Short & Sweet - Five Games You Can Finish in One Afternoon
Triple-A game titles are always boasting 80-hour-long campaigns, hundreds of hours’ worth of collectables and all sorts of other time-consuming features, but what if you simply don’t have that kind of time on your hands? Not everyone is able to sit around playing games 24 hours a day, so it’s a good thing these shorter games are around. These games can all be finished in a single session each if you want, making for a fun, no-commitment afternoon. Some might be a bit more expensive than others, but they’re all an experience worth the cost - you’ll have tons of fun playing through these quick little puzzlers and will remember them long after you put them down. Enjoy!
LEGO Builder’s Journey
This isn’t your usual LEGO game - there’s no minifigures to unlock, no gold bricks to collect, no goofy film adaptations or anything like that, and yet it’s probably the one game that truly captures the real fun of playing around with LEGO. LEGO Builder’s Journey is a simple and charming story about a father and son told through a series of short puzzles that can be solved in just about any way you can imagine. With relaxing music and gorgeous graphics that look better than actual LEGO bricks, this game tells a surprisingly heartfelt tale without saying a single word and allowing a level of creativity unlike any other puzzle game. It’s a little pricey for a 3-hour game, but lovers of LEGO and puzzles will certainly find it worthwhile.
Please Don’t Touch Anything
You’re standing in front of a mysterious red panel with nothing but a large red button on it, and told not to touch anything. Naturally, it’s time to touch everything. Like a deceptively small puzzle box, almost everything you interact with on this panel causes something new to pop out - more buttons, switches, number pads, dials, levers, tools, and so on. Pushing the right combinations of buttons, switches and numbers results in various “endings”, most of which result in the poor city shown on the monitor being obliterated in various ways. It takes only a few hours poking around to get all the endings, though some of them are a bit more obscure than others. Messing around with a virtual doomsday machine has never been cheaper or more fun!
The Pedestrian
One of the most fascinating and expertly-executed concepts for a puzzle game I’ve ever seen, The Pedestrian takes the little stick figure you see on various street signs and brings him to life. It’s up to you to guide him through a bustling city, rearranging various signs and panels around the fully-modelled 3-D environment to get the Pedestrian to his destination. Taking you through apartments, subways, warehouses, construction sites and more, the puzzles get very complicated very quickly - expect quite the challenge even for the most puzzle-minded of players. It’s a bit expensive for its length, but definitely worth grabbing on sale if you want to spend an afternoon challenging your mind to its limits.
OneShot
Don’t let the simple artstyle and short length fool you; this innocent little adventure will mess with your mind, your computer and your heart like nothing else. A lost child named Niko finds themselves stranded in an unfamiliar, dying world, and the power to potentially save it is thrust upon them. It’s up to the player to guide Niko along their journey, solving puzzles and meeting various characters still clinging to life in this cold, dark world. Also, the game knows who you, the real player, are. While it can be finished in one sitting, the endearing cast and thought-provoking writing, on top of a soul-wrenching ending no matter what choices you make, will leave you thinking about this game forever.
INSIDE
A bleak and dystopian world, eerie monsters, disturbing story elements, zero spoken words, and a lone child trapped in the middle - the developers at Playdead certainly know their strengths. The people that brought us the creepy classic Limbo give us the brilliantly unnerving follow-up INSIDE, a 2.5-D side-scrolling survival game with sinister puzzles and horrific experiments. Playdead have definitely upped their game with this one; be wary of vicious guard dogs and spine-chilling mutations, and don’t play it too late at night if you want to get any sleep! Despite taking only a few harrowing hours to finish, INSIDE will leave your skin crawling for days afterwards - and coming back for more.
All these games and more are great for those short afternoons when you want a quick and memorable game that won’t eat up your free time. Do you know of any other games that would be a good fit for this list? Let me know! Reblogs and likes are much appreciated!
Thanks for reading!
OneShot is coming out on Switch this upcoming Thursday and I'm elated to share this beloved, underrated treasure with more people.
However. I do think there are aspects to this game that are driven home more appropriately on PC, so I wonder how Switch will fare with those rather... 4 dimensional themes.
