The criteria for this is very simple, all of these games can be completed in three hours or under (without using exploits etc). The reason for this? Well I find that sometimes, often in fact, that people just don’t have time to play a longer game. So I thought I’d show some of the shorter ones some love!
Wrack
Developer: Final Boss Entertainment
Publisher: Final Boss Entertainment
Rrp: £6.99 (Steam)
Released: 30th September 2014
I’ve been noticing a trend of ‘old school’ inspired games lately, especially within the genre of the first person shooter. Many try to ape their predecessors by having a lower graphical fidelity or simplified mechanics. Wrack isn’t one of these games, if anything this game reminds me more of Bulletstorm than something like Quake.
While Wrack does have a story its clearly paper thin and only intended to be a flimsy justification for progressing the game. The thing is if you’re playing this for the story you’re really missing the point, this is about high scores and trying to build up combos and on that front it does a pretty decent job.
If I do have a bone to pick with this game its that the enemies AI is extremely simplistic, every enemy will start to advance toward you once they see you, even if they have ranged weapons. This meant that in quite a few occasions I just stood around a corner to avoid projectiles and then hit anything that rounded it with a sword (usually killing in a single blow).
This isn’t a bad game by any means but for only eight pounds more you can buy Doom and get a longer more full and challenging experience.
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Quarantine Circular
Developer: Bithell Games
Publisher: Bithell Games
Rrp: £4.79 (Steam)
Released: 22nd May 2018
After the success of Subsurface Circular (and it was a success even if it wasn’t all that well known) Mike Bithell is back with Quarantine Circular. Unbelievably this game was made a good two years before anyone had even heard of Covid-19 because it almost feels like this game was written for it.
This game is set in the near future with humanity facing a global pandemic, one that seems set to wipe us out completely. However it seems that help has come from beyond the stars, or rather the vistor may help depending on your decisions.
The whole game is over in just about two hours but I have to say it was a great two hours. I replayed this over and over again trying to get all the various scenarios.
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A Hand with Many Fingers
Developer: Colestia
Publisher: Colestia
Rrp: £3.99
Released: June 9th 2020
This game is a bit of a strange one, for starters its a thriller which isn’t a genre something video games really manage to pull off often. The other thing that makes this game so unusual is that the events that you’re investigating are all true. It’s your job to piece together the actual international conspiracy that was happening during the Cold War and you’ll be doing this by carefully searching through archives and using an evidence board to show how it all connects. The closes game I can think of that this is somewhat similar to is Her Story, because you’re left to piece it together for yourself.
It might not have been the intention of the developers (though I suspect it was) but even though I was only searching through files this game had me feeling a strange feeling of tension. Every so often you could hear the sound of people pulling boxes of evidence even though you know you’re the only one in the room, security cameras move, suspicious looking cars appear in the street outside and drive off when you see them… it all adds to this odd feeling that you’re being watched and that you might not be entirely safe. Nothing happened to me during my play time but it was damned effective at making me paranoid.
I’d say this game well worth a look for those of you looking for something just a bit different.
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Chicken Holmes – The Mystery of Bartolomeu
Developer: Dreamlike
Publisher: Dreamlike
Rrp: £1.69 (Steam
Released: 12th April 2021
I think this is the shortest game I’ve played in a quite a while, lasting a whole twenty five minutes and that was with me getting stuck for a moment.
Chicken Holmes (no, I’m not writing the rest) is a escape the room style point and click adventure game.
I’ve played a few games like this before however this one was made somewhat more difficult simply because of the translation or rather because of the poor translation. I’m not entirely sure what the native language of the developers are but I’m quite certain that they are either Spanish or Portugese speakers. Sadly whomever did the translation wasn’t quite up for the task. There were a lot of grammatical errors and typo’s that made the game a bit more difficult that it should have been and… well there is an entire section where there is no translation at all. It’s near the end and its apparently some kind of movie line but its an untranslated one which meant that whatever it was referencing completely passed me by.
To be honest I’d not really bother with this game, I didn’t hate the game but I didn’t enjoy it either and there are far better games you can play for this price or even less.
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Glass Masquerade
Developer: Onyx Lute
Publisher: Onyx Lute
Rrp: £3.99 (Humblebundle and Steam)
Released: 18th November 2016
Putting it simply this game is just a bunch of small, yet challenging, jigsaw puzzles. Although rather than it being a jigsaw in the traditional sense you put together stained glass clock faces. Why clock faces? Honestly I haven’t not a clue. What I can tell you though is that I found this game a joy to play, I just put a podcast on in the background and unwound.
The thing is the music in the game is great too but I just really wanted to listen to my own stuff after a while and usually I’m not the sort of person who can do that with most games. This one though felt almost built for that kind of use. Mentally stimulating but not taxing to the point I’d really have concentrate.
