It’s been fairly slow on the gaming news front recently, with a slow trickle of new releases and not much else. But a few stories have stood out over the past couple of weeks – notably, the release of the best ever video game to movie adaptation.

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You Can Now Watch The Brief Movie Version Of Papers, Please (Kotaku UK)

This is an awesome short film based on the indie video game Papers, Please. Best of all, it’s utterly free, and I urge you to take ten minutes out of your day to watch it. The film was funded by Kickstarter, and Papers, Please designer Lucas Pope was involved in its conception. But what’s genuinely impressive is the level of atmosphere and tension that’s been evoked from a very limited budget, a handful of actors and basically one tiny but well-dressed set. Lucius P. Merriweather

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Lucas Pope on life after Papers, Please (Eurogamer)

This article is actually from November last year, but it’s a good way to follow-up watching the Papers, Please short film above. (Have you watched that yet? No? Go and watch it now, it’s great!) Lucas Pope basically had such a massive hit with Papers, Please that he’s been able to take his time with his next game, Return of the Obra Dinn, which looks very interesting indeed. LPM

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All Walls Must Fall review – the tactics genre gets a quirky new treat (Eurogamer)

All Walls Must Fall looks bloody amazing. It’s a PC turn-based tactics game set in a Berlin where the Cold War didn’t end – but rather than fighting on ruined streets, all of the battles take place in techno-spewing nightclubs. How cool is that? I want this game RIGHT NOW. But unfortunately, as I established the other week on AMAP, PCs are FOR WORK AND NOT FOR PLAYING GAMES, so here’s hoping it’s coming to PS4 or Switch soon… LPM

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Today I Learned Super Mario Bros. 3’s Tanooki Suit Can Stomp Fire (Kotaku UK)

Oh my god. How on earth did I not know this? Did you know you could do this? I had no idea you could do this. It’s been nearly 30 years, and I’m still learning stuff about Super Mario Bros. 3. Crazy. LPM

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(Image from https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/8566717881)

No, Mr Trump, video games do not cause mass shootings (The Guardian)

Finally, some more sobering news, with Donald Trump apparently starting a witch hunt against video games in the wake of the Florida school shooting. Katherine Cross makes a beautifully argued case about why this makes no sense: “It’s a remarkable series of logic leaps that allows a person to scorn a simulator while holding the actual gun whose use is seen as blameless, but here we are again. Video games, for all their newfound cultural hegemony, remain a soft target for sententious conservatives who want to moralise, cost free.” It’s the guns that cause kids to get shot, Donald, not the games. LPM

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Spiffing Reads is a regular feature where we pick out the best gaming articles of the week. If you’ve read anything interesting, please let us know in the comments.

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