Small Radios Big Televisions is a Point and Click Adventure game by Fire Face Corporation and published by Adult Swim Games. Adult Swim seems to enjoy curating games with odd concepts almost as much as tinyBuild. So I figured I was in for an interesting game regardless of any other qualities.
Small Radios Big Televisions is centered around an abandoned, seemingly post-apocalyptic world. You never get more than a minuscule amount of insight into the viewpoint character, and only a little more about the world. You move about the abandoned factories, looking for tapes that contain programs for your character’s VR headset.
Each one contains a small area of nature (mostly), frequently containing a gem. You need those gems since they open doors, and sometimes they’re cleverly hidden. Also, you frequently need to corrupt your tapes with magnets to reveal extra gems, which changes them. The tapes are implied to have been designed to keep remaining people sane, but there are hingts of something else. Overall, they prefer to leave you in the dark about much of the background, which creates a bit of suspense. If anything, it enhances the creepiness of the game world.
Almost all of the non-tape puzzles revolve around interacting with some part of the environment. There are a few elements which simply require you to poke around the rooms to find something secreted away. But for the most part, you need only interact with simple environment objects themselves. Very few require the inventory management historically typical to the genre.
Those that do, however, rarely require you to carry anything around for an extended period of time. In truth, the most common items in your inventory will be gems, especially since it’s possible to get more of them than you need. Speaking of, a nice feature I found was that it’s impossible to use a gem on a door which will leave you in an unwinnable state. It’s a small thing, sure, but it speaks to the level of quality to which the game was held.
The graphics in the game make the most of a minimalist approach. I dare say you could run this game on a modern potato with just a little poking around the video settings. That’s not to say the game looks bad; quite the contrary.
It’s an excellent example of using art design to create a pleasant, visually entertaining experience with high optimization. The surreality of the tape scenes combines with the overrun factories to create a depth to the world. They get especially disquieting once they’ve been past a magnet device at least once.
The sound design in the game is genuinely excellent. Most areas of the game have sound that reinforces the slightly creepy nature of the game. Approaching footsteps can occasionally be heard inside the factories, even though they’re abandoned. The pieces that would actually be considered music, on the other hand, suit the game well. They all feel somewhat washed out, like an audio cassette that has seen too much use. The effects used on the tracks tie in well to the game proper, highlighting the theme inherent to their corruption.
If I had to pick one unfortunate thing about Small Radios Big Televisions, it would be the fact that it’s very short. The other possible thing that might hold buyers back in conjunction is the fact that it’s $12. Combined with its 2-3 hour run time, your wallet might not be healthy enough for that, regardless of your platform. That said, I’d say the experience is worth it, if you can swing it.
Pros:
+ Visually entertaining world with excellent art design
+ Clever puzzles, and smart failure proofing
+ Sound design which works very well with the game
Cons:
– It’s very short
– Those water valve puzzles can eat it
“Small Radios Big Televisions is a short, very well made game and worth the investment if you can justify it.”
4/5
“Great”
*We were provided a copy of this game for review*
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