I abhor media that doesn’t respect your time. It seems like every streaming service is awash with shows bogged down by filler episodes [e.g. almost every anime] or tedious under-editing [Severance]. Meanwhile theaters are clogged with films so convinced of their own grandeur and cultural significance that they drone on for three-plus hours [Oppenheimer], or worse, spawn multiple unnecessary sequels [The Hobbit trilogy].
[I don’t actually “abhor” Severance or Oppenheimer, and probably just used those examples to be annoying and contrarian. Both were well made, I just would have enjoyed them much more if they were about 25% shorter.]
Games are perhaps the worst offenders in this regard… or the “best offenders”, depending on what you’re optimizing for. If you want to wring as many hours of distraction as you can from a fixed number of dollars, then there’s no art form I can think of more generous than gaming.
Which is exactly what I used to want. As a young(er) lad, I had much more time than money, so I was ecstatic when a new game offered tens or hundreds of hours of gameplay—even when many of those hours weren’t especially meaningful. These days my constraints are reversed: I can afford to purchase games at full price, but I have far less time in which to play them. I want a “big experience” without spending too much of my precious time (except for when I fall prey to Game Sickness).
Most games demand a lot of your time though, even the “good ones” that aren’t actively trying to waste it. It’s rare for a narrative game to take less than 10 or 15 hours to complete, and some are sadistically large. For example, I just started playing Persona 5 Royal, which, uh:
How long is Persona 5 Royal?
When focusing on the main objectives, Persona 5 Royal is about 101 Hours in length. If you’re a gamer that strives to see all aspects of the game, you are likely to spend around 143 Hours to obtain 100% completion.
[I’ve made a huge mistake.]
It’d be interesting to know why big-budget game developers continue to perpetuate this norm. I assume it’s “our fault”, by which I mean they make huge games because it’s what we’ll buy. If they could sell the same number of copies of a game half the size [but the same price], surely they would?
But getting into the anthropological history of game development would require actual research, so let’s forget about long games for today—let’s talk about the short ones! Games that don’t waste your time with millions of collectibles; games with relatively straightforward mechanics, that you can finish in an evening or two.
So without further ado, here are My Favorite Really Short Games For All Time Forever (until another one comes out). All six can be finished in 5 hours or less, and all will keep you thoroughly entertained (or in one case, oppressed) for their entire blissfully short duration.
A couple of these would also be in my top recommendations for any of you considering making your first steps into the bizarroworld of videogames. They don’t demand too much of your time, money, or hand-eye coordination, but they offer surprise and delight in abundance.
A Short Hike - 90 minutes
idk Claire, are you?
A Short Hike (2019) is among my favorite games of all time, and the first one I’d recommend to literally every person reading this. You play as a penguin named Claire, who gets dropped off by her mom at a hiking trail while her mom does… something else. The gameplay is clearly inspired by the climbing and gliding mechanics pioneered by Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which are used here to solve the “puzzle” of Climbing a Big Mountain, alongside the optional side-puzzles of Making Friends and Hanging Out. Also, in what will be a continuing theme throughout this article, the soundtrack is really great.
A Short Hike costs $8, but it’s so quick that you can also just come play it at my house sometime :)
Lil’ Gator Game - 3 hours
Lil’ Gator Game (2022) is a beautiful indie title that lives up to its name. It’s lil’, but every minute is sublime. [It’s also the game that inspired me to write this list.] Much like A Short Hike, the gameplay is essentially a low-budget clone of Breath of Wild’s climbing and gliding mechanics, but now plagiarized even more shamelessly by adding in rudimentary “combat” (smashing stuff) and shield-surfing (which is actually more fun here than in Zelda IMO). It’s slightly more challenging than A Short Hike, but Lil’ Gator Game keeps things thematically light, with a frequently hilarious and heartwarming story about growing up, and being emotionally vulnerable with your friends. It’s a “cozy game” through and through, with a cutesy but mischievous soundtrack to match.
Getting wet? I would never
Lil’ Gator Game is fairly new, so it costs about $20. The price will almost certainly go down in a year or two, though.
Portal - 3 hours
Portal (2007) needs no introduction to anyone who’s already in the game-o-sphere. It is, as they say, kind of a big deal. For those of you who aren’t familiar, rest assured that its fame is well deserved. I earnestly believe it should be taught in schools, though I’m not sure what course would be most appropriate… English? Physics? (Maybe not.)
At the start, you awaken in a sterile white cell, with no context for who you are or what you’re doing there. A woman’s voice, disembodied and semi-robotic, immediately starts bossing you around. She guides you out of your cell, and through her “test chambers”, room-sized puzzles that comprise the bulk of the game. She continues to guide-slash-taunt you as the puzzles get harder, teaching you the necessary tricks for navigating the human-scale rat maze you’re trapped in. To succeed, you must make use of “portals”, static passageways that teleport you instantly from one part of a room to another. Soon you learn to create portals yourself, and shit gets progressively weirder from there.
