I got pretty busy at work last week and I wasn’t able to post my review of my last Keymailer game for May but I am back now and I have one ready to go. This week I am traveling around on a turtle friend transporting goods all over the world. This week is Little Odyssey.

Little Odyssey is a cozy adventure game by simon fita. The game was released on Steam in May 2024 and retails for $10. Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this product from https://www.keymailer.com

Welcome to the Tongs Delta adventurer, an empire in the desert on the coast of one of the greatest oceans. Play as a lone transporter who rides a turtle and makes your way to the capital city by delivering necessary products to people.

You will often talk to the inhabitants of the Tongs Delta and they will share with you the history of the era, share about how sandstorms are absolutely terrible and I am pretty sure there is a guy who will tell you a terrible pun related joke in every village.

Each of the four areas has the player do a set number of tasks before moving on. 100% of them are transporting items to another box for some cash money. You can use this money to purchase upgrades for your turtle companion, cosmetics, and fruit. The upgrades are mandatory at this point to deliver bigger packages.

Your turtle doesn’t need much attention, though it does have a water meter to keep track of so that turtle can move at an optimal pace. There is a well in each area to make sure that your turtle will not be dehydrated. You will need to visit these wells often as even with the upgrades to water consumption, your turtle friend loses water FAST. You are reminded quite often that petting your friends makes them move faster. There are times when you are traveling that can help your speed but most of the time you and your turtle companion are moving at a cozy pace.

To be able to deliver all this stuff is easier with your companion, a turtle. This turtle can carry whatever you can put on it. In the beginning, you are given small jugs to transport but it increases as each area is unlocked up until the point where you are transporting, let’s say, huge vegetables across the world. Deliveries are rarely difficult and are mostly just time-consuming treks across the world. Even towards the end of the game, the player is asked to travel all the way back to the starting area to pick up something trivial and bring it all the way back to the capital; almost a half-hour adventure.

I personally really like the way that Little Odyssey looks. The game has the desert look down with every color of beige and light red imaginable. The turtle is kind of awkward looking but I love him all the same. The inhabitants of the Tongs Delta are cute, they are little cardboard cut-outs with faces. Their dialogue menu is also of the cardboard cut-out variety. It looks cheap but I like the aesthetic it is going for.

Little Odyssey has some desert-themed jams that are on constant repeat and really make the long journeys more bearable. There is on occasion a really annoying ball of sand that inhibits all of the music and just plays a static TV sound for a few moments, but those events are far between.

Little Odyssey was an experience. I liked it but it took a lot for me to get that point. The game is cute in its presentation, but when it comes time to execute the gameplay, that is where is just old plain. The story revolves around you getting to the capital city and apparently the only way to get there is a string of transporting quests.

I played almost five hours of this game and before I was soft locked out of completing it, I still needed some more things to complete. You may be thinking “Wow that’s a lot of game for $10” but the traveling takes up a majority of the time. You will always have to return to a town and when you get farther out, then that becomes such an arduous task. The last mission I did was to collect veggies for a competition and that last took me almost a half hour to complete. Go to the beginning, get a veggie back to the capital, rinse and repeat. It takes a lot of time and sometimes it is frustrating.

Overall : Little Odyssey is fun and filled with cute moments, but it is loaded with bugs. Being a game made by one person I would say that I would recommend it if you could get it on sale. $10 maybe be a little steep for a game like this.