I won!
Casual Gameplay Design Competition #6 results
I’m absolutely overwhelmed by how my little game has done – I didn’t expect it to do well at all, and I certainly never thought it could win the competition. I’ve been avidly and obsessively reading every forum and comment thread in which it’s been mentioned over the last couple of weeks; if you’ve said something nice about it then I’ve probably read it and it made me happy, so thanks a lot!
Thanks so much to everyone who voted for Small Worlds, and especially the staff at jayisgames.com, who organised the competition. It’s a great site, and it’s brought some real indie gems to my attention over the last year or so.
Anyway, I should be thinking about making another game probably. I had a vague idea about making a user-created-content version of Small Worlds, where people could upload new worlds for each other to explore, but the technical side would need some thought. I have an idea for something else, but it’s more pixel art – maybe I should try a completely different aesthetic next.
Woo! Yeah!
May I suggest you take this unexpected but well deserved windfall and blow it all on unsuitable hats?
Congratulations David! Loved Small Worlds, cheers!
Congratulations. I looked at a few of the other games, and honestly I’m not at all surprised you won.
This is purely selfish, but I don’t like the user-generated idea. I want to play more of your games, not games made by random people around the internet. Plus, it’s probably not a good idea to get too stuck on one idea. You’ve made a game, it was great, it was popular, now move on, you know? I’m sure you have more to offer the world of games than that one creation.
..but of course it’s not my place to tell you what to do next. If you really think another version of Small Worlds is the best way to apply yourself (Presumably you’re seeing something in that idea that I’m not.), go for it.
Mory, I agree about getting stuck in a rut – if I was going to do more Small Worlds it would definitely be on the side while I worked on something different.
Bart: Thank you! Full Moon was awesome, I particularly liked the two-owls-in-a-tree level – It gave me one of those perfect forehead-slapping moments of realisation.
Steve: Hats it is!
Congratulations on your win! Your game really struck me as unique and interesting.
I am an audio designer, let me know if you need any bits and pieces doing!
For examples of stuff i’ve done check out my website: http://www.jakealmond.co.uk
Take it easy!
Jake
Hahaha – Jake, you’ve immediately won me over with your Spectrum-themed website. You did the sound for two of the Karoshi games? I love those.
Congratulations on the win, you definitely deserved it. Small Worlds is exceptional, its left me thinking about it hours and even days after I played it, even more so then a great novel or film does. I can’t wait to see what you make next, and thank you very much for making Small Worlds, I feel richer for playing it.
I have to admit that I love, love, love your game! I didn’t want to stop playing. I’m really excited to see what else you come up with, and would love to see more levels for this one!
This was a beautiful experience. the music, the design, the simple gameplay. Everything came together.
Well done sir.
Fantastic Game…
So much atmosphere generated….
loved it!!
I found your game on Armor Games. It is really a marvelous piece of work. I especially like the graphical simplicity and colours and the great effects and atmosphere you accomplished with that.
It is one of the few quality flash games I have found so far. I’d even say its ranked #1 for me as I think about it..
Really great work! Thank you!
Congratulations mate, superb game!
One question: how can I play it full screen?
Congrats. Just played it. Awesome game. Simple, but well executed. Nice clean look. Great atmosphere.
Your little game made my month. Congratulations. It’s beautiful.
small-worlds
hi David. I would like to say that small worlds is absolutely amazing, it’s a great game. congratulations i love it. (sorry for the previus (mis-)post)
I played Small Worlds when I first saw the CGDC #6, not long after it had been posted up. I played it once, with a little apprehension, as it was a different kind of game.
Then I played it again, straight after finishing it.
It left me thinking, always in the back of my mind, and today was as good as ever to revisit it, and it was as good as the first time, if not better.
I thought the game was very, very good. Thank you, congratulations on the prizes [which you definitely deserved] and I look forward to playing some more of your games in the future!
I love small worlds. It’s gorgeous!
Please make another version … and user-generated-”maps” would be awesome
Great game! I really liked the simplicity & oldskool feel. I have an idea for a sequel. This idea is kind of hard to explain without graphics, but here goes.
Allow the game to branch off into different possibilities, according to the routes you choose to explore. For instance, let’s say your character is exploring the right area of a map, which comes to look like a girl as the map zooms out. Once the map has zoomed out to a reasonable degree, this girl will come to life and now you will control her throughout his own map. Alternatively, if you had explored the left half of the map, the map starts to look more and more like a tiger. If you reveal the tiger part of the map completely before you reveal the girl part of the map, the tiger will instead come to life and you will be able to explore the expanded map as a tiger, with the girl part of the map now just being part of the background.
You could iterate this over and over, creating somewhat of a fractal feel in your game. You could also place hints in the game which give you clues as to which of the characters you should progress into in order to get the best ending. Or, you could simply keep it about exploration and encourage the player to try all routes leading to equally good (but very different) endings.
Best of luck and thanks again for a great game!
Hello David,
I had a blast playing and just had to blog about it. Well done.
Just played “small worlds” and it was beautiful. The art is quite captivating and the environments do extremely creative things with nothing more than pixels. I think the gaming industry could learn something from the simple elegance of your game as opposed to some of the “graphics porn” that’s produced today.
