by Danreb VictorioUpon arriving in LA for Summer Game Fest, one of my first appointments was with Kwalee. I’ll be honest. Of the games they had to show, I wasn’t interested in too many of them, because almost everything was a horror or shooter game, or even a combination of both. Then I noticed lily’s world XD. I remember that was a featured unreleased title in last month’s AAPI Games Steam sale, and after I saw the trailer, it gave me some discomfort, but I decided to push through.
You pretty much get an idea of it all through the trailer, but if you haven’t heard of lily’s world XD, it’s basically a psychological thriller about a girl named Lily, who went missing in the early 2000s. After finding her laptop, you snoop around and see if you can discover clues to figure out what happened to her. Whether it’s going through old emails, instant messages, Lily’s social media accounts, and those of others she associates with — again, this is the early 2000s… If you grew up or went through this era, you’ll probably come to expect things like the MySpace Top 8, ugly and sparkly blogs, and so many terrible conversations like this omg :-p
I felt terrible going through all these because I couldn’t help but laugh at the way everything was presented, and I laughed A LOT, so I hope I wasn’t coming off as disrespectful to other folks there.
Alongside some creepy lo-fi-esque music and the creepily authentic feel of what felt like a Windows 98/2000/not-quite-XP operating system, the feelings of being transported to 2003, looking up strangers, and the mini-chats that appeared in their comment boxes all came back. The self-deprecating, reading unsolicited blogs about people’s day, it was all just cringe, and solo developer SonderingEmily needs to be acknowledged for absolutely all of it.
I was actually lucky enough to have her alongside me, guiding me through the demo, because when you start it (and even when you end it), it’s very unclear what to do. It’s one thing to have access to a teenager’s laptop, but going through it to find clues is tougher than you think. Without spoiling too much about the demo, which is actually available now on Steam, a lot of what you’ll be doing is looking for ways to access locked content. For example, right off the bat, you’ll have access to Lily’s e-mail, and while you can read all of it, looking at her sent or draft folders led to clues for passwords that we’re able to figure out with more comprehension.
One such password was the name of Lily’s crush and the age of her cat. When you find Lily’s journal, it’s easy to figure out who her crush is. Now her cat’s age… Not so easy. You actually have to log on to her blog, find out when she got the cat, and determine the year to calculate the cat’s age. Then voila, you have a password to get to other places you can log into.
Once you get a feel for things, all of a sudden the screen will star to glitch at times, adding to the unnerving psychological nature of the experience, but before long, you’ll receive an IM from an old friend of Lily that only brings more mysteries to what happened to her, and once you get closer to the truth, that’s where the demo ends–at least after another attempt to freak you out.
I’m unsure if this is a placeholder date, but lily’s world XD is slated for launch on Steam on December 31, 2026. Emily said the game is finished, so I’m guessing there’s just a bunch of other hoops to get through before the game can come out. While this kind of experience isn’t traditionally my cup of tea, I already feel like I’m too far in to not give this game a chance when it comes out, so consider me excited!
lily's world XD
