Less is moor
Tiny Gladehas been a constant presence on TikTok for the last year or so.
It’s never far away.
It feels like we’ve been here before - sort of.
Tiny Glade’s biggest difference is that it’s 3D.
All of this brings me to a second big difference, and perhaps the most important one.
Clip two panes of glass close together, and the game may turn them into a big arched window.
Run a path through a building and the game will obligingly add a door.
This stuff gets at the heart of what’s special here, in fact.
Tiny Glade, like all the bestGrand Designs, reveals that architecture is always a bit of a negotiation.
In this case, I place something, and then the game itself sometimes chooses how to decorate it.
“Wouldn’t a stack of wood look good by that wall”, it seems to think.
So I make buildings and the game often makes little micro-adjustments and finesses in real-time.
This is what gives Tiny Glade its lovely rattly, fidgety feel.
And that’s just a wall.
Oh, the playfulness.
But there’s clarity, too.
Moholy-Nagy would be impressed, I reckon.
I’ve spent as long messing with the camera stuff as I have building silly little towns.
For my first few hours I worried that Tiny Glade offered any vista as long as it was twee.
But the more I play, the more Im sure thats not really true.
My personal limits are tweeness, but I’m inclined to believe thats me rather than the game.
To put it another way, I cant wait to see what real talent does with this lovely thing.
