Littlewood is a casual RPG sim that has an interesting premise. Rather than playing the hero in the critical moments leading up to the salvation of the world, the game takes place in the peaceful times after the catastrophe has been averted. You are found a few days later by your friends, with no recollection of who you are or what has transpired. With the world already saved from the brink of destruction, there is but one task: rebuilding what has been lost. And so you hop to it.

The game has the slow, meditative quality that you find in similar games such as Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon, albeit with more focus on crafting and townbuilding. As such, you are constrained by what you can do in any given day by the amount of energy you have (although this will gradually increase with buyable upgrades and culminate in being meaningless with one upgrade in particular). In small increments over time, your town expands and becomes more diverse, along with the world around you.

Sure, it can be a bit of a grindfest as each day is roughly the same: collect resources, convert into materials, build and expand. But if you're looking at this game, it's likely you already suspect that and you want to know if the game is worth it. By and large, I would say yes. The amount you get out of it starts to peak near the endgame as you start homing it on the handful of achievements you have not gotten yet. And once you get at the end, there is not much left to do other than acquire money and play around with the layout of the town. Nonetheless, the 50-ish hours it takes to get to this point still feel worthwhile and driven by purpose.

As an added bonus, there is an extra minigame that is unlocked along the way. It is a simple card game that many seem to enjoy (though I am not a fan) that will provide another avenue to gain blueprints and a bit of a distraction from the usual routine.

That being said, there is not a whole lot of plot, although that is somewhat typical for a game like this. The character scenes provide some context and flesh out the characters a little but not such that they do not seem much more than NPCs with a little bit of spice. You will definitely develop some favorites (and possibly feel a little guilt-tripped into choosing a particular spouse). However, the world leaves open some unanswered questions and I am excited to see what the developer will do with those questions. I thoroughly enjoyed this game and I look forward to the possibility of more content in the future.