The Short Game

The Short Game attempts to discuss an entire genre-defying medium of game design: text-based interactive fiction. That’s right, we’re talking about old-school text adventures, but also newer developments like Twine games and more interactive text driven games. We discuss the history of interactive fiction, the interactive fiction scene today, and recommend a number of games that might be good for beginners or anyone interested in a good interactive read. Please forgive our decrease in audio quality this week; we were traveling and recording under less-than-ideal conditions. (Lots of) Links for this episode: Colossal Cave Adventure Zork Interview with the creators of Zork, in the form of a text adventure Infocom Feelies Planetfall Feelies Bureaucracy Feelies Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Infocom Adventure Twine – an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories Inform – a design system for creating parser IF IFComp – An annual celebration of new, text-driven digital games and stories from independent creators. Lost Treasures of Infocom for iOS IFDB – Interactive Fiction Database Emily Short on the IFDB Galatea by Emily Short Frotz for iOS – A great application for playing parser-based IF on iOS Child’s Play Savoir-Faire The Dreamhold – A free IF adventure designed for people who’ve never played IF before, by master IF designer Andrew Plotkin. Our highest recommendation for newcomers! Spider and Web Lost Pig Choice of the Dragon Counterfeit Monkey Creatures Such As We – IFComp winner, “A dating sim about how humanity connects through art, even out in the vastness of space.” King of Dragon Pass Fallen London aka Echo Bazaar Icebound Xyzzy Awards Spring Thing People’s Republic of Interactive Fiction – How to Play Card Brass Lantern – Beginners Page Inform (parser-based) Interactive Fiction Interpreters Hadean Lands by Andrew Plotkin 80 Days Blood & Laurels You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame Your hosts this week were: Raygan Kelly – @raygank Shane Kelly – @8bitShane Laura Nash – @laurajnash

The fourth game in the Call of Juarez series is its first download-only title. Gunslinger follows Silas Greaves, an over-the-top bounty hunter, whose narration carries the show and whose quest for vengeance drives the plot. Gunslinger was overlooked by many because its predecessor in the series, Call of Juarez: The Cartel, was so poorly received. In 2013, it was also unusual for a large publisher like Ubisoft to release a game in a download-only format, and many took this as a statement on the game’s quality. The game was well received, however, with many positive reviews. Gunslinger combines the pervasive, unreliable narrator of a game like Bastion with reliably fun arcade-style shooting style and a story straight out of an old west dime novel. It’s a ton of fun. Expect the game to take about 5 hours to complete. Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is available for the following platforms: Windows PC (Steam) – $15 Also available in a double pack with Far Cry 4: Blood Dragon – $24.99 Playstation 3 (PSN) – $15 Xbox 360 (Xbox Live) – $15 You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame Your hosts this week were: Raygan Kelly – @raygank Nate Heininger – @natestl

In the final show for 2014, we are counting down our picks for The Short Game game of the year: 3 – Shovel Knight Shovel Knight is an incredible throwback to the NES, but with a modern indie game energy. Arguably the best platformer of the last decade. Available for PC, Mac, Linux, Wii U, and 3DS, and coming soon to PS3, PS4, and PS Vita. 2 – A tie between Threes and A Dark Room These two simple iOS games really captured us, but for very different reasons. Threes is the most perfect, simple puzzle game since Tetris, and A Dark Room begins as a simple text-driven adventure but iterates its way out into a deep emotional journey. Both games are definitive mobile game experiences you shouldn’t miss. 1 – Game of the Year: Transistor Transistor by Super Giant Games blew us away with its beautiful art and deep, fun action-RPG combat. It’s a nearly perfect game that shows you a lot in your first 6-7 hour play through, but rewards dedicated players with a new-game-plus mode that expands on the combat system in really compelling ways. This game is destined to be a classic. Pick it up on PC, Mac, or Linux (Steam) or PS4. Personal Picks We each also wanted to mention a game that we thought deserved special attention, even though it didn’t place in our rankings. Laura – Lords of Waterdeep for iOS This iOS adaptation of the Wizards of the Coast board game shines as a great pass-and-play experience. Nate – FTL: Advanced Edition This free expansion to the incredible FTL: Faster than Light reinvigorated Nate’s unhealthy obsession with this short but infinitely re-playable rogue-like. Shane – Nidhogg Nominally a fencing game, Nidhogg is actually a tool designed to destroy relationships. An accessible one-on-one fighting game like no other. Raygan – Freedom Planet Freedom Planet came seemingly out of nowhere and destroyed my life for a weekend. It’s a pitch-perfect homage to the classic 16-bit Sonic the Hedgehog games, but expanded into new territory. It’s fiendishly difficult too. Don’t let the off-putting anime-styled cartoon animal characters put you off this incredible platformer. (You can turn off the dialogue and cutscenes if you wish.) Also discussed – Crypt of the Necrodancer It’s a rogue-like you can play on a DDR-style dance pad. What’s not to love? 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

