Lil' Guardsman on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
Imagine you're a 12 year old, suddenly in charge of the guard shed at the castle gate, where you decide if elves, goblins and 100+ other characters should be admitted. It's a wonderful combination of deduction, narrative and puzzle games.
Lil' Guardsman is a adventure, casual and point & click game
developed by Hilltop Studios
and published by Versus Evil and tinyBuild.
Released on January 23rd 2024 is available on Windows and MacOS
in 4 languages: English, German, Simplified Chinese and Spanish - Latin America.
It has received 944 reviews of which 895 were positive and 49 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.9 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 19.50€ on Steam, but you can find it for 12.36€ on Instant Gaming.
The Steam community has classified Lil' Guardsman into these genres:
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: 64-bit Windows 10, 11
- Processor: 3.0 GHz Quad Core CPU
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: GeForce GTX 660 or Radeon RX 460
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 4 GB available space
MacOS
- OS: Mac OS X 10.15
- Processor: Intel i5 Quad-Core, 2.7 GHz
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: GTX 660 / RX 460
- Storage: 4 GB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
This game was a big surprise. It was much darker than I expected from what it looked like, and definitely targeted at adult audience. It's very story-rich, the writing is excellent, and there's not that much at stake (I mean, the future of the whole kingdom depends on you, but the game is quite forgiving), so it's a really cozy experience. Under the cartoony, fairy-tale-like graphics, world, and story, it touches on many serious social, political, and economic matters, but often in an unserious way, making it not too heavy, but still thought-provoking. The gameplay is simple and pleasant, yet diverse enough not to be boring. Works great on steamdeck.
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Lil Guardsman is a funny but not exactly lighthearted “choices matter” point and click adventure with puzzle-like dialogue encounters. You can make parallels to 3909 LLC’s “Papers, Please” or Crazy Rocks Studios’ “Contraband Police.” But saying that Lil Guardsman is “like” those games is a stretch, which I’ll get into. I would recommend Lil guardsman to those looking for a witty game with thoughtful choices and interesting characters. Lil Guardsman puts you in the boots of Lil, a bushy haired youngster from the Sprawl, the game’s protagonist city state. Lil’s father is a gate guard and after covering one shift for him, you are recruited to work the gate by a trio of characters that represent essentially a shadow government, making policy decisions without the knowledge of the Princess. The trio of shady characters use Lil to keep what they deem as undesirable characters out and let in people they approve of. Sometimes they will pressure you to do something that goes against what is “right,” and sometimes being the good guy costs you wages and approval rating. The dynamic is interesting, if a little underbaked. In between shifts at the guard gate, you can explore locations in the Sprawl, interact with NPCs, and shop. Typically, a level in the game involves a guard shift and then one if not multiple dialogue encounters in which the game’s story plays out. The player makes tons of little decisions that can have a big or small impact on the story, and I can easily see the interested gamer getting 3 playthroughs out of the game, especially with all its branching stories and encounter resolutions. The strength of the game is its writing and voice acting. I laughed out loud at some points. I liked many of the characters and the wit and humor is evident. I would not call the game lighthearted though, as much of the humor is very dark, people die because of the player’s actions and others are relegated to lives of misery. I enjoyed with fully voiced cast, and think it contributed much to the game. As I mentioned before, the game is different from “Papers, Please.” or “Contraband Police” because although the gate guard aspect is present, the game is much more than a bureaucracy sim. Unlike those games, you’re not looking for discrepancies in paperwork or searching cars for contraband, its more of a social puzzle. You can use certain items to gain information on a visitor and make decisions that impact the greater story. Each person that visits has a purpose and most impact the grand scheme in some way. There is also way more to do than just the guard gate, much of the game is spent away from the guard booth. My only gripe is that the game is tragically short. But for what you pay, I think it is a fair amount of content. I enjoyed my time with Lil Guardsman, and I think you will too.
