Video Game / Littlewood

The world has already been saved. Now it's time to rebuild!

You defeated the Dark Wizard. The world of Solemn is finally at peace, but at what cost? You can't quite remember...

Littlewood is a Life Simulation Game for PC and Nintendo Switch, made by Sean Young and financed via Kickstarter. In Littlewood, the player is the Hero of Solemn, who has just saved their world from the threat of the Dark Wizard. Now everything is at peace again... though most of Solemn's civilization lies in ruins and the battle has cost the Hero their memories.

Fortunately, the Hero is found by their comrades, Willow and Dalton. Seeing that the Hero doesn't remember anything, they decide to start rebuilding right on the spot. Literally so, by founding a town in the plains where they reunited. A town where everyone would be welcome.

A "Peaceful RPG", Littlewood is divided between playing as the Hero and "Build Mode." As the Hero, most of the player's time is spent socializing with the rest of the townies or doing one of various "hobbies": farming, cooking, gathering fruit, fishing, bug-hunting, woodcutting, mining and crafting stuff. In "Build Mode," the player has complete control over the layout of the town: they can change the terrain to their liking, place buildings, cultivate plants and trees, and add decorations. They can also decorate certain interiors, such as houses. They'll need to design your town carefully, as each of its residents have various requests concerning their new homes, such as living on tall terrain or being near certain buildings. Making the Townsfolk happy not only increases the Hero's Relationship Values with them, it also unlocks crucial items the player will need to progress. If the Hero becomes close enough friends with the Townsfolk, they may even be able to date and marry them!

In addition to constructing their town, the Hero will be able to travel around Solemn as well, from its Endless Forests to the port town of Deluca. Explore and build to craft the perfect town!

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This game provides examples of:

