The Short Game

Mushroom 11 is a puzzle platformer with a truly unique movement mechanic. You control a green blob (the Mushroom) by destroying and pruning its cells bit by bit and allowing it to move and regrow. The slightly out-of-control and unpredictable feel combines with clever puzzle designs to provide one of the best puzzle platform games of 2015. Mushroom 11 is available on Steam for Mac, PC, and Linux f...

With just a few days left in 2015 we round up our favorite short games of the year. 3) Her Story 2) Tie between Rocket League and The Magic Circle   The Short Game Game of the Year 2015 Undertale Also Ranked Alto’s Adventure Until Dawn Ori and the Blind Forest Life is Strange Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture Axiom Verge Helldivers You Must Build A Boat Does Not Commute Other games mentioned in this...

We finally catch up on a game we’ve meant to play since March. Ori and the Blind Forest is a beautiful Miyazaki inspired Metroidvania style romp through a lush forest landscape full of bright characters and fluid animation. We discuss the game’s beautiful art style, its “story” (such as it is,) and compare it with some other high-profile indie Metroidvania style games like Axiom Verge. Ori and the...

Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and the Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist is a 15 minute free heist game from Crows Crows Crows , a new development studio headed by William Pugh , one of the creators of The Stanley Parable. It’s totally free, and absolutely certain to put a huge smile on your face. Saying more would almost spoil it. So naturally, we talk about it for over half an hour. We start...

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes has more in common with party games played with boards or cards than with most video games. You play it in person with friends, one of whom is the bomb-defuser, looking at a simulated bomb on their laptop (or VR headset) with the others trying to talk them through the complex defusing process with the help of a hilariously complex bomb defusal manual . It’s a game...

We’re back with more discussion of Undertale, but this time we’re talking about the story, characters, and endings! This all-spoiler episode follows up on our spoiler free discussion of the game , so if you haven’t played the game, start there! Thanks for nerding out about Undertale with us some more. Next week we will be back with a quick episode on bomb-defusing pseudo-party-game Keep Talking an...

The initial version of this episode had a sound issue with Shane’s track that has since been corrected. If you hear any gaps in the audio, please delete and re-download the episode. Sorry for the inconvenience. This week we’re talking about Undertale by Toby Fox. Described as “the RPG where you don’t have to destroy anyone,” Undertale turned out to be one of the sweetest, funniest, and ultimately...

In this special episode of The Short Game we are recapping the final acts of Life is Strange, a game we started covering when its first episodic chapter released early this year. If you are new to Life is Strange, start by playing the game or with our first episode on it , but if you’ve completed the game, listen in for some in-depth discussion of the triumphs and frustrations of this important ga...

Continuing on with our coverage of IFComp (the Interactive Fiction Competition) we’re back with brief impressions of 11 more games from this year’s whopping 55 entries. Be sure to check out Episode 61 for more games and some background on IFComp. IFComp 2015 Games Covered in This Episode Untold Riches by Jason Ermer Unbeknown by A. DeNiro The Baker of Shireton by Hanon Ondricek Taghairm by Chandle...

This week we’re talking about The Beginner’s Guide, the new game from Davey Wreden. Wreden’s first game, The Stanley Parable, was the topic of the second episode of The Short Game way back in the distant past (last year.) We loved it, to say the least. This game is a very different beast, and it covers some pseudo-autobiographical territory. Wreaden narrates as he presents a collection of short ga...

IFComp , the interactive fiction competition, is the longest running and most important event in the interactive fiction scene. Each year dozens of interactive fiction authors submit new work of all kinds, from hardcore parser puzzle games to experimental Twine games, and this year a record 55 games were submitted! With a timely assist from Emily Short we selected a few of this year’s most intrigu...

It’s Contra meets that-one-level-in-Braid with Super Time Force Ultra! S.T.F.U. was developed by Capy Games (of Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery EP fame.) It’s a fast paced shooter who’s unique time-out mechanic lets you approach the frenetic bullet-hell madness a bit more like a puzzle game. Initially launched in 2014 on Xbox 360, Super Time Force Ultra (a newly expanded version) is also availa...

Laserlife is a game almost too high-concept to exist. A existential-music-biography game in which you play as a laser-based life form investigating the corpse of a human astronaut it finds drifting through deep space. Also there’s techno music. It’s pretty neat! Laserlife released yesterday (timely!) on PS4 and Steam for PC and Mac for $15 and is coming to Xbox One in late October. It is designed...

