Lili (2012)

As a student aspiring to earn her vegi-magical degree, Lili needs to collect and research rare flowers. With that in mind she is sent by boat to the beautiful and unexplored island of Geos. Besides a rich unspoiled vegetation she also finds a complex civilization there, formed by two different factions: the spirits, headed by the island’s mayor, and their slaves—the wooden constructs. The latter, despite having souls of their own, are constantly oppressed by their masters, but are unable to strike back. Now Lili needs to decide if she’s in just for the flowers, or if she’ll mess with the island’s politics as well.

Lili is a hybrid between an adventure and an action game with light role-playing elements. The player controls Lili from a behind-the-back perspective and has the goal of exploring the world and collecting flowers. The white flowers grow all over the island’s surface and can be used as a currency to buy some special types of items such as keys. It’s also possible to exchange them for coins. However, to move the story forward Lili needs to pick the rarer red flowers. They either grow on the spirits’ backs or are awarded for completing quests given by the constructs. Stealing red flowers from the spirits involves first and foremost chasing them and jumping on their backs. This will trigger a mini game in which flowers and traps pop up in random places. The player has to pluck a set amount of white flowers while avoiding thorns and defusing bombs. After stealing enough white flowers in this way, the red one can finally be claimed from the spirits. Lili can stay a limited amount of time on their backs. If she touches a thorn or fails to remove a bomb in time, the grip meter will decrease rapidly. The only way to add more seconds to the timer is by plucking green flowers, while the golden flowers give a bonus of coins. The quests are varied and range from defeating a specific spirit, collecting things, and planting trees to taking photos of interesting locales.

The player can roam around the island freely, however the access to three of the four main areas is initially blocked. The doors leading to them are opened one by one as more red flowers are gathered and the story progresses. At the same time, after every five red flowers collected Lili can visit a trainer and improve one of her three skills: grip, speed or stealth. The last two help the player sneak up to a spirit, while grip makes it easier to stay on its back. Besides seeking the trainer’s guidance, Shoppington sells some wearable items that can enhance these skills, such as the Amulet of Cloaking. The only store on Geos also offers new outfits and three kinds of power-ups for sale: speed sandwich, invisibility potion and flashbang. While the functions of the first two are pretty obvious and are used particularly when trying to catch or avoid spirits, the main reason to use the flashbang is to remove all the bombs and thorns in an instant from their backs.

Other pastimes include scaring birds, playing a mini game or two, talking to other characters, and searching for treasure chests, which may contain coins, power-ups and lore items. The latter have no actual use except for telling a backstory. Lili can fill her pockets with more coins by breaking vases, completing quests, grabbing golden flowers, or defeating spirits.

The Windows port released via Steam has a number of improvements and changes: