Small Spaces Review (PC)

‘I understood that in this small space of time we had mutually surrendered our loneliness and replaced it with trust.’ — Patti Smith.

Small Spaces asks a simple question: What would you do with the keys to a small loft in the beating heart of New York? It adds another, too: How would you utilize the space for your own personal affairs? It doesn’t necessarily tell you which route to take, or how you might go about adding flare to the loft in question, for that matter. Instead, Small Spaces grants you the opportunity to shape, mold, and embellish your own personal studio without the hassle of keeping up with the latest trends or adhering to any specific set of rules. It’s an open book, if anything, and above all, an excuse to channel your dreams into a borderless canvas. The only thing that holds you back here, of course, is the amount of space you can access.

I rolled into Small Spaces with the goal of creating a space that would feel both comfortable and accessible for my own personal needs. I wasn’t held back, either, with the opening portions of the game offering me full creative control over the furniture I could install, and the set pieces that would ultimately compliment the loft’s aesthetic and homely ambiance. There wasn’t a great deal of space to work with, but that made the challenge of wanting to fill it all the more compelling. The only thing that caused me to fret, really, was the fact that I had such little room to incorporate dozens of potential designs. But I accepted nonetheless, for where there was a cubby, there was an opportunity to fill it with one of thousands of ideas. I just had to decide which blueprint to build from first.

Home Is What You Make It

Small Spaces takes a big ol’ leaf out of the likes of Unpacking to construct the outer layer of its level-by-level campaign, with each chapter in its anthology primarily revolving around the simple act of both unboxing various items to fit into snug spots around the room, as well as ticking off certain objectives in order to progress the story through to the next stage or location. To begin with, though, it starts out with a primal look—a bare bones loft somewhere in a city, with a few alcoves and a rather depressing glimmer of light to take advantage of. From here, it’s merely the case of flicking through a catalog to see which item suits which area, and making subtle changes to the layout to transform an otherwise dull pocket of space into a whimsical piece of art with all of the homely comforts, to boot.

The good news is, Small Spaces doesn’t just stick with the usual A-to-B progression, but instead allows you the chance to experiment with various types of decor and embellishments over a series of distinct locations. From the seating plans to the storage facilities, the floral tributes to the general appliances, the game itself does in fact offer a steady flow of ideas that you can bring to the canvas, with each option providing its own series of curveballs for you to tackle—alignment, location, and compatibility with other pieces of decor in the space, for example.

Big Dreams, Small Spaces

For a game that has only just emerged from its Early Access vessel, Small Spaces is incredibly airtight and without the added downfalls of a typical new arrival. To say that it’s all perfect wouldn’t be entirely true, though the mechanics and design, in general, are both incredibly easy to navigate and more than capable of easing you into a stress-free experience without ever feeling the need to bombard you with unnecessary jargon or mind-sweltering tutorials to scoot you through the process. There’s a small learning curve, I’ll admit, yet figuring out how to finesse the process is all part of the fun here, truly.

Small Spaces is irresistibly cozy—idyllic, even, thanks to the gentle warmth of the lighting and the calming atmosphere that it bundles into its each and every frame. Suffice it to say, then, that it’s the sort of game that you could quite easily sink your teeth into to break up some of those longer, more grueling RPGs on the side. And when all’s said and done, that’s a product that most of us can gel with, regardless of personal preference or taste in home comforts.

Verdict

Small Spaces captures a beautiful pocket-sized canvas for fledgling creators to develop and finesse their own stunning works of art in a suite that not only feels accessible and clean, but also provides all of the right tools to make even the smallest of cubbies gleam with that all-important signature charm. To that end, I’d say that there’s more than enough here for you to spend a few hours with the brushes and chalkboard — even more, perhaps, provided that you’re the sort of perfectionist who enjoys the art of Feng Shui and the act of sourcing homely comforts for even the most unlikely of tight places.

With a surprisingly generous selection of furniture pieces and items of decor to choose from, as well as a fairly sizable campaign with several apartments and other cozy quarters to chomp through, Small Spaces really does come up trumps with a budget-friendly alternative to the traditional triple-A interior design app. Sure, it could still do with a few extra trimmings, as well as a couple more locations to really push the boat out, but for what it does have in its current state, it’s an easy way to lose a handful of hours if you happen to have the time to spare on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

If you, too, share a love of home decor and sandbox sims, then you’re most definitely going to enjoy fixing up old cubbies and creating tranquil studies in Small Spaces. And who knows, maybe it’ll persuade you into creating your own home away from home in that unused area of your own space. The power of video games, eh?