Review code provided with many thanks to DevilishGames.
Cutout Village is an adorable little indie game all about paper crafts. In order to bring a ghost town back to a bustling village, you will need to build everything that people will want in a hometown.
The Gameplay of Cutout Village
Cutout Village focuses on two siblings that have come back to their grandmother’s town, only to find all the buildings crumpled up and the streets abandoned. They decide to use their paper skills to fold, glue, and cut their way into rebuilding the village as they remember it.
Each home you build, store you setup, tree you plant, or benches you place are all paper cutouts, and each one has to be meticulously cut, folded, and glued into the proper place. If you make too many mistakes, they will show up in the final product as tabs out of place, a wobbly foundation, or a tree leaning hard to one side.
You first have to cut each of the pieces out with scissors. Then Cutout Village will direct you to fold along all the necessary lines, glue where it is needed, and place the roofs, walls, and other accessories into the right places.
After a building or item is completed, it will have a one-, two-, or three-star rating. The lower the rating, the more wonky it will turn out in your village.
As you build more stores, homes, trees, benches, lampposts, and other things, you will get more visitors and more people wanting to move in, expanding your village and making this abandoned town like new again. The more people you have around, the more buildings you can put together. If you get a poor score on a building, you can try it over and over again until you get it perfect.
You can chat with each of the new villagers and visitors to see what is going on in each of their lives, why they chose to move, and what they hope to find in this sleepy town they have travelled to.
The Pros and Cons of Cutout Village
I have a confession to make. Normally, when I play a game for LG that I am supposed to write about, it’s always at the top of my mind. I take screenshots, write down notes for my review, and overall, playing a game for review is just a different experience than playing one for fun.
However, I kind of forgot I was playing Cutout Village for review a few minutes in. I found the cutting, pasting, and folding to be relaxing and almost meditative. It had amazing, chill music, a gentle story, and cute villagers to chat with.
I stopped taking notes, and I stopped taking screenshots because I was enjoying myself so much. This almost never happens with games! I was astounded when the demo ended, and I was reminded that I was supposed to be writing an article!
And that wasn’t even the best part. Every single one of the houses, stores, trees, and other objects you build in the game, you can download a PDF for, print it, and then build them in real life as well. What an adorable idea.
My only real complaint is that it feels very difficult to get a three-star house put together. The folding is pretty haphazard since the joysticks on controllers are not very precise, and the gluing had the same issues. I think if the star ratings were a little more lenient, Cutout Village would be a perfect game in my opinion.
Final Thoughts
Needless to say, I had a lot of fun with Cutout Village. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes meditative games. It was so pleasant to play, so calming, and well-made. I am looking forward to the full release; you can bet I will be the first in line to pick it up when it becomes available.
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