Littlelands somehow surpassed my already sky-high expectations

There are a lot of games that I've seen shared on X and gotten excited about in the past. Some of them stand out more than others for one reason or another, but Littlelands is a game that had me in a chokehold from the very first image I ever saw of it. 

Littlelands is an exploration and life sim mashup currently in development by Rafael Martín and Kyle Creamer, and it is completely charming in every way I can imagine. The art style is utterly gorgeous, the gameplay is an absolute pleasure, and I'm pleased to say that it has not only met my expectations, but surpassed them spectacularly. 

Completely joyful

From the very beginning of the Littlelands demo, when a bizarre and unexplained shaking ends up knocking your computer out of commission, you can't help but get sucked into the little world in which the game is set. It reminds me of wooden building blocks that I played with as a kid and with my daughter when she was younger, and it is so full of life everywhere you turn. 

And you can turn, too, which is something that took me a while to get used to. Games of this style, at least the ones that I've played, tend to have a fixed viewpoint. There were multiple times during the Littlelands demo that I found myself a little lost before remembering I could turn the camera around, revealing the direction I needed to go. 

Anyway, back to how full of life Littlelands is, there are characters and things to interact with everywhere. Every resident in the village and surrounding area is waiting to talk to you, some giving you quests, and there are countless flowers to collect for one purpose or another. 

Dungeon crawler Paula

As you progress through the demo, there are quests to complete that send you into caves. While there are some creatures to fight in the “overworld”, most of the battling in Littlelands takes place in these caves, armed with either a stick or a sword depending on how far you've managed to get. And yes, that's a big upgrade. Trust me, you really feel the improvement when the time comes. 

There are regular mobs to plow through in the caves, something that's easy enough to do even with the basic stick, and one big boss to defeat in the demo. This boss fight relies on evasion and short windows of time to do damage while avoiding taking any, and it's actually a really fun little moment in the game.

A link to the inspiration

Some may argue that Littlelands is something of a Zelda clone, but I disagree. If you've played any of the Zelda games, particularly Link's Awakening, both the style and the mechanics will be very familiar to you. However, while it is obviously at least in part inspired by Nintendo's heavy hitter, Littlelands takes things far beyond anywhere Zelda has ever been, in my opinion.  

(Plus, I would rather support a team of indie developers than throw money at a multi-billion dollar corporation any day!)

Littlelands is a tale of two genres coming together in perfect balance to produce something utterly wonderful. Away from the Zelda side of things, we have the perhaps even more familiar mechanics of farming sims. You eventually inherit a farm, learn how to fish, plant crops, and build relationships with the villagers through quests and daily interactions. 

I am pleasantly surprised by how well the mechanics of the two genres seem to blend together. There is definitely a clear divide between the two, but there seems to be very little pressure to do one or the other in a certain way. If today feels like a good dungeon-crawling day, head off into the caves. If not, tend to the farm and speak to your newfound friends. Littlelands feels easy and relaxed, and I think that's a huge part of why I love it so much. 

Losing control

You might be expecting this by now, but of course there's no way I could play through the demo of Littlelands without my own little person wanting to try it for herself, especially in the middle of the summer holidays. My daughter seems as taken with the game as I am, which at this point comes as no surprise. 

Although I have to admit I didn't quite expect her time with Littlelands to go as it did. Mainly because I have discovered that my daughter is something of an in-game kleptomaniac. As soon as she discovered she could pick up random objects in other people's houses and take them to the farm, guess what she did? 

At least the farm is well decorated, I suppose. And the people whose items have mysteriously disappeared from their front gardens either haven't noticed or don't seem to mind that a thief has moved into the farm. Or at least… I don't think they do; the Demo Police seem to have some questions, though. 

Littlelands is one of those games that has completely surpassed any expectations I had of it, and they were high to begin with. The release date is still to be announced, but the demo is available on Steam right now, and it can easily keep you playing for hours.