In praise of games that end

We're trained to value size — bigger maps, more hours, endless progression. But some of the games that stuck with me longest were the short ones.

Lantern Hollow runs about four hours and doesn't try to pad itself. It says what it wants to say, and then it's over. I remember it more clearly than games I've played ten times as long.

Short games can afford to be dense. Every scene matters because there aren't fifty others diluting it. That's a design luxury the huge titles rarely get.

This isn't a knock on long games — I love a deep strategy campaign. But when someone asks what to play in a weekend, I increasingly point them at the small, finished ones.