EDIT: SPOILERS ARE NOW OPEN

Welcome to the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club Year 3! Our 9th game of 2024 is Li'l Gator Game. The target completion date is May 6, 2024.

We ask that until that date you use the forum software to mark any spoilers, either story based or mechanical, in the discussion below. Ideally the bulk of the discussion will occur after May 6, but if you want to comment before then you are welcome to so long as the spoilers are marked. We ask that if you leave a comment before that date you also come back to the thread after it to read other people’s comments and respond to them, though of course we cannot force you to do so.

All are welcome to participate regardless of whether you have stated a preference to or not and there is absolutely no commitment. You do not have to finish the game to participate but please let us know if you have not.

You are also free to come back any time after the completion date and share your thoughts! This club is meant to be open to all whenever you want to join in the fun!

You can find out more about the Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club or suggest future games for it here.

What is Li'l Gator Game?

A freeform adventure game about exploration and imagination. Think The Legend of Zelda crossed with A Short Hike.

How long is Li'l Gator Game?

How long to beat lists it as 3 hours long.

Time to put my money where my mouth is and play this game. I've just been going so hard into Star Ocean 2R that I've hardly touched anything else since starting it.

@chamurai: You better hope that when Star Ocean 2R shows up in Guess the Game you get it in 1, given all you've been saying about it!

This game had been on my radar for a while and when I saw it on game pass a couple weeks back I took it as the perfect chance to finally play it.

I enjoyed it a lot. Very cute with chill vibes. In terms of recent-ish Zelda inspired indies, it doesn't exactly stack up against something like Tunic and its phenomenal puzzle design and combat, but as just a low impact 5 hour experience Lil' Gator Game was very good.

Just finished the main story and I was actually surprised and moved by the ending. The game itself has a lot of charm and it feels real good to move around. I actually had my 9 year old play it and he was having a lot of fun with it despite not being able to read most of the English. Strange that it's on Game Pass in Japan with no Japanese support but it allows us to play together with me translating for him while he plays. I hope he finishes it and gets to see the ending. Don't expect it to hit the same as it did me but I'm curious to see what he thinks of it. Currently working on getting all the stuff since it's relatively easy to get everything within a couple hours.

A genuinely lovely little gem about friendship/play/creativity, with amusing dialogue and surprisingly smooth and fun movement. Really enjoy how the game is centered around resolving (mostly mild) conflict and bringing together pals in play & craft. And, like @chamurai, I found the ending quite emotionally resonant (On that note — did your kid finish the game yet?)

This game wasn't quite what I expected. I thought it was going to be a fun kids game, and it kind of is, but I'm not sure how it would play out if you weren't familiar with Zelda and specifically Breath of the Wild. It also has a lot of adult themes, by which I obviously do not mean sexual themes but rather themes about adulthood. It's childhood seen through the eyes of an adult. The ending sort of shows that the sister was in some ways the main character all along.

I do wonder how it would play for an actual child, especially because I bought this game for an actual child without playing it first. Whoops. I mean there's nothing inappropriate here as in offensive but there are things that might not resonate to a young child just getting into video games. I'd be interested to know how @chamurai's son felt about those moments and references. I think in some ways it's an ideal game for a parent and child to play together because of its dual perspective of child-like enthusiasm with deeper underpinning melancholy.

Despite all that I'm not sure the game fully hit for me. I liked it. I mostly enjoyed playing it as a chill exploration game, though the quests were mostly just fetch quests and kind of boring and I do wish the game had more direction via a map etc...even if it doesn't really need it. I found some of the dialog amusing and I did like the Lil gator as the little ball of id and enthusiasm he is, but the loose controls and lack of any kind of challenge just kind of made the game feel a little aimless for me.

I did enjoy my time with the game. It's good. For some it seems like it was great, but I might have liked it a bit more if it leaned even more into the goofy enthusiasm and hadn't had the deeper stuff underneath. Maybe I'm just shallow or it's the mood I happen to be in these days.

@bigsocrates: @manburger: Unfortunately, he has not finished it yet. I've been cleaning up around the house and been busy with my second job and...heyyyyyy this seems familiar...

I'll try to see if he's still down to playing it sometime this week.

I did find the lack of map to be a hinderance during my time with the game and had a hard time finding my way around the area. In the game's defense, when the big island is opened up for you I did not go directly toward the tower as directed as I turned the game off to watch my kids right after it was mentioned. So when I turned it back on I just headed in a random direction and missed the friend standing on the shore who tells you about the landmarks. It wasn't until I played most of the game and watched my kid play and then find them immediately and it was like "Ohhhhhh! That makes sense."

I did 100% the game shortly after my last post and saw the 'true' ending and it's a nice little bookend to the whole adventure and not at all emotionally loaded like the main ending is. You did all the things and now it's time to say goodbye to your friends and go back home. Maybe have some ice cream, the #1 best snack. That's a good ending.

I've now gone back a few times to clean up achievements and just mess around (quick resume works well with this, which makes it easy) and I regret to inform everyone that the music WILL stick in your head if you dip in once too often.

I am changing my rating. This is the worst game ever made.

This was a charming little game. Was just nice running around breaking a bunch of stuff and getting new friends by helping them out with their problems. All the big moments really hit me in the heart more than I expected by the time the credits rolled. Plus, I like how after beating the game they make it easy to pick up anything you may have missed. Also, I really liked how easy it was to get around by slide jumping on the shield everywhere.