• And I'm the Queen of Sheba: Toad, the resident of the Dust Caverns the Hero will run into the most, has a piece of dialogue in which he quips about being the King of the Gobbys in response to being told he's currently speaking to the Hero of Solemn.
• An Interior Designer Is You: One of the most time-consuming tasks is decorating the townies' homes according to their specifications. You can also decorate your own house purely for fun.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Whirlybugs resemble giant spiders, but have propellers where their spinnerets would be. They're also thoroughly friendly.
• Black Comedy Burst:
  • When Iris moves to the Hero's town after abdicating the throne, she acts quite glib about it, stating that "Lots of ambitious people were already vying for my throne anyway!"
  • Toby's dialog has moments of this, as well. He mentions one of his lives didn't last long because he took to climbing Dark Trees (yes, the killer trees in the Endless Forest) during it and insists that he has nothing to do with the fact that there used to be Fishfolk, as their apparent extinction happened long before his birth.
  • Lilith's Person of Mass Destruction side is established via her casually mentioning past events that she was responsible for, which all sound like things that would have gotten many people severely wounded at best.
• Boring, but Practical: Three of the Big Five among the players of Tarott Monster, the in-game Card Battle Game, can be beaten via a surprisingly simple strategy. In the Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors system, water cards can negate damage from fire cards, earth cards can negate damage from water cards and fire cards can negate damage from earth cards, while dark and light can negate damage from each other. Each of the Big Five will advertise using a single element that is actually just their primary one. In practice, the three who advertise themselves as using fire, water and earth also have earth, fire and water cards respectively to counter the element the player will be tempted to load their own deck with before battling them. The best way for the player to prepare for that is, ironically, to have a few cards that match the opponent's advertized element rather than the element that beats it in the Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors system. On top of Rocket-Tag Gameplay being in place between two cards of the same element, those cards can counter damage from those of the opponent's secondary element if they are ever used offensively.
• Bragging Rights Reward:
  • Getting Arpeggio to move to the Hero's town. While most of the other Townsfolk have relatively simple requirements, Arpeggio requires the player to restore 20 of the 24 books in the Grand Library. Considering that getting all 24 is the closest thing the game has to actually finishing it, it's quite easy for the player to have filled almost all the game's other objectives by the time Arpeggio moves in.
  • There are two items that are obtained upon visiting the Edge of Solemn, a location that is unlocked via returning all library books. Justified for the item that is the game's Fast-Forward Mechanic, which can help if that Last Lousy Point is connected to an optional seasonal event that hasn't spawned in the season that is currently being played. Before the requirements for getting the last books are fulfilled, the player's best bet is to properly play through every single day in hope that the various sources of rare items will spawn the specific handful that are needed.
  • The effects of the Ultimate Upgrades in quite a few cases. Those for the Endless Forest and Dust Caverns allow for more materials to be gathered per day all while not needing to worry about the Wompers or Dark Trees, but getting the ressources necessary to get them in the first place will usually be the last time the player will need to go on a massive resource gathering foray. The increased efficency of the Smelter, Lumber Mill and Master Forge in refining raw materials will make gathering raw materials even less necessary. The upgrades for the Tavern and Museum will mechanically enhance their capacity as sources of revenue at a point where the extra money is no longer needed. The Coffee Shop's comes when most skills are most of the way into being maxed out.
• Canon Name: The official name of the village the player is rebuilding is, well, Littlewood, but they can name it anything they like.
• Card Battle Game: The Tarott Monster mini-game is essentially this. It has Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors mechanics and cards with different functions within each element. Cards can either be found, purchased or won by beating certain opponents.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The Big Five Tarott Monster opponents (and Maximilian) all have starting life totals ranging from slightly to far, far above the typical 10. This is the primary thing that makes them more difficult than the townsfolk or the random Gobby opponents.
• Cooking Mechanics: The Tavern has a huge number of recipes to unlock and cook, which run the gamut from ordinary recipes (like pickles, peach pie, and fried fish) to surreal fantasy recipes like the Bubbly Dragon, a cocktail made of apples and trout. You yourself can't eat them, but your townsfolk will, and if you sell their favorites, those favorites will sell out faster and you'll gain friendship points with them.
• Counter-Attack: Some Tarott Monsters can reflect damage that would be dealt to you, dealing it to your opponent instead. Such monsters are expensive to play, however.
• Cuddle Bug: If romanced, the various townsfolk have several end-of-day dialogues when the player goes to sleep. The pool of "generic" dialogue available to all townies is extremely cuddle-centric and physically affectionate.
• Eldritch Location: The Eternal Forest. According to the lore, it's possible to walk around its perimeter, but inside, it goes on forever. Living evil trees lurk within it, and the common theory about the place is that it's actually a portal to another world.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: In Tarott Monster, Fire Monsters' defensive skills counter Earth Monsters, Earth defensive skills counter Water, and Water defensive skills counter Fire. Light and Dark mutually counter each other, though unlike the other elements, they can't "Reflect" each other.
• Everyone Is Bi: Downplayed. While all the townsfolk are romanceable (except Dudley, for obvious reasons), the Hero doesn't actually have a defined gender. It's moreso that everyone is Hero-sexual.
• Evolving Title Screen: If the game is saved and quitted on Punkin Day, the title screen has all the Townsfolk in their Punkin Day costumes rather than their usual outfits.
• Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables: The vegetable crops you can grow are about 50% ordinary veggies (like carrots, potatoes, and onions), and 50% are fantasy variants (like the "Motato" and "Bloccoli"). The fruit trees, on the other hand, are largely imaginary, and include things like Peachots, Sourpucks, and Wizberries.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The existence of Lilith's Superpowered Evil Side hints to the solution to an unanswered question Willow sometimes mentions: how did the Dark Wizard come to be in the first place?
  • One of Bubsy's pieces of dialog includes asking the Hero if the Dark Wizard was attractive. This hints at the fact that the player will eventually find out the question's answer.
• Gender-Inclusive Writing: The Hero has no defined gender, so the game avoids using pronouns and other gendered terms for them, usually just calling them "the Hero."
• Global Currency Exception:
  • In the Dust Caverns, the Hero can trade the Dust they dig up in the mines for a selection of items that changes each day.
  • Tha Card Shop has wares that can only be purchased with the Duelist Badges earned by playing Tarott Monster games to the end (a winning game earns more than a losing one). They consist of extra Tarott Monster cards and decoration.