Porpentine Charity Heartscape is one of the most fascinating figures in interactive fiction. This week we discuss her collected Twine works, released as a nicely packaged collection entitled Eczema Angel Orifice, released in June of 2015. Porpentine’s work is in turns hilarious, insightful, heartbreaking, sexy, unsettling, and beautiful. We discuss some of her more well known works and touch brief...

Have you played Thomas Was Alone dev Mike Bithell’s newest? Volume looks great and brings the classic sneak-em-up gameplay, but how does its writing compare to Bithell’s vaunted debut effort? We also catch up with Laura about her visit to Bit Bash Chicago, and with Raygan and Shane about Until Dawn and OlliOlli 2. Links for this episode: VOLUME Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain MONACO | WHAT’S...

This week we discuss 2012 indie darling Limbo, which recently arrived on PS4. Limbo is a puzzle platformer with a darkly cartoonish black and white art style and a focus on repeated, brutal, and utterly delightful deaths. Limbo has won numerous awards and been ported to basically everything with a processor and screen, including previous and current generation consoles, Steam, and iOS. Expect it t...

Rather than focus on a single game this week we round up some of the new and exciting short games we’ve been playing this summer. It’s been a really interesting summer for short games with lots of new stuff out now or on the horizon! Links for this episode: N++ N++ Soundtrack Lode Runner Lode Runner – NES Gameplay (YouTube) Submerged — Uppercut Games Curses ‘N Chaos Curses N Chaos prequel comic Pa...

We welcome Shane back to the podcast by discussing the Spider series from Tiger Style games. Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor (2009) was one of the iOS App Store’s earliest break-out hits and it still stands out as a great example of environmental storytelling and innovative touch-native design. The sequel, Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon returns to the form of the original while expanding on i...

The Magic Circle is something really unique. In this thoughtful, darkly comic first person puzzle game, you play as the hero of an unfinished video game. The developers have failed you, and it’s your task to break the game and use the powers of the “gods” against them in freeform sandbox puzzles. It’s full of surprises at every turn and packed with commentary on the video game industry, gamers, an...

It’s a warm summer day in 1971 and the kaiju are roaming the countryside. We discuss the lovely 3DS eShop game Attack of the Friday Monsters from veteran Japanese game developers Millennium Kitchen, creators of the similarly quaint and nostalgic Boku no Natsuyasumi series. This is one of the most unique and down right pleasant games on the 3DS and entirely worth its short play time. Expect your su...

This week we discuss Contrast, a flawed but interesting puzzle platformer for PC and consoles. Contrast has an appealing 1920s cabaret aesthetic and a really neat shadow-merging mechanic that had a lot of promise, but the game didn’t resonate with most critics. Is the game worth its three-to-four-hour playtime? Contrast is available on Steam (Windows), Playstation 4 , and Xbox One , as well as pre...

Her Story by Sam Barlow (and starring Viva Seifert) is a game about a woman talking to the police. You are tasked with re-investigating a murder that took place in 1994 by watching a series of police interview videos, trying to discover the facts of a case that seems long-since closed. Your only tools is a very retro and partially broken police database of footage and your own sense of deduction....

We’re back with our 50th episode, and for our golden anniversary as a show we’re talking about the stylish comic-book-turned-game, Framed for iOS. This game comes to us from Loveshack, a studio formed by refugees of the EA acquisition and subsequent destruction of early iOS powerhouse Firemint (developers of Flight Control and Real Racing.) In Framed, you’ll swap the panels of comic book style pag...

In what’s becoming a bit of a tradition, hosts Nate, Shane, and Laura discuss the six games that won Apple Design Awards at WWDC 2015. While this year’s awards seemed to focus on the use of Apple’s Metal API and innovative use of the “freemium” platform, each game provides a unique experience and really showcases iOS as a gaming platform. We also make sure to point out a few games we felt were snu...

Raygan and Shane fly solo this week as Raygan visits his bro-host in person! (Please forgive any dip in audio quality.) We discuss Helldivers for Playstation 4, Playstation 3, and Playstation Vita. Helldivers, from the makers of Magika, is a top-down four-player co-op dual-stick shooter. (That was four, count ’em four hyphens!) It may appear a little generic at first, but it has some of the most t...