Short Game Classic – 36: 80 Days

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Raygan is traveling this week, so in lieu of a full episode we are re-releasing a classic travel-themed Short Game that has just dropped off of the RSS feed. 80 Days was a break out hit for Heaven’s Vault developer Inkle, and it cemented their place at the forefront of narrative game design. In 80 days, Inkle brought interactive fiction and management sim elements together into a totally novel game design. Writer Meg Jayanth’s charming dialogue and world building brought a new anti-colonialist perspective to the sometimes problematic steampunk genre. This is one of The Short Game’s all time favorites, and the game (and this episode) are worth revisiting.

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181: The Haunted Island, A Frog Detective Game

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After last week’s big episode, Laura and Raygan are taking a moment to relax into a charming little game about a frog. Developer Grace Bruxnor’s The Haunted Island, A Frog Detective Game is a lovely hour long mystery adventure full of charm and humor-that-is-actually-funny. We have a short chat about the good frog boy, and in the What’s Making Us Happy This Week segment we discuss the classic board game Kill Doctor Lucky.

The Haunted Island: A Frog Detective Game is available on Steam and itch.io (Mac/PC) for $4.99. (As of this writing it is on sale on Steam for $3.99.) Expect it to take under an hour to complete.

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180: Heaven’s Vault

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The developer of Short Game favorite 80 Days returns with an ambitious new game, and we are joined by a new guest! Laura Garofalo is a Roman cultural historian and Latinist with experience on archeological digs, who joined us to discuss Heaven’s Vault, an archaeological science fiction adventure game.

At around 15 hours, this is a longer game than we typically cover, and it lead to a longer and extremely interesting discussion. The game is available on PS4 and Windows for $24.99. Stick around after the spoiler break at [1:26:30] for a discussion of some of the game’s secrets and branching paths.

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179: Rolando – Royal Edition

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Do you know what they call a Rolando in Paris? That’s right, they call it a Rolando: Royal Edition.

One of the earliest smash hit iOS games has just received a beautiful remaster and re-release, years after being pulled from the store. We discuss our early iOS gaming memories, talk about this beautiful new version of a classic, and discuss the problems with iOS game preservation, as well as some possible solutions!

Rolando: Royal Edition is available now on the iOS App Store for $2.99. Expect it to take about 3-5 hours to complete.

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Short Game Classic – 28: A Dark Room (Now on Switch!)

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A Dark Room is one of the most celebrated mobile games of all time, and one of the most memorable games we’ve covered on The Short Game. It’s just been ported to Nintendo Switch in a new and enhanced version. We’re re-releasing our 2014 episode on A Dark Room, also enhanced with an all new intro!

A Dark Room is a game with many surprising twists and turns, so we have a fairly early spoiler break at 00:24:00.

A Dark Room began as a web game, and you can still find that version online, but it really came to life on mobile. You can find A Dark Room on iOS, Android, and now Nintendo Switch.

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178: Photographs

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This week on The Short Game we discuss Photographs, the latest game by Luca Redwood, developer of show favorite You Must Build A Boat. Photographs is a narrative puzzle game for PC, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android, and it’s a big departure from Luca’s previous games. In Photographs you’ll explore a series of tragic tales, interspersed with puzzles that cast light on the themes of each story. We discuss the game’s themes and mechanics in depth, with a spoiler break at 55 minutes.
Photographs is $3.99 on mobile or $11.99 on Steam. Expect it to take around 3-4 hours to complete.

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177: Anodyne

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Anodyne by developers Sean Han Tani and Marina Kittaka is something we’ve been meaning to cover for a very long time. Originally released in February 2013 (early days of the indie game boom), it’s taken this surreal Zelda-like over six years to get a console release. Now that it’s available on PS4 and Nintendo Switch, and on the eve of the release of its sequel, Laura and Raygan visit Anodyne to see how it stands the test of time.

Anodyne is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, as well as iOS, Android, PS4 and Nintendo Switch, for $9.99. Expect it to take around 10 hours to complete.

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176: Baba Is You

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Game Is Good! This week we’re discussing the award winning puzzle game Baba Is You, from Finnish developer Hempuli Oy. In this mind- (and rule-bending) puzzle game, each Sokoban-style level is governed by a unique set of simply stated rules (Baba Is You, Block Is Push, Flag Is Win etc) each of which is represented by a set of physical rule-objects that can be pushed around and manipulated within the game. Each level involves re-working the rules to create a win-condition. It’s one of the most interesting puzzle games we’ve ever covered on the show.

Baba Is You is available on Switch and pretty much all of the PC game stores including Itch.io, for $15.

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175: Ape Out

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A violent instrument plays jazz of rage and sorrow on this week’s Short Game. Ape Out is an intense top-down musical beat-em-up from developer Gabe Cuzzillo. We discuss the game’s "virtual drummer" reactive music and Saul Bass inspired art style, and we hear a LOT from Nate about Star Trek: Deep Space 9’s Vic Fontaine.

Ape Out is available for Windows (Steam, GOG, The Humble Store, and Itch.io) and Nintendo Switch for $15. Expect it to take around 5-6 hours to complete.

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174: Arcade Games on Switch

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Arcade games are the ultimate short games, and the Nintendo Switch is home to what might be the largest library of arcade game ports of any current generation console. In this special episode we discuss the state of retro arcade game ports on the Switch while sharing our arcade memories, and a few game suggestions.

Raygan has compiled a complete list of every arcade game currently available on the switch, and published it as a Medium post. Check out the complete list and let us know which are your favorites, and if we missed anything!

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