Week 7: Game

Small Worlds

This was a very unique unique game that I thoroughly enjoyed. What was remarkable about the game was that at the start I had very little clue what was happening nor what I was supposed to do/achieve. The only input I had was the fact that jumping around the screen uncovered more of the “world” from blackness. Admittedly however, this was more than enough incentive to me, and I (somewhat correctly) assumed that this was exactly what I was meant to be doing. I quite enjoyed this aspect, and believe that the exploration and discovery of the worlds within the game is what made it fun for me. Surprisingly the very simple graphics worked with the ambient music to still create an interesting and immersive environment to explore, so kudos to them for that.

At first I continued playing the game to explore the worlds and discover their little secrets – I was obsessed with uncovering as much of the blackness as I could (to the eventual irritation of those watching me play). Soon however this was compounded by also wanting to discover the nature behind the game, and what the actual purpose of uncovering the worlds was. This was sparked by the discovery of the glowing gems and warps to other worlds. So while I was eager to know what collecting all the gems would achieve – and knew that touching them was the ultimate goal of each world, I was still obsessively exploring every little square of the worlds – going so far as to ignoring the gems if I found them and had yet to explored all of the world.

I was quite impressed at how they had manage to create such an interesting yet “simple” world that had me so compelled to explore. As I said before, despite the simple graphics the artwork was still very nice and was complemented by the music. Amusingly, the very fact that these were “Small Worlds” was also a large factor in my desire to explore them. They were small enough to not get boring and provided something interesting to uncover at every turn. I found it refreshing as many new games these days tend to focus on “amazing expansive sand-box worlds!” when in fact they are usually just small parts of a world many times over which can become tedious and boring to explore. Huzzah for Small Worlds’ novel approach to exploration and discovery :).