Little Goody Two Shoes Preview – A Nightmarish RPG Maker-Style Horror Game That Wasn’t Made in RPG Maker

From its initial reveal, developer Astralshift’s Little Goody Two Shoes has had my attention. However, the history of this title caught me off guard. In an effort to grow an IP, Little Goody Two Shoes is meant to be a prequel to the RPG Maker horror adventure Pocket Mirror. Still, where Pocket Mirror would focus on supernatural horror elements to progress its dark narrative, Little Goody Two Shoes aims to expand on this world with new mechanics and systems. After playing, I found the tension was still on full display through narrative themes revolving around greed and player choice.

There are a few key gameplay systems that I was able to understand during my time with Little Goody Two Shoes. For starters, the puzzles can be puzzling. It’s required to interact with objects and manipulate items to get through areas. By searching through points of interest, you collect clues to progress, with hints found in dialogue. You’ll navigate the world as Elise, who is the mother of Goldia from Pocket Mirror. Her goals all seem to be ones of self-interest, where she feels that she should have a better life. Instead, however, she must tend to the needs of villagers and not upset the church too much.

I was overwhelmed with the amount of worldbuilding the demo decided to dump on me, but it gave me something to look forward to in the later parts of the game when I’ve understood more. Players can map out how they spend their days by either completing small tasks or talking to NPCs to progress the time. However, at night, Elise’s dreams take her to a haunting world that she is forced to navigate if she wishes to wake up.

So, there are multiple gameplay systems at play here that serve to deliver different gaming experiences to players. During the day, it’s very much about completing tasks assigned and interacting with the townspeople to get a real grasp on how this town operates. During the night, you enter a nightmarish world that becomes a dungeon of Elise’s desires and goals. Both of these systems require exploration, as they each have subtle puzzles that must be completed.

That being said, player choice is on full display, with your interactions all lending to a particular ending. The dark comedic tone of the writing plays well into this because Elise can still be a respected member of the community, depending on how you spend your days. Like in Pocket Mirror, the endings will likely range from over-the-top to insane as you make your way to the true ending.

The presentation of Little Goody Two Shoes is something to marvel at. The game is created by a small team who has poured a ton of love into making this game appear to be a modern RPG Maker-style horror adventure. However, the illustrations, environement design, and the overall atmosphere is gorgeous. You’ll likely want to get to every ending just to see the illustrations that come from it.

There’s a lot I’m looking forward to experiencing more in Little Goody Two Shoes. How you spend each day will be interesting to completely understand, but from what I played, I find myself drawn to this mystery, and Elise is probably the best character to experience this narrative with. Hopefully, I don’t get her into too many Bad Endings, but we’ll see.

Little Goody Two Shoes is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam soon.