"You're not prepared to deal with the truth...are you?"
Project Kat - Paper Lily Prologue is a story-based puzzle game developed and created by Leef6010 using Godot Engine.A snarky schoolgirl named Kat breaks into her school at night to perform a mysterious ritual. Unaware that three other girls have done the same thing to try and summon a ghost. What will happen from here on out? That's entirely up to you.
The game acts as a prequel for Leef's game Paper Lily. It is available for free on Steam
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Contains examples of the following tropes:
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Kat has black hair and can come off as arrogant, often making fun of people she believes are not as smart as her.
- Saki, dubbed "The Ponytail Girl", is generous to return the favor with Kat's own medicine.
- The long black-haired girl Juli also tries to pull this off with arguable success.
- Arc Words: "There is always another way."
- Armor-Piercing Question: In the Golden Ending, the mysterious figure asks Kat if she really wants her "answers" so badly that she's willing to sacrifice not just her own life, but the lives of her three companions, which helps convince Kat to abandon the ritual.
- Bait-and-Switch: The very first puzzle has four vases lined up in front of a door. Only three vases have flowers in them and only three lights on the door are green. Also, Kat sees and can pick up a fourth lily while walking over to the house. Seems straight-forward enough, right? Wrong. Doing the seemingly obvious thing and placing the found lily in the empty vase will cause the environment to turn into an ominous blood-dripping nightmare and then the entity appears, chastises Kat for her actions and reveals that the "lily" was actually a bird - a bird that drowned when Kat put it into the vase.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The rules sheet in the other world reads: "No running through the hallways. No screaming during recess. No escaping, ever."
- Deadpan Snarker: Kat has a very dry sense of humor and is prone to sarcasm.
- Disappeared Dad: Kat's father disappeared under mysterious circumstances. It's implied that Kat is doing the Three Room Ritual to find him.
- Do Well, But Not Perfect: The Golden Ending requires you to befriend and recruit Saki, Juli, and Kaya into your party, get everything ready for the ritual, then abort it at just the right moment to check the storage room instead. This leads to the ritual being incomplete when it starts to work its magic, leaving Kat, Saki, Kaya and Juli with a way out where usually there would be none.
- Downer Ending: The true ending. Kat is trapped in the other world. The three other girls are brutally murdered and the last cut-scene implies that the same happens to Kat.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Girls' Night Out requires you to go through a variety of steps. But it's the one ending where everybody lives and Kat receives some form of closure.
- Eldritch Location: If performed correctly, the Three Room Ritual will transport all participants to one. Unfortunately the inhabitants are hostile and there's no way back.
- Foreshadowing:
- The different outcomes to the first puzzle. Doing the puzzle as seemingly expected will lead to a terrifying and unfavorable outcome, while going out of your way to do the opposite of what you're apparently supposed to do produces much more pleasant results. Doing the Three Room Ritual perfectly will lead to the true ending, which doubles as a Downer Ending. Going against the instructions and doing something unexpected (entering the storage room) leads you to the Golden Ending where Everybody Lives.
- In the storage room locker you can find a lawsuit filed by a mother whose daughter disappeared at the high-school. Many of the endings have Kat either die or stay trapped in the other world, leaving her mother all alone.
- When Juli asks if her and the other two girls can join Kat's ritual, Kat states that the rules say the ritual must be performed alone. If Kat does the ritual together with them, the girls are killed while Kat has her eyes closed.
- Four Is Death:
- Kat and the other girls make a group of four in the high-school. In most of the endings, all of them are killed.
- The first classroom in the other world is labeled 4-A. Kat and the other girls will die in every ending that has Kat reach the other world.
- Golden Ending: Girls' Night Out ends with all four girls successfully escaping the school, forming a Fire-Forged Friendship and Kat abandoning her quest for answers, choosing to hang with her new friends instead.
- Gone Horribly Right: In the true ending, Kat performs the ritual flawlessly without getting distracted. It works and Kat is trapped in a hostile Eldritch Location. The other girls are murdered and Kat is next on the chopping block.
- Guide Dang It!: If you open the lockers of the third room of the supply room in a specific order,note you will obtain the "mysterious blueprint". The hint for this is extremely easy to miss.
- Hairpin Lockpick: Kat's dusty hairpin can be used to pick locks without keys. However, doing so requires you to beat a small mini-game first. If you try and pick the lock of the fairly normal looking door in the other world, you only get a limited number of tries until the pin breaks.
