PixelLinkr #199: 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.
Universal Paperclips begins with one button and a number. It ends with an artificial intelligence converting the universe into office supplies. The escalation is calm, efficient, and deeply rude.
🟢 Easy: Combat requires scaling or circling giant enemies
Games: Dragon's Dogma II · God of War III · Attack on Titan · Extinction
Dragon's Dogma II lets players grab a monster and climb toward a weak point while the monster objects. God of War III turns Cronos into both boss and level, which feels excessive until Kratos starts moving.
Attack on Titan uses ODM gear to circle Titans and line up strikes at the nape. Extinction asks players to scale Ravenii and remove armor before the finishing blow. Size is the puzzle before damage can begin.
🟡 Medium: Whips are central to combat
Games: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin · Darksiders III · Whipseey and the Lost Atlas · Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
Portrait of Ruin gives Jonathan Morris the Vampire Killer, though the whip makes him prove he can handle its full power. Darksiders III gives Fury the bladed Barbs of Scorn as her default weapon.
Whipseey attacks with magical pink hair, which is mechanically a whip and aesthetically a firm rejection of subtlety. Lords of Shadow 2 rounds out the group with Dracula's Shadow Whip.
🔵 Hard: A lethal game show frames the action
Games: Bloodshore · The Culling · Killing Room · Smash T.V.
Bloodshore presents its battle royale as the show Kill/Stream. The Culling builds its island violence around spectators and announcers, while Killing Room turns audience popularity into rewards.
Smash T.V. supplied the arcade template in 1990: rooms of enemies, cash prizes, and a host delighted by all the blood. The category works because the audience exists inside the fiction. Your survival is content.
🟣 Tricky: Minimal interfaces expand into sweeping adventures
Games: Universal Paperclips · A Dark Room · SPACEPLAN · Candy Box!
A Dark Room starts with the option to stoke a fire, then grows into a settlement and a world beyond it. Candy Box! begins with a candy counter before revealing equipment, quests, and combat.
SPACEPLAN builds a solar-system story from potato-powered clicking. Universal Paperclips reaches farther still. A bare page gains one system at a time until the tiny game has quietly become enormous.
The paperclip apocalypse wins the day for pure nerve. CineLinkr #199 also values brevity, with four films that finish before the 80-minute mark.