Mike Bithell is a Biritish Video Game Designer who I think makes games just for me, and only me, despite never having met.
See I love a sci fi game, and as I get older, I don’t exactly have a lot of time in my life for long games, so what I’m really looking for is bit sized fun sci fi experience that interest me. It also can’t scare me, which is a common thing with sci-fi games, because I’m a scaredy cat. I find life frightening enough as it is without being chased around a space station by a monster.
But back to Mr Bithell.
In 2017, Bithell Games had some time up its sleeves before their next game and decided to make a small little game called Subsurface Circular, something they coined to be a ‘Bithell Short’. In this game you ride the metro as a robot who comes to suspect that their fellow robots are planning something against their Human overlords and you are determined to get to the bottom of it. It plays like a modern text based adventure but with gorgeous graphics and user interface. As alluded to earlier, it’s not a long game and after about five to ten hours, you’ve gone through a rivetting investigation and maybe you’ve gotten to the bottom of it. An interactive crime comic book if you will.
The following year, Bithell released another ‘short’, another gorgeous modern text-based adventure game called Quarantine Circular.
Except this time, the whole world has gone to shit due to a virus (forewarning maybe) and you’re with the last batch of humans who might have stumbled upon a solution.
After blasting through these beautiful narrative experiences I was basically hooked on playing anything this studio put out, and they did not disappoint.
In 2019, Bithell released John Wick Hex a tactical version of Hotline Miami but turn-based and with John Wick. In 2020, we got another Bithell Short by the name of The Solitaire Conspiracy, a solitaire game about spymasters and taking on a supervillain in a near future setting.
Then finally, in the past year alone we have gotten two titles!
To start we got a Tron game from the studio, another sci fi detective game, except this one is a visual novel point and click where you try and solve a crime that’s just occurred in the Tron universe and your narrative choices matter.
Then we got The Banished Vault, a space strategy game where you are on the run from the darkness and need to try and collect resources as you go. Not only is the setting for this game very dark and uses some thematic elements I won't spoil here, but like all Bithell games the art style is stunning and unique. This one in particular looks like you’re playing a board game where the pieces are intricately detailed.
If you are like me, like your sci-fi but don’t have 300 hundred hours to sink into Cyberpunk or Starfield or to shit yourself in Prey or Alien, then I hope I’ve convinced you to try these short, sweet, and cheap Indie titles a go!