The winter half of the yearly charity speedrunning marathon Awesome Games Done Quick kicks off this Sunday, January 5th. Donations to Games Done Quick will benefit the Prevent Cancer Foundation. The week long marathon will cover a bunch of speedrunning mainstays along with some new additions from 2019.

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This week, we’re breaking from delving through our back catalogues in favour of a recent game with a still-growing mod community. A Hat In Time is still one of the better 3D platformers on PC, only improved by two big chunks of DLC recently. Developers Gears For Breakfast have gone the extra mile on mod integration, with user-made worlds accessible from a special room in the level-selection hub, and rewarding the player with tokens for cosmetic unlocks. Mods here range from tiny cosmetic upgrades to hours-long expansions, sometimes in entirely new genres. Below, a hat-rack of picks to get you started.

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We all know that the internet was built to send cat pictures, which is exactly what A Hat In Time wants you to be doing in the Nyakuza Metro DLC, out today. While free for original Kickstarter backers, it’s the Mario-like platformer’s first fully paid DLC for the rest of us, but does a lot to justify that price tag. A large new free-roam city packed with cats, an online party mode (Steam only, sadly) for up to fifty players, an overhauled photo mode with stickers and some fan-made mods integrated. Below, forty minutes of online-mode streamed by devs Gears For Breakfast, and my thoughts after bumbling around it for a couple hours.

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Good Mario-style 3D platformers aren’t too common on PC, so I’m happy to see A Hat In Time still expanding. Announced today, the Nyakuza Metro DLC lands on May 10th, and adds two big new things to Gears For Breakfast’s collectathon platformer. First is a whole new story zone, the titular Nyakuza Metro, a neon Tokyo-inspired railroad hub, infested with cat burglars and other felonious felines. The other half of the DLC is Online Party mode, a semi-competitive multiplayer mode for up to fifty players. It’s as messy as it sounds, as you can see in the trailer below.

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A Hat In Time might play second fiddle to Super Mario Odyssey these days, but there’s strong praise in that faint damning. Gears For Breakfast crafted a cheerful, bouncy little romp of a platformer, full of shiny gubbins to grab and strange characters to meet. It’s just a little on the short and easy side – or was>. Seal The Deal adds another story chapter set aboard a seal-crewed cruise liner, plus a brutally hard New Game+ mode called Death Wish. After tomorrow it’ll cost money, but for today you can grab it free if you own A Hat In Time.

At the time of writing, you’ve got a bit over 30 hours to claim Seal The Deal free on Steam or GOG. Hop to it. Below, a trailer showing off some of the goodies contained within.

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Even if Mario’s resurgence stole a bit of its thunder, A Hat In Time remains one of the PC’s better 3D platformers, if a bit short and easy. The upcoming Seal The Deal DLC – due out on September 13th – addresses both points. Developers Gears For Breakfast are adding a new chapter to the story (set aboard an arctic cruise liner run by seals) and an extra tough New Game+ mode called Death Wish. It’ll be free for 24 hours at launch, although it will cost money after that. Launching alongside the expansion is a local co-op mode, free for all.

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Run, jump, grab a thousand gubbins, escape from prison guards and hear the lamentations of their women – sounds like a fun weekend. Humble have just unveiled their next three ‘early unlock’ games for their Humble Monthly subscription service, and it’s an impressive little trio. $12 gets you Funcom’s survival sandbox Conan Exiles, Gears for Breakfast’s Mario-esque platformer A Hat In Time and Mouldy Toof’s jailbreak sim The Escapists 2 now, plus a bundle of mystery games at the end of the month.

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Some controversy around a voice-actor cameo aside, A Hat In Time was widely regarded as a lovely little thing when it launched last year. A proper Mario Sunshine-esque platformer for PC, full of weird characters, clever level design and catchy music. For most games in the genre, things would end there, but developers Gears for Breakfast have greater ambitions.

While it’s been in beta testing for some time, today marks the official launch of A Hat In Time’s mod support, allowing players to create levels, costumes, powers and more for the game, and integrated into the collectathon’s progression systems better than you might think.

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Where Yooka-Laylee attempted to revive Rare s Banjo-Kazooie formula, A Hat in Time [official site] strikes at a different vein of nostalgia. The 3D platformer attempts to split the difference between the open-ended adventuring of Super Mario 64 and the more guided point-by-point platforming of Super Mario Galaxy. The result is a work of obvious grace and imagination that never attempts to rise above its obvious inspirations, but still consistently delivers the same kind of warm fuzzies that its favorite Italian plumber deals in. (more…)

Hats are brilliant. I primarily use them to disguise my massive fivehead, for instance, but hats can also bless their wearers with amazing powers. At least they can in A Hat in Time [official site], Gears for Breakfast’s crowdfunded N64-style collectathon platformer. Hats that blow stuff up, hats that let you gaze into other dimensions — is there anything they can’t do? A Hat in Time is out now.

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