For those who like Monument Valley, i highly recommend Mekorama. Very different visual style, and it doesn't have the optical illusion element of Monument Valley, but it has plenty of other interesting things to make up for it.

Polytopia and Bad North are very cute, quickly comprehensible, and playable-in-small-slices-of-time 4X-ish games.

Yiotro is a developer who makes visually simple but engaging strategy games on mobile [1] [2]. Antiyoy is a conquer-the-world game, in Vodobanka you control a SWAT team, etc.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Yiotro&hl=en...

[2] https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/ivan-yakovliev/id1415296...

Thanks for the recommendation. I adored Monument Valley and would love more of it. It looks as if Mekorama doesn't quite capture the overwhelming charm that boosts MV above what is, at core, a very easy puzzle game. But it does look like it would be fun, and I'll give it a try.

I dislike the mere concept of Super Mario Run; from what I know of it it's one of the most cynical examples of mobile games; minimal gameplay, maximal monetization. I mean I get that some games you have to dumb down a bit for mobile but that one takes the cake.

Anyway, my personal recommendation for a short but fun game would be the original Pico-8 version of Celeste; it's relatively small but uses the maximum capacity of the Pico-8 platform. A first playthrough can take a few tries and up to an hour, but it can be done within two minutes; I think me and a colleague of mine got below the two minute mark:

Game: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=2145

1:43 speedrun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98y2UciWCqY

> I dislike the mere concept of Super Mario Run; from what I know of it it's one of the most cynical examples of mobile games; minimal gameplay, maximal monetization

That is completely untrue and completely misrepresenting the game. It's basically the opposite of the truth.

On the gameplay - which has been mostly fairly highly praised https://www.ign.com/articles/2016/12/15/super-mario-run-revi...

On its monetization model - which has been praised for being consumer friendly (and harming profitability for Nintendo). You can play some of it for free and there’s a one-off $10 payment to unlock the rest. https://venturebeat.com/2016/12/23/how-super-mario-run-screw...

I'll add to that list with two of my favorite games ever - A Short Hike - Donut County

Donut county... so mixed feelings about that one. I really enjoyed it, up until the final fight against the big flying robot cat thingie. I felt super betrayed about a game without stress suddenly flipping on all its principles. Suddenly it was a stressful action game. Super hard. Tried a dozen times. Failed. Became angry with it, put it down, never started it again, and now when you mention it my feelings about that game are like 30% niceness of the initial part and 70% bitterness about the crap ending. Or was it even the ending? I will not know.

To game makers out there: know your category, and don't break it.

There was an old space quest game that was like this too. Final mecha fight that turned a thinking game into an action game and with it turned friends of the game into enemies.

I just watched the Short Hike dev’s postmortem video. Super informative and really illustrates how he embraced his constraints.

oh sweet, I didn't know that existed. checking it out now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW8gWgpptI8

Donut County has a great soundtrack too, and it's on Spotify and Apple Music.

My favorite small game is probably Golf On Mars[0], the sequel to Desert Golfing. The game could almost not be simpler: you hit a golf ball into a hole, then the view shifts to show you the next hole. Repeat. Forever.

There's no interface, no objectives or awards, and no story. Shot power and ball spin are the only controls. The landscape is randomly generated and has enough features (water, sand, cacti, etc.) to keep things interesting.

Calling it a "small" game seems like an exaggeration. "Micro" might be a better word. It sounds like it would get boring after a bit, but honestly that might be the best part? You can kind of zone out and play for bit. It's almost meditative.

[0] https://captaingames.itch.io/golf-on-mars

I'd say the classic to add to the list would be Portal, huge success for about 4h of gameplay.

I want to add Inside to that list. It's my favorite game of all time.

Oh goodness, yes. The haunting, disturbing atmosphere in both Limbo and Inside are pure magic. Two excellent titles!

I have to add Outer Wilds. Never been so wow'd by a space exploration game.

I have to add West of Loathing.

A couple that I'd add to this:

To the Moon

VA-11 HALL-A

Emily Is Away