Adam reports live from Pier 57 at the Tribeca Festival, fresh off hands-on time with seven of this year's indie game selections. A modern 3D Zelda in Demi and the Fractured Dream, a gorgeous paper-airplane journey in DRIFTED, a speedrunner's dream in Rebounder, Devolver's sledgehammer-swinging Virtue and a Sledgehammer, and two out-of-nowhere standouts in Kidbash: Super Legend and the wordless, sound-driven LOFSÖNG. Join in for a quick on-site dispatch before sprinting downtown for X-Men '97.

A Nintendo Direct finally arrived, so join Adam as he breaks down what it actually means. The Ocarina of Time remake is real but shown without a frame of gameplay, Kingdom Hearts IV lands on Switch 2 at launch, and Square Enix turns up in force. So why does a stacked lineup feel so empty if you don't already own the console? Join in for a conversation about ports versus system-sellers, the conspicuous absence of Mario and the next Zelda, and the GTA VI-shaped hole hanging over the entire holiday season.

Succession Planning is now available for pre-order wherever you get your e-books! https://books2read.com/u/bzE9g9

We covered the console version on the channel, so this week on The Backlog Files I'm taking the Game Boy Advance port of Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure out of the backlog. It's Tony Hawk in a Disney coat of paint, squeezed onto handheld hardware that doesn't want to cooperate, and it gets me thinking about something bigger: the slow disappearance of the on-ramp game, the accessible entry point that teaches you a genre. Why has nobody but Nintendo kept making them? Where's the kid-friendly Soulslike? Plus a look back at the strange era of GBA ports that tried to be the console game and ended up something else entirely.

Succession Planning is now available for preorder wherever you get your ebooks: https://books2read.com/u/bzE9g9