Oh-oo-oh, we’re Talkin’ ’bout Bugsnax.

We covered Young Horses previous game, Octodad: Dadliest Catch way back in 2014, and here in 2021 they’re back with a new and even weirder game. Bugsnax sends you on a mission to Snacktooth Island, a mysterious place populated by Bugsnax, which are half bug half snack creatures that cause weird, body horror effects in those lucky enough to eat them. This game was a ton of fun.

Bugsnax is available for PS4 and PS5, and on PC/Mac via the Epic Game Store. Expect it to take between 6 and 12 hours to complete depending on your commitment to catching every Bugsnak.

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

• (45:35) - Spoiler Break

Eliza is a near-future sci-fi story about the culture of tech, mental health, and the moral and ethical questions around the creation, use, and misuse of the eponymous AI counseling program, Eliza. It’s one of the most thought provoking stories we’ve ever seen in a video game.

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) - Eliza

We loved Carto, a friendly little puzzle adventure from developer Sunhead Games. It’s a breezy adventure that combines Carcassonne-style map tile laying puzzles with a cute adventure story full of sweet characters in a very strange world. It’s available on pretty much every platform under the sun.

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) - Carto

In this “Narrative Exploration Game” by Gareth Damian Martin you play as an AI that inhabits an advanced dive suit worn by scientist Ellery Vas as she explores a distant planet and encounters alien life for humanity’s first time. As an AI, you experience the world through a beautiful but cryptic user interface, and through Ellery’s description of the world around her.

In Other Waters is available for Windows, Mac, and the Nintendo Switch. Expect it to take between, 4 and 10 hours to complete.

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

• (37:48) - What’s Making Us Happy This Week?

Transistor was The Short Game’s first Game of the Year, all the way back in 2014. This week we are re-releasing that episode, with some fresh Making us Happy in the intro. We’ll be back to our regular schedule next week!

Thanks for sticking with us in 2020. We can’t wait to see what next year brings.

00:03:20: Game of the Year 2020: Kentucky Route Zero
00:12:44: Shane’s Pick: Streets of Rage 4
00:20:37: Shane’s Bonus Pick: Grindstone
00:28:04: Nate’s Pick: Wide Ocean Big Jacket
00:31:20: Dirtbag of the Year: Mord
00:34:12: Raygan’s Pick: Blaseball
00:43:53: Laura’s Pick: Signs of the Sojourner
00:49:18: Non-2020 Games We Loved In 2020
00:58:00: Other Memorable 2020 Gaming Experiences
01:05:47: Outro

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

• (03:20) - Game of the Year 2020: Kentucky Route Zero

Reigns developer Nerial worked with interactive fiction luminary Emily Short to adapt George Orwell’s classic allegory of the Russian revolution to video game form. But is it a farming simulator?

Animal Farm is available for iOS and PC/Mac. A play-through is around 90 minutes to 2 hours, with many possible endings.

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

Abzu developer Giant Squid and publisher Annapurna Interactive released The Pathless last month, in a strange launch that positioned the game as one of the first “next-gen” indies while quietly also making it available on current gen consoles, PC, and even across all the devices that are part of Apple Arcade. It’s a departure from the Journey-derived style of Abzu but still brings some of that DNA, and blends it with an open world, Breath of the Wild inspired design.

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

• (52:12) - What’s Making Us Happy This Week

Hades isn’t short! But we’re covering it anyway because we’re Supergiant Games superfans. We’re joined by friend of the show and Hades speedrunner Robert Hawks aka Rubella aka The Patron Saint of Bird Week, who helps us talk about the late game stuff we haven’t seen yet. Did we mention this game is long!?

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
• Robert Hawks – @JesterRubella

• (00:00) - Hades

We needed a low-prep episode for this holiday week, so we’re taking your questions! Thanks to our patrons and listeners who sent in their questions.

We’d like to make this a recurring feature of the show, so if you have questions for the hosts, send them to us via Discord, Twitter, or the contact form on our website!

• (03:34) - Genres We Never Get To Talk About?