Linkspam, May 4th, 2013

Mike Joffe deconstructs Super Princess Peach and finds that, although it continues Nintendo's history of problematic character design, it also has some unlikely subtext that helped him resonate with Peach's character:

Bowser's giant vibrating phallus of emotion is too strong for other men, but it leaves him irrational and emotive, allowing the collected, in-control female hero to defeat him with her logical use and understanding of her emotions.

An essay by Jordan Erica Webber in the latest issue of Five out of Ten, Reflecting Reality, covers similar ground but with a different conclusion while considering Patricia Tannis in Borderlands 2. (There's other good stuff in the magazine too.)

Aniwey's Candy Box was pretty cool until I accidentally hit backspace and lost a couple (critical) hours of progress.

High-resolution background art from Final Fantasy IX, cut from the game (probably for size reasons). FFIX is the only one in the series I've respected more as I age (and probably mature). I would love to see these put into a re-release or hacked into the existing game.

Some recommendations after a week of playing Ludum Dare games:

• climbing 208 feet up the ruin wall by Porpentine. The (visible) link structure is minimalist, but it's doing stuff with revision that reminds me of Emily Short's First Draft of the Revolution.
• Rapid Tunnel Future by syre. One-button racer-ish shmup-ish arcade game. My wife recently got an old Game Boy Micro from work and this would be great on it next to dotstream and COLORIS.
• 0 by Cosmologicon is a learn-it-yourself puzzle game with a cool core mechanism.
• The Forgetful Little Square by Idovoodoo, a quick platformer that I also found to be a nice meditation on faith. Contrast with Sophie Houlden's Walk of Faith.
• Dragon Drop by Tom 7. Don't dismiss it quickly: There are two ways to "win", and every hand can be won both ways. If you ever have to choose "Restart", you've lost.

I had planned to have more than videogame links here but between Ludum Dare and me being completely disorganized I have forgotten them all.