In this special Valentines episode of The Short Game we’re discussing Monster Prom, the monster dating party game from Beautiful Glitch. It’s a mad dash to date the hottest monsters and get a date to prom while screwing over your friends. Monster Prom can be played solo but works best as a multiplayer party game for two to four players. Each ga ...…

The best legs in video games are on display as we tippy-tap our way through Pikuniku. This three hour puzzle-adventure is out now on Switch and PC/Mac from developer Sectordub and publisher Devolver Digital. Pikuniku – Launch Trailer – Nintendo Switch – YouTube The First 12 Minutes of Pikuniku Gameplay – YouTube What’s Making Us Happy This Week ...…

GRIS is a beautifully animated and colorful game about a girl on a journey through grief. The artwork is absolutely top tier, while the gameplay is presented without challenge or danger making the game extremely accessible. Do we have to be moved by this game if it to be a success? Is it okay to be kind of empty if it’s beautiful enough? GRIS i ...…

After a delay in recording due to Raygan’s daughter being born (what a sorry excuse!) we are back with our Game of the Year episode for 2018! It’s been a great year for short games, so the deliberations were fierce. Join us for the results! Thank you for supporting the show in 2018. We have an exciting year ahead of us in 2019 and we hope you’l ...…

The Obra Dinn was lost at sea along with all its cargo and 60 crew members. Suddenly the ship has reappeared, but what became of the crew? In this intricate mystery deduction game you’ll use a mysterious pocket watch to see the moment of each crew member’s death and try to reconstruct each of their fates. Return of the Obra Dinn is available fo ...…

The Tetris Effect is the latest music/puzzle/synesthesia experience from legendary game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Shane spends most of this episode mercilessly clowning on me for my Tetris skills while we discuss the benefits playing Tetris in veeeeee arrrrrr. Tetris effect – Wikipedia Tetsuya Mizuguchi – Wikipedia Ecstasy of Order: The Tetri ...…

IFComp 2018 is nearing its conclusion, so it’s time for a few last games! On this episode we discussed: 00:02:09 The Origin of Madame Time by Mathbrush 00:12:01 Terminal Interface for Models RCM301-303 by VigiMech Corporation 00:26:04 Polish the Glass by Keltie Wright 00:33:27 Campfire Tales by Matthew Deline 00:36:18 They Will Not Return by Jo ...…

IFComp 2018 is nearly done, and we’re closing the comp talking about some really strong games! This is the first part of a two part episode rounding out our coverage of IFComp 2018. I was going to chat with Laura for a few minutes, but we ended up talking for nearly an hour, so rather than release one massive episode I’m splitting this one in t ...…

And we are back with more IFComp 2018! We discuss nine more of the games on this year’s ballot. Horror, mystery, and extended IFComp in-jokes abound! If you play something in the comp you think we should cover, please let us know! We’re @_shortgame on Twitter, or you can use the contact form at our website. Games covered in this episode: 00:03: ...…

The leaves are changing, folks are putting up Halloween decorations… that’s right it’s IFComp season once again. Long time listeners to this show already know how passionate we are about the Interactive Fiction Competition. Now in its 23rd year, it’s the biggest event in interactive fiction and one of the highlights of our year. We’ve been cove ...…

In Wandersong you play as a bard, and interact with almost everything through a fun and expressive singing mechanic. You’ll do a LOT of singing. Turns out there is no problem that can’t be solved...

After years in development and what seems like decades on the Short Game upcoming games spreadsheet, solo developer Ben Esposito has finally released Donut County. We loved playing as as a hole in the ground...

In this, the year of too many Metroidvanias (jk there can never be too many Metroidvanias) Drinkbox returns with a long awaited sequel to their 2013 action platformer hit Guacamelee. (We covered Guacamelee way back...

Bomb Chicken is the first console game from mobile game royalty Nitrome. It’s a perfect example of a developer creating a entire game based on a single, super polished mechanic. Nitrome uses clever level design...

It’s an all-singing-all-dancing episode this week as we play Peter Panic, a mobile game that mixes WarioWare style micro games with the magic of musical theater! This mobile game stands out by being a fully-sung...

This week we’re taking a vacation from our typical format to talk about playing games while traveling. The obvious topic is how the Nintendo Switch is chainging how we play, but we also discuss gaming...

Yoku’s Island Express is a pinball-metroidvania. Yeah. And as a synthesis of those two seemingly incompatible ideas it actually succeeds incredibly well. We break down what makes this bizarre fusion more than just a novelty....

Gary Butterfield of Duckfeed.tv joins us to discuss West of Loathing, the hilarious stick-figure open-world RPG by Asymmetric. West of Loathing originally released last summer on Steam, but it recently launched as a console exclusive...

For our fifth year in a row, The Short Game is discussing this year’s Apple Design Award winning games. The ADA winners are often some of the best iOS games of the year, but they...

Mike Bithell’s follow-up to Subsurface Circular is another single sitting dialogue driven text adventure game, but this time it’s on a boat! Also there’s an alien. We discuss the second “Bithell Short”, a spiritual sequel...

In Far: Lone Sails you’ll pilot a massive rattletrap machine across a beautiful, desolate world. This “atmospheric vehicle adventure game” feels a bit like it was grown in a lab to appeal to The Short...

