[Review] Lil Gator Game - Nintendo Switch

Developed By: MegaWobble
Published By: Platonic Friends
Categories: Adventure, 3D Platformer
Release Date: 12.14.22

Lil Gator Game perfectly encapsulates why I love indie games. Games can be about anything, in this case the childlike whimsy and wonder. As a child you often would make your own adventures with friends, right? We have our Little Hero and their Big Sis. They used to go to the Island and make all of these adventures and games. But lately, she’s too busy. Your friends are here though, so lets make this game with them! We need to get a sword, a shield, and a hat to be like the one from that one game…the one with the green guy. Hey! You’re green too!

There’s a nice little area with this stick in the ground, that must be our sword! It’s actually just some guy’s favorite stick, but he did find your sword, so lets get our shield. Gee, they put no effort into getting your shield ready, your friend in charge would rather loaf around. At least the one should have your hat ready, right? They’re actually too busy making a restaurant for some reason. All of your friends seem a bit too preoccupied to care…no matter, LETS MAKE NEW FRIENDS.

We’re gonna go around the island talk to other kids and teens and try to make this game a reality. Maybe then it’ll get your sister to play. Just talk to people, listen to their troubles. Maybe a kid needs to find their retainer. Or maybe you can play the hero and destroy all of these monsters scaring some kid. Yeah they’re all cardboard, but use your imagination, jeeze. Maybe even let a boy find a way to confess his crush to one of your friends. Or attempt to just make him ask if he wants to watch Power Fighterz. Trust me, that one works with my girlfriend every time. Get the Splash Pad operational again while warming up to the “Cool Kids”, become a vampire and eat some Black Cherry Ice Cream, even learn to become dead weight. Going out of your way to lend an ear or participate can move miles in a journey to make friends.

All throughout this, you’re heading to the playground. We’re gonna make this into a big town. But we need lots of friends to do it. It’ll look ramshackle at the start, but it really does get impressive. Really, the island in Lil Gator Game itself is impressive. It’s deceptively big. You’d think it’d be rather tiny, but next thing you know, you’re somewhere new and with new friends to make. I’ll be honest, I got lost a few times.

With all of the friends you meet, you’ll also be collecting scrap wood, confetti, or random junk. You’ll use this to craft yourself new items, or even buy some. You start of with some dinky swords and shields, but soon get into the realm of skateboards, a chess set, a hammer, one of those cool retracting lightsabers, etc… You can even get one of those stretchy sticky hands I know you had as a kid out of a capsule machine. Some of your equipment has secondary uses like helping you skip on water, but my favorite change is new animations. You can get a ~~Naruto~~ Ninja headband and you do the stupid looking run. It’s perfect. The paintbrush you get can most definitely paint stuff around you. Did they have to do any of this? No, not really, but it makes the game’s personality shine.

To be honest, Lil Gator Game is the last game I thought would get me emotional. The whole point of the game is to do all of this spectacular stuff to convince your sister to stop doing her work, just for one moment. It turns out she’s busy creating her own game, something she’s always dreamed of, while you’re dreaming of playing games with her after you first created a game with her. You start going by a new name, you dress different, you take initiative to go out and try new things, meet new people, some you might keep the friendship for ages, despite not knowing if you’d like eachother at first. You sort of uproot your life, even if people don’t seem interested or they can’t bother to really care. But I don’t regret doing this at all. I’ve met some of the best people in my life.

It hit close to home. Maybe I’m taking new meaning to something very obviously not-trans related, but I felt like the game resonated with me in this moment. And to me, this is why videogames are important, why certain media is important. They can touch people. I’m sure this game will mean nothing to most players, but it meant a lot to me. Don’t live in a shell, be the person you want to be, be the hero to everyone.

Lil Gator Game isn’t a long game at all. I beat it within an afternoon, but I just could not put it down the whole time. Whether it was the relaxing gameplay loop, the goofiness of the game, the dialog, it had me hooked. And with the ending, I was glad I did. Lil Gator Game might be my favorite game this year, no hyperbole. Please play this.