An Apple Arcade original that is finally making its way out into gen pop, South of the Circle is a film-like narrative game set in the Cold War 60s. It alternates between a climate scientist struggling to survive after an antarctic plane crash, and his memories of the people and events that lead him to this dangerous moment.

We start the episode with a pretty lengthy discussion of the state of Apple Arcade, which has just had its first game delistings, and at 34:55 talk about what’s making us happy this week, before our spoiler break at 52:30.

South of the Circle is available on all the current Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo Switch consoles as well as on Steam and GOG on PC. The Apple Arcade version is still available for iOS, iPad OS, tvOS, and Mac. Expect the game to take 3-4 hours to complete.

The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episodes, and talk about what we are playing in real time. You can also support us by writing a review on Apple Podcasts!

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Your hosts this week were:

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

It’s the cat game everyone is talking about, but it still managed to surprise us. While we had some nits to pick, the charming kitty protagonist and incredible lived-in spaces kept us tapping our toe-beans.

The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episodes, and talk about what we are playing in real time. You can also support us by writing a review on Apple Podcasts!

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Your hosts this week were:

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

Prompted by the fact that all four of our hosts recently got the Miyoo Mini emulator handheld, the hosts chat about the device itself and what retro games we’ve been playing on it.

The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episodes, and talk about what we are playing in real time. You can also support us by writing a review on Apple Podcasts!

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Your hosts this week were:

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

Ludum Dare 50 winner Shotgun King is a wild twist on chess, with dashes of roguelike deckbuilding and a scattering of buckshot. As the Black King, all your subjects have abandoned you. Face off against the White King and all his pieces armed only with your royal shotgun. 

The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episodes, and talk about what we are playing in real time. You can also support us by writing a review on Apple Podcasts!

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Your hosts this week were:

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

Somehow the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles became one of the most persistent media properties of our lifetimes, yet it’s been years since a good Turtles game came along. Shredder’s Revenge is reverent of the old Konami turtles games almost to a fault, but it’s lots of fun and fueled a lot of nostalgia even for those of us who didn’t think we were big turtles fans.

The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episodes, and talk about what we are playing in real time. You can also support us by writing a review on Apple Podcasts!

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Your hosts this week were:

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

This week we played Citizen Sleeper, the second game from In Other Waters developer Jump Over The Age, solo developer Gareth Damian Martin. Citizen Sleeper is a narrative game with mechanics inspired by tabletop games and visual novels. It tells the story of a Sleeper, a human consciousness in a robot body, who has escaped their corporate masters and washed up on a lawless post-revolutionary space station. It’s a great story of disability, community building, and transhumanism, and it’s one of the best games we’ve played this year.

The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episodes, and talk about what we are playing in real time. You can also support us by writing a review on Apple Podcasts!

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Your hosts this week were:

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

Now’s your chance to be a big shot! We‘re all caught up on Deltarune, and now we have to wait forever for the next chapter just like everyone else. Torture!

The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episodes, and talk about what we are playing in real time. You can also support us by writing a review on Apple Podcasts!

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Your hosts this week were:

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

FRANKEN is a short, free RPG parody from solo indie developer splendidland, and at least to my taste it’s one of the funniest games I’ve ever played. You owe it to yourself to Jordan Starkweather from the excellent Pocketoid podcast joins us to talk about the game and how it lovingly comments on the RPG genre. 

Laura is away this week due to an apartment move (congrats!) and Shane is out due to injury (ouch!) so thanks to Jordan for being a pinch hitter!  (See Nate, I can make sports metaphors too!)

The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episodes, and talk about what we are playing in real time. You can also support us by writing a review on Apple Podcasts!

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Your hosts this week were:

• Raygan Kelly – @raygank
• Nate Heininger – @natestl
• Jordan Starkweather – @jackal27

Turnip Boy is an immediate contender for our dirtbag of the year award. This game packs a lot of jokes into its 2-ish hours, some of which are even funny!

Check out the game on Nintendo Switch, Windows/Mac, iOS, Xbox One, and the Xbox Series S/X platforms, where it was recently added to Game Pass.

The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episodes, and talk about what we are playing in real time. You can also support us by writing a review on Apple Podcasts!

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Your hosts this week were:

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

Since the 90s, Panic has been known as a creator of playful, functional software. Then, nearly two decades into their existence they took an unexpected swerve into video game publishing. During that time they also managed to somehow grow a weird idea for a corporate gift into a brand new handheld video game platform. The Playdate!

The Playdate is a tiny handheld video game console, kind of like a quirky modern Game Boy, with a crank on the side. It feels like a strange merger of retro and modern, with a high resolution 1-bit black and white display, and a “Season” model for game distribution where every Playdate receives new games automatically over the internet, two a week for 12 weeks after you unbox it. It’s really neat.

Short Game Bird Correspondent Mark Bramhill joins us for this episode. Mark interviewed the Panic team about the history of their MP3 player application Audion for his incredible Welcome to Macintosh podcast (it’s a great listen!) and talks about seeing prototype Playdate hardware all the way back in 2016!

• Welcome to Macintosh Episode 12: Don’t Panic! 
• Panic’s Playdate Podcast 
• Laura’s $6 Playdate Stand 

The Short Game is supported directly by our listeners on Patreon! Supporters at any level get access to our Discord, where we discuss games, plan episodes, and talk about what we are playing in real time. You can also support us by writing a review on Apple Podcasts!

You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame

Your hosts this week were:

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