Old prejudices die hard. Although Ada’s hard drive is as capacious as a Zeppelin hangar, and download speeds in rural Wessex are no longer narrowboat slow, I still wince when I go to download a game and see double digits in front of the ‘GB’.
Why, this very morn I pressed Combat Directive : Napoleonic Wars‘ install button then hesitated when Steam told me that this new light wargame with its adrift colon and modest visuals, required a whopping twenty-eight of Ada’s gigs.
Whenever I encounter a surprisingly bulky title, my mind turns to the games in my collection that produce pleasure with the contents of remarkably thin folders. In JPM (Joy Per Megabyte) terms, all of the following rank as modern* miniature marvels in my book.
* produced in the last five years
Trederia charge about one pence a megabyte for the fab, regularly updated Super Video Golf. A choice of twelve eighteen-hole courses and ten different scoring systems, mean it’s likely to be months before you lose interest. Steam tells me I’ve already spent twenty-three hours reading fiendishly contoured greens, and leathering little white spheres into the middle distance.
Rush Rally 3‘s three hundred and fifty megabyte HD footprint is positively miraculous. As I mentioned in this recent love letter to Brownmonster’s delightful dust stirrer, one of the game’s space-saving secrets is procedurally-generated textures. Why don’t more devs use this approach to set dressing, I wonder.
An incident-packed 2D tank sim in which all well-known and many little-known WW2 AFVs are potential mounts, Armoured Commander II tells its detailed war stories using just one hundred and fifty megabytes of code. Disappointingly, despite being around for several years, AC2 hasn’t, to my knowledge, inspired a single naval or aerial copycat.
In return for fifteen GBP and around two hundred and seventy five megabytes of HD space, Early Access Tiny Combat Arena currently provides a custom ground and air sortie generator capable of spawning thirty-two-aircraft furballs, and the prototype of a dynamic ‘arena’ mode in which the player assists friendly ground forces intent on conquering a small multi-base island. Thanks to the efforts of modders like Viperu Zeiro you don’t have to contrail the skies above Sand Island in the default Harrier. User-made warbirds such as the F-14, F-16, F/A-18, and F-22, are also options.
There’s nothing bloated about Boat Crew. This engrossing high octane digit exerciser includes a plethora of threats and targets appropriate to the Pacific (the latest update added aircraft carriers) and the kind of sophisticated dynamic campaigns, simmers and wargamers relish yet rarely get.
The sylph-like Pavlov’s House is a superb port of a superb solo board wargame. Like its slightly larger but equally entertaining step-sister, Castle Itter, it’s historically based, relatively friendly, and tasks the player with holding a stronghold against multi-directional German attacks. Axis units advance towards their goal along a series of radiating movement tracks, while you do your utmost to halt and eliminate them. As I said back in 2021 “It’s impossible to have a dull game of Pavlov’s House”.
Czech-er than a smažený sýr lunch washed down with a couple of glasses of Staropramen, the two hundred and fifty megabyte HROT is one of my favourite first-person shooters. Unlike many backwards-looking FPSs of recent years, it balances great gun- and grenade play with uncommonly inventive level detailing and design. Unlike many of its peers it manages to be both witty and scary, and truly looks the part.
It’s a Friday night and I’m in the mood for a spot of periscopic predation, but don’t happen to have a sub sim installed. Do I A) Fall asleep waiting for all seventy-one GB of UBOAT to arrive, or B) wait a few minutes for an eventful, friendly, flavoursome alternative more than one hundred times smaller in size to flank-speed down the phone lines to Bramley End? Hmm, let me think.
Cornerites, of the pleasure producers currently installed on your PCs, which are the dinkiest?
