The Short Game

In this special double-length episode , guest host Gary Butterfield of Watch Out For Fireballs! joins us to discuss The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds . As you may know, Link Between Worlds is a direct sequel to Link to the Past for the SNES, taking place in the same overworld and with many of the same mechanics. It manages to be both deeply nostalgic and incredibly innovative, updating th...

Special guest Nate Heagy, founder and developer of Amuses Me Games and die-hard Hearthstone player joins us to discuss the hugely successful digital-native collectible card game from Blizzard. Hearthstone is a bit different from the games we typically cover but it’s a fascinating re-thinking of an existing genre made clearly with fitting-into-your-life in mind. It’s an open-ended experience played...

This week we talk about the entrants for this year’s Spring Thing interactive fiction festival. Spring Thing is an offshoot of IFComp that focuses on new works (they must debut as a part of the festival) that are freely available, and generally shorter and more experimental than IFComp entries. We collectively played all but one of this year’s entrants and talk about them in detail. We recorded th...

Na Na, nanananana na na na Katamari Damacy! This week we’re rolling it all up and talking about this cult hit from 2004. One of the best pick-up-and-play games of that generation, Katamari Damacy still stands out as a truly unique and wonderful game. We discuss a bit about the game’s history, gush about the great soundtrack, and swap Katamari memories. Katamari Damacy is available for PS2 (disk) a...

This week we’re discussing The Unfinished Swan, an experimental first person exploration game on Sony platforms from Giant Sparrow. This is a really unique game with some incredible visuals and mechanics. Most famously, it begins in a completely white void where your only way to navigate is to paint the walls and surroundings with a black paint gun, creating/discovering striking 3D monochrome visu...

This week we’re releasing two – that’s right two episodes. This first one is a continuation of our Life is Strange book club. We eschew our regular format to return to the world of teen drama, time powers, botched diner breakfast orders, and wandering around in junk yards looking for garbage. Watch this space in just a few days for this week’s regular episode, focusing on The Unfinished Swan You c...

Wait, isn’t this a video games podcast? Well, kinda. This week, we’re talking about pinball! We start with a discussion of playing real, actual, physical pinball in 2015. It’s getting hard to find pinball games at arcades, movie theaters, and drug stores, yet somehow it’s never been easier to find pinball tables to play, if you know where to look. We also discuss some notable pinball video games a...

A goat that solves puzzles to escape a magical tower with the help of his little mouse friend. Sure why not. This week we play Escape Goat 2 by MagicalBeanTime and published by Doublefine. This game has expertly-crafted puzzles perfect for long time puzzle platform players, but has a smooth difficulty curve and low skill barrier that should make it a great game for players at any level. We discuss...

Following up on our previous Shortisode on Game Music, this week we discuss… more game music! Nate wasn’t able to join us last time, so we hear his picks and those of some listeners and friends. This was fun to edit. Note: An earlier version of this episode was published which included an editing error that left large gaps missing after the 16 minute mark. This release corrects the error. We’re re...

Grim Fandango is arguably the last mass-market adventure game, and is indisputably a great classic of the genre. Tim Schaffer’s last LucasArts adventure is a stunning amalgam of film noir storytelling, Mexican day of the dead and Art Deco imagery, and Aztec mythology into a sublime (if slightly dated) storytelling experience. Playing this nearly 20 year old game can be a bit daunting, even with th...

This week begins our sort-of-book-club on the ongoing episodic adventure game Life is Strange. Told in what can only be described as the “Telltale” style, this series of 5 episodes follows Max Caufield, an 18 year old art school student who witnesses a murder and discovers she has the ability to rewind time. It’s a high school mystery! Only the first episode is currently out (as of early March 201...

This week our podcast literally can not stop running/falling/snowboarding as we discuss the Endless Runner genre. This sometimes celebrated, sometimes maligned mobile focused offshoot of the platform genre is (believe it or not) full of awesome games amongst all the shovelware. We talk in depth about the beautiful new endless snowboarder Alto’s Adventure, as well as run down the short history of t...

