The Little Acre

The artwork doesn't need elaborating on since you can see that in the screenshots, but along with the music and kid-friendly humor, it creates a very pleasant atmosphere and can be considered the strongest point of this game, which runs smoothly and beautifully. The only bugs you'll find are a batlike squirrel and a doglike caterpillar, and they're supposed to be there. My guess is this game is aimed at a young crowd, given the easy puzzles and the plot that isn't too complicated. Most of the parts of the story aren't fleshed out, leaving the player with a lots of stuff to guess at by the end of the game. This could be for sequel purposes or in order not to burden the (young) player with too much story and let that player enjoy the artwork and music instead. Part of the reason the game is so easy is that object of interest are highlighted (no option to turn that off) and most of the puzzle solving doesn't evenr equire you to leave the room. You'll never have more than 3 items in your inventory so with a minimum of trial and error you'll get where you need to be. But not a lot of trial and error will be required, because while the setting is quite fantastical, the puzzles usually follow a simple logic. As a fan of Broken Sword, the name of Charles Cecil lured me into buying this, but the game is much easier than Broken Sword and aimed at a different, much younger audience.

A nice little game, but a bit short for the price point. Also, most puzzles where a bit on the easy side, and you are usually confined to very small areas at a time and very few inventory items, making solutions even more obvious. Best part of the game was the puzzle(s) before the first main "happening".

It's a nice story and have great artwork, but the game can not be considered an adventure game, too simple and easy to finish with no puzzles at all. At least nothing that can be considered a puzzle for someone over 8 y.o. You may get stuck in some parts of the game not because of the puzzles but because there are bugs on the game. when you use some items with objects that solve something you get the message as if you weren't using anything and just looking at the object. If you try to use the item a couple of times it finally work :( Items can not be mixed between them, you can not save more games than the one you're already playing so the game can not be played by different home inhabitants :)

Point and clicks are far from my forte, in fact The Little Acre is my first brief step into this genre, and so far I have been left with an impression that will be difficult to beat. Upon entering this world you're greeted with an artistic style that has a whimsical nature to it and a soundtrack to match. Even from the menu screen it was clear that this particular game had some great effort and love poured into it by its creators. From the art direction to the voice acting, everything appears to fit snugly in place, which in turn helped me immerse myself into the magical world that awaited me. Jumping down the almost literal Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole, you're greeted with a magical world away from the simple farm life your characters left before. Surrounded by strange plant and animal life, everything seems to have a reason to be, and if it were placed in any other world everything you see would seem threatening, but here you're filled with a child-like sense of wonder. I spend just under three hours with the game, part of which was due to my lack of experience with the basic mechanics of point and clicks in general (how to move between scenes using the edge of the screen etc). The puzzles in the game are on the simplistic side, which honestly I was thankful for so I could experience the world without getting bogged down and becoming uninterested. I can say that the performance of the game was sublime and had no impact on my experience of the game whatsoever, nor did the frame rate. Animations throughout were simply smooth and I never felt any slowdown, stutter or tearing. As is expected options are extremely limited here, with just simple sliders for audio and subtitle tracks in various languages. As someone that has great difficulty keeping focus and finishing games, I can say that The Little Acre kept me captivated throughout, which is a rare feat.