A Trip Down Memory Card Lane

In 2010, Team Meat released Super Meat Boy, a punishing platformer built by two friends from the Newgrounds Flash scene who spent a year and a half working without pay. On today's episode, David traces how a three week Flash prototype caught the attention of both Nintendo and Microsoft, how a planned WiiWare release outgrew the platform it was built for, and how a design philosophy built on instant respawns turned failure into a reward. He follows the road through a lost Independent Games Festival prize, a two month sprint to meet Microsoft's Game Feast deadline, and a launch that outperformed Microsoft's expectations even as its promotion fell away. Then he looks at the Steam release that carried the game forward, the documentary that put its creators in front of a wider audience, and what Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes said the whole experience cost them. Join David as he respawns, wall jumps, and bleeds his way through Super Meat Boy on today's trip down Memory Card Lane.

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In 2006, Rockstar Vancouver released Bully, an open world action game about a fifteen year old troublemaker surviving a year at a boarding school, and a moral panic arrived long before anyone had played it. On today's episode, David and guest host, Ryan Shepherd, trace how six developers who walked away from a struggling Vancouver studio founded Barking Dog Studios, and how that small team ended up carrying the Rockstar name into a very different kind of game. We follow the shift in art direction, the crunch behind the project, and the Miami courtroom where a judge sat down to see the game for himself. Then we look at how players and critics responded once it finally shipped, and what happened to the sequel that came closer to existing than most people ever knew. Join us as we walk the halls of Bullworth Academy on today's trip down Memory Card Lane.

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In 1994, SETA Corporation released Nosferatu for the Super Famicom, a gothic horror platformer that borrowed its title from a banned 1922 film while its Japanese opening quietly calls the villain Count Dracula. On today's episode, we use that tangled name as a doorway into three centuries of vampire history. We trace the ancient night demons of Mesopotamia and Greece, the Balkan grave exhumations of the 1720s that gave English the word vampire, and the stormy summer in 1816 that turned a peasant corpse into an aristocrat. From there, we follow Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, the American copyright gap that left Dracula open to anyone, and the unauthorized film a German court ordered destroyed. Then we survey the games that carried the Count from a 1979 text adventure and an Intellivision cartridge that let you play the vampire, through the licensed rush of the early 1990s, to the SETA castle that ties it all together. Join us as we chase the monster nobody could own on today's trip down Memory Card Lane.

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In 2014, Monolith Productions released Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, an open world action game built around the Nemesis System, a procedurally generated enemy hierarchy that let every orc remember, evolve, and hold a grudge. On today's episode, David and the guys trace how the game grew out of a cancelled Batman project, dig into the Tolkien lore buried in the appendices that shaped Talion and Celebrimbor's story, and unpack how a mechanic that swept the industry's craft awards ended up locked behind a patent that outlived Monolith itself. Join us as we head into Mordor on today's trip down Memory Card Lane.

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In 1982, Pac-Man: The Animated Series became the first television show ever built around a video game character, arriving on ABC just months after federal deregulation opened the door for merchandise driven cartoons to dominate Saturday mornings. David is joined by guest host Ryan Shepherd, filling in for Rob, to trace how Hanna Barbera chased the rights for two years, how a wrong number cast the show's lead voice actor, and how the series' surprise success set off a wave of competing cartoons across the television industry. Join us as we head back to Pac Land to find out how a regulatory loophole and a beloved arcade character changed children's television forever, on today's trip down Memory Card Lane.

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