Shownotes

This week we are renewing our Apple Arcade subscriptions and talking about some of the games we’ve checked out since the debut of the service.

00:01:57: Wonderbox
00:07:42: Hitchhiker
00:14:40: A Monster’s Expedition
00:21:40: Sneaky Sasquatch
00:31:11: Clap Hanz Golf
00:41:05: Assorted App Store Greats, Music Games, Etc.
00:51:59: Sp!ng & lumen.
00:55:52: Listener Recommendations and Other Games We Are Looking Forward To Trying

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

Before Your Eyes is a short narrative game that uses your real life blinks (monitored via your PC’s webcam) as your primary interaction. It’s also an extremely moving story, well written and performed, about what makes a life valuable. You play as Benjamin Brynn, a deceased soul reviewing the moments of his life, but each time you blink, each moment is lost.

Shane and Raygan both found this 1.5 hour experience extremely effecting and emotional, and we strongly recommend it. It’s available on Steam and the Epic Game Store for Windows.

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

Better late than never! This week we are looping back to our promised IFComp 2020 wrap-up, and discussing the four games in the top 10 that we didn’t cover during our colossal four-part coverage last fall. This was a truly colossal comp, and all of the top games are worth your time. This year’s top 10 included two mathematically unlikely ties (!) and included games in a variety of genres and styles from both new and returning authors!

00:04:48: 1st Place (tie): The Impossible Bottle by Linus Åkesson
00:39:10: Places 3 -7
00:44:49: 8th Place (tie): A Murder In Fairyland by Abigail Corfman
00:56:47: 8th Place (tie): Stuff of Legend by Lance Campbell
01:08:05: 10th Place: Sense of Harmony by Scenario World
01:17:44: What’s Making Us Happy This Week

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
• Laura Nash – @laurajnash

This week we’re reminiscing about the ultimate short game machine, the Game Boy, with special guest Jordan Starkweather. Jordan is a host of the Pocketoid podcast, the internet’s longest-running handheld gaming podcast, and also runs @CRTPixels, a popular Twitter account documenting retro games the way they were designed to look. We had a lot of fun reminiscing about the Game Boy with Jordan, and sharing some of our favorite games for the system.

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
• Laura Nash – @laurajnash
• Jordan Starkweather – @jackal27

Laura and Raygan dive into this character focused kingdom management simulator about a royal family having a really, really bad year.

Yes, Your Grace is available on PC/Xbox (and included in Game Pass for both platforms) as well as Nintendo Switch. Expect it to take about 6 hours to complete.

This week Raygan and Shane have been spending time with Hardspace: Shipbreaker, an early access spaceship salvage simulator that is just on the verge of releasing its first real story content. We’ve been following this game since its initial release into early access last year and it seemed like a good time to revisit it to see how it’s coming along.

This episode’s “what’s making us happy this week” segment also might be the most digression-heavy we’ve ever had. Hope you like pizza and the film career of Nicolas Cage.

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

This week we are talking abut some of the long game experiences we’ve had going in between short games lately. Nate talks about deck-building RPG SteamWorld Quest, Raygan has been playing (ugh) Cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption II, and Laura talks about playing the Mario 3D All Stars collection.

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

A nameless hero trudges endlessly through a world of darkness, walking an endless path and fighting the confused and desperate monsters of his forgotten homeland. Is the lost world even worth remembering, or worth saving?

We’re going around and around with Loop Hero, a game from developer Four Quarters and published by Devolver Digital for PC/Mac. Loop Hero combines hands off auto-battle combat with surprisingly deep rogue-lite systems for character upgrades and progression, a really compelling combination.

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 are talking about Ghostrunner, a first person platforming cyberpunk action slice-em-up tough-as-nails wallrunning robot ninja game from Polish developer One More Level. This game grabbed us and would not let us go.

Ghostrunner is available and looks and plays great on practically every platform under the sun from high end gaming PCs to the humble Nintendo Switch. How long it takes you to complete is likely to vary widely by skill level, with How Long To Beat rating it at around 6 hours but all of us finding it taking between 10 and 15.

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

A Hand With Many Fingers by Colestia is a first person conspiracy research game. Using advanced tools such as a card catalog and a cork board, uncover the real life spy thriller mystery of Nugen Hand Bank, an Australian merchant bank with ties to drug smuggling, organized crime, and the CIA.

A Hand With Many Fingers is available on Steam and itch.io, where it is Pay What You Can. A demo is also available on itch.io. Expect it to take about two 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
• Nate Heininger – @natestl
• Laura Nash – @laurajnash