Recommend me some nice short games

[Roxor]

Portal: 4 hours

Portal 2: 8 hours

Dear Esther: 2 hours

Most of Telltale's point-and-click adventures can be finished in about 2 hours

Braid is short enough that it has an achievement for a speedrun of under 45 minutes.

Beat Hazard can't really be finished, but given it generates levels from music, you can set your play session length simply by which audio files you pick. Same goes for The Polynomial and Audiosurf.

 

[sir neillios]

Thanks for all the suggestions, some very good ones, shame that I've actually played a fair number of them!

Portal 1 and 2 I loved to bits.
Braid, Bastion, Super Meat Boy, Limbo, Lone Survivor I have from the humble bundle last year - the really good one!

I'm actually playing The Walking Dead this week, I'm finding it a bit slow for my immediate tastes, but the characters are really growing on me. Just a few minutes into episode 2 and trying to decide who deserves a snack!

FTL I must make a point of buying for myself next time it's on sale, played a couple of times on my brother's laptop, great fun.

Binding of Issac I have never beat, and have clocked about 20 hours on. I really should get round to adding the Wrath of the lamb dlc from the Christmas humble bundle.

I judge that the "AAA" short cheap games these days are Far Cry: Blood Dragon and Call of Juarez Gunslinger, they both look quite nice.

 

[Anathrax]

You need Gunpoint. Fun, funny, decent story and it has some awesome music. It's about 20 levels. About Blood Dragon, you could probably end the main campaign(Which is awesome as hell, the first opening minutes are living proof of that) in two or three hours.

 

[SweetShark]

Here are some Lists I created in Listal that most of them are short games.
I selected only some really good one:

http://www.listal.com/list/awesome-unknown-videogames-you-must
http://www.listal.com/list/awesome-unknown-videogames-you-must-sweetshark

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Always good to see more people playing Hotline Miami, such a great game.

Undertale has a demo out, it's a simple RPG done in the style of the Mother series. It might be a bit TOO simple, but it's kind of charming.

The closest thing to Hotline Miami that I've played is the Ultimate Assassin flash games. I don't usually play flash games, but those are pretty damn fun.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

Head over to GoG.com and look at their free games. They tend to be around that length, and some are fun as hell! Then invest in some of the others on there... I entirely reccommend Little Big Adventure 2!

 

[Araksardet]

Hm... Off the top of my head:

Thomas Was Alone is a platformer about solitude, and square-shaped AI constructs gaining sentience.

PixelJunk Eden is about flinging yourself around technicolor plants and making them grow.

FLY'N is a platformer where you have four characters with their own unique ways to navigate the world; also has a beautiful art style.

Machinarium and Botanicula are both point-and-clicks with interesting art styles, both from the same company (though if The Walking Dead is too slow, they might not be your thing).

Quantum Conundrum clocked in at 9 hours for me, it's a 3D puzzle-platformer where you switch between "dimensions", basically different rules of gravity and time speed, to solve puzzles.

Steam tells me I finished Mirror's Edge in 3 hours, though frankly it felt like a bit more.

Jamestown is a surprisingly fun schm'up that I finished in 3 hours as well, but you can get more out of it if you like chasing high scores and gold medals.

There are also games out there that are much more variable in their time required, particularly roguelikes and roguelike-likes. I found FTL: Faster Than Light to be an amazing game; it took me around 12 hours to beat the final boss, but each playthrough only lasts around 90 minutes at best from start to death, so it all depends on how fast you learn the game. Similar for Binding of Isaac.

 

[IronMit]

http://www.howlongtobeat.com/index.php

Portal 1 obviously

Spec ops the line - 6-7 hours

Arkham asylum - 12 hours

Modern warfare 2 campaign (i know it's COD but it's entertaining and well paced) - 5-6 hours

Hitman bloodmoney - the game is split into completely different level/missions...so you can just play one mission at a time. 1-3 hours each

 

[New Troll]

The Cat and the Coup.

It's free on Steam, can be beat in like 10 minutes, and is really interesting to play.

With children I don't generally get to play as much as I use to so I've been playing a lot more casual games like the Puzzle Quest games and PopCap games. Stuff I can play with only a mouse and can walk away from at a moment's notice.

 

[Arqus_Zed]

Well, I've recently bought Humble Bundle 8 and almost all games included fit the bill:

- Dear Esther. It doesn't really have anything you could call "gameplay", but it's a nice, short and beautiful experience.

- Proteus. Another one that doesn't really have any "gameplay", except this one doesn't even have a story. It's strange, I personally can't say I like it, but it did get some positieve reviews.

- Thomas Was Alone. Has already been mentioned.

- Hotline Miami. One of the most violent, trippy and interesting games I've played in quite a while. A messed up story with solid gameplay delivered with retro graphics and a mind-melting soundtra- Oh. Wait. You already played that one, never mind.

- English Country Tune. A series of puzzles with different mechanics. Old school fun that has its challenging moments.

- Little Inferno. Has already been mentioned.

- There's also Awesomenauts, Capsized, Oil Rush, Intrusion 2 and Tiny and Big in Grandpa's Leftovers - but I have yet to play them.

If you haven't bought it already, I sincerely recommend it (even if you have Hotline Miami already). You can pay whatever you want - though I suggest paying more than the average $5.84, because then you get 11 games instead of 5. You've still got one day and 10 hours to make up your mind.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Alan Wake
Alan Wake: American Nightmare

A very story driven, fun gameplay, first onet akes around 8 hours depending on how long you stick around in it and the second if much shorter.

 

[Sonntam]

You could try OFF, an indie game which you don't even have to pay for.

It's rather short and creepy. The puzzles are interesting, but combat in my opinion lacking.

Check it out here:

http://forum.starmen.net/forum/Fan/Games/OFF-by-Mortis-Ghost