Free Shorts (short games that is)

Time for another batch of freebies on Steam, and these all fall squarely into the "short story" category without being visual novels. Ugh, there are so many of those on steam! While these are certainly more "gamey" than those they still are narrative focused and they can all be finished in under an hour.

Starting with the silly ones: Gravity Bone is a first person game with light platforming where you are a private contractor who does odd jobs. If jumping is too much for you then Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald - a Whirlwind Heist might be the humorous experience for you. In a surprise addition, Square Enix has a free game in this category - The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, where you play as a very imaginative little boy who loves talking to himself (so that might be a turn off, good thing the voice acting is ok).

Captain Spirit has decent graphics.

Onto an excellent example of telling a short story is the gun slinging western Dead Horizon, and if you want to go into the "wordless feels" territory I can highly recommend When the Past was Around - Prologue, a short puzzler with awesome art and music, as well as A Raven Monologue, a one to two minute experience by the same group that I think purely exists to rip your soul from your body. Those last three are some of my favorites now. Hope you give them a try, and more importantly I hope you enjoy them!