9 Games of SMOL 2025

Note: This game collection is only available currently to A Time For Good Things subscribers

The 9 Games of SMOL 2025 are little bites of bigger game ideas, and the way Wonderful Elephant chooses to close out each year. From the creator of all those little Flash games you played forever, these nine brand-new games are being released for this special collection!

These Games are:

(Downloads are at the bottom of the entire list!)

1: Elephant Side Up

Released Dec 4, 2025 for PC and Mac

A new year of SMOL,
Could never be done,
Without laser light shows
And a blue little one.

“A new game with me?”
The elephant asked.
“Yes” said the creator,
“But I must warn you are tasked”

“With an unruly ask,
For which I despair.
You many only level up,
By turning through the air.”

Author's Note: This was such a challenge as a game dev to get feeling right, and I dare say it feels right! The goal was to fuse the original idea of Stomp Your Friends with a little bit of Elephant Rave and Epic Combo. Stomp Your Friends (Spring 2025 ATFGT release) originally had flipping, but the scope of friend varieties and upgrades reduced that scope to simply stomping. In this game, built entirely from scratch, I dove into making the flipping mechanic work. A little bit of Tony Hawk Pro Skater scoring combined with Dolphin Olympics made progression simple: land cool stunts to unlock world progression and upgrades. There’s a lot of legs in this game for sequels and derivative work; I already got some ideas in the planning sheet. First blue elephant game running 120 fps!

2: We All Fall Down

Released Dec 10, 2025 for PC and Mac

What if the ghosts
of our previous lives
Led us down 30 floors
with stores on the fives

That sold us new powers
each one costing more
giving us enough speed
to descend the last floor 

With only three colors
of orange, black, and blue
we apologize for losing 
the rest of the hues!

Author's Note: Coming out of the gate for SMOL with two games heavy on upgrade trees was quite a task. I really enjoyed the challenge of working in only three colors, which was quite fun especially for getting UI and other elements looking right. The colors chosen were originally just blue and black, however I found the main character would get lost among the ghosts without that contrasting orange. After that, the orange seeped into the rest of the design. This game also experiments with seeded random, meaning that a key phrase (such as "Elephant") could be used to seed an entire challenge experience that everyone will experience the same way. I look forward to digging into more seeds to find some interesting challenges

3: Don't Touch The Cake 2

Released Dec 12, 2025 for PC and Mac

The cake from last year
Was kept in the freezer
We’re serving it again
As it was a crowd-pleaser

But wait this cake
Tastes a bit more 90’s
Nostalgic gifs and sounds
With a dash of Geocities

“It’s cake all the same,”
John said with a grin,
“Would you like another piece?”
It’s time to begin

Author Notes: I love the Don’t Touch the Cake and Do Touch the Cake games from last year’s SMOL. I ran with the concept a little harder this year transforming it from a dark demonic corporate theme to an even weirder 90’s internet theme. I had a lot of fun with this, good luck not touching the cake!

4: POPCORNRUGA

Released Dec 16, 2025 for PC and MAC

Back when I made games
with one only one level
I left fans of a genre
completely befuddled

"Is this Ikargua?" 
they cried, in protest
"You called it Touhou!"
(I was wrong, I digress)

As an apology now
14 years too late
I make an Ikaruga-like
with popcorn and mistakes

Author Notes: The original concept of this game was simply catching popcorn in a popcorn bucket with a bit of ASMR/sound experience to go with it. I love making homemade popcorn at home for snacks and movie nights, so it felt like a love letter to my favorite treat. Then I went off the rails, got obsessed with the idea of making a bullet hell game, and here we are. Whoops :D

5: FARMRNG

Released Dec 20, 2025 for PC and MAC

Uncle Teddy flew in
to take care of the farm
He's kind and attentive
what could be the harm?

If only Teddy knew
his nephew's deep quirks
that farming is random
It drove him berserk

"Why do the fruits
go into the ground
and come out with a spinner
should I sound the alarm?!" 

Author Notes: I'm a big Stardew Valley fan, but I've never wanted to make a game on the level of Stardew Valley. But I do deeply appreciate the surprise and delight of the RANDOM in that game, against the simplicity of seeding, watering, and harvesting as a core loop. SMOL is a great project for me because it really helps me distill some of these passions into concepts I've been curious about, hence FARMRNG, or understanding the joy of RNG (random number generator) wins, or the random reward. It was fun manipulating numbers and finding the right balance of wins to not-wins, and how it feels good against the simple process of gardening. I really like this one <3.

6: FLIES

Author's Notes: My entire office is infested with fruit flies right now. While I've made smacking bugs a subject of games before (and we all played Mario Paint's minigame), I used the moment to instead reflect on my fly rage. I also spent way too many cycles trying to get the feel of swatting flies correct (I had a lot of test subjects hovering in my face during the duration of development). I don't do a lot of VO in my games, so it was also a nice moment to do a little voice acting as well.

7: Move Turn Function ( )

Released Dec 24, 2025

When a game asks nicely
to pair-program it too
do you shy from the challenge
or bring your code-fu?

Our coding is simple
with commands numbering three:
To Move, To Turn,
and simple Functions (a breeze!)

But the puzzles get harder
as the complexity grows
(And you can edit in real-time
let's see what you know)

Author's Notes: This game took longer than expected, going through several iterations of design before landing on one that was simple enough to grasp from a programming standpoint but also allowed for more complex level design. I REALLY like this concept and plan on expanding it at a future date, as there's so much you can do with it without making the programming any more complex. I love that you can on-the-fly program in this game as well, you don't need to set up the full solution and hope it works!

8: You Should Touch The Cake 2

Released December 29, 2025

What if a demon
broke cake into seven
hid them deep in his hell
wouldn't that be just heaven?

"I'm Hampton the Demi Demon"
he cried through the fire,
"Please touch this cake I made
but first I require 

"You find every ingredient 
hidden deep in my lair
No pastry is safe 
from this eternal despair!"

Author's Notes: This was an unusually hard project to finish. Worked on this through the holidays, there were so many follies and issues with the game. At one point, every single Animated gif broke at once, and I had to reupload and edit every single image in the game. Overall, I like how it ended up. I had a lot of fun programming the ball and cup minigame.

9: Go Capy Go!

Released December 30, 2025

What if dear Capy
returned to his prime
without worrying about
the main system time

For he runs and he jumps
and he maneuvers with grace
through a sea of swirling tiles
and a quite whiskery face

"But why a capybara?
Why here and why now?"
-Because I'm bad at drawing manatees
I just don't know how (love, John)

Author's Notes: There are 4,417 hand-placed tiles in a single level that stretches 10,600 pixels tall, making it the largest level I have ever created. While placing tiles is a tedious process, it does allow for some fun, creative design. On another note, I had fun building the checkpoint system in this game. While there's no way to actually die in the game, the checkpoints allow for a refined version of speedrunning built into the game. That was neat to build!