A Dark Room is an incredibly simple and yet incredibly deep and even moving game, unexpected qualities in the “idle games” genre. From the App Store page, you begin with this simple and evocative description: “Awake. Head throbbing. Vision blurry. Come light the fire.” A Dark Room was such a sensation that it has been written about at length even in publications not known for gaming coverage. For example, this great article from The New Yorker: A Dark Room: The Best-Selling Game That No One Can Explain. Availability A Dark Room began as a web-game that you can play in a browser tab while you work. That version is still available here. The definitive version is the iOS port, available for iPhone and iPad. – $0.99 Expect the game to take 2-3 hours to complete depending on your play style. The iOS version includes a developers commentary and additional challenge mode following the completion of the main game. Links Cookie Clicker Touch Arcade review of A Dark Room NimbleBit – makers of numerous quality idle games for iOS Banished The Ensign – Prequel to A Dark Room Space Happens – A Kickstarter-funded web series by Laura Nash and friends, premiering this month! “A satire developed, written & produced by women in comedy. A slash fic between feminism and science fiction. In witty webseries form.” Bear Hive – Nate’s awesome band, now with an album on BandCamp, Spotify, and iTunes! 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

In this special Thanksgiving holiday edition of The Short Game, we talk bout some of our favorite long games. We named this show the wrong thing! Shortisodes are a break from our regular format; a chance to talk briefly about… whatever we want. We’ll be back next week with a regular episode, covering A Dark Room. Links for this episode: Our FTL episode Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim by Bethesda – Steam link The Witcher 2 by CD Projekt Red Great episode on Dishonored from Watch Out For Fireballs World of Warcraft Raygan’s Note: I was wrong about the Mac release date. I guess I was just remembering that I didn’t have a Mac that could run it well at the time. Divinity: Original Sin Knights of the Old Republic Raygan’s Note: I was wrong about this release date too; the game came out in 2003, Star Wars: Episode I came out in 1999. Knights of the Old Republic for iPhone & iPad The Mass Effect series Banished SimAnt New Super Mario Bros. U Earthbound on the Wii U

Update: It took some time after playing this game to get to know the developer, Adrian Chmielarz, on Twitter and through his other writing. While we feel this game is an interesting technical and artistic achievement, we are uncomfortable with Mr. Chmielarz outspoken support of GamerGate and his positions on the social politics of the game industry in general. If the politics of the creator plays into your choice of games, you may wish to read some of Mr. Chmielarz writing before choosing to play this otherwise interesting game. This week we discuss The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, a narrative explanation game with elements of horror and adventure games. In Vanishing, you play Paul Prospero, a detective with supernatural powers, who has been summoned to rural Red Creek Valley by Ethan Carter, a bright but troubled young boy. As you progress through the game you will investigate the mysteriously empty but hauntingly beautiful setting, and uncover the mystery behind your invitation. Expect the game to take between two and five hours to complete. This game prompted a lot of great discussion; let us know what you think! Availability You can purchase the game on Steam or GOG (Windows only) for just $20. Links for this episode: Bear Hive on BandCamp – Nate’s new album! Pay what you want! THE SHORT GAMES REVOLUTION – The Astronauts Blog VISUAL REVOLUTION OF THE VANISHING OF ETHAN CARTER – The Astronauts Blog – Here the Astronauts describe using “photogrammetry” to create high resolution textures and objects for the game with a minimum of tiling textures HOLY GRAIL OF NARRATIVE GAMES, OR HOW TO TELL A STORY THROUGH GAMEPLAY – The Astronauts Blog – The lead developer Adrian Chmielarz gives a talk at Digital Dragons 2014 on creating games that merge story and gameplay ON THE VANISHING OF ETHAN CARTER’S ENDING (EXTREME SPOILERS) – The Astronauts Blog – The developer comments on the ending. Do not read this if you haven’t completed the game.

