I don’t always have time to play IF games, so it’s fun to see little games. I particularly like Chandler Groover’s creak, creak and the Twiny Jam game RPG-ish .
What’s ‘small’ is different for everyone. Is there any games you like that you consider small/short?
I am personally quite fond of Taro Ogawa’s Enlightenment, which is a one-room puzzler which takes perhaps three minutes to play… once you understand the solutions. It’s full of brilliant callbacks to Zork and similar genre conventions, and the puzzles are excellent. Actually solving the game, starting from ignorance, would likely take hours, so I’m not sure if you’d consider it super-short.
I’m a big horror fan, so for me All Alone by Ian Finley really hit the spot. I still like to play it every few months. It’s really short (maybe 5 minutes long) and doesn’t have any puzzles, but it has a great atmosphere.
Some of the reviews are a bit spoilery, just so you know.
You keep going back to it every few months; I gotta try.
Just finished All Alone by Roberts; very atmospheric and brief. Takes about 15 minutes to enjoy. Well worth checking out…
Loved the news on the television.
Adam Cadre’s “9:05” is both short and excellent.
Thanks for the suggestion!
9:05 gets the thumbs up; Very short, very cool.
Aisle by Sam Barlow (IFDB, Wikipedia) is a well-known and interesting short game, where you only have one move before reaching an ending (but you can try a wide variety of actions to see different endings).
are spoilers forbidden here? re: Aisle.
No, but it is considered courteous to put them inside spoiler tags: [spoiler]secret stuff[/spoiler].
It will appear blurred like this: secret stuff
re: Aisle something violent and bloody happened in Rome with Clare; details do not go beyond that, am I correct?
I’ve read some reviews that laud this game’s depth; that’s why I am asking…
Well, there is at least one action which gives a slightly more specific description of events: (big spoiler ahead -->) remember accident.
On the other hand, as the opening screen says:
“You will be asked to define the story by controlling one instant in the life of
the man whose story it is. Your intervention will begin and end the
story. But be warned; there are many stories and not all of the stories
are about the same man.”
So, given that this appears in the game’s opening screen, I think it’s only a very mild spoiler (if at all) when I say: it’s not the case that there’s one consistent story which would be slowly uncovered by finding all aspects of it. There are endings/stories which plainly contradict each other. One would either have to explain these away somehow, or rather approach the game as if one is cooperating with it to generate interesting moments and stories, so to speak.
Usually, when I read mystery stories or watch thrillers, I prefer puzzling together one coherent definitive narrative, in contrast to an open-ended “put your own interpretation on events”.
But I think Aisle can be fun in both ways – you can fit some pieces of the puzzle together, giving you a more detailed picture than just one puzzle piece would give you; but you should also be prepared to enjoy other pieces on their own, because they don’t seem to connect to the others.
I think the depth lies both
i agree with you - it’s implementation is quite thoughtful and unique. i just thought that I may have been missing something grand, but it is a subtle depth.
here’s my best discovery in it:
hit woman with trolley
“Out” from last IFcomp 2019 I found pretty cute, and it’s really short, but still kind of surprising.
I was thinking about making a post (after playing many Short Games Showcase games) asking people’s favorite short games. I searched the forums and found I already had a post from 2020.
What are people’s favorite short games now? I should point out that many of the answers above take at least 15 minutes, while a lot of Neo-Twiny Jam or Single Choice jam games take 5 minutes or less. So what really short games do you like?
I still see Creak Creak as my ideal short game. Here is a list of games I’ve played that take 15 minutes or less, sorted from highest rated to lowest rated, just to throw some out there:
I gotta go Party Arty, Man of La Munchies, which is like a comedy sketch but in text adventure form, as my favorite IF short game.
I am particularly fond of Ryan Veeder’s NEST! It’s a cute little puzzle, both funny and frustrating.
Trenchline by @jjmcc
NYX is probably one of mine. Very well written, great idea. Something about it resonates woth me, and I don’t know what it is.
Could never get into Creak, Creak. Felt not quite interesting. I don’t know, that’s just me though.
Fail-Safe is pretty good, too.
Oh also, on the Twine side:
You promise by @pieartsy and Jake Gardner.