This is something I’ve started to notice more and more, most AAA games have a no limit view of storage requirements, but there are sometimes some visually striking games that seem to be very well optimised and that is pleasing
Carrier Command 2 at 1.2 gb
Nuclear Option 1.2 gb
Space Beast Terror Fright (good times )600mb
Mud Runner 1.4 gb
Highfleet 1.4 gb (it maybe 2d but the physics + details are amazing)
Delta V Rings of Saturn 1.6 gb (same as Highfleet)
Lunar Flight 1.4 gb
Cold Waters 1.9 gb
Nebulous Fleet Command 2.2 gb
Regiments and GHPC are commendable at 10 gb too
Maybe worth keeping an eye on – Blue Sky Aces demo – 696 MB
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Not as low-poly as Tiny Combat Arena and only listed as ‘Coming Soon’
WW1 aerial combat in small roster of fighters, few missions including airfield-strafing sortie for Entente to try, annoying upgrade path to unlock rockets/bombs
Maybe a distraction for a couple of hours – Warplanes: WW1 Sky Aces – 207 MB
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Mobile game playable on PC through Steam so be warned it’s trying to get you to part with your money
2 modes to play in: flight leader, and base commander
Laughable flight model and AI, can switch seats among your wingmen
Three theatres: Western Entente, Central Powers, and Eastern Entente (Russian Empire)
More interesting aircraft only unlock with real-world cash
But…
… there’s a mission editor and option to fly 3rd-party campaigns (sequences of missions) that may include aircraft you haven’t paid for (eg. Ilya Muromets bomber)
So there’s some foolish optimism that I might find something that’s real fun for half an hour
Games don’t come more modern than the last weeks released Golden Lap, from the Art Of Rally creator. It’s also nicely small in disk size, less than 1GB.
My most played game of this year, Dominions 6 is also only a wee 687MB in size. Having played around 150 hours so far, it comes down to a tiny 4,5MB per hour of fun, without the end being in sight yet (still so many nations that I want to take for a spin).
Golden Lap looks ace. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
I only have two games installed that have 3 digit GB footprints at the moment, but another 3-4 are installed on my sim rig, one of which starts those three digits with a 2 🙁
World of Guns clocks in at 189MB and never gets uninstalled but my real value for disk space is not really THC fodder: Hexcells Infinite. Only 604 hours of play but that includes over 2200 puzzles completed, including every daily puzzle for the last few years.
World of Guns stores the downloaded models in Users \ {Username} \ AppData \ LocalLow \ Unity \ Noble Empire_World of Guns
I have close to half the total of models and my folder is 2.18 GB
Ok, strike WoG from the ‘low footprint’ list.
Good spot.
“Czech-er than a smažený sýr lunch washed down with a couple of glasses of Staropramen“. Actually that depends. Most Staropramen you get in the UK is brewed here. However you can find the odd imported bottle in certain German supermarkets. Just check the small print on the label. A taste off between the two is quite enlightening.
Sorry off topic – interesting article and something I have been noticing recently as, like me, my aging hard drive bulges at the seams.
I’m not sure I should thank Tim for drawing Super Video Golf to my attention. It’s addictively playable, especially after its developer responded in minutes to a query regarding the game, resolving my issue with multiple options.
It’s ridiculously cheap as well as being petite in size and continues to receive updates 18 months post release.
This is why indy gaming is so awesome. That and the Clint Eastwood avatar in the Steam Workshop.
Thank you for mentioning Castle Itter and Pavlov’s House. Oh my God, what on earth is wrong with the dev though?? Yes, we know it’s already ridiculously cheap to buy them, but I have a personal rule (as do millions and millions of us) that I don’t buy anything on Steam unless it’s in a Steam sale, and he’s never done it. Like, ever, for years. Ok? Well in that case I’ll *never* buy them, your loss mate. It’s nothing to do with money, it’s the principle of it. Make it 1% off and I’ll finally buy them. But we know he won’t do it haha!
Hey thanks for the heads up about Super Video Golf! I wonder, does anyone else *always* make their “golfing avatar” Donald Trump? I do, and he always wins in brilliant (and hilarious) style XD