What if you saved the world but lost everything in the process?

Amnesia is the main plot behind Littlewood, developed by Sean Young and published by SmashGames. Littlewood aims to streamline life sim and city-building games by melding insanely cute pixel art graphics, a fresh story, and lots and lots of things to do and unlock. 

GRAPHICS 9/10

Graphics-wise, everything and everybody in Littlewood is cute. The retro-pixel aesthetic meshes perfectly with the overall feel of the game, and each character that moves into your town is unique and instantly identifiable on-screen.

The character portraits are an absolute home-run, with every major character having an insanely cute portrait in their dialogue boxes with multiple emotions being displayed.

SOUND QUALITY 8/10

The sound quality is precisely what you would imagine a pixel art game would sound like—16-bit era bloops and chime sound effects harken back to the good ol’ Super Nintendo days.

The soundtrack is on-point but limited. I often found myself muting the game volume while in my town due to the track repeating itself over and over again. Still, overall, the sound design and quality fit Littlewood’s lax gameplay vibe perfectly.

GAMEPLAY 8/10

Littlewood wastes no time throwing you into the deep end of being the mayor of your town and everything that comes with it. There’s the usual sim life affair of constructing buildings and talking to the denizens of your town, but also collecting, fishing, farming, crafting, cooking, mining, and so much more. 

Picking and choosing what you want to tackle each day may seem easy enough. Still, I found myself all too often being pulled away by a new unlock or some other game mechanic carrot dangling in front of me, and when chasing that carrot, I would never get as far as I would have liked. 

In Littlewood, you are not burdened by time, whether in-game (think Stardew Valley) or real-time (Animal Crossing), but when you run low on stamina. You could spend a whole day refining wood into slabs or trying to catch every fish you see. 

When you get low on stamina, the day turns to night. If you keep working and run out of energy, you’ll pass out where you are and awaken the next day with a stamina penalty. 

Speaking of the end of the day, after you hit the sack for the night (or pass out from trying to refine too many stones), the game will tally all the experience that you accumulated, and there’s a lot of exp. 

It seems like everything you interact with has a level progression, and watching those bars fill and level up gives you the kind of dopamine fix that only the best MMOs can deliver. 

The more you level in areas, the more you can do, so it’s wise to try and maximize your day the best you can, but there were times that I would be in the middle of a task only to have to quit midway through to head back to town to sleep. When I would wake up, there would be something new to explore that wasn’t there previously. 

After a while, I would second-guess myself; did I want to pursue the new options or stick with the duty I was trying to complete from the previous day? I felt like Littlewood left me with many half-finished tasks to tackle but never took its foot off the gas enough for me to go back and complete said objectives.

The freedom to play how you want is nice, but the unlocks come at your fast and often, too often for me.

Shaping your town in your image, however, was a joy. Want to move a building? Just head to build mode and move it instantly. Same with terraforming. Littlewood gives you the freedom to expertly craft your town that you wish Animal Crossing: New Horizons had, and I had a blast creating a downtown area with a park plaza centerpiece.

As you progress, you unlock more blueprints, so new options to adorn your town with are always available. You can even craft furniture for every citizen, as they move in with an empty house. Crafting a desk lets you complete townsfolk requests, which are often furniture-based. 

CHARACTERS 10/10

I will say that every character in Littlewood is adorable.

Their character portraits remind you of an 80’s Rumiko Takahashi anime—big, expressive eyes, chubby cheeks… omg so cute, but also varied! 

Every resident you interact with has different personalities and quirks, and the writing is smart and often hilarious. Your sidekick Dalton stands out as goofy but not in an eye-rolling way, and I found myself chuckling while reading his dialogue.

If you like-like a character, you can flirt with and date them. If you like-like-like like them, you can even be wed after reaching a certain relationship level. New characters move into town quite often (the maximum amount of townsfolk is 16), so there are many characters to shack up with if you choose to live the married life. Don’t even get me started on the Gobby, which may take the crown as the cutest video game character of 2020 (which was sadly not a category in this year’s Game Awards).

STORY 10/10

Littlewood’s story is simple—you wake up, not knowing who you are, in a town that was devastated by the Dark Wizard who you defeated. Wait what? You defeated him? And your neighbor was there, too? And now you’re the mayor of the town, and you have to rebuild it?

The overarching story for Littlewood is simple but effective, with townsfolk chiming to remind you of your significant achievements on the way to defeat the Dark Wizard that you cannot remember. It’s a fun and simple way to fill in your character’s backstory without imprinting too much onto your avatar, much like the story of Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley. 

OVERALL 9/10

Littlewood is a fantastic life sim game that is starting to catch fire.

Communities are springing up on social media around the game, and it even has its wiki page. If you’re a fan of Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing, picking up Littlewood is a wise decision if you want to scratch that life sim itch.

Littlewood was funded on Kickstarter on January 15, 2019. Littlewood 1.0 launched August 4, 2020, and is available now on Steam and GOG. The version of Littlewood reviewed was v1.026. The reviewer purchased game at full retail price.