Learning to Grow Up in: “Lil Gator Game”
A review of "Lil Gator Game", as well as a reflection on familial relationships.
“You havin’ fun, kiddo?”
Look at this little gator guy. He is a charming guy, and I love him very much.
I named my lil gator “Huggie” because every time I see him I want to just pick him up and hug him. I would do anything for Huggie.
There is a sort of playfulness and fun to this game that I think we don’t truly get enough of in games these days. There is an inherent kindness and generosity of time that comes with the reality of early childhood.
What I mean by this is that children are born with the innate nature to love and be loved. They have no concept of time, yet they share theirs freely because they simply enjoy spending time with their loved ones. After all, that’s all they know.
It’s a sort of sweetness and emotional specificity I haven’t seen replicated in many other forms of art. Playfulness, love, and time spent between these anthropomorphic friends and family kept me inspired to do almost everything there was to do in its bite-sized, mountainous, open world.
The fact that we don’t see these types of themes more in family-friendly games is disappointing. We need more emotional positivity in media to balance out the harsh reality that is the world we live in.
True and lasting relationships keep our lives vibrant and stable. Having a support system, no matter how small, is vital to our lives, both to ground us and center us amidst life’s troubles.
I loved seeing my lil gator Huggie’s burgeoning friendships with the many friends he meets on the small islands that make up the open world.
Huggie has never met a person he didn’t like, and as you amass what becomes a small army of island residents, everyone else you have met starts to like each other too. It’s a beautiful little community by the end of the short, 3-4 hour tale, and I adored how warm and safe our playground town center felt by the end of the story.
Playing this game is very simple. You jump, glide, slide, and climb around the many hills, mountains, slopes, and trees that make up the environment of the island. What starts as a very simple platformer becomes an addicting, momentum-based traversal system where each gameplay move Lil Gator has can feed into the next.
You get little pieces of gear you can craft or get from the many quests you get from your island neighbors to augment your movement capabilities, too.
For instance, you get a ninja headband to run, a trampoline shield to bounce off of to jump higher, and an innertube to skip across the small ponds of the island. Each piece of gear you can, of course wear, and sometimes there will be an extra added benefit of that movement augmentation I mentioned that will add to your neat little moveset.
Experimenting, as well as mixing and matching gear, can help you reach tall places, beat timed obstacle course races, and solve the myriad quests that your new friends will give you as you attempt to build up your little playground community.
Lastly, there are these wearable wristbands that you can get from finding a particularly funny friend that when purchased with paper currency, will allow you to add another stamina wheel to your Lil Gator to enable you to climb more things on the island for longer.
I was surprised by how good the gameplay felt all the way through. It’s a clever and fun game to play throughout the short tale.
The story of Lil Gator Game, at its core, is about growing up.
It follows the titular Lil Gator and his best friend and sister, “Big Sis”; their relationship is the impetus for the game’s story. Big Sis has no time for playing or childhood games anymore, and Lil Gator is very sad she can’t play with him. So, Lil Gator decides to make a game for Big Sis to play when she gets time, and he gets the entire island involved in making it.
Together, they build a magnificent and colorful ‘castle’ in the local playground with the hopes of attracting Big Sis to come play with them after their hard work.
It’s sweet without being saccharine, and I think when the end comes, it feels natural and well-earned. You feel proud as a player, seeing how the town grows and the castle’s populace increases. It’s a wonderful little game with loads of heart and good feelings within.
At its core, it’s also a collect-o-thon platformer. It’s a lot of fun using whatever ‘weapons’ you can find on the island to smack and destroy the many ‘cardboard enemies’ that litter the landscape of the island.
Once you strike down one of the many static and docile ‘foes’ you encounter, paper currency explodes out from its material. Lil Gator hoovers each clump of mache up with ease as it adds to your total located on the top left of the HUD on the screen. You use this currency to buy many pieces of gear as well as solve some of the quests you receive from your neighbors.
Little bits, like vacuuming up the currency you keep, hacking away at cardboard monsters with your toy weapons, along with the movement and platforming, make Lil Gator Game a jubilant and satisfying game to play.
I love little indie games like this. It reminds me of the brilliant 45-minute game “A Short Hike”, specifically if I were to compare it to another game of its type.
It’s a heavenly slice of open-world goodness that never outstays its welcome. It’s the sort of digestible and understandable game design that brings to mind memories of the Nintendo 64, with games like “Super Mario 64” or “Banjo-Kazooie”- both visually appealing and stylish family-friendly platformers of a bygone era.
There is a smidge of “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” here too, with the epic world you are exploring, the adventurous tale of life and friendship, the hacking and slashing of various fauna, and the many unique NPCs that you make friends with. All these inspirations come together to make Lil Gator Game. A very special little platformer.
After she struggles with the stresses of life, the deadlines of work and school, and the innocent demands of her younger brother, Big Sis decides to take a break and join in on the fun. When the story wraps, you and your Big Sis finally play with each other, and after all that hard work, she seems impressed! It’s a very gratifying little piece of storytelling that is the culmination of the journey so far.
As you explore the island, Lil Gator reminisces about the places he has spent time with his sister. These are sweet little vignettes that remind me of my own siblings and growing up. Seeing how the two interacted in the past when they both had time for each other sent a pang of guilt into my gut when I thought about myself and my younger siblings.
Moving away from my family was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I treasure all the moments of my and my siblings’ early childhood, when we were with each other constantly. I can relate to Big Sis, where sometimes I became too busy for them and was worried for too long about the future instead of being present with them.
Time is fleeting, and you never realize that until it is past.
You never spend enough time with your family.
I also feel the same way when I think of my daughter. I worry I don’t spend enough time with her in the little time I have during the week and that I am not utilizing enough of my hours to focus on her when I am not working. It’s a constant struggle to give my all after long days of working. But I never regret spending my time with her.
Because one day, it will be different. She will be gone.
She will either be ‘too cool’ for old Dad, or she will be too busy to spend time with us, one day, and that’s a heartbreaking thought.
I am not looking forward to that. But life continues and people grow up and grow apart. It’s a natural part of evolving as a person. Seeing a little game like this, tackle very potent feelings of connection and time is a raw nerve to hit.
I am not used to being confronted by it in media, but I am so glad I played this game. It caught me off guard how much I was affected by it emotionally. I am tearing up thinking about it as I’m writing this.
Genuinely, I am glad I can feel and give love. I am lucky that I grew up being shown love and kindness by my immediate family. Because now I can give that to my own family and teach them how to learn those things too. Things they can take with them.
I have to admit– playing “Lil Gator Game” made me want a hug.
Maybe that’s why I named him Huggie.