By flotsamThe Little AcrePewterGamesThe first game from this Dublinbased studio, The Little Acre joins a pantheon of ever more abundantgames which offer gentle animated point and click adventuring. Like manyof the others, it never reaches great heights, but does what it doeswith care and a touch of panache, although it probably shouldn’t includean achievement which you attain if you complete the game in under onehour (I didn’t).Aidan lives with his daughterLily and their dog Dougal in an Irish farm house called The Little Acre.Aidan’s dad went adventuring recently and hasn’t returned. The variousand mysterious machinery suggests he hasn’t gone anywhere terriblystraightforward, which eventually proves to be the case. Aidan and thenLily are soon hot on each other’s heels, determined to find out whathappened.There is a childlike fairy talequality to the proceedings, particularly once you leave the farm.Somewhat disappointingly, the game felt like it was built upside down,with the front farm-based end offering the most interesting puzzling,while the world of Clonfira ultimately failed to deliver on itsfantastical settings and creatures.
The Little Acre is an adorable point and click adventure that sadly trips up in some fundamental areas. The story leaves a lot to be desired and the easy puzzles won't pose much of a challenge to. Dec 13, 2016 The Little Acre follows the story of Aidan and his daughter, Lily, set in 1950’s Ireland. After discovering clues as to the whereabouts of his missing father, Aidan begins investigating until he inadvertently finds himself.
Clonfira was more like puzzling bynumbers, generally limited to what was in front of you. The abrupt enddidn’t help.But perhaps that was me.I do think it would haveappealed to me more if I had played it 15 years ago with my then 10 and6 year old daughters. We used to do that, first with Freddy Fish andPajama Sam, then moving onto things like Legend of Lotus Spring, theHarry Potter games and Nancy Drew as they got older.
It is a jolly,jaunty and reasonably pretty romp, nothing terribly dark, with somemagic and some mystery and a (smallish) menagerie of whimsical beasts.Lily in particular is an appealing character; wide eyed little girldetermination and bravado abounds.There is a bit of humour, somepathos, smatterings of baddiness and monsters, and a happily ever afterending (I already mentioned it was a bit abrupt). It’s hard not to likeThe Little Acre, whatever its limitations.It is completely point andclick, with the left mouse doing everything. You can get hints andstraight out solves anytime you want through the inventory menu. Youwill generally only have 3 or 4 items and limited screens, so solvesaren’t hard, regardless of their nature. Apart from a few codes,puzzling is all inventory based.I did forget a few times thatDougal the dog (and later Bugsy the bug thing) can be “used” tointeract with the environment. It was on those occasions I used the hintsystem, and then kicked myself as a result.You can tweak a few settings,play with different language subtitles, and continue where you left off.The loads were short, but at times there was very limited game playbefore you got another load, and it did occasionally irritate me. Youget to play both Aidan and Lily, only ever controlling one at a time,although in one sequence they work together to move on.For me, it lasted just under 2hours.