Small indie games like Celeste and Return of the Obra Dinn made a big impact on Game of the Year lists this year, and it’s not just because they’re short.
Game of the Year lists tend to be dominated by big AAA titles. They’re the games that everybody plays, so it makes sense that they’re prevalent. But 2018 had a lot of incredible indie games that made a big impact — while still clocking in at under 10 hours.
Return of the Obra Dinn and Celeste each take about eight hours to complete. Donut County is only two hours long. Florence is a brisk and perfect 40 minutes of gameplay. These four games can be completed in same time it would take to get through just the main story of God of War. Plus a lot of them are Switch or mobile games, making it easy to slip in a few rounds of Into the Breach or Minit during lunch.
