Littlewood is an adorable pixel simulation game is created by solo indie developer Sean Young. Customize everything from your avatar, to the town, to inside the homes! We previously had a chance to sit down with Sean Young and ask him some questions. If you’re interested in that interview, you can check it out right here. We’d also like to thank him for providing us with a Steam code to beta test his game before his Early Access launch June 18th, 2019! See below for our review and gameplay footage!

You’re Already a Savior!

When you first meet the only two characters in your village, they already know who you are. They call you the Hero of Solemn that saved them all from the Dark Wizard. However, you do not remember who you are so we assume that the Dark Wizard has wiped your memory. I find this to be quite a nice and refreshing change to the farming simulation genre to have such an interesting story to uncover other than the typical one of you moving in and restoring the farmland to its forming glory. It also sparks some great conversations with the villagers.

Building & Maintaining Your Town

Every once in a while when you speak to your friends, they’ll tell you that the next day they will have something for you. These great ideas are blueprints for buildings or decorative items to help make the town a better and visually-pleasing place. Travelers will start to appear and ask if they can move into the town but you must first build them a home to interact with them more. This reminds me of Staxel although there’s no need to physically build the homes piece by piece but rather you must gather materials. You can decorate your home of course, as well as the homes of the villagers! Some villagers need to be found by exploring different areas and pushing the story along.

As for the other buildings, every one of them adds to the things you can do in your town. For example, build a Tavern and you can cook with your crops and make dishes for the villagers. This will reward you some money (dewdrops) if they buy the dishes. Most importantly, you need to build a Marketplace to sell your foraged items, fish, or bugs. You can even sell those nasty weeds that will occassionally pop up all around town! Every time you build something or “clean up”, you can go to your Office, once built, and get the town appraised. You can even do your mayoral duties by adding some decrees/town wishes ‘a la Animal Crossing: New Leaf’.

Events, Activities, Quests

The Town Square (which includes a glorious statue of the Hero) is where you’ll go to take part in events and some mini-games on specific days that you can view in the calendar. There’s a fun little chicken-catching game you can play in the Spring but other activities are still a work-in-progress. Next time I will be better at winning some items now that I’ve remembered you can and should run. Adding a Quest Board to your town gives you even more tasks to complete by fulfilling the wants/needs of your villagers and getting extra rewards. Another way to please your villagers, make a desk for their home and read their requests for their living arrangements.

Every single action you take, including chatting to the villagers, will take up some “stamina”. At first I thought my day was just progressing on its own, but as it turns out, it will become nighttime when you reach your max amount of energy. This is a new way of doing things that I find a lot more relaxing because you aren’t as pressed for time. You can take your time building and walking around without worrying that the clock is ticking. You can do quite a bit in a day and also not have to worry about needing certain things in specific seasons to progress the game.

Getting to Know Your Villagers

At the start of every new day, you can check out your mailbox for rewards from the villagers based on your level gains with them and through leveling up via tasks such as mining, fishing, woodcutting, etc. Aside from those pretty handy rewards, I’m not sure what other advantages there are to gaining more experience but it may be too soon for that.

You can talk to the villagers every day and sometimes even compliment them or “Hang Out”. By hanging out with them, they will follow you everywhere and occasionally award you with extra items that you are currently working on gathering. The developer has confirmed that there will be a romancing option with all of the villagers so I can’t wait to start courting! I’m personally thinking Ash, the hard-working miner, is the one for me.

There are so many interesting characters and I’m looking forward to having more conversations with them once they are more fleshed out. Without giving away too much, there’s a witch with magical powers and a half-orc character. Therefore, there are supernatural elements to this game. Look forward to upgrading your Air Balloon Platform so you can access new places and meet new people!

Once you’ve unlocked the ability to travel to other areas via the Air Balloon Platform, you can immediately access a forest and a mine once a day which is filled with trees and rocks respectively. This saves you from having to keep a ton of trees in your village unless it’s for fruit. My favorite part, when you use your tools you can use them automatically! Meaning, no more scrolling through all your tools and having to equip the right one. For example, if you have an axe, just walk right up to the tree and go for it.

Traveling to Different Areas

Every time you collect the ‘fruits of your labor’, you can always use those items to grow more of the same thing (if you have the required amount). Have a bunch of apples? Grow another apple tree. Have tons of the same crop such as carrots? Use them to plant another batch in your garden plots. Gardening is quick and easy and so far there’s no need to water your plants! Just harvest your goods whenever they are ready and keep repeating the process as the “seeds” will always remain there.

Gardening, Farming, and Changing the Terrain

I accessed a new town area, Port City Deluca, where there were merchants that sell different goods every week. There, I was able to purchase a sheep and a chicken. I’m sure I can fence them in at some point but it’s pretty cute to see them wonder my entire town. You can talk to them and occasionally grab their bi-products such as wool from the sheep. However, I’ve noticed that it doesn’t sell for very much so I’m hoping that will change.

Your overall town is pretty easy to navigate and with the overview angle, you will never get lost. I find it absolutely amazing that you can actually go into “Build Mode” and affect the terrain just like Zoo Tycoon! Elevate and lower the ground to your heart’s content, and create slopes and even fishing ponds/lakes wherever you please. This took me a while to get right and align my paths properly but you can always destroy everything and get your materials back for a redo. You need Dirt for your paths, Tilled Soil for your crops, and so on.

I had a pleasant experience playing this game and want to keep meeting these strange and adorable characters and listen to their stories. All while learning about my own for that matter. You’ll also want to discover these amazing and magical areas and new buildings for yourself! Stay tuned with myPotatoGames for the release date of the Switch version of this game!