Small World

What a cute game is this! What a nice little thing! Small World is not a "deep" game, and it doesn't tackle any big issues like fate or death or heartbreak. Nope. Small World is just a nice fun diversion, not too hard, not too long. Just a short ride. On the other hand, this is a game with great narrative potential. I think it fell short, though, but I can easily imagine a larger story. With just a tad bit more hashing out of the game, this would be among my favorites.

In Small World, you play a fat boy getting ready for a hiking trip:

You hear the bus horn beeping as you, with misgivings, cram the last few items into your backpack, close it, and shoulder it on. It's Saturday, time for the first trip of the Junior Hikers your parents forced you to join. Short, chubby, and extremely shy, you've kept to yourself since your beloved, if eccentric, great-aunt died over the winter. As is your wont, before leaving, you spin the globe she gave you for your tenth birthday.

But it's stuck.

What happens next is great fun: you suddenly shrink, smaller and smaller, until you are in the globe, but a giant. You go from being a little fat boy to a big skinny boy! And in this small world you meet St. Peter, the Devil, Adam and Eve, and little green Martians, in an homage Gulliver's Travels. You job is to fix all the screwed up things in this little world and to get the globe spinning again. And in so doing, you regain your self-confidence and no longer fear a simple hiking trip. Pretty neat!

So, here's where I think the game could have done better: give us more of the set-up. Let us play as a fat, shy kid for a little bit. It doesn't have to be much, but we could roam the house a bit, play with our globe some. Maybe the globe actually got stuck because someone else messed with it, someone who intimidates us. If we had a little more time with the kid, we'd get a better feel for his character and this transformative adventure of his would have more meaning for us. This would make the end more meaningful and triumphant, I think. The basic frame is already in place, and all we as player-readers need is something more concrete, more showing, to really hook us in.

The writing in the game is already wonderful. Small World won the 1996 Xyzzy award for Best Setting (which I think it probably deserved) and Best NPC (probably for the Devil; he's hilarious), but to be honest I think it should have also been nominated for Best Writing. So Far won that one, and Tapestry was also nominated. But you know, Small World is solidly written. It isn't "beautiful," but the writing is solid and clear and Pontious maintains a consistent voice which fits the game perfectly. It's light and humorous and conveys a tone appropriate to the setting. I think it is at least as well-written as So Far.

I think this is a great little game, with very few flaws. It probably isn't the best game if you want very challenging, mind-bending puzzles. It would be suitable for children and people looking for a nice little adventure. Honestly, it has a bit of a Katamari Damacy vibe to it. Play it!

(reposted from my blog--totally surprised that this award-winning game had no reviews and few ratings.)

In this game, you walk around a literal "small world". You are a giant that can grab things from space, get shot at by missiles and not care, and do other giant things. The world is not spinning, so some parts are perpetually hot, some perpetually cold and dark.

The game is packed with tiny details, and a blending of big and small. The writing is plain but descriptive.

The puzzles are a mixed bag. It's mostly "guess the author's brain", which is easy to do some of the time and hard other times. The world is so small that you can just try everything on everyone and it will work out.

This game was nominated for many XYZZY's, and won best setting.

That's odd... The miniature globe you got from your great-aunt for your tenth birthday is stuck. It doesn't spin anymore. You lean in closer for a better look, and before you know it you're tumbling and twisting through dimensions...
When you come to, you're standing on the small world that is your toy-globe, your head high in the upper atmosphere, mountains and oceans mere details at your feet far below.

I like this "just because" leap of imagination. No magical powers or SF-ish technobabble to rationalise or justify the weird stuff. Just dive right in and roll with it.

There's a series of Calvin & Hobbes strips where Mr Watterson went for absurdity for absurdity's sake. For several days, the strip showed nothing but Calvin just growing bigger and bigger, until by the end of the week he was balancing on the curve of the earth with his head above the clouds. That image provided the visuals in my head while I was playing Small World.

The seemingly simple gimmick of sheer size completely changes the perspective on the game world. Movement on a non-rotating globe means you travel to different times of day, depending on where the sun is located. (For example, Noon is one step east of Morning.) Since all natural and man-made objects are tiny compared to you, you have no access to any everyday objects to help solve the puzzles. Better look around and find some stuff more fitting for your size...

Many of the locations have some evidence of human civilisation, for some reason wildly varying in historical time. A medieval witch-burning is happening in one location while your toes get bombarded with atomic bombs in another. Still, a pivotal bible-scene in one location and the appearance of the Devil himself as NPC help to loosely tie the story together thematically. "Loosely" being not strong enough a word to accurately describe it, but well...

The implementation and polish of Small World are impressive. Your examination and exploration of the world goes several layers deep, especially once you find the handy lens in your backpack. However small the lands at your feet may be, there's a lot of evidence of life and natural processes. Your little globe is not a static artefact at all.
The pesky Devil-NPC is not a deeply realised character, nor does he need to be. His continued presence and insistence you sign his contract make him as annoying as a mosquito zipping around your ears.

As for the puzzles, let's say a lot of them make about as much sense as the premise of the story. I had fun the whole time trying stuff and tinkering with the parts of the surroundings that I could influence, but I did need some help actually solving a lot of them.
Some are nice obstacles where you need to think outside the box a bit and repurpose certain objects. Most however require unfathomable leaps of the imagination and a large dose of moon-logic to stumble upon the solution. (Thank you @David_Welbourn for the great walkthrough. I would not have gotten the planetary ring without you.)

A little solar system of fun.