Independent Imagination - Five Hidden Gems of Gaming
Generic shooters, gacha RPGs, the same sports games re-published over and over - many of those big triple-A gaming titles can often feel a bit repetitive, can’t they? Often focused more on making money and retaining engagement, they sometimes lose that spark of creativity and originality that make video games truly fun and memorable. Meanwhile, small-time indie devs across the world are putting in all the passion and imagination they can muster into some genuinely unique gaming experiences that all too often fly under the radar. Fresh new concepts, fascinating narratives, endearing characters, interesting worlds - take a look at some of the best examples of what independent creators can bring to the table. Show them your support and give these hidden gems a go!
OneShot
Little Nico is trapped in a strange, dying world and burdened with the only way to save it: a new sun, in the form of a large lightbulb they must carry around. Your job is only to get Nico safely back home…or at least, that’s what the eerily-aware game insists. Guide Nico across the world in this story-driven puzzle game, from the bleak outlands to the anxious inner city, meeting friendly new faces amidst the fear and discovering new puzzles and mysteries along the way. Why is Nico here? What has caused the slow decay of this world? Is it even possible to save the world and get Nico home at the same time? Possibly the most pressing question of all is…just who is this mysterious entity communicating to you - yes, you, the actual player - and what is their true motive?
Sable
It’s just you, your trusty hoverbike, and the vast open desert in this wide-open-world sandbox adventure. Embark on a rite-of-passage pilgrimage across the sands, enjoying the atmospheric scenery and helping out new friends where you can while you decide who you really want to be in life. Once the initial tutorial is done, the game stops holding your hand entirely - pick a direction that seems interesting and just go! No objective markers, no plotted lines, no railroading whatsoever in Sable; just a journey of your own making. Desert environments in games can often be a bit boring, but Sable breaks it up with varied aesthetics and colourful, distinctive areas full of all sorts of things to find and explore. As you climb, glide, drift and zoom across the dunes and strange structures, you’ll find Sable to be a highly relaxing game to play when you just want to chill out and ride around a while.
Wavetale
Switching climates to an open watery world, Wavetale takes us to a flooded shanty city surrounded by ominous fog that threatens to consume what’s left of the land. Sigrid, a young girl surviving with her grandmother in the remains of Strandville, meets a mysterious shadowy figure beneath the waves that allows her to not only walk on the surface of the water, but to skate across it at breakneck speeds as she investigates the source of the fog. Wavetale’s biggest strength is its’ exhilarating movement tech, combining the high-speed skating with dives, dashes, grapples and swings that make the map a blast to explore. The endearing sketchy artstyle, charming cast of characters, and genuinely intriguing mystery plot all make you want to uncover every single possible little detail you can find, but even just the fun mobility mechanics are enough reason on their own to keep playing.
Owlboy
A sprawling metroidvania with a nostalgic retro artstyle, Owlboy stars the mute young owl Otus and his friends on an adventure to save the floating sky village of Vellie from vicious pirates. Master the art of flight as you rise up through the maze of hovering islands and ancient ruins, carrying your allies around to help fight foes and navigate traps and puzzles, and discovering the secrets of the past that will decide the future! The game features classic metroidvania staples of exploration, unlocking new abilities, backtracking to previous zones to reveal new paths, and - of course - plenty of scattered collectables for the true completionists. The flying and combat mechanics might take a little getting used to, but the engaging narrative and lovable cast will be more than enough to keep you playing all the way to the end.
Planet of Lana
Returning to a more linear puzzler, Planet of Lana sees strange, unsettling robots invade your peaceful world and kidnap countless inhabitants - including your sister. Play as Lana as she embarks on a grand rescue mission, aided by an absolutely adorable little critter named Mui that helps Lana solve puzzles and navigate her dangerous homeworld. Some of the puzzles you’ll encounter are surprisingly difficult, but never frustrating; there’s always a sense of overcoming great odds and overwhelming danger as this tiny girl and her loyal fuzzy friend sneak past the deadly robotic invaders. A short and sweet game, this journey might only take two or three afternoons of playing to finish, but the simple gameplay, gorgeous hand-painted artstyle and fascinating story all make this an adventure to remember.
This is just a small taste of the limitless creativity you can find in indie games; which one seems the most intriguing to you? Have you tried any of these games, or do you have any recommendations yourself that could fit this list? Let me know! Feedback, reblogs and likes are all much appreciated!
Thanks for reading!
