50 Short Games

Lore & Background

Stephen Gillmurphy, an Irish independent developer previously known for titles including Space Funeral, created 50 Short Games as his first commercial release. He pursued the compilation in response to increasing public attention and anxieties about player expectations, and as a self-imposed project to overcome unhappiness and slothfulness by producing games constantly regardless of quality. Each game was assembled in a single day, with Gillmurphy drawing games on index cards during lunch breaks and using Bosca Ceoil for music loops and Multimedia Fusion 2 for assembly.

The games span genres described as "action, treasure hunter, essay and miscellaneous," functioning as "existential toys, self-experimentation [and] broken half-thoughts." Gillmurphy composed detailed notes on each game's inspiration, which ranged from comic books, literature, music, and other independent games to personal experiences, dreams, and feelings of disorientation from working at odd hours. Some games continued previous or half-completed projects.

In 2019, 50 Short Games was showcased at the New York gallery Apexart as part of Dire Jank, an exhibition curated by Porpentine Charity Heartscape that depicted "sublime worlds that blossom in the trash." Gillmurphy later stated the game sold around 500 copies, which he considered a success for a "weird scrappy narrative art game."

Reader's Guide

50 Short Games stands as a notable artifact of independent game development, demonstrating a deliberate rejection of polished commercial norms in favor of raw, daily-made experimental works. Its creation process—one game per day over several months—was a response to personal and creative pressures, and the resulting compilation was praised by critics for its unusual format and novel method. The game's inclusion in the 2019 Apexart exhibition Dire Jank, curated by Porpentine Charity Heartscape, highlights its role in a countercultural movement that differentiates such titles from studio video games, which are "frequently viewed as a commercial and thus inherently unartistic medium." Critics acknowledged the game's uneven execution but found it "playfully experimental," "dark and funny," and "a tremendous piece of history." Its modest sales of around 500 copies were considered a success within the niche of "weird scrappy narrative art games," underscoring the sustainability of fringe game development. The game's legacy lies in its documentation of a unique creative process and its challenge to conventional expectations of what a commercial game release can be.

Did You Know?

• Each of the 50 games was assembled in a single day over several months in late 2013.
• Gillmurphy drew game concepts on index cards with markers during lunch breaks.
• The game was showcased at Apexart in New York in 2019 as part of the Dire Jank exhibition.
• Gillmurphy used Bosca Ceoil, a simple program for creating MIDI music loops, for the game's audio.

Development Process & Creative Philosophy

Stephen Gillmurphy, working under the alias thecatamites, built 50 Short Games as his first commercial release, driven partly by curiosity about whether independent distribution could sustain a creator financially. The project also served as a deliberate countermeasure against creative paralysis; after a period of inactivity that left him deeply dissatisfied, he imposed a rigid daily output schedule to override what he called his own slothfulness. Each of the fifty entries was completed within a single day during late 2013, with concepts sketched on index cards during lunch breaks. His technical workflow leaned on Bosca Ceoil for rapid MIDI music loops and Multimedia Fusion 2 for assembly, tools he valued for their disposability and speed. Music was typically the final step, often composed late at night. The compilation format itself was a strategic hedge: as public interest in his earlier work like Space Funeral grew, he worried that a single polished title might overpromise, so a sprawling, unranked collection let players discover what resonated without a commercial narrative of quality.

Gameplay & Aesthetic Identity

The compilation defies conventional genre categorization, spanning what Gillmurphy described as action, treasure hunting, essay, and miscellaneous forms. Rather than offering a unified design language, the fifty entries function as what he termed existential toys, self-experimentation, and broken half-thoughts. Players navigate a multicart-style menu to select individual pieces, each ranging from brief passive experiences to longer sustained interactions. The tonal palette oscillates between the macabre and the absurd, the personal and the surreal. Several entries, including Anxiety World and Night Thoughts, draw directly from Gillmurphy's own disorientation, dreams, and the strange temporal states of working at extreme hours. Others extend or complete half-finished projects from his earlier period. The result is a collection that resists linear progression or mastery, rewarding curiosity over competence and treating each micro-experience as a self-contained artifact rather than a step toward a larger goal.

Critical Reception & Cultural Positioning

Critics consistently framed 50 Short Games as a product of fringe gaming's most idiosyncratic voices, while honestly acknowledging its uneven execution. Filipe Salgado of Kill Screen called the entries playfully experimental and noted their alternation between macabre imagery and surreal anti-comedy, yet conceded the collection was not an ideal introduction to Gillmurphy's broader work. Adam Smith of Rock Paper Shotgun elevated it to a tremendous piece of history and a deliriously creative creation. Tom Sykes of PC Gamer set expectations deliberately low, describing the games as brief, scrappy, hilarious, and slightly buggy, and advised players not to anticipate polished works of genius. Julian Bension of PCGamesN captured the duality with the phrase bizarre, broken, and wonderful in good measure. Across these reviews, a consensus emerged: the game's value lies not in mechanical refinement but in its unapologetic honesty, with Gillmurphy's own liner notes serving as a candid artist's statement that openly flags failures alongside inspirations.

Legacy & Institutional Recognition

Five years after its 2014 release, 50 Short Games gained institutional validation when it was included in Dire Jank, a 2019 exhibition at New York's Apexart gallery curated by writer and game designer Porpentine Charity Heartscape. The show specifically highlighted games that blossom in the trash, positioning them against the dominant studio model. Charlie Markbreiter of Art News praised the exhibition as a countercultural gesture, arguing that the displayed titles—short, circular narratives of futility—challenged the assumption that video games are inherently unartistic because they are commercial. For Gillmurphy, the retrospective also prompted a candid accounting of the project's commercial footprint: he reported sales of roughly 500 copies, a figure he regarded as a genuine success within the niche of weird, scrappy narrative art games. The exhibition thus cemented 50 Short Games not as a product but as a cultural artifact, a deliberate counter-narrative to mainstream gaming's expectations of scale, polish, and profitability.

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