The Short Game

Daisuke “Pixel” Amaya helped define “indie” game development with his freeware masterpiece Cave Story. Several years later, his follow up was a strange and possibly under appreciated game. Kero Blaster is a side-scrolling shooter, but unlike Cave Story it draws more inspiration from games like Mega Man and Contra than it does from Metroid or Castlevania. Kero Blaster came out in 2014 on iOS and la...

Cut Yourself! (Editor’s Note: Please do not cut yourself.) This week we’re talking the about the sort-of-first-party Nintendo Switch exclusive puzzle game Snipperclips. Break off a tiny controller and chat with us about this unusual game in Nintendo’s launch lineup. Friend of the show Bryan Wade joins us as a guest. Thanks Bryan! How Gudetama, a lazy egg yolk with a butt, became an unstoppable cul...

We’re hopping aboard Sophia III with Jason Frudnick to help him find his pet frog Fred in this remake/sequel to the classic NES shooter/platformer hybrid. We start with a brief discussion of the Blaster Master series before tunneling into the reboot. Blaster Master Zero is available on Nintendo Switchand 3DS for $9.99. Expect it to take about 8 hours to complete. Links for this episode: Blaster Ma...

The Short Game’s official Dungeon Master (that’s Shane) shares his tips on fitting Dungeons & Dragons into your life. D&D is having a bit of a moment lately, but it can still feel like “30 minutes of fun squeezed into four hours.” We discuss ways to enjoy the world’s greatest role playing game, while still respecting your time. We have tips for both Dungeon Masters and adventurers, and adv...

Night in the Woods is an story-focused adventure game that follows college dropout Mae Borowski as she comes home to distressed mining town Possum Springs and tries to reconnect with her family and friends. It’s a wonderfully written and animated story with tons of variety in the gameplay. Also, everyone is a talking animal. Stick around after the spoiler break (at 45:28) for a discussion of the g...

Linelight is a minimalistic puzzle game from Brett Taylor and his one-man development studio My Dog Zorro. It’s an action puzzle game distilled down to an incredibly streamlined form. We discuss what makes this deceptively simple puzzle game so engaging and even emotional. Linelight is $9.99 on Steam and Playstation 4. Expect it to take less than five hours to complete. Links for this episode: Lin...

2064: Read Only Memories is a cyberpunk visual novel adventure game from Midboss, the same diverse team behind the GaymerX convention and Gaming in Color , a documentary about LGBTQ people and themes in gaming. Originally released in 2015 as just “Read Only Memories” the new title indicates an updated version that adds all-star voice acting to this 8 hour dialogue-heavy experience. The art is styl...

With the English language release of Puyo Puyo Tetris right around the corner (alongside the Nintendo Switch) we take the opportunity to nerd out about our shared love of Puyo popping, the history of the Puyo Puyo series, and the head-to-head puzzle game genre generally. We also talk a bit about our thoughts on the Nintendo Switch itself. Links for this episode: Hardcore Gaming 101: Puyo Puyo Ecst...

The Room series is one of the best selling short game franchises on iOS, known for its beautiful animation and tactile mechanics. Each of the three entries expands on the physical puzzle theme, moving from single boxes in Room One to the multi-room Myst-like mansion of The Room Three. Nate, Shane, and Laura talk about what it means to solve a physical puzzle on a touchscreen, and what we love and...

Pony Island is two-and-a-half hours of puzzles and surprises. Don’t be put off by its retro-glitch aesthetic or its apparent self-satisfied transgressiveness. Once you break through its shell you’ll find a rapid-fire series of clever ideas. Pony Island is available on Steam for Windows and Mac for $4.99. Expect it to take about 2.5 hours to complete. A hidden ending is available for completionists...

Couch co-op comes to the kitchen this week as we talk about Overcooked, a culinary party game from Ghost Town Games. Overcooked was one of the most talked about local multiplayer experiences of 2016 so we’re happy to make it our first game of 2017. Each game of Overcooked takes only a few minutes, and a pair of dedicated chefs can tackle its co-op campaign mode in around six hours. Overcooked is a...

Recorded and edited just before we drop the guillotine on 2016, it’s our Short Game game of the year round up! Stick around for some gaming memories of 2017, and a drunken message of hope for 2017 from Shane. See you next year! Fifth Place: Thumper Hyper Light Drifter Severed Fourth Place: Abzû Third Place: SUPERHOT Second Place: Firewatch Game of the Year 2016: Inside Past GOTY episodes: 70: Game...

