Lonesome Villageis an ambitious puzzle-solving life simulator that puts you in the shoes of Wes the Coyote, an adventurous traveler with a secret past who stumbles upon Ubhora, a sweet small town where all the villagers have disappeared, and a daunting tower with an ominous eye has burst from the ground.
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He soon discovers that the town was taken over by cultists who trapped all the villagers inside the tower in their pursuit of a sacred promise: one that offers knowledge, strength, and absolute power for the bearer of an untold mystical object. As he journeys out into a world overtaken by a greater evil, Wes finds hope and wholesomeness in every corner. Here are the best examples.
10Hearts Open Doors
As Wes embarks on his quest to save the villagers from the clutches of evil, he soon learns that each cell door in the tower demands a number of sacrifices. These are an offering of its choosing, a puzzle to retrieve an item taken from the hostage, and hearts.
Although the first two can easily be earned through lonesome quests into the town,hearts can only be freely given. Every time you save or help a villager, they give you hearts as a “token of gratitude”, marking the start of a new friendship, and giving you access to more levels in the dark prison tower.
9Friendship Saves
Scattered across town and on each tower floor are a number of save points, allowing you to save your progress before taking on a new challenge.
The design choice for the save point is a statue depicting Coronya, the helpful spirit guide that gives you hints throughout the game, holding a heart, the game’s symbol of friendship and gratitude.
8Promoting Accessibility
Lonesome Village makes a number of efforts to promote accessibility throughout its gameplay, using picture dialogues and visual storytelling to make the game easy to play for all ages and make sure it is equally enjoyable for everyone.
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As characters speak to Wes the coyote, a picture dialogue appears on the top right of their heads depicting the meaning of what is said in simple line drawings. Additionally, all the cutscenes employ visual storytelling rather than scripted narrative to portray unfolding events, as well as how each character feels about them.
7Promoting Diversity
The game also makes an effort to include characters with different gender identities and orientations. In the Cow Match challenge, you meet Cricket and their partner Lola. A little later in the game, in the Surfing Bird challenge, you save Didi and her girlfriend Tulip.
Having made it to Chapter 2: Praising, you also get the opportunity to change a number of things about your appearance, including some facial features and the clothes and shoes you’re wearing.
6Magical Music Instruments
Throughout his adventure, Wes is gifted with a number of items that come in handy the deeper he goes into Ubhora, the most wholesome of which is a range of magical musical instruments that have the power to control natural phenomena.
To help him along his way, his new friends give him a violin that makes it rain, a drum that makes rumbles so loud it can move boulders, and a flute that controls the wind, allowing him to fast travel across the map on Didi’s hot air balloon.
5Everybody Is Important
As he makes his cursed ascension up the prison tower, Wes learns a number of things about life. Namely, you can’t just skip floors to save the ones you need, you have to save everyone, and each villager saved proves to have a greater purpose, even if they don’t know it themselves at the time.
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In addition to themes of individuality and community, the game goes one step further to make a statement on the importance of quality of life, as each trapped villager describes how terrible the tower felt for them.
4Together Or Alone
When Wes goes on a side quest and saves Mushroom the adventurer from the hole, he is given a choice. He can either go on this adventure together with Mushroom or continue on his own. Both are equally valid, but completely different experiences of the same gameplay.
Although this new companion may not always help you solve puzzles, carry out different quests across town, or earn any extra items or hearts, a cute NPC following you around definitely makes your journey more wholesome.
3Pop Culture References
The game is riddled with pop culture references. Some of the characters you save are believed to be namesakes for their counterparts in other lovable franchises, such as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, Tom the cat from Walt Disney’s Tom & Jerry, Mindy Lou is a nod to both princess Mindy and Cindy Lou from the world of Dr. Seuss, and Catniss to Katniss Everdeen from Hunger Games.
The game also includes a number of well-known movie lines. Before Wes starts his journey into the tower, Coronya quotes Princess Leia’s famous line from Star Wars, “You’re our only hope”. Similarly, after Hanzo tells Wes he’ll “show him the way”, he notes how important it is to “get them all”, referencing the popular internet meme and thePokemonfranchise.
2False Promises
As you progress through the game, make friends, collect a number of magical items from town villagers, and defeat evil using your wits, you soon come to an interesting realization: the one true deity cannot give you that which you already have, that’s why they had to take it all away.
The cult leaders didn’t need to trap all those villagers and cause all that suffering. They already had everything they really needed: each other.
1Choice Vs. Destiny
In the final throwdown with Baran the cult leader, Wes finally understands what they were thinking. Baran says: “Who do you think you are trying to deny us our Destiny?”, urging him to “Stop fighting! You are not powerful enough!”
While the cult leader will stop at nothing to bring about his one true destiny, including holding an entire town hostage and stripping them of their lives, Wes the coyote, who continues to fight, represents choice, as he embarks on a journey of learning, starting with nothing and ending up with everything: magic items, a home, a loving community, an understanding of his own past, and a great story to tell.
