I love this time of year. Cozy weather. Tasty cookies and warm cocoa. Festive events in games. And of course, all the Christmas lights hanging on houses, businesses, and elsewhere. In particular, I have a soft spot for all the colorful lights that get hung up during December. They just look so magical at night and fill me with nostalgic feelings. What can I say? I’m a sucker for plastic lights.
So when I randomly discovered Light Up the Town, a newly released cozy indie game all about decorating a wintry small town with Christmas lights, I immediately installed it and happily discovered a wonderful holiday treat that I can’t stop playing.
Out now on Steam, Light Up the Town has a super simple premise. You play as a young anthropomorphized ferret named Bean who is going through some stuff. His father, in an effort to lift his spirits, asks Bean to follow in his own footsteps and handle lighting up the entire small Colorado town of Bellflower. If he does this, he’ll get a new bike for Christmas. There’s more going on, but I’ll leave that for you to discover on your own. The narrative isn’t bad at all, but it’s not why you should play Light Up the Town. The real reason is that decorating this snow-covered town with various Christmas lights and decorations is sublime.
In real life, putting up lights across multiple buildings, roofs, and interiors can be a hassle of tangled cables, extension cords, and broken bulbs. Light Up the Town doesn’t include any of that. Instead, you are able to fling strings of lights in different colors and shapes across large distances like a Christmas Jedi. You can also undo your actions and cut light strings whenever you want, letting you create massively long or incredibly short strings of light. Also, don’t worry about plugs or running cords. Lights just work, regardless of where you put them. Is this realistic? Nope! And I love it. It’s all the joy of hanging lights up and making a home glow without the hassle or headaches the process can create in the real world.
©Meadow Studios / Kotaku
Light Up the Town’s decorating controls are finicky at times, but mostly work great and let you quickly cover areas in lights and other decorations, like presents, candy canes, and more. I recommend playing in first-person mode, but regardless of what view you pick, the end result of putting up all these lights is always magical. The lighting in this game is phenomenal and changes based on how you decorate. Cover a house in just a few white lights? The glow will be softer and dimmer. Fill a room with 20 strings of red and green lights? You’ll create a vibrant Christmas rave. As you hang up lights, look for coins to collect. These can be spent at stores to unlock more varieties of lights and new decoration items.
Each time I stepped back after putting up lights for an hour or so, I’d find myself lingering the same way I do in real life when spotting Christmas lights at night. Light Up the Town truly nails the festive and cozy vibes of a cold, dark night in December filled with thousands of tiny bright lights in the snow. For fans of the holiday season, put on your favorite festive songs, make a hot beverage, grab a blanket, and then dive into Light Up the Town. Just set a timer so you don’t spend your whole night decorating.
