It’s been a great year, and we played some great games. It’s our Game of the Year special for 2022! 

In addition to our Game of the Year, we’re handing out lots of honors and superlatives, some returning like our coveted Dirtbag of the Year award, and some new that you’ll need to listen to discover!

Patrons also have access to our unedited planning session, if you want to hear how the sausage was made for some reason.

Happy New Year!

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:

• (00:00) - Introduction

BANG! BANG! CHOP! CHOP! In this single-sitting first-person shooter, you gotta chop some goblins before they chop you. Other times you gotta shoot, stake, shotgun, or impale them. Because once chop goblins are loosed across time and space, someone’s gotta stop ’em. And that someone is you. (Because you set them free in the first place.)

Chop Goblins was a surprise end-of-year release by the creator of Iron Lung, DUSK, and Squirrel Stapler — and it’s available now on Steam for Windows. The game takes 30 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on your skill level.

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:

• (00:00) - Intro

This week, we’re revisiting an episode for a game that many of you have probably played: Portal. On December 11, Nvidia released a remastered version called “Portal RTX” with upgraded, ray-traced graphics (fancy) — and if you own it on Steam, you’ve automatically got a copy. This shiny new coat of paint is a great excuse to boot up Portal and remember how very awesome it is.

Even back at episode 10, we were convinced the game was a stone-cold classic. Raygan and Shane break down the qualities that made the game so successful, and its widespread impact on gaming in general.

Once again, we command you: GO PLAY PORTAL AGAIN!

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:

Fans of medieval manuscripts, murder mysteries and marginalia, rejoice! Pentiment is here to fill your Northern Renaissance needs. Raygan and Laura discuss this rich tale of abbeys, intrigue, and 16th century life in the Bavarian Alps. Do we describe the classic book Name of the Rose as “a vibe”? How do we feel about Big Head Mode? Will we accuse innocent people of murder? Dear listener, there is only one way to find out…

Pentiment is available on PC/XBox (Gamepass), and is a little on the long side for us at 12-15 hours.

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:

• (00:00) - Introduction

This week’s episode is a little early and lightly edited, since we are all busy with Thanksgiving. Just a quick, fun conversation about things we were thankful for in gaming in 2022! Back to regularly scheduled programming with Pentiment next week. Happy Thanksgiving!

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
• Laura Nash – @laurajnash

• (01:41) - Raygan - The Year The Vaporware Handhelds Materialized

Now we’re thinking with time reversals! The Entropy Centre is a first-person puzzler set in a collapsing space station on the brink of the end of the world. But it’s not all doom and gloom, for there’s a cheerful robot inside your entropy gun to help you rebuild pillars and reheat tea. Expect it to take 8-12 hours, depending on how good you are at brain-bendy puzzles.

The Entropy Centre is available on XBox, PlayStation, Steam, and GOG.

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
• Laura Nash – @laurajnash

• (00:00) - The Entropy Centre

Mosey on over to this here podcast fer some of the worst accents this side of the Mississippi — it’s time to cover Card Cowboy, yeehaw! Saddle up to take revenge on the Gunman who killed your dad, wooed your mom, and kicked your dog. Card Cowboy is basically Western mad libs and we’re happy as hornets. Each playthrough takes about 30 minutes. (Yall make sure to pick up the Steam version, which is fully voice acted.)

What’s been making us happy this week:

• Nate: Marvel Snap
• Laura: The Great Pupkin Costume Contest (photos and more photos)
• Shane: Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities

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:

• Shane Kelly – @8bitShane
• Nate Heininger – @natestl
• Laura Nash – @laurajnash

• (00:00) - Introduction

This week, we pick back up our coverage of IFComp 2022 with seven more games:

• Into The Sun by Dark Star
• The Absence of Miriam Lane by Abigail Corfman
• Admiration Point by Rachel Helps
• Star Tripper by Sam Ursu
• To Persist/Exist/Endure, Press 1 by Anthony O
• The Only Possible Prom Dress by Jim Aikin
• Trouble in Sector 471 by Arthur DiBianca

Let us know if you’ve got a favorite we haven’t reviewed yet, and we’ll do our best to check it out before judging on November 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
• Laura Nash – @laurajnash

• (00:00) - Intro

We love a game that respects our time. But what if you don’t have *any* time? Do two things at once, of course!

To celebrate Raygan’s return amidst new baby mode, we praise games that let us multitask — whether we’re watching tv, listening to podcasts, or even completing a chore or two.

When should you multitask? When shouldn’t you? What sorts of games are good fits? What games require every single bit of your attention? All this and more!

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

• (00:00) - Intro & Raygan Life Update

The leaves are turning, the air is brisk, and we are feeling our seasonal feelings by re-releasing our episode on Night in the Woods. This game’s not only giving us autumnal vibes, it also was one of our 2017 games of the year — we even created the inaugural “Dirtbag of the Year” award to capture our love for Mae Borowski.

If you’re new to Night in the Woods, it’s a story-focused adventure game about a college dropout returning home to a distressed mining town, Possum Springs. It’s about reconnecting with your friends and finding things aren’t the same as when you left.

Also, everyone is a talking animal.

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

• (00:00) - Intro