Lacie, the protagonist
Paper Lily is an episodic, RPG-like Explorer Horror game developed and created by Leef6010 using Godot Engine, where you can solve each puzzle in multiple different ways.
It follows Lacie, a girl with an unknown condition that makes everyone avoid or antagonize her and causes everything to go wrong with her. Convinced her chronic bad luck is the result of a curse and desperate to find answers, she follows the instructions of a mysterious golden letter for a ritual that sends her to another world inhabited by demons, where she could find a cure to her condition, or certain death; either outcome would be better than living her tormented life. In the process, she befriends several friendly demons, meets up with a strange boy named Sai, and stumbles upon an organization of demons performing horrific experiments for some unknown purpose.
The game acts as the continuation of Project Kat and can be obtained for free on Itch.io
and Steam
Contains examples of the following tropes:
- Accidental Murder: If Lacie breaks Kosmo’s head and can’t find a replacement in time, he dies.
- Achievement Mockery: If you die to the fairy ring after completing its sidequest, you get an achievement for it.
- Ambiguously Related:
- The Shadow Girl has a striking resemblance to Kat, but this is never commented on and it is unclear what their relation is. The Hooded figure, her boss, does refer to her as Kat in the true ending, indicating they are the same person.
- If you give a pet to the Shadow Girl, we get a closer look to the Hooded Figure during the credits, and she also seems to be of similar appearance to Kat.
- Blackout Basement: The Locked Site is this. It's dark, so you can't see beyond your light.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The spikes mini game and the Miss Knives boss fight both have the option to be skipped if you die enough to them. This is due to players finding them too hard on earlier versions of the game.
- Company Cross References: Lacie has a pet “Tamaghost”, based on the developer's Ludum Dare 50 Entry.
- Cute Monster Girl: Alba and the moth girl fall into this category.
- Demonic Possession: Discussed. Lacie suspects she might be possessed, but Rune says that it's probably a curse because possessions aren't a thing that happen. Lacie doesn't seem to fully believe them, and it's still unclear what's wrong with her or how this whole thing actually works.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Discussed. Lacie decides to call the unnamed spider demon "Spider". It responds by asking if you call humans "Human".
- Door of Doom: There is an ominous, locked, big white door on Lacie’s dreamspace that can only be entered during a dead end. It is unknown what is on the other side of it.
- Elaborate Underground Base: The Facility is implied to be this due to the stairs Lacie walks down before entering it, although it could very well not be underground, as there are no windows or doors where you can look out and see if it's above or below ground.
- Eldritch Location:
- The spirit world has shades of this. Time doesn't seem to flow the same way, and geography is capable of looping or changing around in response to certain things.
- On a smaller scale, Miss Knives' home is an illusory location.
- Fairy Ring: There is one right by the campfire that you can step in and die to. If you have the scissors however, you can escape without being digested, which means that you can either die to one of the horrible fairy heads that live inside it, or die of starvation once you realize there is no way out. This is also where you’ll meet Aoi, so at least you won’t die alone.
- Fire of Comfort:
- If you plug in the AC on the forest, you will light a campfire and be able to interact with Milion, Kosmo and Alba, some of the few characters that won’t try to kill you.
- In Miss Knive’s house Lacie and Sai take a little rest and get to know each other a little better. Not everyone will find the fire to be so comforting however….
- Fish People:
- The monster from the lake is a fish-like humanoid.
- Downplayed with Alba, whom has fish-like attributes on her design and sentiant fish for hair, but isn't a fish herself.
- Friendly Shopkeeper: The Shadow Girl is the shopkeeper, and she’s so nice that she gives you a potion that gives you an extra hit point during Miss Knives battle for free! Not like she’s supposed to be doing that though.
- Gone Horribly Right: If you follow the ritual instructions to the end, Lacie ends up stranded and killed in the other world.
- The Ghost: Red, Glen, and Lilith are mentioned multiple times throughout the game but none of them appear.note
- Guide Dang It!: The way to escape the Fairy Ring is pretty hard to figure out on your own: First you need to plug in the AC adapter to light the campfire and make Milion, Kosmo, and Alba appear, then you need 10 coins to buy all the fish from Alba, which means that you’ll have to get at least 2 coins from the Locked Site without getting to the other side, then you have to throw all 99 fish down the hole in the huge tree in the middle of the forest. Only once you’ve done that, in addition to getting the scissors, can you step into the Fairy Ring and be able to escape afterwards.
