Give someone a world with them in it.
Most presents are a thing you hand over. This one is a place. Their name is on the door, their friends are standing in the square, and the shops are the ones they actually go to. They open a link, and dive into their world.
What you choose
Every detail is a thing you noticed about them
This is the part that does the work. You are not filling in a form so much as writing down what you know about someone: who they love, where they go, what they are always talking about. Eight small answers, five minutes, and they will see themselves in the game.
01Their name
The game opens on their name, in big letters, with a line from you underneath. Say what you would say in a card.
02Their face
Hair and clothes in their colors. The first time they see themselves walk is the moment that lands.
03Their pet
Give it their pet's name and coat. Stop and stroke it once and it follows them for the rest of the game. No pet? Leave it out.
04The people around them
Up to six friends or family, standing where you put them, saying things that sound like them. This is the one that makes people feel it's real.
05The places they love
A café, a bakery, a library, a gym, an art studio, a music venue. Real shopfronts, and they can walk inside every one.
06A favour to run
Someone in their world asks them for something small and someone else is glad when it arrives. The world is interactive and alive.
07A secret only they would get
Name the band they never shut up about. We hide one of its records in the bushes. If they find it, they keep it.
08The rest of it
Afternoon turns to evening, lamps come on, fireflies come out over the grass. Butterflies, hens, neighbors walking home.
Places
Pick where their world happens
These are the real maps, exactly as they will see them. Choose up to four and they join into one world with signposted doors between them. Whichever you pick first is where they wake up.
The village
Cottages with fenced front gardens along a lane, an orchard, and a cobbled square with a well and a market.
The beach
Palms and dunes above a promenade, parasols and towels on the sand, rowing boats hauled up past the tide line.
The forest
Thick canopy with glades that open as you walk, a trail winding through it, and a clearing with a fountain at its heart.
Downtown
A proper high street: shopfronts along an avenue, planted squares behind them, and a plaza with café tables.
How it works
Five minutes, then it is theirs
You tell us about them
Their name, their face, their people, their places. Everything that makes the game feel personal.
Their world gets built
Immediately after purchasing. The characters, the shops, the favour, the hidden record: all of it made from what you just told us.
You get a link to give them
One short link, on the last page. Put it in a message, a card, an email. It opens on any phone or laptop, whenever you decide it is time.
Have a walk around one
Here is a finished one, made for someone called Ada. Meet her friends, run an errand for one of them, stroke the pet, find the record. Yours will be this, with your person in it.
← ↑ ↓ → or WASD to walk · Space to talk · on a phone, drag to walk and tap A
Questions
The practical bits
Do they need to install anything?
No. It is a link. It opens in the browser they already have, on a phone, a tablet or a computer, and it remembers where they got to on their own device.
How long does the game last?
About twenty minutes to see everything, and it is the sort of present people go back to. There is a pet to stroke, a game of fetch, a favour to run for someone, shops to go inside and a record hidden in the bushes.
Can the game be in Spanish?
Yes. The whole game is written in English or Spanish, whichever you choose when you order.
What does it cost?
€29.
What can be personalized?
Their name, the title on the opening screen and a line of your own under it. What they look like — face, hair and clothes — and their pet, its name and which animal it is. Up to four zones to build the world out of, up to four real places they love, which become shops you can walk into, and up to six people from their life, who know who they are and have something to say to them. An occasion, if there is one, which everybody in the world mentions. And the band they never shut up about, whose record is hidden in the bushes.
Does the link stop working?
No. There is no account behind it and nothing to keep paying for. We keep it running for as long as we run the shop, and if we ever had to stop we would give you a month's notice and a copy of the game to keep.
Can anyone else open the link?
Anyone you send it to, which is rather the point of a present you can forward. The address is random enough that nobody will stumble onto it and it is not listed or indexed anywhere. Still, treat it like a shared document rather than a secret.
What happens to the names I give you?
They go into the game and nowhere else. We keep the game so its link keeps working, and your own name and email so we can help if something is wrong. The two are stored apart, so anyone you forward the link to learns nothing about you. The one thing that leaves for anybody else is a Facebook advertising cookie, which we ask you about first and which never sees the names. Ask us and we delete all of it. The privacy notice spells it out.