Your game hypnotized me. I was unable to do anything but play it for about 15 minutes. I don’t regret losing that time, it was fun! Thanks!
hey! was recommended small worlds by a friend this morning and just played it through! great work, it was amazing! such great minimalistic idea and atmosphere! (the only crit I can think of is that it could perhaps have been more puzzlier and harder – although it was great exploring it was kind of easy to just walk through.)
tiny bit disappointed to learn that the music was found on the internet (still admire your taste and the musics role in the game of course) it would have been so cool if it was you and your mate the musician and you just made this great work of art together.
speaking of the music would it be possible to have a version (?) with less compressed audio? a downloadable or something…it is a bandwidth issue right? (not to make it sound lo-fi to go with the pixels or something I mean)
oh and I agree with not bothering with making some motor for user-created content. for me this is all about the idea, more so than the “content” as such – and its of perfect length already! short and sweet! it will only be watered down with user content. at least thats what I think.
thanks for a great and original gaming experience!
Thanks Mats! I can understand how sourcing third-party music might make the game seem slightly less personal, but I assure you I spent a very long time picking out the pieces I wanted, and each one is far better than anything I could have written myself! (Which was, horrifyingly, my original plan.)
The compression is purely a bandwidth issue – it their natural form the tracks take up about 50MB all together, which is obviously far too large for a Flash game. Most Flash games have one or two songs at most – I wanted to cram in five of them, all three minutes or longer, and so didn’t really have any choice but to lower the bitrate.
A downloadable high-quality-audio version isn’t a bad idea…
thanks a lot for the reply!
hey reading my post again maybe I formulated that a bit harshly/clumsily. its just that the music fits so perfectly and complements the game so much it really feels like one piece of work. you did do the levels to fit the music?
oh okay. were there bandwidth restrictions for things like streaming the sound as well?
well I guess I should let it go! =)
ps. listening to the van hemlock podcast now – nice to hear your opinions on stuff! ta-
Fantastic game David, it’s really cracking and the soundscape is excellent. Nice change to the usual flash games out there and you should give youself a hefty pat on the back.
It’s featured in Custompc (UK) magazine this month under the requried playing section (page26) and that’s how I found out about it.
Once again, excellent game, I shall now post a link on my blog.
I loved Small Worlds and just had to stop by and say thank you to the author. I like the “too much noise” -> “silence” progression and in my own small way I think I get it. Thanks for a very enjoyable and very zen 20 minutes. What a wonderful gift to give to a complete stranger.
Ha! This game is amazing! Great job David!
I stumbled upon your game on bubblebox.com and simply could not rest until I figured out how to thank you for the best ten minutes I’d ever spent playing a game.
I really enjoyed this game. It reminded me of the classic Out of this World.
Hiya. I just tried to vote on Eurogamer’s game of the year. As Small Worlds didn’t make the list (I think it’s just commercial releases), I wanted to let you know that it’s the best thing I played in 2009.
It’s absolutely stunning. Stark, haunting, and so beautifully evocative… Such a perfect understanding of video game story telling at it’s rawest. I can’t believe how much you’ve encapsulated here; by any measure, it’s a work of art. Thank you!
Disregard some of that, Small Worlds has just been added to the list. Better late than never I suppose. Uh, those so inclined have a few hours to vote on this…
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/reader-top-50-2009-survey
Fantastic game, beautifully done. Please port to iPhone!
Just Played with Small Worlds, and would like to say thank you . It has brought sunshine to my day
All i can say is, WOW. Excellent game! Thank you for making this! I hope you have spare time to make another small worlds!
Congratulations on your well-deserved first prize, and THANK YOU for creating Small Worlds. Exploration has always been one of my favourite aspects of gaming, but even I have always been at a loss when it came to making an exploration game engaging without including some sort of item-collection or puzzle-solving. The zoom-out was a brilliant solution, and the execution left me breathless and speechless.
“I should be thinking about making another game probably. I had a vague idea about making a user-created-content version of Small Worlds, where people could upload new worlds for each other to explore, but the technical side would need some thought. I have an idea for something else, but it’s more pixel art – maybe I should try a completely different aesthetic next.”
I am *pleading* with you to make another game. By all means stretch yourself for your next release, but please don’t rule out working on another Small-Worlds-type game after (or during — maybe you’ll be the next Mateusz Skutnik, working on 3 or more awesome games at any given time) you try your hand at something completely different in terms of playstyle.
Personally, I love the idea of a subsequent Small-Worlds-type release with a level editor or other facility for user-created “worlds” to be shared with other players, but I also hope you’ll make a second game at least as big and complex as the original game, first. I haven’t actually played Knytt Stories, because the reviews I’ve seen near-universally complained how disappointing it was, compared to the care that went into the original Knytt (and Within a Deep Forest); I’d hate to see the same fate befall Small Worlds.
I want Small Worlds to be a series that will rival the Submachine series in my heart.
Whatever games you create — or don’t — in the future, though, you will always have my gratitude for the transcendent experience of Small Worlds.
When I tried this game I was immediately hooked. It’s just beautiful. Thanks a lot.