Sometimes, I have 15 minutes between classes and eye strain that physically repels me from doing any more studying. To cope with my diminishing free time and ever-growing exam stress, I’ve been scouring itch.io for free short games that can actually run on my Mac — which famously doesn’t run anything. These are my handpicked recent standouts, tiny and strange as they may be.
Delivery Mystery
There’s a certain kind of horror game that exists purely to remind you that your nervous system still works. Delivery Mystery is that kind of game — simple, short and absolutely dedicated to the art of making you flinch. The premise couldn’t be plainer: You’re a burger delivery driver, alone at night, going from house to house, each holding their own uniquely horrible fate. From there, the game becomes a carousel of sudden noises and people jumping out at you.
It’s not subtle, yet Delivery Mystery embraces its clichés so completely that they loop back around into being charming. You’ll predict every scare before it happens, and it’ll still get you. The whole thing lasts maybe 10 minutes (more if you go for all five endings), and still I found myself simultaneously laughing and genuinely tense.
The game even warns that people with heart conditions shouldn’t play it, something I initially took as a joke until about halfway through, when I began penning my cardiologist an apology. Equally as disorienting, though not as intentional, there’s a recurring bug that zooms the camera in too far, but it’s easily fixed through the in-game menu. Otherwise, it runs cleanly and looks decent, executing its dark, simple and intentionally disorienting aesthetic well.
It’s not groundbreaking, but it doesn’t have to be. Delivery Mystery is the gaming equivalent of a cheap haunted house: predictable, sweaty, a little stupid and yet still a great time. Sometimes that’s all you want — five minutes of heart-thumping chaos to remind you: Hey! You’re alive.
You See A Monster Smoking in the Parking Lot
The title alone should tell you everything: You See A Monster Smoking In The Parking Lot. Imagine you’ve finally finished a miserable shift, it’s late and, after leaving a royally fouled date, you want a burger. Instead, you find a monster — hulking with exposed muscles and oozing tragedy — standing under a flickering streetlight with a cigarette. The restaurant is abandoned, the lot is silent and you’re suddenly in one of the most oddly tender games I’ve ever played.
The game unfolds through short text prompts that guide you to interact with a handful of nearby objects: a cigarette, a van and the monster himself, among others. The prompt boxes appear over simple, pixelated backgrounds: a static parking lot, a shuttered building and the empty dark beyond. Our monster is the only character model we’ll glimpse. You can talk to the monster, try to order your burger or drive away, but no matter what you do, the majority of the game’s 33 endings finish the same way — with an explosion. The monster craves death and has rigged his van to explode in order to reach it.
What starts as an absurd story soon becomes heartbreakingly human. The writing is sparse but emotionally loaded, and it’s easy to project yourself into the stilted small talk about God, high school and burgers. You can feel the fatigue, the loneliness and the strange sympathy of two hurt people. Many of the game’s endings had me feeling sad and small, but the true ending inverted all that.
It’s 10 minutes long, free and surprisingly beautiful — the kind of game you play on a whim and then think about for the rest of the week. You came for dinner; he came for closure; it’s not the same thing, but it was close enough.
petsitting
There’s something oddly comforting about petsitting, a 15-minute game where your only job is to care for your friend’s pet, which happens to be a large, carnivorous worm affectionately named Dog.
While petsitting, you complete tasks that are as ordinary as they come: make dinner, feed Dog, give him a bath and tuck him into bed. The controls are simpler than simple: You click to move, click to interact and, once, click-and-hold to drag your ingredients into your stew. The game’s strength is its subtle yet convincing atmosphere. The visuals are basic and blocky — almost MS Paint-level — but they hit that exact indie-cozy sweet spot, the kind that feels like a dream you’re remembering halfway through.
As your night unfolds, things get stranger … and softer. You make stew, feed Dog at the table like the polite gentleman he is and try not to think too hard when he bites you during bath time. Later, you wake up to find Dog speaking to you. He needs your help, and if you love him — really love him — you’ll help him escape, even if it means watching him getting beamed away.
Petsitting isn’t just about horror or absurdity; it’s about unexpected tenderness. It’s about caring for something monstrous. It’s my personal “Frankenstein.”
If you love Dog, let him go.
Daily Arts Writer Estlin Salah can be reached at essalah@umich.edu.
