Lil Gator Game Review

A few months back, I helped cover the Wholesome Direct, where Lil Gator Game was announced, and promptly fell in love with it! After following the developer on Twitter and even getting the honour of having an interview with them, I sat and patiently waited for its release. It's barely an exaggeration to say that I nearly counted the days down.

This amount of hype isn't just bad for big AAA games like ELDEN RING and God of War (2018) — too much expectation for any game can be detrimental, yet no matter how incredibly excited I was for this title, it delivered everything I wanted and so much more. 

Lil Gator Game follows the story of a nameless and non-binary little gator kid who is on a mission to get their sister's attention because she's grown up and no longer has time to play with them. In order to entice her back into their games, they decide to round up a bunch of friends around the island and make an epic game to draw her back.

Although the young gator has no official name, you're given the task of giving them one at the beginning of the game, which can be changed at any time (thankfully, too, for us indecisive folk!). Aside from letting us choose our title and giving us an adorable cutscene, the intro also serves as a way to show us why it's so important for them to get her back, as she used to spend a bunch of time with them. 

In order to accomplish this humongous project that they've set out to achieve, you have to find the little gator's friends scattered around the island and complete their "quests". These adorable missions fit perfectly into the lovingly crafted game: they're silly, unique, and incredibly fun! They range from saving innocents from evil slimes to helping a beetle enthusiast find the elusive Hercules beetle; I loved every single one of them, as they never felt tedious and had me laughing the entire time.

Everything about this game screams "relaxing". From the graphics and the music to the dialogue — sometimes, characters don't even have caps in their names! And what might become tedious to some, such as the time trials, are not necessary for anything; they're only there for fun. No fall damage, no actual enemies, and no stress: you'll only find a sense of freedom and peace in this title. Although this might sound boring or empty on paper, it plays a lot like A Short Hike!

There are millions of reasons why I loved this game, and a lot of them can be boiled down to its creative way of exploring the concept of pretend play. Whilst many games explore kids and their imagination — definitely one of my favourite themes! — I feel like Lil Gator Game did an excellent job at bringing freshness to it.

One of the ways MegaWobble aced it was by using cardboard enemies instead of actual monsters and keeping the themes very simple yet never boring; you always find yourself engaged in some sort of activity. The game has a lot of personality and uniqueness, and it all stems from the fact that it never tries to be adult in any way. 

This simple detail made everything in the game so much more charming! It was absolutely hilarious to walk to an NPC and have them acknowledge that they were just playing pretend and acting fearful of silly cardboard drawings. Not to mention, a lot of the interactions and dialogues felt very genuine to how children are, adding so much more charm. This was one of the reasons why the quests were fun, but definitely not the only one!

You'll also probably want to complete as many as you can, as every time you finish a request, you get a reward, which either gives Scrap (the in-game currency), a cool new toy, or a new piece of armour! Although most of the clothing pieces are just cosmetic, some of them do provide a bit of a bonus, such as making you bouncier! 

As for the toys, they're basically like skills and weapons. Some of them will give you new attacks, such as the Paint Blaster, which aside from spraying colours everywhere also breaks the cardboard enemies, and others add a new mechanic, like Bubble Gum, which lets you blow a bubble that lets you float. 

These weapons, abilities, and bonuses make it that much more fun to zoom throughout the island finding all the kids and completing their missions. The more friends you get, the more areas will be built in their imaginary town, which is just really a playground decorated with cardboard. Additionally, you don't need to find everyone, as all you really need are the little gator's three main buddies and enough friends to open up the whole area.

I wish I could go on and on about this game; in fact, there's no doubt that I will probably ramble on about it to my wife for who knows how long. But I do want to say this: it was a phenomenal experience — so much so I am only three hidden achievements away from finishing the game 100%! There's absolutely no reason at all that you shouldn't pick this title up. It's relaxing, it's cute, it's fun... I just wish it never ended.