One Last Game

About One Last Game

One Last Game was made in 48 hours for the GMTK Game Jam 2020, whose theme was Out of Control, by Goose Ladder Games and Dave Ladr. It placed second for originality and 44th overall among the jam's entries, and has since been rated 4.7 out of 5 by over a thousand players on itch.io. It plays in the browser, with a Windows download and the original jam build also offered, at a price you name yourself.

The makers' description is short: play one last game of checkers in dreadful circumstances beyond your control; neither of you remembers the rules that well, but it does not matter. You sit at a wooden table in a bare room under a single bulb, across from an old man with a tired, frightened face. Everything is drawn by hand in white lines on black, and an old public-domain recording, Good-Night by the Knickerbocker Quartet, plays over it.

You play by clicking a piece and then where it should go. As Alpha Beta Gamer describes it, it soon becomes clear why your companion is so unhappy: a war is going on outside. Shells land nearby, the room shakes and the power goes out, and still you keep playing. There are no monsters and nothing to fight; the fear is in waiting at the table.

It is a quiet, sad piece rather than a scary one in the jump-scare sense, and it is over in about three minutes. Play it with the sound on, as the makers ask, if you want a short, serious game about dread and the small things people hold on to.

How to play One Last Game

1. Open the game's itch.io page and press Run game; it plays in the browser.
2. Turn the sound on, as the makers ask.
3. On your turn, click one of your checkers pieces.
4. Then click the square you want to move it to, and keep playing to the end.

Tips

• Play with headphones or sound on; the music and the noise from outside carry most of it.
• Do not worry about the rules or winning; the makers say neither player remembers them well.
• Play it in one sitting; it lasts about three minutes.

Questions