Using Tiny Glade for World Building Planning

THIS. IS. SO. COOL.

I recently came across this diorama builder while scrolling past posts on social media showing off tiny villages, little ruins, and majestic castles! Instantly I found myself captivated by the cute & quaint art-style, serene atmosphere, and simplistic game mechanics.

It's a stunning sandbox of art that you can use as a paint brush to create a world! ( On tiny scale!) It's truly magical in both practice and looks, so let me give a quick run down of the ways you can use this to your advantage when world building!

THE TINY DETAILS

Tiny Glade allows you the freedom to get detail oriented on your most intimate settings. While you won't be able to broadly dictate a whole continent, you will be able to squeeze in a bustling medieval town, or maybe a quaint, open farmland filled with fields of blooming flowers.

For my purposes, I decided to use it to depict the setting for a scene in my novel: CASTLING, where my characters enter the city for the first time. The city itself is much too massive to fit into what little plot of land Tiny Glade gives you, so I took a pie-shaped cut where my characters will actually walk through and flushed it out using the game's tools.

This - I think - might be one of the best and most underrated ways to use Tiny Glade to world build. How often can you lay out a scene in your head in 3D space? Usually you have to hire an artist, or if you're out of money make a rough sketch on a flat piece of paper. ( I see you D&D dungeon masters!! <3 )

You can more accurately describe your surroundings in your story with this visual aide, and at the same time flush out other important concepts for your world.

In the picture above, I attempted to depict what one of my massive 'helionyx kilns' would look like on the outskirts of this rustic farmland. I knew in my head it was large, but having it in this space really makes describing just how out of place it is in the novel much easier than before.

I haven't been able to deeply dive into the many ways you can mix and match structures, roads, and pillars in the game, but you can come up with some truly fantastical shapes if you tinker around enough.

HOW TO GET YOUR HANDS ON TINY GLADE

For those of you non-gamers who are also world builders, this section is for you! ( This isn't sponsored, I just want more world builders to have another tool in their arsenal! )

Tiny Glade currently is only on PC and Steam: a library of endless games that you can download directly to your computer or use their online website to browse and buy products.

If you have the money and the tech, I highly recommend getting Tiny Glade. Here are the minimum requirements to run on your computer:

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system

OS: Windows 10+

Processor: Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen

Memory: 4 GB RAM

Graphics: For 720p: Radeon R9 270, GeForce GTX 670 (Kepler architecture, driver 472.12+), Intel Iris Xe, or similar (with 2+ GB of VRAM)

Storage: 3 GB available space

Sound Card: Yes, please

Additional Notes: A mouse with 2 buttons + scroll wheel is necessary for camera control.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Tiny Glade is a fantasy writer's worldbuilding dream tool, and has the extra positives of being a calming, charming, and beautiful diorama builder that you can play in for hours.

You don't even need a world in your head to get started. Tiny Glade is a blank canvass - use it to create fantastical towns of whimsy or detail out a little witchy cottage in a gloomy forest. Your creativity is only limited by your imagination!

Let me know if you get this game, or if you already have it, and tell me what you have built ( or are planning ) to build with it!

Until next time!