The shocking conclusion to last week’s episode!   Gary Butterfield of Watch Out For Fireballs joins us for an extra-long episode on the groundbreaking adventure game The Walking Dead by Telltale games. This is a game that we’ve been dying to talk about since we launched the show, and we couldn’t be happier to have Gary on to give his take. A brief programming note about this week’s episode: We had so much fun recording this episode that we ran very long, so we’re bringing you this episode in two parts. This is part two. If you haven’t listened to part one, you can find it here. Links for this episode Super Mario Lab: 4VGbyVG Watch Out for Fireballs! – Gary’s excellent retro gaming podcast Gary’s blog Super Dinosaur by Robert Kirkman Gary and the rest of the Duckfeed.tv crew are doing a 24 hour charity livestream event! Duckstream 2014 NOVEMBER 21st starting at 6PM PST. 24 hours of charity streaming from your friends at Duckfeed.tv. All proceeds go to Transactive. Transactive provides a holistic range of services to empower transgender and gender nonconforming children, youth and their families. Availability You can get this game for just a few bucks on basically anything that will show pictures on a screen. Rather than try to link to everything, I’m just going to link to Telltale’s purchase page. We played the game on Steam for Mac & PC as well as on an Xbox 360, but it is also available on PS3, both the PS4 and Xbox One, and on iOS and Android including Android micro consoles like the Ouya.

This week, we talk about zombies.   Gary Butterfield of Watch Out For Fireballs joins us for an extra-long episode on the groundbreaking adventure game The Walking Dead by Telltale games. This is a game that we’ve been dying to talk about since we launched the show, and we couldn’t be happier to have Gary on to give his take. A brief programming note about this week’s episode: We had so much fun recording this episode that we ran very long, so we’re bringing you this episode in two parts. This part begins with about a half hour of general discussion of the game, followed by about an hour of discussing the game’s plot up to about the half way point. Next week we’ll be bringing you the conclusion of this episode, which clocks in at about forty additional minutes. Links for this episode Super Mario Lab: 4VGbyVG Watch Out for Fireballs! – Gary’s excellent retro gaming podcast Gary’s blog Super Dinosaur by Robert Kirkman Gary and the rest of the Duckfeed.tv crew are doing a 24 hour charity livestream event! Duckstream 2014 NOVEMBER 21st starting at 6PM PST. 24 hours of charity streaming from your friends at Duckfeed.tv. All proceeds go to Transactive. Transactive provides a holistic range of services to empower transgender and gender nonconforming children, youth and their families. Availability You can get this game for just a few bucks on basically anything that will show pictures on a screen. Rather than try to link to everything, I’m just going to link to Telltale’s purchase page. We played the game on Steam for Mac & PC as well as on an Xbox 360, but it is also available on PS3, both the PS4 and Xbox One, and on iOS and Android including Android micro consoles like the Ouya.

The Short Game is experimenting with our format this week, and you’re the guinea pig! We’re calling these shortisodes; half-length (or less) episodes in which we break from our regular format of talking in depth about one game per episode and talk instead about… whatever we want! This will allow us to still get something in your feed each week (cough late cough) while we move to our bi-weekly-ish format. In this, our first shortisode, we discuss some of the points raised in Ben Kuchera’s recent Polygon article, “To hell with longer games, tell me how SHORT your game is.” We couldn’t agree more. Links for this episode: To hell with longer games, tell me how SHORT your game is – Polygon THE VANISHING OF ETHAN CARTER REVIEW: DISAPPEARING TRICK – Polygon The Entertainment Software Association – Industry Facts – The average age of a game player is 31, average age of a game purchaser is 35! The Short Games Revolution – Adrian Chmielarz City Connection Teslagrad You can follow our show on Twitter at @_shortgame Your hosts this week were: Raygan Kelly – @raygank Shane Kelly – @8bitShane

This week, Laura joins us again to discuss Little Inferno, a game so unique that it defies description. Here, we’ll give it a go: Little Inferno is a game in which you order items from catalogs, burn them in a beautiful interactive fireplace, and somehow this earns you more money to buy more things to burn. Sound intriguing? We didn’t think so! Yet somehow, developers Tomorrow Corporation (of World of Goo fame) turn this strange, casual game concept into a two-to-four hour experience that we all found deeply emotionally and intellectually satisfying. If you’re into games as art and games as culture, you’ll want to check this one out. A great and utterly unique game, and a great episode of The Short Game. Availability Little Inferno on the Wii U eShop – $9.99 Little Inferno on Steam for Mac, PC, and Linux – $9.99 Little Inferno for iOS (iPad and iPhone) – $4.99 Little Inferno for Android – $2.99 Previously offered as a part of Humble Indie Bundle 8. Links Muppet Character Birthdays – The Muppet Wiki Bit Brigade plays Mega Man 2 – YouTube Bit Brigade on iTunes Metroid Metal – BandCamp Slime Girls – Vacation Wasteland EP (The source of our AWESOME theme song) Slime Girls on StoreEnvy – Pre-Order the Vacation Wasteland EP Cassette! Mortal Kombat Theme Song, 10 Hours – YouTube Star Trek TNG Ambient Engine Noise (Idling for 24 hrs) Jhonen Vasquez Cow Clicker, a Facebook game about Facebook games by Ian Bogost Little Inferno’s message explained by Tomorrow Corporation – Digital Spy 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