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 the top of the Steam charts and left social media swooning in its wake. But after the launch afterglow has faded, are we still charmed? (Yes.)

After the spoiler break at [00:36:30], we discuss all-important third dates and other major/minor dad-dating decisions.

Dream Daddy is available for $14.99 on Steam. You’ll spend about 4–5 hours wooing the residents of Maple Bay, depending on how long you audibly groan (or rejoice) at puns.

Our Dadsonas:

Gomez Addams

Jacques Swift

Carl Bonesworth

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Like the show? Support us by writing a review on iTunes!

Your hosts this week were:

• Raygan Kelly – @raygank
• Nate Heininger – @natestl
• Laura Nash – @laurajnash

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 something much darker. As the game’s cryptic Steam description says, this game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed.

Hard spoiler break at [00:17:31]. Trust us on this one.

Doki Doki Literature Club is available for free on Steam and itch.io, with a $10 “Fan Pack” available that includes a soundtrack, desktops, and an concept art booklet. Expect the game to take about four to five hours to complete.

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Like the show? Support us by writing a review on iTunes!

Your hosts this week were:

• Raygan Kelly – @raygank
• Nate Heininger – @natestl
• Laura Nash – @laurajnash

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 been winning awards and gaining buzz since at least 2012, but it’s finally out in its final form on iOS ($4.99), Steam, and Nintendo Switch ($14.99).

We discuss the game’s puzzles and art style, as well as attempt to decode its cryptic but thoughtful story. Spoiler break at 00:32:52.

• Gorogoa
• Mad Fold-in – Wikipedia
• Gorogoa Interview | Rock, Paper, Shotgun
• The Puzzle Of A Lifetime – Kotaku interview
• ANNAPURNA Interactive

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Like the show? Support us by writing a review on iTunes!

Your hosts this week were:

• Laura Nash – @laurajnash
• Shane Kelly – @8bitShane
• Raygan Kelly – @raygank

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 year:

• 117: Night in the Woods

• 129: Pyre

Other Games Mentioned:

• 139: Reigns – Her Majesty

• 135: IFComp 2017 pt. 1

• 131: Tacoma

• 132: Sonic Mania
• 122: What Remains of Edith Finch
• 116: Linelight
• 123: The Sexy Brutale
• 114: Puyo Puyo (Series)
• 133: Nex Machina

Past GOTY episodes:

• 110: Game of the Year 2016
• 70: Game of the Year 2015
• 29: Game of the Year

There were a lot of great games in 2017 that we missed, some of which we hope to cover soon. Here’s our list:

• Dream Daddy
• Doki Doki Literature Club
• Butterfly Soup
• Gorogoa
• Rakuen
• West of Loathing
• Universal Paperclips
• Bury Me My Love
• A Normal Lost Phone/Another Lost Phone
• Four Last Things
• Last Day in June
• Heat Signature
• Everything
• Blackwood Crossing
• Monument Valley 2
• Framed 2
• Hidden Folks
• Nidhogg 2
• Emily is Away Too
• Finding Paradise (To the Moon sequel)

And a few games we’re looking forward to in 2018:

• Donut County
• Manifold Garden
• Dreams
• Florence
• Moss
• WATTAM
• The Room: Original Sin
• The Wolf Among Us Season 2

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Like the show? Support us by writing a review on iTunes!

Your hosts this year were:

• Raygan Kelly – @raygank
• Shane Kelly – @8bitShane
• Nate Heininger – @natestl
• Laura Nash – @laurajnash

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 several ways, while keeping its core tinder-swipe kingdom building gameplay.

Reigns: Her Majesty is available on iOS, Android, and Steam for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It costs $2.99. Expect it to take around 3-5 hours to complete.

Spoiler break at 00:34:28.

Links for this episode:

• Reigns: Her Majesty
• 98: Reigns – The Short Game
• Reigns Her Majesty: Walkthrough Guide – Good Ultimate Ending (How to Get All Three Endings) | App Unwrapper

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Like the show? Support us by writing a review on iTunes!

Your hosts this week were:

• Raygan Kelly – @raygank
• Laura Nash – @laurajnash
• Shane Kelly – @8bitShane

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 we didn’t cover in our earlier episodes.

Our IFComp 2017 Coverage
– 134: Intro to IFComp
– 135: IFComp 2017 pt. 1
– 136: IFComp 2017 pt. 2

The Top Ten:
– The Wizard Sniffer by Buster Hudson
– Eat Me by Chandler Groover
– Harmonia by Liza Daly
– Will Not Let Me Go by Stephen Granade
– Absence of Law by mathbrush
– The Owl Consultsby Thomas Mack, Nick Mathewson, and Cidney Hamilton
– A Beauty Cold and Austere by Mike Spivey
– 1958: Dancing With Fear by Victor Ojuel
– Future Threads by Xavid
– Domestic Elementalism by fireisnormal

Also Mentioned:
– Violet by Jeremy Freese – 1st place IFComp 2008 and former highest score
– Queer In Public: A Brief Essay by Norbez
– Alice Aforethought by Hanon Ondricek
– Swigian by mathbrush (as Rainbus North)

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Like the show? Support us by writing a review on iTunes!

