small_world
small_world is a tiny exploration-driven narrative game, where you find the small, passing connection between two people through a simulation of a long-dead Earth.
This game was created for my Interactive Narrative and Digital Storytelling module while I was at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2026.
Content warning: close range explosions throughout, references to death
Controls
Requires mouse & keyboard. Headphones recommended.
WASD - Move
Mouse Movement - Look
Left Mouse Button - Click options
Inspiration & intent
While I was creating sunset for my Approaches to Play 2 module last year, I knew I wanted to revisit its atmosphere with another project that focussed on the micro-connections we have with the people in our community.
This is the first version of that project.
During the semester, the games department at Goldsmiths hosted a night of talks on game preservation. I have continued to hold onto many of the philosophical ideas about preservation, value and importance from that night.
The act of preservation says that this thing has value. It is worth keeping. This thing should continue to exist, against the unrelenting ravages of time and entropy.
We don't often consider the people outside of our immediate circle of friends or family. The many people we interact with or even just relatively close to on a daily basis, we know virtually nothing about them.
I grew up in a relatively small town, before moving to a relatively small city for my undergrad degree and moving back home again. I run into people that I know all the time. Recently, while working as a cashier in my hometown, I served a lot of people from my childhood that I hadn't thought about in years.
I wonder if they recognised me.
It's a small world, for sure.
I find there's something quietly beautiful and intimate about these tangential relationships. I wanted to put this feeling into a game, with that sense of discovery about a place and its people.
I hope I achieved that.
Future development
While I appreciate the elegance of a small experience such as this, it is very much a prototype/vertical slice. I would like to explore further development with this project, expanding the web of connections with more characters, adding interiors, interactable objects and so on.
My aim is to create an in-depth, full-length information game using connection as the deductive objective, because I think our small connections are worth recording and preserving, and I hope I can encourage some other people to think that way.
Assets
Character animations from Mixamo
Dialogue system using Ink and Ink-Unity Integration from Inkle
First Person Controller Starter Asset from Unity
Character and environmental models from Animpic Studio:
_> STYLE - Character Customization Kit
SFX & Music
Music: "Equatorial Complex " Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Alterations:
_> trimmed silence at end of track
_> looped final minute for dialogue section
SFX:
Explosion.mp3 by WaveAdventurer -- https://freesound.org/s/93741/-- License: Attribution 4.0
AEROMil_Fast Fighter Overflight From Left To right.Designed_EM.mp3 by newlocknew -- https://freesound.org/s/653856/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0
1.wav by vic2506 -- https://freesound.org/s/548191/ -- License: Creative Commons 0
6.wav by vic2506 -- https://freesound.org/s/548192/-- License: Creative Commons 0
Fonts
