A Lil' palate cleanser for these trying times
Lil' Guardsman is a 2024 puzzle game that delighted me in every possible way.
After I finished 007: First Light, I needed something really different to come off my James Bond high. As luck would have it, I had just befriended a local studio founder… who happened to have made the game I'd been meaning to play.
Toronto-based Hilltop Studios released Lil’ Guardsman in early 2024, which made a splash, even though I hadn’t been part of the industry then to notice. I saw it plenty at local industry events, noting its catchy art style, and figured it was locally made, but that was the extent of it.
Ironically, I have Hilltop Studios’ second title currently in the works, The Curse of Resthaven, to thank for my interest in them. Check out the demo announcement:
Hype, right?! Hype!
I wanted to get a feel for a Hilltop Studios game while I wait for The Curse of Resthaven to drop, so Scott Christian, the studio’s founder and director, very generously provided me with a Lil’ Guardsman key.
While it helps that the game is currently on sale on Steam for like $5 CAD, and it goes on sale pretty regularly, I can tell you it’s well worth it at full price. Why?
Because Lil’ Guardsman is fucking delightful.
What in the Lil’ Guardsman is this?
At this point, I’m not sure who said it first or if I thought of it by myself independently, but imagine Papers, Please for children (kinda), and that would be a big part of what Lil’ Guardsman is.
You are a girl with a gorgeous mop of burgundy hair, a lovable dad with a gambling problem, and a guardshed you need to (wo)man. Decide who enters the Sprawl, the city-state you call home, and change the course of history in the process. No biggie, right?
Lil’ Guardsman is a mish-mash of puzzle, point-and-click, and narrative adventure that succeeds on… pretty much every level. Its writing is clever, funny, and quick on its feet; the art style is colourful, memorable, and, frankly, adorable; the voice acting is superb, and so is the musical score.
The story has twists and turns I didn't expect. The narration and dialogues break the fourth wall all the time, in moments big and small, which I found very hilarious.
Mechanically, it’s easy to manage—there’s no real pressure to get things done quickly or even get them right the first time. In fact, a big part of the game and what makes it so fun is getting to try again. If you love savescumming, as I do, you will love what you get to do in Lil’ Guardsman.
The humour was definitely what made the game for me. Skimming through the reviews, it wasn’t the case with everyone, which is, of course, normal. I personally just delighted in the constant wink-winks, references, gaming trope subversions, and endlessly quotable lines.
No matter how big the temptation, I’m not going to share endless screenshots of all the stuff I found funny in the game.
Instead, I’m happy to bring you a short interview with Lil’ Guardsman creators themselves— Scott Christian, Hilltop Studios’ founder and narrative director, Jeremy Lapalme, writer, and Matt Bernard, writer.
I wanted to hear about their favourite moments and their take on what makes the game so special. Here’s what they had to say!
A Lil’ interview with Hilltop Studios
What are the origins of Lil and the Sprawl?
Scott: The idea for Lil’ Guardsman was born over a series of very long bike rides during the pandemic. It started as a classic, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to make a video game…” conversation between me and the game’s co-creator, Artiom. He’d just become a dad, which helped inspire the father-daughter dynamic between Lil and Hamish.
From the beginning, we knew we wanted the Sprawl to feel like a fantasy world that had somehow collided with 1980s technology. I also had a few big-picture story ideas early on, especially the notion that someone small and seemingly insignificant, a literal kid working a boring gatekeeping job, could end up shaping the fate of an epic fantasy adventure.
From there, my co-writers Matt Bernard, Jeremy Lapalme, and I spent the next two years building out the world and its characters. A surprising amount of that process involved trying to make each other laugh. Many of the game’s strangest characters and funniest moments began as us delighting each other with increasingly ridiculous ideas and then stubbornly refusing to cut them.
How would you describe the game to someone who has never heard of it?
Scott: It’s like a Saturday morning cartoon from my childhood brought to life; one of the weird ones, with a lot of jokes that probably shouldn’t have made it past the censors. Then mash that together with a classic 90s LucasArts adventure game and the deduction-driven puzzle loop of Papers, Please.
Matt: I can’t remember who said it first/where it came from, but LG was once called a “child labour simulator”, and that always made me laugh.
Jeremy: It’s a collection of some of our favourite fantasy pop culture characters and concepts put into a blender. Then you (as a precocious 12-year-old Lil) get to interrogate and make fun of these characters and concepts as you either admit or deny them entrance to your kingdom. Then your choices shape the narrative of what happens and how people interact with you in the future. But mostly parodies of some of our favourite influences.
Who is your favourite NPC and why?
Jeremy: Echo the Wanderer is one of my favourite mashup characters. He is a direct 1:1 ratio of Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings and the Dude from The Big Lebowski. This is the kind of creative and loving spoofing that makes me oh so happy. He also gets to act as a lore master, telling the player more about the world if that’s something you are interested in. And you should be, as it is all fantastical and well thought out and very, very silly.
Matt: My favorite NPC to see come to life was Signor Capello Fantastico. His whole existence is ridiculous. After giving away the most fantastic hat, he’s on a journey to find a new hat of equal (or greater) fantastic-ness. Does he find it? Does he get his own spin-off game? Only time will tell.
Scott: Chloe, the singing psychopath. My background is in music and theatre, so getting to create a demented Disney-style princess was an absolute joy. It didn’t hurt that my wife, Tringa, voices her and absolutely knocked it out of the park. I’m still delighted that Chloe ended up going a little bit viral… there’s apparently a healthy audience for musical numbers sung by unstable Belle from Beauty and the Beast knock-offs.
What’s your favourite joke in the game?
Scott: I specifically hired Matt and Jeremy, who are proper comedy writers, to bring the jokes. I’d say I usually ended up on the more serious or “make-this-somehow-functionally-work-in-the-story” side of things.
But whenever they genuinely laughed at a joke I got in there, it felt like a win!
Jeremy: Lil’s reaction throughout the game show sequence always tickles me. Moments where Lil doubles as the audience who genuinely don’t know what’s going on work so well, and having the 12-year-old girl be so unimpressed and confused by the spectacle is such a great juxtaposition.
The perfect Lil’ indie antidote
I can’t think of anything wrong with Lil’ Guardsman. Every part of it landed just right. Of course, it was the moment when I found it that made it so perfect. As my 007: First Light rebound, it served as the perfect reminder of just how different video games can be, and how great games truly come in all shapes and sizes.
Lil’ Guardsman and Bond couldn’t be more distinct in every possible way.
Both are near flawless.
Get Lil’ Guardsman now on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, or PlayStation.
Wishlist The Curse of Resthaven on Steam.