Lil’ Guardsman, a new narrative-driven deduction game; coming in 2023.
London-based indie games developer, Hilltop Studios has teamed up with Baltimore-based indie games publisher, Versus Evil to bring about Lil’ Guardsman. Versus Evil already has a good amount of critically acclaimed titles to their name, such as First Class Trouble, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire and of course, The Banner Saga Trilogy. Lil’ Guardsman is a narrative puzzle game inspired by the point-and-click genre as well as the mechanics of the 2013 game Papers, Please.
Instead of being set in an Eastern European Bureaucracy, Lil’ Guardsman takes place in a fantasy world. The protagonist, Lil, finds herself covering for her dad who happens to be the head castle guardsman. Your choices matter in this game where the consequences may not be what you wish to face.
As Lil guards the gate, she will encounter all different kinds of fantasy-based characters from highly cryptic Elven mages to even single orc mothers. She is tasked with finding out the true intentions of each visitor. Of course, she won’t just have to figure it out with just dialogue options as she will have a variety of tools on hand to help her out. In Lil’ Guardsman you have the option to rewind time to be able to redo a past level and maybe get a better score, but be careful you don’t want to break space and time in the process.
Lil’ Guardsman gives an adorable saturday-morning cartoon feel about going along with the narrative-driven game. Lil’ Guardsman has a comedic narrative to it that will draw you in with the quirky character, and when your shift is over, go ahead and explore the Sprawl, but don’t forget what you choose affects the fate of the kingdom and its people.
Lil’ Guardsman will be released on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch but there is currently no release date yet.
