Mike Bithell’s Quarantine Circular is out now. If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard of the game, that might be because it was announced roughly five minutes before it launched. It’s an experimental launch for an experimental game, where you chat up fellow scientists and an alien in the shadow of a pandemic that threatens to end the world.
Billed as a “one-sitting game for adults,” the developers are up front about the fact that you’ll finish the game in about two hours, just as with its predecessor. “We’re so grateful to the community for the low rate of refunds on our previous short, Subsurface Circular. We hope Quarantine will earn the same. Our games are made by a team of hardworking people, and it’s encouraging that the Steam community consistently shows respect for this passion and effort.”
Enjoy more small-scale experiments with the best indie games on PC.
Previous titles from Bithell Games include Volume, Thomas Was Alone, and of course Subsurface Circular, which made a similar surprise debut last year. Mike Bithell jokingly says “It was a decision heralded at launch as ‘ok, I guess’ and ‘probably not a good idea’,” though obviously trying it again means it worked out fine the first time.
Subsurface Circular “got the best reviews we’ve ever had,” Bithell says, “and a Steam rating that I’m still not entirely convinced isn’t the result of a weird bug. It also (thanks to being pretty cheap to make) made its money back quickly and has kept us all going since.”
Hopefully Quarantine Circular can achieve similar success. It’s available now on Steam with a launch week discount of 20%, bringing the price down to $4.79 / £3.83 / €4.79.