- Heartbeat Soundtrack: In the Locked Site, when you're out in the open, every so often you'll hear a heartbeat that gets faster the longer you're out in the open. If you don't hide in time, a monster spawns to chase you.
- Imperfect Ritual: The rituals can be aborted at any time, however, depending on when you do this Lacie will either be able to escape with her life or die.
- Justified Save Point: You save by interacting with the various crows you find throughout the game.
- Karmic Death: Some of the bad ends are these.
- If you kill the goldfish keeping the lake alive, you get turned into the new keeper of the lake.
- Leaving Sai behind in the facility will cause you to die.
- Killer Rabbit: The Rabbit “doll” that appears in the facility if you backtrack after escaping Miss Knive’s house tries to eat Lacie and Sai. It fails on the eating part, but not before crushing both of them until they’re unrecognizable.
- Kill It with Fire:
- Miss Knives was almost burned to the stake. Her Mother was burned too.
- Everyone that tried to burn Miss Knives ended up burning to death themselves.
- On a lighter note, you can kill the moth brother by throwing him into a campfire.
- Multiple Endings: There's 13, all except 1 bad endings.
- 1-1. Against All Odds: The True Ending of the game. Lacie and Sai manage to escape Miss Knives' house and find an exit from the Facility, and Lacie receives door knob fragments from Spider that seem like they will give them a way to the lighthouse. Before leaving with her Return Knob, Sai suggest that instead of a list of things she wants to do before she dies, Lacie should make a list of things she should do a list of things she wants to do once she breaks out of her curse. Lacie takes this into consideration, and leaves back home after performing the Paper Lily ritual. Sai closes the door behind her and looks forward to seeing her again. We also get to see the hooded figure from Project Kat return to the Shadow Girl’s shop and, if we gave the Shadow Girl a pet, we can get a closer look at her.
- 1-2. Salt is for cooking: If you mess up the ritual by telling the phone the wrong thing or taking too long to catch your bus, the ritual will fail. Lacie decides to give up, clean up, and go to sleep. However, before she falls asleep, she sees what seems to be a very badly damaged Hiro, which turns into a shadowy figure that then kills her.
- 1-3. A Walk In The Dark: If you take the stairs down in a dream sequence and walk too far away, Lacie will be unable to go back and finish her dream to wake up. She will walk aimlessly for a long time, without feeling hungry or tired but slowly going insane from the Sensory Deprivation, until she can’t take it anymore and screams in despair. She will then return to where she usually starts her dreams out, and will only be able to exit through the until then locked big white door at the north. The game ends before we can see what’s at the other side.
- 1-4. Carried Away: If Lace fails to get off the bus fast enough, she will arrive at the intended destination of the bus, where she will be knocked out, mutilated, and killed.
- 1-5. Become Snack: If Lacie eats the chips, she will faint and be eaten by a demon.
- 1-6. Ground Swallow Me Up: There are 2 variations of this ending.
- If Lacie steps into the Fairy Ring without the Scissors, she will be eaten by the plant, helpless as she feels herself being digested.
- If Lacie steps into the Fairy Ring with the Scissors, but without fulfilling the requirements to be able to escape, she will be able to do most of the area normally. She will be able to free and befriend Aoi, a friendly demon who was also swallowed by the Fairy Ring but was unable to escape on her own. Lacie will befriend him, and will try to help her escape the Fairy Ring, while also learning more about him and the other world. However, even after managing to avoid dying to the mazes of fairy heads, Lacie and Aoi will come to a dead end. Lacie will suggest that Aoi melts through a shower drain, the only possible way out from where they are. But after not hearing about her for what feels like days, Lacie will lose hope and worry that she sent him to die. Lacie can not see Aoi panicking and trying to feed the mouth of the Fairy Ring in a desperate attempt to collapse it and escape, unaware that they missed the way out long ago.
- 1-7. Mortal Immortalized: if Lacie takes a wrong turn during the Kett chase sequence, she will be cornered, and Kett will turn her into a statue.