Virginia is a “first person interactive drama” that tells a mysterious story of an FBI agent on her first. It’s most notable for its unusual editing style, inspired by film and the game Thirty Flights of Loving . It’s also one of the most critically controversial games of the year. Some reviewers showered it in praise (Time Magazine included it on its Game of the Year list 2016 ) while others dism...

Severed is a dungeon crawling touch-based action RPG by Guacamelee! developer Drinkbox Studios. First released as a Playstation Vita exclusive, it has since been released on iOS, Android, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U. (We suggest the iOS or Vita versions.) It’s a worthy follow-up to Guacamelee (though very different!) and an all around great game that will take you 7 to 9 hours to complete. Severed – D...

IFComp, the annual interactive fiction competition, has come to a close and we’re discussing the results. How did your favorites do? We covered many of the games in this year’s competition in our two earlier episodes: 102: IFComp 2016 – The Short Game 104: More IFComp 2016 – The Short Game IFComp 2016 Results Main Voting 5th Place: 16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds by Abigail Corfman 4th Plac...

This week your intrepid hosts fly through the galaxy rescuing space-bunnies in Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime. Does this couch co-op set our hearts aflutter? Or are we hardened to the charms of neon and techno? Oh, we’re definitely aflutter. Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime was developed by Asteroid Base , and is available on consoles (PS4, Xbox One) and Steam/DRM-free (PC, Mac, and Linux). It typ...

Shane bought a PSVR and The Short Game leaves boring old reality behind. We give our impressions of the hardware, and discuss which of the launch games might be interesting to Short Game listeners. Links for this episode: Remaster #20: The PlayStation VR Review PlayStation VR Tracking Guide | Owlchemy Labs 67: Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes – The Short Game VR Games discussed: Thumper Job Simula...

We continue our coverage of 2016’s IFComp, the Interactive Fiction Competition . This continues on from The Short Game episode 102 , so if you’re just joining you may prefer starting there. This week we’ve picked and played 9 more games, and some of them are really neat! Games played this week: A Time of Tungsten by Devin Raposo The Mouse by Norbez The Shoe Dept. by Aquanet All I Do is Dream by Me...

Hyper Light Drifter is a tough-as-nails indie action-RPG game that came out earlier this year. After initially bouncing off the game, we gave it a second look and found a lot to like past its punishing skill barrier and intentional obscurity. Stay tuned past the spoiler break for tips on boss order, and for Shane’s impressions of the new PlayStation VR. Apologies for the delay getting you this epi...

Now in its 22nd year, IFComp (The Interactive Fiction Competition) is an annual celebration of new text-based games. We covered last year’s competition in a pair of episodes last October, and this year we’re back with our first impression of this year’s entries. This is IFComp’s biggest year yet, with 58 games competing. All of them are available to play for free on the IFComp website. This episod...

Waking Mars is the second game from Tiger Style, developers of Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor and Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon . On the surface this 2012 follow-up to Spider appears to be a more mainstream, unsurprising game than Tiger Style’s first outing, but as it unfurls its tendrils Waking Mars reveals a complex and involving “action gardening” experience that captivated us. Waking Ma...

We apply Big Data (okay, an Excel spreadsheet) to all 434 games played or mentioned in our 100 episode run, in an effort to answer the cocktail party question “Oh you have a video game podcast? What should I play?” We’ve painstakingly catalogued all 434 games mentioned on the show (thanks Laura!) and broken them down into several categories, and ranked them not necessarily on what’s best, but base...

We’re rubbing the Giddyap button this week with hybrid solitaire and horse racing game Pocket Card Jockey, the surprise 3DS release from Pokémon developers Game Freak. Links for this episode: Pocket Card Jockey for Nintendo 3DS Drill Dozer – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Game Freak – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia TEMBO THE BADASS ELEPHANT | SEGA You Must Build A Boat | EightyEight Games Rege...

This week we’re swiping right on Reigns, a kingdom management interactive fiction game with a Tinder inspired interface. This clever twist on the Choose Your Own Adventure style has turned out to be a surprise hit on iOS, Android, and Steam. Reigns is just $2.99 across all platforms. Expect it to take around four hours to complete. Reigns | Games | Devolver Digital Reigns on Steam Reigns on the Ap...

This week we’re exploring the ocean of Abzu , the first game from Journey art director Matt Nava’s Giant Squid Studios . We loved Journey so naturally we were eager to play the game some have called its spiritual, aquatic successor. But does it the experience hold up? Abzu is available on Playstation 4 and Steam for $19.99. Expect it to take 2 to 4 hours to complete. Links for this episode: ABZÛ 7...