105: PlayStation VR

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Shane bought a PSVR and The Short Game leaves boring old reality behind. We give our impressions of the hardware, and discuss which of the launch games might be interesting to Short Game listeners.

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104: More IFComp 2016

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We continue our coverage of 2016’s IFComp, the Interactive Fiction Competition. This continues on from The Short Game episode 102, so if you’re just joining you may prefer starting there. This week we’ve picked and played 9 more games, and some of them are really neat!

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103: Hyper Light Drifter

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Hyper Light Drifter is a tough-as-nails indie action-RPG game that came out earlier this year. After initially bouncing off the game, we gave it a second look and found a lot to like past its punishing skill barrier and intentional obscurity. Stay tuned past the spoiler break for tips on boss order, and for Shane’s impressions of the new PlayStation VR.

Apologies for the delay getting you this episode. We’ll be back very soon with more coverage of IFComp 2016!

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102: IFComp 2016

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Now in its 22nd year, IFComp (The Interactive Fiction Competition) is
an annual celebration of new text-based games. We covered last year’s competition in a pair of episodes last October, and this year we’re back with our first impression of this year’s entries.

This is IFComp’s biggest year yet, with 58 games competing. All of them are available to play for free on the IFComp website. This episode was recorded on only 2 days after the start of the competition. We share our thoughts on the games we have tried so far, and note some exciting looking games we’ll be trying before the competition concludes in November.

Last year’s episodes:
The Short Game 61: IFComp 2015
The Short Game 63: More IFComp 2015

Rules for the competition

Played and Discussed:

Detectiveland by Robin Johnson
The Queen’s Menagerie by Chandler Groover
Mirror and Queen by Chandler Groover
Blue Cactus Motel by Astrid Dalmady
The Game of Worlds TOURNAMENT! by Ade
Pogoman Go! by Jack Welch and Ben Collins-Sussman
16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds by Abigail Corfman
Fair by Hanon Andresek

Mentioned:

Stuff and Nonsense by Felicity Banks
Black Rock City by Jim Munroe
Evermore by Adam Whybray and Edgar Allan Poe
The Shoe Dept. by Aquanet
Color the Truth by Mathbrush

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101: Waking Mars

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Waking Mars is the second game from Tiger Style, developers of Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor and Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon. On the surface this 2012 follow-up to Spider appears to be a more mainstream, unsurprising game than Tiger Style’s first outing, but as it unfurls its tendrils Waking Mars reveals a complex and involving “action gardening” experience that captivated us.

Waking Mars is available on iOS and Android for $5, and on PC, Mac, and Linux for $10. Expect it to take between 5 and 8 hours to complete.

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100: Episode 100

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We apply Big Data (okay, an Excel spreadsheet) to all 434 games played or mentioned in our 100 episode run, in an effort to answer the cocktail party question “Oh you have a video game podcast? What should I play?”

We’ve painstakingly catalogued all 434 games mentioned on the show (thanks Laura!) and broken them down into several categories, and ranked them not necessarily on what’s best, but based on what we’d recommend to a friend. We also re-explore what The Short Game is all about, and why we’re still at it after 100 episodes.

Rather than list every game mentioned in this episode in the show notes, here’s a link to our Google Docs outline for the episode which lists everything we mentioned and then some. If you’re interested, here’s our spreadsheet listing every game we’ve mentioned on the show and which episodes they were mentioned on.

This episode includes chapter markers in Overcast and other podcast apps that support chapterized MP3s.

On a personal note, thanks for listening. This show has been a huge force for good in my life and a big part of that has been the incredible interactions I’ve had with listeners. –Raygan

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99: Pocket Card Jockey

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We’re rubbing the Giddyap button this week with hybrid solitaire and horse racing game Pocket Card Jockey, the surprise 3DS release from Pokémon developers Game Freak.

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98: Reigns

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This week we’re swiping right on Reigns, a kingdom management interactive fiction game with a Tinder inspired interface. This clever twist on the Choose Your Own Adventure style has turned out to be a surprise hit on iOS, Android, and Steam.

Reigns is just $2.99 across all platforms. Expect it to take around four hours to complete.

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97: Abzû

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This week we’re exploring the ocean of Abzu, the first game from Journey art director Matt Nava’s Giant Squid Studios.

We loved Journey so naturally we were eager to play the game some have called its spiritual, aquatic successor. But does it the experience hold up?

Abzu is available on Playstation 4 and Steam for $19.99. Expect it to take 2 to 4 hours to complete.

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96: Quadrilateral Cowboy

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Quadrilateral Cowboy is the long awaited new game from Brendan Chung and Blendo Games. Its precursor Thirty Flights of Loving was a brief, carefully edited story of crime and romance, but felt like more of a narrative experiment than a full game. Quadrilateral Cowboy expands that concept into a full fledged narrative driven heist game.

The setting, a retro-futuristic alternate 1980s that Brendan Chung calls “20th Century Cyberpunk”, blends perfectly with the angular low-poly art style. Missions are based around using a number of low/high tech tools, like a futuristic command line hacking “deck”, to infiltrate a series of secure locations. As you plan and execute your heists, an involving story unfolds through wordless environmental storytelling.

Quadrilateral Cowboy is available on Steam and through the developer’s website for $19.99, or $29.99 for the deluxe edition. Expect it to take around 6 hours to complete.

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