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Games

‘Small Radios, Big Televisions’ is a Perfect Late-Night Puzzler

‘Small Radios, Big Televisions’ is the prettiest, most relaxed puzzle game I’ve played since ‘Monument valley.’

Small Radios, Big Televisions is a puzzle game, ostensibly.

I streamed it last night at midnight​, with my puppy on my lap, and this was probably the ultimate late-night, chill stream/puppy-on-lap type of game.  Because while it definitely includes some straight-up puzzle solving, it's actually just as much about exploration and poking at weird, beautiful environments.

Playing it feels like messing with a very pretty interactive toy—albeit, a toy that allows you to explore portals to other worlds and then completely mess with them.

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You poke around bright, low-poly environments, opening doors and messing with the 3D camera to find new things to play with.

You find deliciously analog audio tapes as you go, each of which brings you into an evocative, low-poly environment.

Look at this pretty field!

Often, these portals have gems inside, which act like keys.

Another major mechanic involves "remixing" the tapes.

Doing this turns those idyllic areas into weird, scratchy glitchscapes. But these bizarro versions will often hide new gems, so mixing will always behoove you.

There are also more traditional puzzle-solving elements. Here, Drake and I needed to mess with some gears in order to get the power running through the room.

​We got a new tape for our efforts!

​That happy sense of discovery is the very best part of Small Radios, Big Televisions. The chill, indie-happy aesthetics are nice, particularly the sound design. But it's the excitement I felt when finding a new tape, or figuring out that moving the camera just so allowed me to reach a new door that really got my radio roaring.

Small Radios, Big Televisions is out now on Steam​ and PS4.