Talkin' 'Bout Tiny Games

The Game? Longlist

Even as I use Rapidfire Recs to cover smaller games, and more games in general, there are still experimental, truly tiny games that get skipped in the radar, some of which stretch the definition of game. This game? longlist is an attempt at highlighting those.

Everything here can be found on itch.io, if not elsewhere, and as of the time of writing, everything here is either free or pay-what-you-want. Their playtime is also all under an hour.

1. Sangwich

A micro sandwich-making simulator. Click and drag your various ingredients onto the plate into a tasy arrangement, or get creative. Make a sandwich. Get it classified. Lose cheese slices by accidentally throwing them through the wall.

• Windows, Mac

2. Definition of a Ghuest

Two people watch an experimental documentary, in the middle of a highway. In between the film’s exploration of how guests haunt their transient hotels, they talk amongst themselves. A fake film game within a game and a twisting projection of transience.

• Windows, Mac
  

3. Castle Rock Beach, West Australia

A photographer’s recreation of the eponymous location in the Unreal Engine. Just breathtaking to exist and wander around in, and marvel at the spectacle of the photorealism - an aesthetic usually absent from small games.

• Windows
  

4. There Is Never Enough Space!

Short, frenetic, and tactile - a execution-based puzzle game lamenting the constant Sisyphean task that is keeping tidy.

• Windows, Browser

5. Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist

A comic game about a slapdash bodge-job in the middle of a heist gone wrong - one of the first games I played when exploring the small gamespace, and a staunch favourite.

• Windows, Mac
  

6. blaring rooms

Subtle-toned pixel scenes accompanied by their background noise. Soundscapes that encapsulate the often-muffled score that surrounds us.

• Browser
  

7. Gacha

The gacha machine of growing up. Spend what change you have to get life events in tiered capsules, and see what little stories come about from the memories that machine dispenses. Try to collect them all.

• Windows, Mac, Browser

8. Sacramento

A watercoloured washed, illustrative landscape at the edge of a trainstop, from somewhere, to somewhere. A storybook landscape built on the fluidity of water, with softly fading details, where time drifts off to the distance.

• Windows, Mac, Linux

9. A Bright Light in the Middle of the Ocean

The cool inside of a lighthouse on an island in the middle of an ocean, against the bright overhead light of day. The clear-cutting sun that makes way for a  rolling sunset, before that too, is replaced by the purple-toned night, until morning comes.

• Windows, Mac, Linux
  

10. Orizzonte

An awkward, earnest bit of interactive fiction about the kind of conversations and connections you can strike up with strangers, and how they can grow. It’s built on the short, on the ephemeral, and the worth of both besides.

• Browser

11. Joanie

Beautiful scenes of normal life that blend into the surreal, building off of associations, and glimpses of a narrative and a world through a keyhole. Wonderful visuals that speak to memory like poetry - just mind the jank and accidental softlocks.

• Windows, Mac

12. TOUCH MELBOURNE

A tactile and comforting game that slices up the act of meeting up with a friend in Melbourne into tiny point-and-click interactions - swiping a bus card, checking the wrapper of an empty bottle, crossing the sidewalk.

• Windows, Mac
  

13. I Cheated On You

Short, tense, and urgent. A one-sided conversation of interactive fiction, about hiding betrayals, and saying everything but what needs to be said.

• Browser
  

14. good morning!

Slice-of-life snapshots of a morning routine, with the pedestrian choices and actions being transformed into minigames. Brings a sense of optimism to the morning I usually do not embody.

• Windows, Mac, Browser
  

15. Interminal

An endless airplane terminal at sunset. Walk the floors and look at the countless little boxed trinkets that are available, look out to the mountains, or watch the planes. Relax in a liminal environment, at a liminal hour.

• Windows, Mac