A voice is saying your name. A WWII-era machine, long hidden in a church basement, whirs to life. Through a crackling speaker, a man asks you to find a stolen book. He only knows the title. Time is running out.

Inkle has made a Database Thriller. An Interface Game. Or are we just calling these SamBarlow-likes? And it's a taut 4 hours, and just $7, which is also five bucks.

• (00:00) - TR-49

This week we are talking about Absolum, a roguelike beat 'em up from Streets of Rage 4 developers Guard Crush Games and publisher Dotemu. This was one of those games that would probably have been near the top of our 2025 GOTY list if we'd managed to all play and discuss it before the end of the year. It combines the incredible beat 'em up mechanics from Streets of Rage 4 with Hades-style progression mechanics. It really kicks ass. There's also one of our classic slightly too long digressions about the Steam Deck and Linux about 33 minutes in. Sorry, and you're welcome.

• (00:00) - Absolum

We're continuing to shake the cobwebs out of the podcast, and this week we're bringing you our coverage of IFComp 2025. Normally we cover the whole competition with multiple episodes as its running, but this year we didn't quite manage that. We couldn't escape 2025 without talking about the comp some though. In this "lost" episode (recorded in late October 2025) we discuss some of the games we had time to check out this year, including a few of the top winners. 

We'll be releasing a patron exclusive "what's making us happy" episode next week (join us on Patreon!) followed by an episode on Absolum. See you in 2026!

• (00:00) - Intro & Welcome

It's been a weird year, but we're ready to round up the best Short Games of 2025! We're also awarding our other highly prized honors like Dirtbag of the Year and Most "Little Guy who Goes Around."

This might be the last episode of 2025, but it's also the first episode of The Short Game Season 2. We figured 444 episodes was enough for Season 1, and we are changing up our format slightly. We're looking forward to a great new year!

• (00:00) - Short Game Game of the Year 2025

After a somewhat unplanned summer break, the Short Game crew is returning to talk about the fourth chapter of Deltarune!

• (00:00) - 444: Deltarune Chapter 4

The Steam Deck is the number one console(ish) platform for playing ILLEGAL GAMES that Nintendo doesn’t want you to play! This week we’re talking about games that STEAL intellectual property from the RICH FAT CATS at Nintendo and their cronies and remix it into FREE GAMES for the PEOPLE.

• (00:00) - 443: Fan Games on Steam Deck

Toby Fox is back, and it’s TV TIME!

Previously:

• (00:00) - 422: Deltarune Chapter 3

From the depths of Steam and YouTube comes ENA, a strange polygonal girl in a surreal hypercapitalist dreamscape. Your hosts were left wondering what the hell this was all about, and why is it so incredibly beautifully animated?

• (00:00) - ENA: Dream BBQ

Indie game royalty Blendo aka Brendan Chung, creator of Thirty Flights of Loving and Quadrilateral Cowboy among others has come out of his cicada-like 7 year dev cycle with another instant classic. Skin Deep is an immersive sim about popping the detachable heads off of space pirates and flushing them down space toilets in order to save a bunch of talking space cats. It’s an easily the funniest and probably one of the best immersive sims ever made.

• (00:00) - 440: Skin Deep

A video game memoir by Ecuadorian indie developers Julián Cordero and Sebastian Valbuena, and published by Panic, Despelote takes you back to a childhood in 2001 Ecuador, and the magical grip soccer held over the entire country during the lead-up to the 2002 World Cup.

This is something we have never seen in video games before.

• (00:00) - 439: Despelote