- 1-8. Part Of Your World: If Lacie takes the goldfish out of its bowl or gives it the wrong type of plants, it will die, and the rest of the lake will go down with it. After exploring for a while Lacie will be crushed by a giant hand and turn into the new goldfish that gives life to the lake.
- 1-9. Doubt: If Lacie decides to ditch Sai at the facility, she will come back to him and find him dead. Lacie will spot a shiny object near him and, after being surprised as to what it is, she will be killed.
- 1-10. Sensory Overload: During the facility, Lacie can put on a cloak belonging to a member of the organization, but after doing so, she will receive visions of a mysterious horned woman (presumed to be Lilith) and die before being able to process what she saw.
- 1-11 Deep Sea Misadventure: Lacie and Sai can use the fixed elevator in the facility to go to the bottom floor, however this floor is still flooded, and water slowly but surely starts getting in the elevator, drowning them both.
- 1-12 What’s At Stake: After burning the blessings in the wrong order, the house seemingly comes to life and the floor cracks underneath Lacie and Sai, mortally wounding Sai, and then tying Lacie to a stake, making sure she meets the same fate that Miss Knives did.
- 1-13 Stuffed Animal: After escaping Miss Knive’s house, Lacie can backtrack towards the facility, and find what seems to be a stuffed rabbit blocking the path. Sai will approach the animal and complain about it being messed up, before the animal grows in size and kills them both. A mysterious girl shows up and chastises the rabbit for putting weird stuff in it’s mouth that she can’t eat, and tells it to leave the facility with her, since it still gives her the creeps.
- The Namesake: The game is titled after the "Paper Lily Ritual" that has to be performed to exit the other world. We do not learn of this ritual until the end of chapter 1.
- Nebulous Evil Organisation: The group behind the Golden Letters, the facility, and the experiments Miss Knives went through.
- No Honor Among Thieves: Spider will not hesitate to kill you if you get too close to him after escaping Miss Knive’s house together.
- Overly Long Gag: During the facility, Sai suggests that you use a bucket to manually drain all the water in the facility. If you choose to entertain his idea, you’ll get some dialogue about how stupid the idea is. If you do it enough times it ends up working though.
- Permanently Missable Content: Once you get to the other side of the Locked Site you won't be able to go back to the forest, which will make you unable to get anything you missed, such as coins, runes, knob shards, and you will be unable to step into the Fairy Ring and save Aoi.
- Portal Door: They appear twice throughout the other world. Where they lead you to depends on what door knob you utilize.
- Rising Water, Rising Tension: During a dead, Lacie and Sai are trapped in a flooding elevator, trying to get out but slowly succumbing to the realization that they're about to die.
- Ritual Magic: The Golden Letters give instructions to perform rituals that take you to another world.
- Shout-Out: The book that Hiro is reading tells of a legend that says “the heart of a witch can grant any wish”.
- Sibling Murder: The moths ask you to kill their annoying little brother for them.
- Sigil Spam: A symbol with an eye on it can be seen on multiple occasions throughout the game, such as in the seal of the Golden Letters, the door knob that the moth siblings give you, and the door on the locked site.
- Spirit World: The place that you go to upon completing the ritual is implied to be this. You get there with an ominous ritual involving a bus, most beings in the spirit world are called demons, and as Miss Knives' backstory implies, some of the residents were once alive.
- Unnaturally Looping Location: When Lacie gets off the bus, the road where the bus stop is seems to loop.
- Video Game Caring Potential:
- You have the option of finding an injured bunny and saving it, either giving it to Shadow Girl or taking it home with you.
- If you start the sidequest of escaping from the fairy ring, you find Aoi, who is also trapped there with no hope of escape, and work together to get out of the fairy ring.
- There is a pair of moths who want you to get rid of their baby brother (a normal caterpillar). You have the option of releasing the caterpillar elsewhere or giving it to Shadow Girl...
- Video Game Cruelty Potential:
- ...Or you can actually kill the caterpillar in a myriad of ways, too, making it this trope because you don't have to kill the caterpillar.
- You can also annoy the moths into letting you leave with the doorknob, too.
- You have the option of taking a goldfish out of its bowl, which kills it.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: This tends to happen if you're unnecessarily cruel.
- Taking the goldfish out of its bowl, which kills it, will cause you to get killed not long after.
- Witch Hunt: Miss Knives and her family were victims of this.
