PixlBit

Say what you want about Kickstarter, but it has breathed games into existence that otherwise wouldn’t have had a chance, and allowed artists to construct personal expressions without having to resort to eating dog food to survive.  The end results may not always be extraordinary, but sometimes they are still triumphant, as with Lilly Looking Through, a Kickstarter success that asked for $18,000 and ended up with $33,000+ for a point-and-click adventure starring a little girl with time-traveling goggles.  The game is beautiful, but brief, with amazing art direction and sublime animation.

The premise is simple: Lilly is looking for her little brother, who has disappeared with the help of a magical red scarf.  The player points and clicks through puzzles, maneuvering Lilly and objects around as they make their way through a series of screens. 

Unlike most point-and-click adventures, these screens aren’t necessarily static.  With the time-traveling goggles, Lilly can switch between the present and the future, and affect things on the level by changing things in one time period, and then going back to the other.  For instance, in one episode, Lilly must plant seeds in the present in order to climb the trees that they spawn in the future. 

It’s a pretty clever conceit, and as you play it, you’re going to have to master the mechanic if you want to get to the end of the game.  Some of the puzzles are easy, some are devious, and some are pretty darn difficult, and trial and error is the order of the day for some of the more abstract conundrums involving colors and time travel.  Here’s a hint though: you can switch between time periods in mid-action, so for instance, you can jump and then switch time periods, traversing obstacles from one time to another that you couldn’t in either the present or the future alone. 

While most of the game involves scouting the screen for icons you can interact with to move Lilly here or there to do this or that, there are also items you can pick up to take direct action with the world.  At one point, you can control a burning torch to burn rope, and at another time you can pick up a spear to deflate bubbles to reset a water-oriented puzzle.  But most of the time, you’ll be directly controlling Lilly by clicking on various icons that are available in the past or present. 

The art direction is nuanced and breathtaking, and no doubt took great patience and effort. But it’s the animation of Lilly and her little brother that really steals the show: these characters are imbued with such presence as to appear real as day, and though Lilly is mostly silent, her mannerisms evoke a real life and spirit that I have rarely seen even in AAA titles.  The animation was created by Jessica Hoogendyk, an ex-Hollywood animator, and wife of Geeta Games founder and creative director Steve Hoogendyk.  It’s a family affair here, and that love is present in every pixel.

Most of the reviews I’ve read of the game find it brilliant but short, with an abrupt ending that suggests it’s only the first episode of a larger story.  I agree. The game does have a sparse, inconclusive ending, and I cannot help but imagine more.  I would have thought – as they raised almost twice the amount of what they initially asked for on Kickstarter – that the game would have been more complete.  As it is, the player is left a little unsatisfied, and I think due in most part because the rest of the game is so good. 

What makes it so good?  It’s not the puzzles directly, which can be cute, but sometimes frustrating.  And you can’t say it’s the story, which is as thin as a breath.  I think, for one reason or the other, it’s actually the absence of a serious story that enhances Lilly with an abstract beauty and dreamlike quality that is intangibly wonderful. 

There’s no clunky humor or dialogue or amateur mystery like many point-and-click adventures, or any deep lore other than the beautiful lines of the illustrations.  But instead, we have a sense of whimsy and a light-headed peace and quiet that lends itself to a remarkably relaxed play in an age of hysterical gaming experiences.  It's a relaxed adventure that I was easily lost in and greatly enjoyed, even though it was so short. 

I hope there are more of Lilly’s adventures in the future, and I imagine with the success of the game that is surely to come, there will be.