The Little Acre Review

In a generation of gaming where powerful engines, photorealistic graphics, post-processing effects and "next gen" features are all the rage, it’s nice to see a game that breaks away from today's modern conventions. And a small team can create a game that wants nothing more than to share a lovingly crafted story. In the case for Pewter Games, it's for the fans of classic point and click adventures with their first title: The Little Acre.

Taking place in the 1950's in a town somewhere in Ireland, you play as father and daughter, Aidan and Lily. Switching between the two throughout, the story follows the journey of mystery as they both enter an alternative world after discovering clues and the secret project that Aidan's father had been working on till his disappearance. The plot is laid out thinly to begin with, with only a video intro to the mysterious world of Aidan's father and assistant, you see them in the threat of danger with only the assistant escaping leaving the fate of Aidan's father unknown.

Little backstory is also provided about the two characters. After a look around the house and seeing a picture of Aidan’s wife and daughter, I assumed that she passed away. As for his father, he is a well known inventor and keeps everything secret inside his shed. Aidan doesn't want to follow in his father's footsteps and is trying to find a job, but hasn't had much luck. It's only until he checks the post and discovers a mysterious crystal that he decided to seek for clue to his father's whereabouts. Lily on the other hand is young and adventurous, with help from the family dog Dougal, who acts as her protector and partner in mischief. She may be young, but she does what she can to help out her dad.

After the intro you're then taken to the little acre, which happens to be the name of your home, to find Aidan trying to sneak out without waking up his daughter. It is here where you take control. In traditional fashion, The Little Acre is your standard point and click adventure; you can click on objects to look at, pick them up and use with objects or characters, and keep specific items inventory for later use. Can't go much wrong with it and the game does a fine job at the tried and tested, if it ain't broke, don't fix it method of playing.

What makes The Little Arce special is the art and design. Unlike other high-profile adventure titles, The Little Arce has a visual style rarely seen. The environments, characters, animations are all entirely hand-drawn and coloured and it is clear that a lot of love and attention was put into it. Granted there are few minor placement problems when navigating the characters, but this is only due to nature of having a animated character freely moving around what is essentially a static background - albeit a pretty and well-drawn one.

Everything else has a very nice appealing design and the animations too are smooth with very minor moments where the animation would be cut short or lipsyncing was out of place. The characters are all fully voice-acted and their performances are pretty good, but are borderline amateur. While I didn't check, I believe some characters were voiced by the developers themselves - which to be honest, only emphasises the dedication put in the game.

The Little Acre is a heartfelt adventure with a lot of care and dedication put into it. The story isn't the most memorable, but it's an enjoyable one. The biggest downfall though is how short it is; coming in at around two hours. Still, The Little Acre is a title with enough charm that you can playthrough on a quiet afternoon.