Ittle Dew

Ittle Dew is essentially a short but sweet parody of the Legend of Zelda series. The heroine Ittle and her magic flying fox Tippsie often give nods to the series in their dialogue. For example, Tippsie reacts in disgust when Ittle chomps on a heart that she founds on the ground or by smashing a rock. The overall aesthetics of the game are Zelda inspired, but are more bold and colourful.

Ittle finds herself washed up on an island, and the nearby shopkeeper agrees to build her a raft if she retrieves an artefact from the nearby castle. Also, he seems to stock three useful items; a flaming sword (that can melt ice blocks and set off bombs), a portal wand (which can summon blocks and teleport enemies and bombs) and an ice wand (which can put out fires or give blocks the ability to slide). However, when you attempt to buy these, he tells you he doesn't really have the items, but can transport you to a new dungeon in order to acquire them.

You can actually purchase the items in any order and it's actually possible to complete the game with only two of them, with achievements dedicated to doing so. Once you get transported to the new dungeon, your current items are temporarily left behind and you will retrieve them once you have acquired your new item, exited the dungeon, and made it back to the shop. After this, you go back into the castle to utilise your item in order to progress further. It's an interesting and well designed system. The castle and the item dungeons are essentially mandatory, but there are plenty of optional rooms in over-world between the castle and the dungeons.

All the puzzles are essentially some form of block puzzles and are mostly straight-forward. If you make a mistake, you can reset the room via the pause menu, or simply walk out then back in like in Zelda. There are torches and bombs to be lit, torches to be snuffed, blocks to freeze, pressure pads to depress, items to teleport, and enemies to defeat.

If you want to do the core part of the game, Ittle Dew is rather short, clocking at around 3.5 hours. You’ll need much longer to collect everything and to beat the optional Master Cave. Then there's the challenge of completing the game with 2 of the 3 items. The game is pretty simple overall, but even when you speed through it, it is enjoyable and is designed in a way that can appeal to speed-runners.