Season 2 Ep 5: The Death of Games

This month, the MindGames team are dying to tackle the biggest topic of our lives. It's death in games! Join us as we journey into gaming's underworld. We investigate deaths of all flavours to find out how our relationship with life's greatest mystery has changed through the history of the medium. From early steps in cash-grabbing arcades to deep and thoughtful recreations of purgatory-like worlds, we look ahead with excitement to gaming's deathless (or death-filled!) future.

So gather round, children, and discover how Pix died of hypothermia in Aberdeen in 2012. Wait, that's not quite right...

Today's cast:
Grant (Pix)
Milos
Steve

Today's games (in order of appearance):
XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Firaxis)
Nuzlocke Challenge, Pokemon (GameFreak)
Spyro (Insomniac)
New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo)
Yoshi's Woolly World (Nintendo)
Journey (Thatgamecompany)
Pyre (Supergiant Games)
Celeste (Matt Thorson and Noel Berry)
The Witcher 2 (CD Projekt Red)
Rogue Legacy (Cellar Door Games)
The Binding of Isaac (Edmund McMillen, Florian Himsl)
Children of Morta (Dead Mage)
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (Ubisoft)
Bioshock (2K)
Borderlands (Gearbox Software)
Dark Souls and Bloodborne (From Software)
The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker (Nintendo)
Noita (Nolla Games)
Lisa: the Painful (Dingaling Productions)
Hades (Supergiant Games)
Transistor (Supergiant Games)
Betrayal Legacy (Rob Daviau, Noah Cohen, JR Honeycutt, Ryan Miller, Brian Neff and Andrew Veen)
Dune (Bill Eberle, Jack Kittredge and Peter Olotka)
Planescape: Torment (Bioware)

**Weird Games**
Upsilon Circuit (Studio Robot Loves Kitty)
One Life (One Life)
Spelunky (Derek Yu, Mossmouth)
Slay the Spire (Megacrit)
Leisure Suit Larry (N-Fusion Interactive)

**MindGames Game**
1. In the smash hit Mario Bros., how many hits does it take to kill Bowser?
2. If Mario has the flower powerup, how many hits can he take before he dies?
3. In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, how many heart containers can Link obtain throughout the game?
a. 5
b. 10
c. 15
d. 20
4) In the Ocarina of Time, how many heart containers do you need to accumulate to get a new heart piece?
5) In the bloodbath of B-R5RB in Eve Online, how many NPC deaths were there?
a. 5 million
b. 10 million
c. 15 million
d. 20 million
6) What was the real world cash value that was lost as a result of this battle?
a. $50,000-100,000
b. $100,000-200,000
c. $200,000-300,000
d. $300,000+
7) In the World of Warcraft, what raid led to the great plague?
a. Onyxia's Lair
b. Molten Core
c. Zul'gurub
d. Temple of Ahn'Qiraj
8) In Guild Wars 2, how many players witnessed the execution of a player for cheating?
a. 10,000
b. 100,000
c. 325,000
d. 500,000

More reading:
"You Are Dead. Continue?": Conflicts and Complements in Game Rules and Fiction, Jason Tocci
https://www.eludamos.org/index.php/eludamos/article/view/43/81
6 games that do death differently, Ashley Reed
https://www.gamesradar.com/uk/games-deal-death-creative-way/
15 Most Bizarre And Disturbing Video Game Deaths Of All Time, Steve Wright
https://www.thegamer.com/bizarre-disturbing-video-game-deaths/

Let us know you're still alive by emailing us at [email protected]