Do you love decorating for the holidays with bright, colorful lights? Do you wish it were easier? If so, you are going to love the demo for Light Up The Town! It’s a decorating game, but with the holidays in mind.
The Backstory of Light Up The Town
Light Up The Town opens with Bean, an adorable young ferret, in the car with her Dad. On the car radio, they hear that in three days there will be some sort of Holiday light festival in their town of Bellflower, Colorado. Bean is not very excited about this. In fact, she’s a pretty sad-looking ferret.
I see them next in their barn and notice that Dad is injured and using a crutch. He asks Bean if she can put up the holiday decorations this year. Bean replies that she thought they weren’t doing them this year. Why? What has happened to this family? How was Dad injured? Where is the Mother? The developers aren’t giving much away on the Steam page. I’ll have to play the full game to get the complete backstory.
Meanwhile, although Bean said she didn’t want to do the decorating, once Dad plugged in the lights, she was entranced and got right to decorating! And that begins the game.
The Feel of Bellflower, Colorado, in Light Up The Town
The graphics in Light Up The Town are superb! The buildings, trees and other items in the game are very realistic. Bean and her father have super expressive faces. It’s lovely and even nicer when it’s decorated!
The soundtrack plays a variety of genres. I remember hearing soaring soundtracks at points and also traditional and recognizable holiday songs, too. I found it very comforting and calm.
I loved the voice acting for Bean’s father. Bean did not talk much in the demo; perhaps we’ll hear more from her in the full game.
The Gameplay of Light Up The Town
I’m a player who often needs a lot of hand-holding when I begin a game. Not with this one!! Everything I had to do was explained very clearly and slowly, so I picked it up immediately. I played with a controller and it worked perfectly. I used the right trigger to “throw” the decorations where I wanted. I was also able to make Bean run when I wanted, which is always appreciated!
When I was done hanging a string of lights, I just “snipped” them with my scissors. If only it were that easy in real life! In the demo, I had 4 different varieties of colors for my lights. I also had a few decorations such as balls for the tree, tinsel and candy canes. I could put them wherever I wanted, and I can see there are many blank spots in the menu, so there will be even more choices in the full game. The Steam page also says there will be at least 10 different handcrafted levels.
This is a very calm, relaxing game, from the soundtrack to the actions. I was able to do whatever I wanted, wherever I wanted, with no time constraints. There was no day/night cycle, no energy levels and most importantly – no enemies to battle!! It’s a real chill decorating game, but with the spin of it being holiday decorations, not the usual household items. If I didn’t like how my decorations looked, I could easily undo them. Light Up The Town has a great little “tips” page, which I referred to from time to time.
As the game progressed, I was also given the option to make snowmen, which was fun!! And I got the option to make beautifully wrapped packages, which I thought looked really nice with the snowmen.
According to the Steam page, the story of Bean and her father will continue in the main game, but in the demo, we can play around with unlimited decorating of their property.
Another feature in Light Up The Town is collecting coins, which can be used in the full game to buy even more lights and decorations. These coins are in a lot of places. They are pretty visible, but some require a little work to collect, such as jumping onto the roof of the house with a trampoline!
Final Thoughts
Since the game devs are keeping the majority of the backstory under wraps for now, the demo was almost completely focused on decorating. It seems that the gameplay will be what I’d call “semi-open world” because I will at least be able to go anywhere I want within certain areas. It’s possible it’s a totally open world, I have to wait for the final game to know that. I can tell from the screenshots on the Steam page that there are plenty of other locations to decorate and explore, though. Light Up The Town was developed by Meadow Studios, is scheduled to release on November 28, 2025, just in time to play during the holidays!
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