  • An event shared by all four seasons from the first summer onwards consists of a day on which a shop that only accepts Dark Matter as payment opens in the player's town. On those days, Dark Matter can be found while cutting trees and mining, while Dark Matter is only a possible result of catching bugs in the Dust Carverns the rest of the year.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: The Hero can hang out with Dark like they would hang out with any other person in their town. This is a purely technical take on the trope, as neither side remembers fighting the other anymore.
• Green Rocks: Dust, the mysterious substance found in the Dust Caverns, powers much of the technology in Solemn.
• Halloween Costume Characterization: Well, "Punkin Day," but close enough. Each of the Townsfolk dresses up as something important to them, or something they aspire to be, such as Iris dressing up as Dudley because she admires him, Maximilian dressing up as his favorite Tarott Monster, and Dark dressing up as a Bare-Fisted Monk because he aspires to find serenity.
• Harem Genre: The game has elements of this in its Dating Sim aspects, as all of the Townsfolk tend to be fairly open in their attraction to the Hero. One of them, Maximilian, moves into town specifically because he has a crush on the Hero, and Iris's initial motivation is to strike up an Arranged Marriage with the Hero for political power.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: You can name not only the Hero, but also the village, and choose the Hero's title as leader of the town.
• Hide Your Children: Some pieces of dialog establish that children exist and that everyone had a childhood, but no children are ever seen in the locations the Hero can actually visit. Though with the exception of Deluca, they are all places children have no business being: a newly rebuilt town entirely populated by people who have yet to start their own families, a couple of dungeon-type locations, a library with a dangerous tree in its yard, an Ultimate Forge and the edge of the Floating Continent.
• Hospitality for Heroes: The Hero gets a free drink a day at the Coffe Shop set up by Dudley, their Parental Substitute.
• Interspecies Romance: Among the various romance options among the Townsfolk, you can date a half-elf, a half-orc, a Bird Person, and a Cat Boy.
• Invincible Minor Minion: There's no way to stop Wompers from attacking you; you have to avoid them. Once you unlock the Ultimate Upgrade for the mines, however, they leave you alone for good.
• Item Crafting: You can craft construction materials to build with, decorations for houses, and dishes in the Tavern.
• Kids Prefer Boxes: If the cat tree is built in a house and examined, the Flavor Text calls it "not as fun as an empty carboard box".
• Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: In addition to humans and goblins, the world of Solemn contains a number of animal races, such as Bird People like Bubsy, and Hamilton is a Pig Man.
• Masculine, Feminine, Androgyne Trio: The Hero having an Ambiguous Gender results in them having been this with Willow (clearly a woman) and Dalton (clearly a man) during their adventuring days.
• Minigame Zone: Port City Deluca contains both a casino where you can win prizes with Deluca Coins and the Card Shop that unlocks Tarott Monster. It's also the only place to play Tarott Monster until a specialized table can be built in the Hero's town.
• No Hero Discount: One of Willow's lines of dialog consists of pointing out that as Dalton's best friends, she and the Hero should have a discount at his shop.
• No Place for a Warrior: One of the town's residents moves in because he's a knight by trade and the disappearance of the Dark Wizard's monsters has left him out of a job. He's quick to point out that this trope applies to the Hero, Willow and Dalton, as well.
• No-Sell: Several Tarott Monsters' defensive skills let them completely neutralize the damage from monsters of the element they're strong against, and in some cases, reflect them.
• Official Couple: After you get married, several of the Townsfolk will be emboldened by your romance and ask out their own crushes (provided you didn't marry one of them). The official couples are: Dalton and Iris, Ash and Lilith, Bubsy and Maximilian, Terric and Laura, and Mel and Zana.
• Pamphlet Shelf: Even once all twenty-four books are returned, the entire contents of the Grand Library can fit in a small actual book.
• Pokémon Speak: The Wompers are implied to go around saying "WOMP WOMP!" However, in the game itself, they just make a sort of quacking noise.
• Post-Adventure Adventure: The main character is a hero who's just defeated an evil wizard, and decides to found a town with their adventuring party, after they're found with no memories of who they were.
• Relationship Values: The Townsfolk have both their Level, which is their general "friendship meter," and a "Love Meter" that shows their romantic inclinations toward the Hero. Their Levels increase just from talking to them, but you can only increase their Love by choosing the "Flirt" option in their dialog box.
• Romance Sidequest: You can romance any of the Townsfolk, except Dudley, since he's your adoptive grandfather.
• Shout-Out:
  • At one point, Ash comments that you'd see "a whole new world" while riding a Whirlybug. He then says he "wouldn't dare close his eyes."
  • The desert kingdom of Dirboros is said to have a spice that grants you special powers. In addition, several sandy-colored furniture pieces are called the Dune Bed, the Spice Chair, and the Sand Worm table.
  • During the Scavenger Hunt event, Lilith mentions that one of her teachers at Wizarding School was a Bunnyfolk. That Bunnyfolk was really good with a spell named "Pyro Ball." A lore book in the Great Library also mentions spells named "Fusion Flare" and "Ion Deluge."
  • Toby, a Cat Boy, dresses up as a trader for Punkin Day. He then says that he has wares if you have coin. If you keep talking to him, he asks, "What're you buyin'? What're you sellin'?"
  • Most furniture sets have a square table. The knight-themed one has a round table.
  • There is a famous bard named "Quazzy Moto", which when said out loud sounds a lot like "Quasimodo".
  • Captain Georgie, the owner of the fishing trip boat, is an anthropomorphic monkey wearing a yellow hat.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Heavily on the idealistic side. All of your townsfolk are fundamentally good, kind people, and even the Dark Wizard ends up being a nice guy after his defeat.
• Video Game Caring Potential:
  • While the Townsfolk only have certain requests for their houses, there's nothing stopping the player from making their houses even nicer than their requests. Ash can be given the pet Womper he's always wanted, Willow's house can be surrounded with flowers, Lilith given a magical bookshelf only given to true mages, all of Mel's decorations shown off, and the town just generally made beautiful for everyone.
  • Giving every new resident whose house is built a simple bed so they have a place to sleep even if their preferred bed can't be built yet. This is valid for all pieces of furniture other than the desk that is necessary to know what they want in the first place.
  • Interacting with the livestock animals even if they are not asking for a treat or signaling that they are ready for a product harvest.
• Virtual Paper Doll: Once the player unlocks the Beauty Salon, they can change the Hero's clothes and hair.
• Waddling Head: The Wompers in the mine have roughly spherical bodies with giant toothy mouths, all on top of tiny little feet.
• We Buy Anything: You can sell any item you have in your marketplace, including weeds, dirt, and bugs. This is justified in-universe in that Gobbys love to eat weeds, and judging by Zana's tastes, they like eating dirt and bugs too.
• You Mean "Xmas":
  • The Scavenger Hunt is fairly subtle about it, but still recognizable. The festival is in Spring, the items that need to be found are eggs and the officiating NPC is a Bunnyfolk called the Scavenger Bunny, making the festival an easter analogue.
  • Punkin Day, an event that happens in Fall, is an obvious Halloween analogue.