I'm in
I've never finished a LD before, even though I've started a few times. Let's see if I can make this one the first one I complete.
I like the theme. Usually the ones I vote down are the ones that get picked, so this is a nice change of pace.
There are a lot of directions you can go with "small world". It could be a literal world that is small (I think I'm going to go with that). It could be a complete experience or system that's all in one place, or at a small scale. It can be a tightly-connected social network, where everyone knows everyone else.
When you're thinking in terms of making a game in a couple of days, and not having a lot of experience under your belt, you have to gravitate toward the interpretations that bring you to a result that you can actually accomplish. I thiink the first two will have that effect. A rich social network facsimile probably takes a lot of work to come out right, and that's not even considering the gamey-game parts of it. A physically small world, and a fully-contained system have a lot in common. With each other, and other scope-reducing themes, like "there is only one screen". They're about laying all the stuff there is to see out in the open, and not worrying so much about coaxing players into navigating things. Not having to worry about forgetting stuff because you can't see it.
I've wanted to make something with themes or mechanics of science/research, logistics, and procedural-generated progression systems. Some of the stuff I want to do is Hard with a capital H, so I will have to be careful not to let myself bite off more than I can chew by trying to mix into the game something bigger than my head. Can I do a game where the main gameplay is "doing science" set in a small world? What would that gameplay look like? Can I do a game where you're a giant being capable of moving ships across a tiny ocean? In a couple of days? Would that even be fun? I've been toying with the idea of a sorting game. I even sorta-made one at one point.
So maybe that's what I'll do. It's a slice of logistics, and I can see the player playing as a world-scale giant helping the tiny people of the world get stuff to where they want it. A simple world map, with cities. Basic colors and shapes representing the cities, the things they have, and the things they want. To help keep it narrow, I'll set a time limit or other time-constraining thing that will keep me from having the option of worrying about stuff like long-term growth and progression and stuff. There will be a static number of cities with not a whole lot of complex needs or products. Maaybe they'll trade with one another on their own, but they'll do so randomly and inefficiently. You'll play for like 5 minutes, and then you'll be told how much value was added to the world during those 5 minutes. Keep a list of scores from sessions you've played, and give an option to play again. Simple.