58: Volume

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Have you played Thomas Was Alone dev Mike Bithell’s newest? Volume looks great and brings the classic sneak-em-up gameplay, but how does its writing compare to Bithell’s vaunted debut effort?

We also catch up with Laura about her visit to Bit Bash Chicago, and with Raygan and Shane about Until Dawn and OlliOlli 2.

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See Laura’s photos from BitBash Chicago!
IMG_7526

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57: Limbo

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This week we discuss 2012 indie darling Limbo, which recently arrived on PS4. Limbo is a puzzle platformer with a darkly cartoonish black and white art style and a focus on repeated, brutal, and utterly delightful deaths. Limbo has won numerous awards and been ported to basically everything with a processor and screen, including previous and current generation consoles, Steam, and iOS. Expect it to take 3 to 4 hours to complete.

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56: Summer Games Grab Bag

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Rather than focus on a single game this week we round up some of the new and exciting short games we’ve been playing this summer. It’s been a really interesting summer for short games with lots of new stuff out now or on the horizon!

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55: Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon

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We welcome Shane back to the podcast by discussing the Spider series from Tiger Style games. Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor (2009) was one of the iOS App Store’s earliest break-out hits and it still stands out as a great example of environmental storytelling and innovative touch-native design. The sequel, Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon returns to the form of the original while expanding on it with new game mechanics and larger, more detailed levels.

Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor is available on the iOS app store for $1.99. A separate HD version is available for iPad.
Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon is a multi-platform release, currently out on iOS and Android ($5) and Steam for Mac, PC, and Linux ($12). It’s also coming soon to Playstation 4 and PS Vita.

It’s difficult to give an estimated time to complete this game as different people will approach it with different goals. An observant player can probably explore all of Blackbird Estate in around 5 hours.

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54: The Magic Circle

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The Magic Circle is something really unique. In this thoughtful, darkly comic first person puzzle game, you play as the hero of an unfinished video game. The developers have failed you, and it’s your task to break the game and use the powers of the “gods” against them in freeform sandbox puzzles. It’s full of surprises at every turn and packed with commentary on the video game industry, gamers, and what it means to create art.

This game has gotten a criminally small amount of coverage in the press, but it may be our favorite game of 2015 so far. Don’t miss it! The Magic Circle is available on Steam for Mac and PC for $19.99. A free demo is also available. Expect it to take 3 to 4 hours to complete.

We have the Spoiler Break™ at about 30 minutes in. This game is full of surprises you won’t want to spoil for yourself, so if you haven’t played it do yourself a favor and stop at the spoiler break and give this game a try.

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Played on Mac OS X using review copies courtesy of the developer.

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53: Attack of the Friday Monsters!

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It’s a warm summer day in 1971 and the kaiju are roaming the countryside. We discuss the lovely 3DS eShop game Attack of the Friday Monsters from veteran Japanese game developers Millennium Kitchen, creators of the similarly quaint and nostalgic Boku no Natsuyasumi series. This is one of the most unique and down right pleasant games on the 3DS and entirely worth its short play time. Expect your summer afternoon with Sohta and his friends to take between two and four hours.

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52: Contrast

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This week we discuss Contrast, a flawed but interesting puzzle platformer for PC and consoles. Contrast has an appealing 1920s cabaret aesthetic and a really neat shadow-merging mechanic that had a lot of promise, but the game didn’t resonate with most critics. Is the game worth its three-to-four-hour playtime?

Contrast is available on Steam (Windows), Playstation 4, and Xbox One, as well as previous generation consoles, and costs $14.99. Expect it to take three to four hours to complete.

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51: Her Story (with developer Sam Barlow)

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Her Story by Sam Barlow (and starring Viva Seifert) is a game about a woman talking to the police. You are tasked with re-investigating a murder that took place in 1994 by watching a series of police interview videos, trying to discover the facts of a case that seems long-since closed. Your only tools is a very retro and partially broken police database of footage and your own sense of deduction.

This is one of the most unique games we’ve played and you should not miss it.

We begin this episode with an interview with the developer himself, Sam Barlow (@mrsambarlow), and then share our impressions. After the spoiler-break, we discuss our theories about the crime.

Her Story is available for PC, Mac, iPhone, and iPad for $5 or $6 depending on platform. Expect it to take 2 to 5 hours to completely explore.

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Mentioned in the interview:

From our discussion:

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

“My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all, I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in our family is dead.”

After show:

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50: Framed

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We’re back with our 50th episode, and for our golden anniversary as a show we’re talking about the stylish comic-book-turned-game, Framed for iOS. This game comes to us from Loveshack, a studio formed by refugees of the EA acquisition and subsequent destruction of early iOS powerhouse Firemint (developers of Flight Control and Real Racing.)

In Framed, you’ll swap the panels of comic book style pages around to re-order events, often with surprising results. It’s a beautiful and stylish 2-hour experience that Hideo Kojima called the best game of 2014.

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49: Apple Design Award Winners 2015

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In what’s becoming a bit of a tradition, hosts Nate, Shane, and Laura discuss the six games that won Apple Design Awards at WWDC 2015. While this year’s awards seemed to focus on the use of Apple’s Metal API and innovative use of the “freemium” platform, each game provides a unique experience and really showcases iOS as a gaming platform. We also make sure to point out a few games we felt were snubbed (COUGH COUGH ALTO’S ADVENTURE COUGH COUGH), and couldn’t resist talking about some of the recent news from E3 (FALLOUT HYPE).

Apple Design Award Winners: 

Student Winners:

 

You can also hear our report on last year’s Apple Design Awards way back in The Short Game episode 11.

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