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this is and amazing game but i have a problem i need MORE singing people (if you know you know) i keep letting them in and need more seriously its a bit like papers please but less harsh. great designs and stories
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This game is so underrated. Completely voiced dialogue by real actors, a wide range of humor, unexpected twists in writing, unique drawn art style. This game has made me gasp aloud and shout "oh no!" The game is worth the pricetag if anything for the length of playtime. I recommend streaming this game. The one drawback that I hope devs think of changing is to add a multiple fast-forwards option to speed up events--especially if we're replaying a chapter. Finally, everyone compares this to "Papers, Please". It's not. The only element is that you work in a guardshouse maybe 60% of the game. It's a fantasy story of a country where you uncover silly plots and your actions have impacts on the country's narrative. I haven't enjoyed a Point and Click game this much since Pillars of the Earth.
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Lil guardsman is an overall excellent game, even if it's advertisements are a bit misleading. Story: By far the best thing in the game is its story, with it's emotional core being the bond Lil shares with her dad. The game perfectly balances Lil being a 12 year old who is put in a very stressful situation without them coming across as annoying. I really liked how they SHOWED Lil missing her dad without ever having to directly state that. Not only that but the world building is solid with different factions and people having their own desires and goals and you navigating the conflicts of said desires and goals is a huge part of the game. Each main and supporting character feels fleshed out and by the end of the game you really do feel like you want to protect this town you've come to know and shape. Gameplay; Okay so this is the misleading thing a lot of people get wrong. A lot of people call this a "Paper's Please" game but with fantasy elements and I think that's an inaccurate statement. To me a Paper's Please game is a test of your OCD; basically a test of your ability to notice small mistakes in a repetitive task while under pressure from a ticking clock. Lil Guardsman is not this; Lil Guardsman is more like Monkey Island with a Papers Please setting. Yes you are working border security and checking people, but there's no time limit here and you also aren't given all of the information right away with every person having some kind of secret objective you need to perform to get a 4 star rating. While you can logically deduce some of the secret objectives based on visual clues and hints from your info board, the game does strongly encourage you to just click your tools and see what happens. This doesn't make this a bad game, it's just not a Papers Please game if that's what you were hungry for. I do also want to state that the first level in particular is terrible from a gameplay perspective (it's great from a story perspective). At no point does the tutorial tell you that there are MULTIPLE ways of getting a 4 star rating, as different tools and techniques can complete the secret objective. Players will probably figure this out at some point when they realize they can't complete a 4 star rating because they used all of the charges for the needed tool up earlier in the run. But the game should really TELL the player this in the beginning as that majorly impacts decision making. Also it's a very strange choice that the player doesn't unlock the ability to go back in time and redo their decisions in the first level. Since that's when their most likely still experimenting and trying to figure out what each tool and option does. Granted the first level is pretty much on safety rails and won't stop you from getting a bad ending but its still surprising nevertheless and leaves a bad first impression. Luckily the game does pick up from there and keeps going strong. Managing your tools and upgrades and money is pretty fun although you can become quickly broken by mid game. Hoarding items can be annoying at times since only a few are useless but since you don't know what will become useful later you end up keeping everything (especially since an item's use can be reveal hours after collecting the item). Not that money is a big issue in-game since most levels rarely need you to use a single tool more than once in a level. Still from a completionist standpoint it does feel weird to see so many items in my inventory collecting dust when I can sell them. I only played through the game once and got the best ending, so I can't speak on the game's choice system although it did feel like my choices were influencing events in the game. Overall though I had a fun time and would recommend them game.
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Last Updates| Steam data | 04 April 2025 16:16 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 12 April 2025 05:53 |
| Steam price | 13 April 2025 12:47 |
| Steam reviews | 12 April 2025 13:50 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Lil' Guardsman, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Lil' Guardsman
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Lil' Guardsman concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Lil' Guardsman compatibility
Online players
18
Developer
Hilltop Studios
Publisher
Versus Evil ,
tinyBuild
Release
23 Jan 2024
Platforms
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