The Short Game

“ Marissa Marcel was a film star. She made three movies. But none of the movies was ever released. And Marissa Marcel disappeared.” Short Game royalty Sam Barlow ( Her Story, Telling Lies ) is back with a third entry in his not-a-trilogy of FMV masterpieces. This game, Immortality, ups the ante from the previous two in every conceivable way.  Explore the unedited, unordered clips from this trio of...

What better pitch than “A short horror game where you pilot a tiny submarine through an ocean of blood on an alien moon?” Iron Lung is an exercise in feeling doomed . Lost in space with all habitable planets mysteriously vanished, you are a convict piloting a blind submarine on a suicide mission, using only a map and a low resolution still camera to navigate. It’s a lo-fi dread generator. It’s als...

Haiku the Robot is a fantastic “adventure-exploration” game (ok maybe that is better than “metroidvania”) that wears its Hollow Knight inspiration on its sleeve, but the quirky post-human robot world has a charm of its own. The focus is on exploration, but Haiku also has very good combat! Really a great game, and more manageable than a lot of other games in its genre at around 6-10 hours. Stick ar...

An Apple Arcade original that is finally making its way out into gen pop, South of the Circle is a film-like narrative game set in the Cold War 60s. It alternates between a climate scientist struggling to survive after an antarctic plane crash, and his memories of the people and events that lead him to this dangerous moment. We start the episode with a pretty lengthy discussion of the state of App...

It’s the cat game everyone is talking about, but it still managed to surprise us. While we had some nits to pick, the charming kitty protagonist and incredible lived-in spaces kept us tapping our toe-beans. The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episodes, and talk about what we are playing in...

Prompted by the fact that all four of our hosts recently got the Miyoo Mini emulator handheld, the hosts chat about the device itself and what retro games we’ve been playing on it. The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episodes, and talk about what we are playing in real time. You can also s...

Ludum Dare 50 winner Shotgun King is a wild twist on chess, with dashes of roguelike deckbuilding and a scattering of buckshot. As the Black King, all your subjects have abandoned you. Face off against the White King and all his pieces armed only with your royal shotgun.  The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we d...

Somehow the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles became one of the most persistent media properties of our lifetimes, yet it’s been years since a good Turtles game came along. Shredder’s Revenge is reverent of the old Konami turtles games almost to a fault, but it’s lots of fun and fueled a lot of nostalgia even for those of us who didn’t think we were big turtles fans. The Short Game is supported directl...

This week we played Citizen Sleeper , the second game from In Other Waters developer Jump Over The Age, solo developer Gareth Damian Martin. Citizen Sleeper is a narrative game with mechanics inspired by tabletop games and visual novels. It tells the story of a Sleeper, a human consciousness in a robot body, who has escaped their corporate masters and washed up on a lawless post-revolutionary spac...

Now’s your chance to be a big shot! We‘re all caught up on Deltarune, and now we have to wait forever for the next chapter just like everyone else. Torture! The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episodes, and talk about what we are playing in real time. You can also support us by writing a r...

FRANKEN is a short, free RPG parody from solo indie developer splendidland, and at least to my taste it’s one of the funniest games I’ve ever played. You owe it to yourself to Jordan Starkweather from the excellent Pocketoid podcast joins us to talk about the game and how it lovingly comments on the RPG genre.  Laura is away this week due to an apartment move (congrats!) and Shane is out due to in...

Turnip Boy is an immediate contender for our dirtbag of the year award. This game packs a lot of jokes into its 2-ish hours, some of which are even funny! Check out the game on Nintendo Switch, Windows/Mac, iOS, Xbox One, and the Xbox Series S/X platforms, where it was recently added to Game Pass. The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access...

Since the 90s, Panic has been known as a creator of playful, functional software. Then, nearly two decades into their existence they took an unexpected swerve into video game publishing. During that time they also managed to somehow grow a weird idea for a corporate gift into a brand new handheld video game platform.  The Playdate! The Playdate is a tiny handheld video game console, kind of like a...

Thank you to the listeners and patrons who kindly kept asking us when we were covering Deltarune. The answer is NOW ! Thank you for your patience these last… checks watch… nearly four years! Deltarune is the sequel follow up (?) to Undertale, a game whose seismic impact is still being felt today. Developer Toby Fox took a different approach with Deltarune, breaking it up into chapters and releasin...

More than a re-release, The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is a massive expansion of the original game, with new endings, new jokes, and a bucket. This episode features light spoilers for the original Stanley Parable before the spoiler break, then new content and ending spoilers afterward. The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Di...

NORCO describes itself as a “Southern Gothic point & click narrative adventure that immerses the player in the sinking suburbs and verdant industrial swamps of a distorted South Louisiana.” It’s full of vivid characters, beautiful prose, and uncomfortable near-future sci-fi psychedelia.  The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our...

Raygan has had his hands on a Steam Deck for about a week, and so we decided to chat about the device and what it means for our corner of the gaming landscape. Turned out to be a longer and more interesting conversation than we expected! The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episodes, and ta...

This week we played several Game Boy homebrew games, all made using the free game making tool GB Studio . All these games can be played on the web, in a Game Boy emulator, or on actual Game Boy hardware, and all are short and interesting! We also had a lengthy and sometimes disturbing digression about opossums. 00:00:00: Intro to GB Studio 00:12:40: Opossum Country by BenJelter 00:19:28: Spoilers...

A Memoir Blue is the latest release from publisher Annapurna, and first from developer Cloisters Interactive. The developer describes it as “interactive poem” in which an olympic swimmer reflects on her childhood and her relationship with her mother, told via dreamlike metaphorical scenes, contrasting 2D and 3D characters and scenes.  While not our absolute favorite thing, this game prompted a rea...

Raygan and Nate are a little late to the party with this chat about the virally popular casual bullet hell Vampire Survivors. Plus a lengthy digression about popcorn! The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episodes, and talk about what we are playing in real time. You can also support us by w...

Nate, Shane, and Laura discuss the mouse-bouncing tactical pachinko RPG Beast Breaker , from Asher Volmer’s studio Vodeo Games. Beast Breaker is available on Nintendo Switch and on PC via the Epic Games Store. Expect it to take around 10-12 hours to complete, depending on how the mouse bounces. The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to...

The Itch.io bundle for Ukraine (organized by Necrosoft Games) included a ton of great stuff. We spent some time this week combing through the nearly 1000 games and other works in the bundle, and have come back with a few suggestions! (To browse or filter your bundle games, try https://randombundlegame.com) 00:10:54: Games We Have Previously Covered 00:27:26: Combo Postage 00:32:44: Sunlight 00:35:...

The sequel (or “sister game”) to 2018’s Far: Lone Sails returns us to a world in which driving a train/boat requires an awful lot of running around. The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episodes, and talk about what we are playing in real time. You can also support us by writing a review on...

A world in which dodgeball is the solution (and cause) of every problem! Dodgeball Academia is a somewhat overlooked sports RPG released in 2021 for PC and consoles (and included in Game Pass), and we had a lot of fun with it! We all stan Baloony. The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episod...

We’re taking a break from our regular format this week and doing an all What’s Making Us Happy This Week episode. First, Shane talks about the out-of-the-box experience of his new Quest 2 VR headset, and Laura talks about her return to the Xbox family after a generation away.  After the hardware talk, Raygan embarrasses himself by recommending some anime, Shane talks about Guillermo del Toro‘s lat...