Surely the lethal sludge pit is an OSHA violation
I won’t link to the soundtrack for this one, because that would be spoilers. Rest assured there’s at least one banger in there.
Portal frequently goes on sale for at little as $1 on Steam, which is an absolute steal if you’ve never played it. It’s also old enough that it’ll run on just about any computer.
Donut County - 2 hours
Your objective in Donut County (2018) is to put things in holes. You do this by moving a portable hole across the ground. The more stuff that falls in your hole, the bigger it gets, so you can fit even more/bigger stuff in there. That’s the (w)hole game, and it’s wonderful. There’s a funny frame narrative about the jerk-wad raccoon who’s piloting the holes and his human pal, both of whom quickly get trapped in holespace, alongside a rapidly expanding cast of hapless victims.
This hole has no chill
The soundtrack for this one is especially excellent IMO. It’s somehow both relaxed and frenetic, reminding me of the chaotic freedom and irrepressible industrious energy of childhood. I still listen to some of the tracks every day on my “getting shit done” playlist.
Donut County is $13, but sometimes goes on sale for less than $4. Personally I’d say it’s worth it at either end, and this would be my #2 pick after A Short Hike for games to try if you’re totally new to the medium.
Papers, Please - 5 hours
Congratulations.
The October Labor Lottery is complete.
Your name was pulled.
cya nerd
Papers Please (2013) is a “dystopian document thriller” created by indie developer Lukas Pope. In it, you play a border crossing inspector in the fictional Eastern-Bloc nation Artstotzka. You spend the entire game inside your little booth, reading documents, and stamping them either “Approved” or “Denied” for entry. Your work is double-checked of course, and you’re rewarded or punished based on your performance. Between shifts, your meager pay goes towards necessities like rent, food, or medicine for your sick spouse. Soon the document requirements start to change, arcane rules stacking atop one another, and the bureaucracy of which you are an unwilling appendage becomes ever more obtuse. You only need to last one month to be released from compulsory service, but that’s easier said than done.
It is, in my view, a perfect piece of art, and totally unlike any other game I’ve played. Is it fun? Not exactly, but it will almost certainly make you feel something, which is what great art is all about_._ As to the music, what can I say but “Glory to Artstotzka”.
It’s well worth the $10 price tag, but sometimes goes on sale for as little as $2.
Gunpoint - 3 hours
Gunpoint (2013) is a pretty weird game, and definitely the last one I’d recommend to most folks reading this list. It has the rough edges of a “first draft”, which makes some sense, as it was the first game created by indie developer Tom Francis. I still think it rules though.
You play as Conway, a “freelance spy” who takes corporate espionage jobs in a near-future cyberpunk dystopia. To earn your paycheck, you sneak into office buildings, data warehouses, and skyscrapers to retrieve the intel your client wants. Getting spotted by a guard usually means instant death, so to make things even you need to use the environment against them. Your “crosslink” interface lets you hack into the building you’re in, rewiring doors, light switches, elevators, or even enemy weaponry. To succeed you must be creative and careful—but if you need to make a quick getaway, you also have a pair of cyber-pants that let you leap multiple stories, cling to walls, and survive a fall from any height.
The game is backed by a kickass cyber-jazz sountrack that I will forever lament not being available on Spotify.
Gunpoint is $10 on Steam, but occasionally goes on sale for as little as $2.
Honorable mentions
Short games that I didn’t love quite enough:
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Gris (2018): The art and animation are undeniably excellent, but the platforming is bog-standard, and the overall feeling of movement doesn’t hold a candle to tighter platformers like Celeste or Hollow Knight. Still, glad I played it!
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Firewatch (2016): A visually striking game and emotionally resonant game that didn’t quite hit home for me. Perhaps its most unique trait is how much it feels like “contemporary literary fiction” (more than any game I can think of, except perhaps Night in the Woods). There’s not much about the narrative that’s cliché (despite initial appearances), and that’s a real rarity in game writing.
Slightly-longer (5-10 hours) games that I also loved:
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Return of the Obra Dinn (2018): The second game by Lukas Pope, the creator of Paper’s Please. Just like its predecessor it’s a perfect piece of art, but it’s also much more “fun”. I recommend going into it knowing as little as possible about the details. Just like in Paper’s, Please the music is wonderfully thematic, but it’s not something I’d listen to outside the context of playing.
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Undertale (2015): An often-hilarious, sometimes-unsettling game about slaying monsters or making friends, depending on how you go about it. Also the music rules.
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Night in the Woods (2017): I jokingly call this game “my favorite book I’ve ever played” and I really do mean that. It’s one of the greatest pieces of Americana I’ve ever encountered, dealing with themes of friendship, love, homecoming, and desperation in an economically depressed rural town. And, for the last time: the music is so good.
What are your favorite short games? Are there any other works that you think are especially chronologically generous, like a short book, movie, or miniseries you really enjoyed? Let me know at potluckpresscorps@gmail.com.