Small Radios Big Televisions may be my favourite kind of game. I’m not just saying that because it’s set on something that looks like an oil rig – I love oil rigs – and involves the collection of old audio cassettes. I’m saying that because it’s a game that you play by playing – in the purest sense. You load up, ideally with no idea of what’s coming your way, and then you prod and poke and work your way towards an understanding, not just of what’s going on, but of how everything operates in the most basic of manners.
If you do want to know a bit more, I can tell you. This is a puzzle game of sorts, set within a series of dioramas. You explore the oil rig, room by room, opening doors, following paths and getting lost. Some screens just have doors, while some might have a piece of machinery with a missing cog, say, or a series of switches that need flipping.
Some screens might have cassette taps for you to collect, and when you pick these up, you can play them in a device that looks very much like tha cassette player for an old Commodore 64. Swoon etc. These cassettes wing you off to a strange bucolic world. You might glimpse a tree or a field of wheat, or you might be gently floating down a river. Cassette tapes can also be messed up in useful ways, by whacking them in a magnetic field. Then the landscapes they’ll show you are glitchy and different and may contain new opportunities.
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