This week’s topic is Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition. (That’s a long title for such a short game!) Guacamelee is a “Metroidvania” with combo-based, beat-’em-up combat, and it’s a game we’ve been looking forward to covering on this show since we recorded our first episode. It’s really, really good. Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition (the third revision of the game after the o...

“I have entered into the service of a new gentleman. It would seem he is a gambling man.” 80 Days by Inkle Studios is a video game adaptation of Jules Verne’s classic novel of world travel and adventure. It’s also one of the best games of 2014. It was named the Time Magazine Game of the Year and was also honored by numerous other publications and critics. This week we look at what makes this inter...

This week we’re taking another short break from regular format to talk about our favorite video game music! Did we miss your favorite soundtrack? (We probably did!) Let us know! We’ll play followup to this episode in a future show. Picks: Fez – Adventure Super Mario Galaxy – Star Festival Chrono Trigger Chrono’s theme Frog’s Theme Festival of Stars Sim City 3000 – Building Nights into Dreams – Tak...

The Swapper is a surprisingly awesome 2D puzzle platformer from small Finnish indie developers Facepalm Games. Released for PC/Mac/Linux in May 2013, it’s now also available for current generation Playstation and Nintendo consoles. Its puzzle design and mechanics are often compared to Portal (though it is a very unique game on its own) and it has an unusual art style, accomplished by building all...

Machinarium , a point and click adventure game by Czech game developers Amanita Design, is our topic this week. Released in 2009, it was their first full-length adventure game after numerous web-based titles. It has been widely praised for its gorgeous art style and a charming story told entirely without dialogue. Machinarium is available for numerous platforms, including Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS,...

To The Moon by Freebird Games is our topic this week. When it came out in 2011 this game was hailed as a triumph of video game storytelling. Using the visual language of 90s RPGs, To The Moon tells the story of a pair of scientists investigating and altering the memories of a dying man to retroactively fulfill his life’s wish: to go to the moon. To The Moon is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux...

Gunpoint by Tom Francis aka Suspicious Developments is our topic this week. Tom Francis began his game industry career with 9 years as a writer for PC Gamer, and this game is his response to what he learned in his years of game criticism. It was so successful that he was able to quit his boring day job as a games journalist and become an indie game developer full time! @GunpointGame on Twitter Dev...

The Short Game attempts to discuss an entire genre-defying medium of game design: text-based interactive fiction. That’s right, we’re talking about old-school text adventures, but also newer developments like Twine games and more interactive text driven games. We discuss the history of interactive fiction, the interactive fiction scene today, and recommend a number of games that might be good for...

The fourth game in the Call of Juarez series is its first download-only title. Gunslinger follows Silas Greaves, an over-the-top bounty hunter, whose narration carries the show and whose quest for vengeance drives the plot. Gunslinger was overlooked by many because its predecessor in the series, Call of Juarez: The Cartel , was so poorly received. In 2013, it was also unusual for a large publisher...

In the final show for 2014, we are counting down our picks for The Short Game game of the year: 3 – Shovel Knight Shovel Knight is an incredible throwback to the NES, but with a modern indie game energy. Arguably the best platformer of the last decade. Available for PC, Mac, Linux, Wii U, and 3DS, and coming soon to PS3, PS4, and PS Vita . 2 – A tie between Threes and A Dark Room These two simple...

A Dark Room is an incredibly simple and yet incredibly deep and even moving game, unexpected qualities in the “idle games” genre. From the App Store page, you begin with this simple and evocative description: “Awake. Head throbbing. Vision blurry. Come light the fire.” A Dark Room was such a sensation that it has been written about at length even in publications not known for gaming coverage. For...

In this special Thanksgiving holiday edition of The Short Game, we talk bout some of our favorite long games. We named this show the wrong thing! Shortisodes are a break from our regular format; a chance to talk briefly about… whatever we want. We’ll be back next week with a regular episode, covering A Dark Room. Links for this episode: Our FTL episode Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim by Bethesda – Steam l...

Update: It took some time after playing this game to get to know the developer, Adrian Chmielarz, on Twitter and through his other writing. While we feel this game is an interesting technical and artistic achievement, we are uncomfortable with Mr. Chmielarz outspoken support of GamerGate and his positions on the social politics of the game industry in general. If the politics of the creator plays...