It’s been a tradition to have a thread about unexpected coincidences between comp entries for the last several years (e.g. this thread for last year’s comp)… so here’s one for this year!
(With 85 entries there are sure to be plenty.)
I’ve already played two games that included the trolley problem meme image (WATT and The Burger Meme Personality Test).
I think there are also at least three superhero games? Murderworld, Mooncrash!, and the new Anastasia one?
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I suppose “games about fascism” doesn’t count as an unexpected coincidence, in our current global environment…
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I guess you could think of Mooncrash! as a superhero game in a way. A weirdly edgy and depressing one that enjoys describing your death in a bit too much detail, but the vague outline fits. It’s not the genre I had in mind while writing it, but it’s an interesting interpretation!
Part of the fun of writing is seeing how people interpret things differently than I do, so thanks for connecting those dots. I’ll be thinking about that connection now… 
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I mean, you are an officially designated Hero of some kind, part of a team where everyone has some sort of title/codename, in a setting that has magic but seems contemporary. And it’s not like edgy and depressing takes on superheroes are a new thing. So it didn’t really seem out of place for the genre to me!
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You’re right, which is why it’s funny that I didn’t notice until you pointed it out!
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Fun fact! The original Trolley Problem meme image came years ago from Dr. Jesse Prinz, who teaches at the CUNY Graduate Center in NYC, where I also happen to teach. He gave me official permission to use his work in Burger Meme! (I thank him in the credits.)
edit: spelling
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Both Who Whacked Jimmy Piñata? and A Smörgåsbord of Pain feature:
- fedoras
- trenchcoats
- visits to docks in the rain
- references to gummy bears that are now gone
- diacritics in the title
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Lighters are inventory objects in Who Whacked Jimmy Piñata?, Fired and Backpackward.
[EDIT: Also in Frankenfingers and By All Unreasonable Knowledge.]
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Logic puzzle minigames are required to open doors in Operative Nine, Detritus, and Phobos: A Galaxy Jones Story.
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whoami has a math puzzle (Towers of Hanoi) that you must complete to unlock something as well–although it’s not a door!
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Both Who Whacked Jimmy Piñata? and Monkeys and Car Keys have tire/tyre irons as inventory items.
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There are at least two entries directly referencing Frankenstein (Frankenfingers, My creation) and four entries about the planet Mars (Phobos: A Galaxy Jones Story, Space Mission: 2045, You Cannot Speak, The Promises of Mars)
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In both Pharaohs’ Heir and Hobbiton Recall a bed is set on fire.
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A real coincidence for me personally is that Murderworld appears to be based on an issue of The Uncanny X-Men drawn by my father, Dave Cockrum. (Technically debatable, depending on whether the game was inspired more by issue #146, or by issue #123 drawn by John Byrne, both featuring Arcade’s Murderworld.)
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That’s your dad! That’s amazing! Huge fan. I’m the game’s author; it’s actually mostly, loosely inspired by the Commodore 64 game X-Men: Madness in Murderworld but also a collection of issues as you cited.
So cool!
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Oh, that’s funny. I wasn’t aware of that game. (If I had been, I’da been playing it on Amiga rather than Commodore 64.) Your game seems very ambitious, with all the crossing characters. I’m impressed with the effort.
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Frankenfingers has two lighters!
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the second one is there in case the first one gets used up or left behind. I’m not a monster:)
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Wontons appear in both A Smörgåsbord of Pain and The Semantagician’s Assistant.
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