In a world where absolutely everyone cares about golf… Golf Story is an indie developed golf RPG in the Mario Golf tradition, developed by Sidebar Games. It was an early indie exclusive on the Nintendo...

It’s been 18 months since the release of the PSVR and against all odds there are still great short games coming out! Shane brings us his impressions of the second wave of PSVR games, starting...

We’re joined by special guest Patrick Kelpek of Waypoint to discuss his recent article Most Video Games Are Too Long, in which he compares the experience of playing God of War with Minit. We discuss...

In Minit, you are cursed to die (and be reborn) every 60 seconds. This makes solving puzzles and Zelda-like action challenges a bit more interesting. The game was developed by a four person team consisting...

Into the Breach is the second game by FTL developer Subset Games. FTL was the focus of the fifth episode of this podcast, way back in May of 2014,and has been a major obsession for...

This episode we’re checking in on the sequels to three landmark iOS games we’ve covered the past: Alto’s Odyssey (followup to Alto’s Adventure), Framed 2, and Monument Valley 2. Laura and Raygan discuss the games...

The first game from Mountains, a new “craft games” studio headed by Ken Wong (lead designer of Monument Valley), Florence is best described as an interactive graphic novel set to music. It’s a beautifully illustrated...

Celeste is the second game from Towerfall developer MattMakesGames, which this time is Matt Thorson (Towerfall), collaborator Noel Berry (Skytorn), and friends. Nominally a game about climbing a mountain, Celeste is a difficult story-driven platformer...

Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator’s title says it all—you play a hot dad that gets to date other hot dads. ? As soon as it was released in July 2017, Dream Daddy stormed to...

Doki Doki Literature Club has been suggested by more Short Game listeners than any game since Undertale. On the surface it’s a moe anime themed visual novel dating sim, but just under the surface is...

Here’s a fascinating and beautiful little puzzle game that’s almost impossible to describe with words alone, but we’re going to give it our best shot. Gorogoa is a game many years in the making. It’s...

Join us as we finally put 2017 out of its misery! It was a great year for games, if nothing else, and we’re rounding up our favorite short- and non-short-games of 2017. Our Game(s) of...

The succession is complete, and Reigns finally has an heir, or uh, sequel. This isn’t merely a queen-based rehash of the original game. Reigns: Her Majesty adds to and improves on the Reigns formula in...

We’re a little late getting this out, but we’re wrapping up our IFComp 2017 coverage with a discussion of the comp as a whole, the top 10 games, and discussions of a few games that...

This episode we’re discussing short-game touchpoint Thirty Flights of Loving by Blendo Games. Thirty Flights has cast a wide influence over the five years since its release and employs film-like smash cuts and non-sequential storytelling...

Continuing our coverage of IFComp 2017, we’ve played a dozen more games. Check out past two episodes for an intro to IFComp and our first batch of this year’s games. Let us know what caught...

Our coverage of IFComp 2017 finally begins in earnest, with impressions of a dozen of the incredible 79 games entered this year. If you’re new to IFComp or interactive fiction, check out our previous episode...

In this short episode we’re introducing our upcoming coverage of IFComp 2017 with an introduction to the competition and to interactive fiction for new players. We covered IFComp in both 2015 and 2016, and this...

Nex Machina is an arcade shooter with an incredible pedigree. Super Stardust developer Housemarque teamed up with video game legend Eugene Jarvis, creator of games like Defender, Robotron 2048, and Smash TV to create a...

Gotta go fast! This episode we’re talking about Sonic Mania, the first Sonic the Hedgehog game in years to recapture the feeling of the original 2D Sonic games. We discuss our history as Sonic fans,...

Fullbright’s followup to Gone Home finally arrived last month, and we’re floating in to investigate. Tacoma is a sci-fi exploration/narrative storytelling game set aboard a moon-orbiting space station 70 years in the future. You play...

Bithell Beyonce-ed us! Mike Bithell, creator of Short Game favorites Thomas Was Alone and Volume, surprised us with an unexpected release, and it’s incredibly up our alley. Subsurface Circular is a two-hour text adventure game...

This episode originally went live with out-of-sync audio. If you got that version please delete and re-download. Sorry! Supergiant’s third game is finally here, and it’s… a sports game? In Pyre, you lead a band...

Laura and Nate discuss a category of games near and dear to them both, board games that have made their way to digital platforms, especially iOS. Huge link dump for this episode: Board Game Ports...

This week we’re shuffling together two different card-based mash-up games on iOS. Card Thief is a stealthy dungeon crawl in card form, and Missile Cards takes Atari Missile Command and reimagines it as a tense...

Little Nightmares is a side scrolling puzzle-platform-horror-action game by frequent Media Molecule collaborator Tarsier Studios. It’s the first major independent work developed by the Swedish developers, whose catalog most notably includes side content for the...

Mark Bramhill of the Welcome to Macintosh podcast joins us to discuss the winners of this year’s Apple Design Awards. The ADAs are Apple’s yearly recognition of outstanding design in software for iOS and MacOS,...

Guest host Jupiter Hadley joins us to discuss the Ludum Dare 38. Ludum Dare is a game jam/competition where game developers attempt to create a game from scratch in 48 (or 72) hours. Jupiter brings...

The Sexy Brutale is a stylish adventure puzzle game set against the background of a lavish casino mansion, trapped in a single, endlessly looping day. It’s a co-production between Spanish developers Tequila Works and UK...