Moments ago, I finally finished up Little Goody Two Shoes. Or at least, I achieved one of the endings of the game, of which there are many by design (The game tells you this outright when you start).
I'll keep my thoughts under a cut here. These are entirely spoiler-free, because I want people to play the game with enthusiasm. If you're looking for a bottom line without those thoughts, though, I'd say: It's a wonderful game I recommend, even with a few rough edges.
Little Goody Two Shoes is, full stop, a fantastic game. It's rare that a game grips me enough that I finish it in a short period of time, but over the last few weeks I've been coming back to Little Goody Two Shoes whenever I can. It's not quite the level of "I have to see what happens next" that I got out of, say, SLARPG, but still. What I would say to summarize my experience is quite simply:
Little Goody Two Shoes is an incredibly charming game.
The graphics are, of course, enchanting. The game presents a mixture of painterly backgrounds, hand drawn interstitial art and cutscenes, pixel art minigames and characters, and anime-style portraits. My initial assumption, had anyone told me this before playing, would be that this wouldn't work. But it really does, and it works well. The entire thing combines with a well tuned soundtrack that knows when to be light and airy, and when to be utterly creepy. Overall, the game is a joy to look at, particularly when it presents you with sweeping vistas and other wonderful hilltop views.
Mechanically, I have to confess that the game wasn't at all what I was anticipating. I had heard people billing it as "A Life Sim, But Horror", and I was expecting something akin to "Stardew Valley Meets Silent Hill". In essence, the Life Sim elements of the game are incredibly minimal. I was waiting for the moment when I would be asked to plant crops, or go fishing, or find some way to craft items for sale, and that moment never came. In reality, "Life Sim" in this case means playing a variety of minigames for money - money that can be used to purchase items that sustain your health, reduce your hunger, and bolster your sanity. Balancing your resources to keep all three meters in check is the challenge of the game, particularly because your ability to gain money is gated by time.
Every day is carved up into six distinct periods of time, and three of those periods of time are available for you to perform chores for people in town. Doing so will earn you money, but simultaneously will advance time to the next period. Other events like story-based events or romantic encounters will also advance time by one period. The game takes place over a week, so each decision you make is an opportunity cost. If you choose to work for cash, then you engage with a minigame in the trappings of a Life Sim - collecting eggs, picking apples, chopping wood, etc. But these games are relatively simplistic even at the best of times, and their strength doesn't hold up the core gameplay loop.
Instead, a vast majority of the time is spent talking to townsfolk to drink in the story - trying to find all you can do before you commit to an activity that will advance the clock and irreversibly push the story forward. It works, I feel, because there's always tension and planning about "Do I get cash for the bread I need to survive, or do I spend time in a sunkissed meadow with a girl I really like?"
The story itself is, without spoilers, rather engaging - if slow. Each development does draw you in a bit further, but at a certain point it starts to feel just the slightest bit repetitive. This is largely because each time there's a turn in the story, you spend most of your time talking to the townspeople around town to get their reactions and manage a single relationship stat. Eventually those conversations start to get a little same-y. But otherwise the plot does develop in a fascinating way, and you have many opportunities to get to know the townsfolk and their particular mannerisms.
Managing three different stats for your character (Health, Food, Sanity) does start to get a little challenging, to say the least. In my particular run, I found myself spending most of my time simultaneously dirt poor and on the edge of madness with regard to a very low sanity meter. So just about every single time I came into any money, it went directly to sanity healing items, and kept me poor. Still, I presume this is largely the intent of the game - making you choose and accept the consequences.
The one tremendous criticism I have from a non-spoiler standpoint is that the game has a variety of responses to low stats that are reflected in your entire UI. Heartbeat and pulsing red at the edges of the screen for low health, and a white fog and muted sounds/music for high hunger/low food. But the response to low sanity involves black shadowy tendrils sweeping in from the edges of the screen, in combination with incessant laughter and whispering that's loud enough to cover up all the music and sounds in the game. There are multiple times throughout playing where your ability to gain access to any items is cut off, and so you can been essentially doomed to play the game while locked into these low-stat states, and it gets annoying. Like, annoying enough that when I was suffering chronic low sanity, I had to put the game down for a day or so because it was massively aggravating. I think having this status indicator fade over time is a QoL decision the devs should've considered.
Similarly, I have a small gripe with the puzzle design and layout for the game. Some of the puzzles are incredibly simple, but many others are absolutely obscure and punish you harshly for not immediately understanding them. Sometimes the game just feels rude with the way it can hurt you, kill you, and leave you with zero explanation as to why. It's not an overwhelmingly frequent occurrence, but it does happen.
Without spoiling anything, I will say that I didn't find the game scary so much as creepy. And creepy in a way I was fully able to appreciate. I didn't find it horrifically gore-filled, though there absolutely are some moments of viscera and blood. It felt much more psychological in its approach to horror, and the real horror that the game possesses is to be found in the way the player interacts with the story, and the decisions they are willing to make. I won't go too much into it, but I will say that my initial fear going into the game is that I just don't like horror at all - But nothing that happened over the course of my play through was enough to disturb me beyond expectations or preparation. The atmosphere of the game was just creepy enough to be fascinating. Though full disclosure: I haven't seen all the endings, so some horrific stuff might be buried in there.
The multiple endings (Something like 15?) are intended to increase replay value and further explain the story, and I very much understand that.
What I will say, though, is that I got a single, incredibly gay, very happy ending. I think I'll put it down for a while after that, because I know the other endings aren't going to be nearly as happy.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with this game a lot, and I do recommend it.