Players move through the world by inhabiting animals, plants, objects, and landscapes, chaining transformations that shift perspective from microscopic to cosmic scales.
Why it may be useful
The core act, becoming another thing and shifting scale from a leaf to a galaxy, is a genuine exercise in perspective. It asks nothing and checks nothing, so what a player takes from it depends entirely on their own reflection.
Keep in mind
Its insight is experiential and philosophical, and it does not teach science or metaphysics in any rigorous sense.
Written 2026-09-15 · editorial assessment, not a measured effect · how we rate →
What the game is
Everything is a sandbox by the artist and animator David OReilly, published for PC in April 2017. The premise is in the title. You start as some object, a rock, a horse, a pine cone, and you can become anything else you meet, then anything that thing can reach, running up and down the scale of the universe from particles to galaxies.
It does not look or move like other games. Animals tumble end over end instead of walking, which is funny and slightly unsettling on purpose, and the world is procedurally arranged, so a forest is a scattering of objects rather than a designed level. Recordings of the philosopher Alan Watts play as you go, talking about identity, scale and how things belong to one another.
There is no score, no failure and almost no goal beyond seeing what else is there. Put the controller down and the game carries on by itself, wandering and narrating, which the store page calls a never-ending documentary. Steam lists English and Japanese only.
What you actually do
You move whatever you currently are, and the game shows which of the things around you can be joined or become. Descending takes you inside an object to a smaller layer of the world, ascending takes you out to a larger one, and the two directions loop, so going small enough eventually returns you to something enormous. Objects can be gathered into groups that travel together, and they talk, in short lines of text that are mostly absurd and occasionally sad. A collection screen tracks what you have been. Nothing is timed or scored, and getting better is not really something that happens; what changes is how much of the universe you have seen.
What it exercises
Changes scale deliberately and keeps track of where you are within it
Notices that a familiar object looks different seen from inside another
Follows a spoken argument about ideas rather than a plot
Explores without a goal, which very few games ever ask for
Why we rate it Minimal Worksheet score 19 / 100
FitHow much real knowledge or skill does the play itself make you use?20weight 45%
Fit is 20, close to the floor. Shifting perspective is the entire control scheme, since becoming another thing is the only verb available, which keeps this off zero. But there is no problem to solve and no subject matter to work with: a player can move through the whole universe without ever being asked to reason about anything.
TransferWill what you practise here work outside the game?18weight 30%
Transfer is 18. Seeing a forest from the position of one leaf and then from the height of a continent is a genuine exercise in scale, and some players light up at it. But the game asks nothing and checks nothing, so what anyone takes away depends entirely on their own reflection rather than on anything the game itself teaches or tests.
PracticeDoes the game make you use that skill again and again, as it gets harder?20weight 25%
Practice is 20, the lowest of the three. There is a great deal to see but only one thing to do, and becoming another object does not get harder or more interesting with repetition. Most players have understood the whole game inside an hour, and after that the reason to return is curiosity rather than any rehearsed skill.
What the evidence says
Editorial onlyNobody outside our desk has checked this. It is our reading of how the game plays.
The evidence level is Editorial only. The single source is the Steam listing, checked in August 2026 and re-read here, which confirms the developer, the April 2017 release, the price, English and Japanese as the only interface languages, and the design: every object is playable, scale runs from subatomic to galactic, Alan Watts recordings supply the narration, and the game will play itself when left alone. It makes no educational claim. The low figures reflect that nothing in the game corresponds to how the real world is actually organized, and that the game neither poses a problem nor checks an answer, so any value depends entirely on what a player brings to it. No research on this game exists.
Editorial assessment - not a measured scientific effect.
Fit
20/100
Transfer
18/100
Practice
20/100
Why it makes the cut
Its strange scale-shifting toybox is undeniably a game-first curiosity.
Editorial only
Editorial only, based on the Steam listing; no study of Everything exists, and nothing here rests on a measured claim about perspective-taking or scale.
Prices are US store listings in USD, last refreshed 2026-09-25; regional prices and sales differ.
Single-player play is supported.
The experience is exploratory and low-pressure rather than goal-heavy.
Steam lists English and Japanese.
Age guidance
Ages 10+ · ESRB E
Topics
Mind & well-being
Play styles
Single-player, Sandbox, Creative
Tags
Perspective shift · Scale play · Reflective exploration
It sits near the floor because there is only one verb, becoming something else, nothing to solve, and most players understand the whole of it inside an hour.
