loop
Majora's Mask gives Link three in-game days before the moon falls. The reset preserves knowledge and selected progress, turning repetition into planning rather than simple failure.
Shadow of Destiny revisits a murder, Radiant Historia branches across timelines, and Raging Loop reruns a deadly village ritual. The player advances because they remember what the world forgets. Very healthy relationship dynamic.
🟣 Tricky: Numbered live-service games that shut down
Games: Super Mario Bros. 35 · Pac-Man 99 · Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier · Battlefield 1943
The numbers initially look like sequel clutter. They are 35, 99, VII, and 1943, attached to games that required online service and later lost it.
The First Soldier closed in January 2023. Pac-Man 99 followed that October, while Battlefield 1943's servers ended in December. These titles still exist in databases and memories, which is a fancy way to say you cannot play them normally.
Today's CineLinkr puzzle also distrusts screens, though its webcams are haunted by people rather than discontinued infrastructure.