Your hosts this week were:

• Raygan Kelly – @raygank
• Shane Kelly – @8bitShane
• Nate Heininger – @natestl
• Laura Nash – @laurajnash

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 to great effect. We have discussed it in brief on past episodes, but it’s time to talk about it in depth.

Thirty Flights of Loving is available on Steam and the Humble Store for $5.00, and includes the prequel Gravity Bone. It takes about 15 minutes to complete, though you’ll likely want to play through it multiple times.

Links for this episode:

• 96: Quadrilateral Cowboy – The Short Game
  • 109: Virginia – The Short Game
  • 68: Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and the Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist – The Short Game
  • BLENDO Games

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Like the show? Support us by writing a review on iTunes!

Your hosts this week were:

• Raygan Kelly – @raygank
• Shane Kelly – @8bitShane
• Nate Heininger – @natestl
• Laura Nash – @laurajnash

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 your attention from this year’s competition!

Games covered:

00:01:26 Insignificant Little Vermin by Filip Hracek
egamebook

00:11:16 Domestic Elementalism by fireisnormal

00:17:24 Salt by Gareth Damian Martin

00:25:22 Unit 322 (Disambiguation) by Jonny Muir

00:31:42 The Wand by Arthur DiBianca

00:40:39 Deshaun Steven’s Ship Log by Marie L. Vibbert
More games by Marie L. Vibbert

00:46:49 Hexteria Skaxis Qiameth by Gabriel Floriano
Linguistic Relativity, Sapir–Whorf hypothesis – Wikipedia

00:52:57 Measureless to Man by Ivan R.

01:00:29 Transient Skies by dgtziea

01:08:06 Swigian by Rainbus North

01:11:51 Nyna Lives by Sarah Rhiannon Nowack

01:15:29 The Dragon Will Tell You Your Future Now by Newsreparter

01:21:11 Outro

Also discussed:

Sorcery! series
Hadean Lands
Reader’s Block by David Markson
Superluminal Vagrant Twin

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Like the show? Support us by writing a review on iTunes!

Your hosts this week were:

• Laura Nash – @laurajnash
• Nate Heininger – @natestl
• Raygan Kelly – @raygank
• Shane Kelly – @8bitShane

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 for an introduction.

Games covered:

00:03:06 Eat Me by Chandler Groover
Games by Chandler Groover on IFDB

00:11:50 a partial list of things for which i am grateful by Devon Guinn

00:14:01 The Unofficial Sea-Monkey(R) Simulation by B.J. Best
Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod

00:20:42 The Owl Consults by Thomas Mack, Nick Mathewson, and Cidney Hamilton

00:27:40 The Wizard Sniffer by Buster Hudson

00:37:47 Harmonia by Liza Daly

00:39:14 Will Not Let Me Go by Stephen Granade

00:47:14 1958: Dancing With Fear by Victor Ojuel

00:53:02 10pm by litrouke

00:56:40 The Living Puppet by Liu Zian

01:01:47 Grue. by Charles Mangin

01:03:13 Tuuli by Daurmith and Ruber Eaglenest

• IntFiction Forum
• A Hyperabundant Comp Season | These Heterogenous Tasks
• IF Comp 2017, Belatedly | Emily Short’s Interactive Storytelling

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Like the show? Support us by writing a review on iTunes!

Your hosts this week were:

• Raygan Kelly – @raygank
• Shane Kelly – @8bitShane
• Nate Heininger – @natestl
• Laura Nash – @laurajnash

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 year we’re preparing for the best and biggest year the competition has ever had. Join us on our next episode for reviews and reactions to some of the games of 2017.

Want to learn more? Here are a few of our past episodes on IF:

• IF Comp 2015: Episode 61, Episode 63
• IF Comp 2016: Episodes 102, 104, 107
• The Short Game | 31: Interactive Fiction
• The Short Game | 45: Spring Thing 2015 – Interactive Fiction Festival
• The Short Game | 59: Porpentine: Eczema Angel Orifice
• https://www.theshortgame.net/36-80-days/ 80 days

Guides for IF Beginners:

How to Play Interactive Fiction (An Entire Strategy on a Postcard)

Emily Short’s Guide to Interactive Fiction (PDF)

IFComp – About IF

History of the Festival

http://ifwiki.org/index.php/Mathbrush

The twine invasion of 2012 (most interesting moment in the recent history of the comp)

http://www.intfiction.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=22855

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Like the show? Support us by writing a review on iTunes!

Your hosts this week were:

• Raygan Kelly – @raygank
• Shane Kelly – @8bitShane
• Laura Nash – @laurajnash