Littlewood

I was pulled in to this game first because of the graphics. It is very reminiscent of A Link to the Past for SNES. Plus, the town building, farming, crafting, decorating, gathering, etc... It was a no-brainer for me to try this game out. First off, I love that if you don't do anything other than talk to people then time stands still. You can also move buildings, terra-form the landscape, decorate interiors or exteriors, build stuff, all without any consequence to your "Day." However, pursuing your your skills... like wood cutting, farming, etc., those things use energy. And, as your energy is slowly depleted your time passes. So, by the time you have no energy left, you rest and start your new day. There are plenty of upgrades to be had as well... You can eventually upgrade your energy level, what each building offers, how many crops/what kind of crops you can plant or farm. Also, you have a level of relationship with every character in the game as far as I can tell. Now, one small concern... I know this may appeal to many, but it's confusing if you aren't aware. You just design your character, not selecting boy or girl, but just choosing hair and clothing. Now, every other character in game uses words like "him" or "her"... "he" and "she"... when referencing others, but your character is open to interpretation regardless of how you look. Any character in the town is available to start a romantic relationship with... So be careful, if you have a preference, who you compliment! You might end up with someone fawning over you that makes you uncomfortable. Last, but not least, is the card game!!! It's amazing. Once you unlock the card shop it's a thing that will likely take up a LOT of your time... (It has mine anyway). Customizable deck and all. 5 elements, lots of cards to collect, and everyone plays so you're not lacking any opponents. Brilliant, relaxing, and totally worth the money. (I paid full price and am NOT sorry...)

I had high hopes it would become a great game after playing the demo and waiting for months for it to come out of beta and reading all the GOG and Steam reviews. 6 hours in and I really hated it, it’s slow and monotonous. It’s a real grind fest with you only having a tiny energy/task bar which caps you from ploughing through the game too quickly, and that feels like your only barrier to completion. On the surface it seems you can do a lot of ‘things’, but the fishing, crafting and so on all have the same animation, and this seems to be no different from your walking forward animation, so it feels like you’re doing nothing and not having a lot of tactile influence on the environment, and as a result I felt disconnected from it. I wanted to rearrange my town and make it gorgeous but the controls didn’t feel good enough to make me want to do that at all. I felt swamped with houses and buildings with little space to get creative before the very fast night transition triggers, which was the main draw of the game afterall. None of the environments were interesting, the mechanics weren’t deep or meaty, there was very little charm or flair other than the clean pixel art style which you start to get bored of very quickly as the world just feels clinical and empty. I wanted to love this game, I was just pootling along, waiting for it to get fun whilst also battling with the clunky controls and baffling lag and screen flickering until I just stopped playing the sunk cost mind games with myself and had it refunded. Playing Littlewood made me realise what a masterpiece Stardew Valley is, buy that instead, you won’t be disappointed.

I do enjoy a slow paced game at times. This game definitely allows you to take your time and has a nice progression to it. Sometimes these games can feel overly complex with things to manage, but this one has a reasonable pace. It's not a perfect game, but it is definitely a good one to pass some time. It has good controls too that seem intuitive that is sometimes lacking in games like this.

This tiny awesome game looks like stardew valley! The world has already been saved. Now it's time to rebuild your town, learn new hobbies, and forge lifelong friendships in this peaceful and relaxing RPG.

Littlewood is a low-fi, chill take on Stardew Valley where there is no combat, just making friends, exploring and crafting to be had in spades. There is so much stuff to unlock and things to level up and chip away at; none of it is especially demanding and you can really just progress at your own pace. There's dozens of hours of relaxing enjoyment to be had here, and the only reason its not a 5/5 for me is that the developer didn't bother to implement GOG achievements. It's a minor thing - I'd give it a 4.8 if I could :-)