Turnfollow, developers of Short Game favorite Wide Ocean Big Jacket, have returned with an extremely unexpected game. Before The Green Moon is a 3D farming sim with a clearly early-3D inspired aesthetic, whose story is a far cry from other farming sims. You play as a young farmer living at the base of a space elevator. It’s a game about building community at the fringes of space capitalism and climate disaster, but also about preparing to leave that community, as you save up for a ticket to the moon.

The Short Game began in April of 2014, so this month marks our 9th anniversary! To celebrate, we’re doing the impossible (and probably inadvisable): We are going to produce a totally inarguable and completely 100% perfect list of the best nine short games of all time. Or at least we’re going to try! Kind of!

Here’s a link to our complete list and personal lists on our Patreon page!

The top nine:

1. Night in the Woods
2. Kentucky Route Zero
3. Celeste
4. Katamari Damacy
5. Return of the Obra Dinn
6. 80 Days
7. The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe
8. What Remains of Edith Finch
9. Pyre

Laura and Raygan discuss a lyrical puzzle game about a jazz band preparing for a farewell concert for their lead singer, and about that singer’s spirit as she explores the mental landscapes of her band-mates helping them move on. It’s way less of a bummer than it might sound! Stick around for a great What’s Making Us Happy segment about Dog Beach and the Tetris movie.

We learn to love all the sh*tty friends in this weirdly-not-just-a-joke release from the Sonic the Hedgehog social media team.

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog was a surprise release for April Fools 2023. In this visual novel point and click adventure, you play as YOUR_NAME_HERE the Quokka, waiter and microwave operator to the Sonic crew, as they celebrate Amy Rose’s birthday with a murder mystery dinner party aboard a robotic train. But what’s this? Sonic’s been… murdered?! Help Tails solve the mystery, and rub elbows with the entire sh*tty friends squad in this warm and funny tribute.

This game is FREE on Steam for Windows. Expect it to take 2-3 hours to complete.

This week Raygan reveals his complete lack of knowledge about the various planetary moons of our solar system as we talk about Titan Station, a “walking simulator” set on a space station in the far future year of 1999. This is a game by friend of the show Joakim Larsen, who has managed to create an incredible photorealistic environment for what Nate describes as “a story about poor password hygiene.”

Titan Station is available on Steam and GOG for Windows PCs. Expect it to take about 3-5 hours to complete.

Storyteller won the IGF Nuovo award in 2012 (!!!) and finally releases today, making it the longest in development game we’ve ever covered. Finally emerging from development hell and partnering with publisher Annapurna, developer Daniel Benmergui has delivered a charming and intuitive “continuity simulator”, in which you build a simple comic strip from drag and drop actors and scenes, trying to produce a specific ending. 

Storyteller launches today on Steam and Nintendo Switch. Expect it to take around 2-5 hours to complete.

Hi-Fi Rush was a surprising January “shadow drop” (is that really what we’re calling these?) from previously horror focused developer Tango Gameworks. Part beat ’em up, part music game, part Saturday moring cartoon, and a whole lot of fun if you can jam to its dad rock soundtrack. Hi-Fi Rush is available on PC and Xbox consoles, and via Game Pass. Expect it to take around 11 hours to complete.

Solve a string of bizarre historical murders in this extremely clever deduction game. 

Previously if you liked Return of the Obra Dinn and wanted to play something with a similar deduction mechanic, your options were basically zero. Now they’ve increased to one! Golden Idol has a very different presentation, art style and structure to Obra Dinn, but feels like it builds on that game’s excellent game design in some great ways, producing a game that is a bit less ambitious but far more accessible. It left us feeling like geniuses.

Golden Idol is available on Steam and GOG for Windows and Mac. Expect it to take about 6 hours to complete.

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Is Pizza Tower a revival of one of platform game design’s most fascinating evolutionary dead ends, or something new?  Is it, as Shane put it, “Celeste for Weirdos?” 

Pizza Tower is available on Steam for Windows. Expect it to take about 6-8 hours to complete, but with a lot of room for additional score attack and speedrun challenges.