Small World, a super stylish isometric platform puzzler made for the Ludum Dare 38, has you using a grappling hook and a spade to alter the layout of levels to allow you to reach the exit.
In Small World, your aim is to explore the environment around you, collect red shards and making it to a red portal. This portal is quite easy to reach at first, but after a few levels, you have to start moving the isometric blocks the world is made of out of. You are a prepared adventurer though – you have a shovel and a grappling hook!
You can use your shovel to push a block away from you, leaving a gap that is easy to jump over, and putting the block possibly closer to other blocks you need to get too. Your hook does almost the opposite – you use it to grab onto blocks and move them closer to you. As you make it through levels, you will start to see new worlds. Some of them even change completely with every death, while others just change their environment (adding more trees or changing from grass to dirt).
The later randomly generated levels can feel a little too random at times, lacking a sense of structure, but on the whole Small World is an impressive and inventive puzzle game. The charming isometric visuals and the unique bock sliding puzzles make for a fun little puzzler that’ll get you hooked (or shovelled).
Download Small World Here (Windows Only)