Review: Nintendo’s ‘Lil Guardsman’ for Switch lets kids play border cop

BERLIN: In the puzzle game Lil Guardsman, you are young Lil, a 12-year-old girl who takes on her father’s job as a guardian of the kingdom. In this role of fantasy world border cop, you get to decide who does and doesn’t get to enter the gates.

In a comic world full of strange creatures, you sit in the guardhouse and chose whether to let them enter, send them to prison or even blow them up.

Everyone who wants to enter the country has to be screened – including this candidate, who obviously has a lot on his record.

The over 100 characters who beg for Lil’s favour include knights, trolls, werewolves, cats and old grandmas whose dark secrets need to be uncovered.

Of course, you don’t just make arbitrary decisions, but interrogate each traveller carefully. All of them can be subjected to three measures – a metal detector, an X-ray machine or a truth serum.

Entry denied – and off to the slammer you go: this is the fate of some who wanted to enter the kingdom in ‘Lil Guardsman’.

After your shift you can explore the living world within the city walls. For example, Lil helps find the right groom for the princess, recruits soldiers for a battle and visits her betting-addicted father at the goblin-ball game.

Since the decisions are linked in a funny way and the residents have some crazy stories to tell, the game has plenty of humour. Thanks to comic book-like graphics and well-voiced characters, “Lil Guardsman” not only impresses with its gameplay, but also with its charm.

Unlike real border police, Lil’s special abilities include time travelling.

If you want to make big decisions as a little person, you have to take responsibility, but the game compensates for that with a lot of fun. “Lil Guardsman” is available for PCs and Macs as well as Nintendo Switch, PlayStation and Xbox consoles for around €20/US$20 (RM40.99 in Malaysia). – dpa