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Game Review – Little (Zack Banack)

Just a beginning note – I’ve known about Zack Banack (known on most sites as Zack064 or just Zack) for a while now and have recently felt him to be fairly underrated. He shares his general style with indie creators like Jonatan Söderström and Andrew Brophy, yet his creations aren’t even comparably covered. Little represents a deviation in Banack’s usual style – a move away from obscure, often surface-powered graphical malarkey into artsy platform exploration, Seiklus-style. And while Little can’t match Seiklus (what can?) it still stands out as a fun, simplistic game, if short (actually, the shortness works to its advantage – there’s enough to keep you happy but not enough to outstay its welcome).

In Little, you control a boy that chases a runaway ball into a weird portal that shrinks you to near-ant height. You have to take a journey through a series of different landscapes to reach a hospital and return to your original height.
little3

For such a short game it’s surprising how many different scenes there are, and how fluently they fit together – a garden, an ant nest, a play room, an urban landscape – all connected near-seamlessly. The gameplay is incredibly simple – walk through these landscapes, occasionally needing to scavenge items to unblock routes or open up secondary ones. Picked-up items appear above your head until you need them, and are automatically used. I feel the game would be suitable to youngsters – it’s relentlessly simple and visually appealing.

little1

Levels in the game are colourful. The grassy areas are a not-too-bright green with blue skies and brown trees, the rural area is filled with scenery, and the house imparticular is very colourful – all the toys scattered around make for an aesthetic beauty. The sprites themselves aren’t perfectly drawn, but every single one fits into the game just fine, which make the cartoony places great to wander through.

little2

The background music also fits with the game – playful, but at the same time fairly relaxing. It helps to give the game a great, serene atmosphere. It can’t be turned off, but it’s not too much of a worry – the game only takes about quarter of an hour to complete so you can return to your own music after playing it. Sound effects are minimal, and not greatly fitting, but they’re quiet, which reduces any negative impact to pretty much nil.

I enjoyed this game rather a lot – it was peaceful to play and, though not fast-paced or immediate fun, the lack of any real danger mixed with the variety of scenes resulted in an experience as satisfying as anything else. I don’t expect Little to be everybody’s “thing”, it’s certainly an audience divider (I’d call it “Marmite” but sadly non-UK residents are unlikely to understand). But for me, and I’m sure for some of you, it’ll be a great way to spend quarter of an hour.

Little on YoYo Games
Little on Game Jolt
More of Zack’s Games: On YoYo Games | On Game Jolt | On his Website

What do you think?

9 Comments

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  1. By “flowing” I didn’t mean they graphically fit together. They just seem to me to be linked cleverly, like with the getting into the ant’s nest through the ant hill.

  2. Seems pretty repetitive and simple (But I guess it was for a minimalist contest).
    Run
    Jump
    Go back and get an item

    Rinse and Repeat.

  3. I believe Vegemite and Marmite are essentially the same product. Neither, nor any comparable product, are sold in places like USA or Canada as far as I’m aware, though. The Marmite quip will immediately make sense to any Brits, as it’s well known their long-standing slogan is “You either love it or hate it”. I coulda mentioned that in the review, really. Nevermind.

    Thanks for your comment on the review. As I noted, it’s definitely an audience splitter. I, and am sure Zack as well, don’t mine if some people aren’t into it.

  4. I gave it a go, despite the graphics telling me not to. I guess I’m more in the Vegemite section (and I have no idea if that’s related to your UK Marmite quip).

    Definitely not my type of game. But nice review.

    -Tv

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