4Stack #13 — answers & breakdown

Sunday, July 26, 2026

Four genres that all trace back to specific PC lineages, and the purple group is a term that did not exist until people needed a name for the revival.

The sixteen cards in this puzzle were: Hollow Knight, Ori and the Blind Forest, Axiom Verge, Blasphemous, SimCity, Cities: Skylines, Anno, Frostpunk, Deus Ex, Dishonored, Prey, System Shock, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, ULTRAKILL, Dusk.

The four stacks

Metroidvanias

Hollow Knight, Ori and the Blind Forest, Axiom Verge, Blasphemous

Metroidvanias, named for the two series that defined the interconnected-map-with-locked-abilities structure. Hollow Knight is the modern high-water mark.

City builders

SimCity, Cities: Skylines, Anno, Frostpunk

City builders. Frostpunk is the argumentative inclusion, since it is as much a survival and moral-choice game as a builder.

Immersive sims

Deus Ex, Dishonored, Prey, System Shock

Immersive sims: systems-heavy first-person games that let you solve problems however you like. Commercially they almost never succeed, and they influence nearly everything anyway.

Boomer shooters

Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, ULTRAKILL, Dusk

Boomer shooters — fast, no reloading, no cover, no regenerating health. Quake and Duke Nukem 3D are the originals; ULTRAKILL and Dusk are modern games deliberately built to feel like them.

Want to try it yourself? Play puzzle #13 — archive plays don't affect your streak. Or jump into today's puzzle.