- It Makes Sense in Context: The creepy love letter becomes a bit less disturbing once you realize it's found in the Drama Club room.explanation
- Mirror Scare: Lampshaded, but doesn't actually happen. When interacting with the mirrors in the other world, Kat comments that in a location like this, looking into mirrors is just asking to be jumpscared.
- Multiple Endings: There are a variety of endings you can achieve through different actions.
- True Ending K1 - Curiosity Killed the Kat: Achieved by doing the ritual correctly, not grouping up with the other girls and, if possible, selecting 'Please, let me out' when trapped in the enclosed room. Kat performs the ritual. While waiting the required five minutes she has a flashback to a conversation with an unnamed girl, who tries to discourage her from doing the Three Room Ritual, but is unsuccessful. Kat then closes her eyes and counts to one hundred. After opening her eyes again, she finds herself in a long hallway with multiple doors, one of which is boarded up. After finding the key for the fairly normal looking door, Kat enters and discovers a different hallway similar to that of her high-school. A mysterious entity begins to taunt her as Kat traverses this strange place, mocking her desire to find her missing father and how her mother will be truly alone now that both her husband and daughter are gone. It goes so far as to show her a vision of what appears to be her past (the vision can be ignored, which opens the path to the My Way ending). Eventually the voice traps Kat in an enclosed room, where Kat finally breaks down and begs the voice to be let go. The entity seemingly obliges, transporting Kat back to the first hallway. The boarded up door is now accessible. Kat enters and is greeted by a trail of bloodstains, which turns out to be from the mutilated corpses of Saki, Juli, and Kaya. After following the bloodstains for a while, Kat arrives at another door labeled 'exit'. The door opens after a few seconds. When Kat sees what's behind it, she starts crying and says that she doesn't want to die. If certain actions have been taken beforehand, the voice will ask her why not and claim everyone should die "at least once". The screen turns black while some horrific sounds can be heard, implying that the entity has killed Kat. The game ends.
- Dead End K2 - Cold Kat Feet: Achieved by leaving the school without preparing all the items for the ritual, while Saki, Juli and Kaya are still in the occult club room. Kat begins to have second thoughts about going through with the ritual and leaves for home. She plans to do the ritual another time, but finds that all of her notes have mysteriously disappeared. Kat tries to convince herself that the ritual was probably a scam anyway, but can't help but feel disappointed over a possibly missed opportunity.
- Dead End K3 - Academic Spiral: Achieved by leaving the school after Juli, Saki and Kaya aren't in the occult club room anymore. Like in the Cold Kat Feet ending, Kat decides against doing the ritual and tries to leave. However, when she goes down the stairs, the stairwell appears to be infinite, never stopping or going anywhere. Kat eventually makes the decision to stop and rest, hoping that someone will find her. When she wakes up, she's still in the stairway. Beginning to get a horrible suspicion, she draws a chalk cross on the ground, then tries to descend the stairwell one final time. To her horror, she finds the same chalk cross on the ground in the "next" stairway, confirming that she is trapped in an infinite loop. The screen goes black as Kat tearfully apologizes to her mother for not coming home again. The game ends.
- Dead End K4 - Nevermind Forever: Achieved by befriending all three girls to the point they ask Kat to sit and chat with them, then leaving the school before doing the ritual. After getting to know Saki, Kaya and Juli, Kat loses interest in the ritual, musing about how it probably wasn't important anyway. She leaves the school, glad to have found some friends at least.
- Dead End K5 - Party Wipe: Achieved by befriending Saki, Kaya and Juli and letting them perform the ritual with Kat. Kat closes her eyes and starts counting, but starts to hear strange cutting noises. She decides to ignore them and keeps counting. When she opens her eyes, she's horrified to discover that someone has brutally dismembered and killed the other girls. Kat tries to leave the room and a mysterious voice mockingly tells her that occasionally someone doing the ritual will be stupid enough to bring friends. Kat then pleads to an unseen other person, but is killed anyway. The game ends.
- Dead End K6 - Snip Snip: Achieved by befriending the other three girls, adding them to the party and then cutting the plants in the three classrooms. After recruiting the girls for the ritual, Kat starts to cut up the plants in the classrooms. The girls are disturbed by this and leave, telling Kat never to talk to them again. Kat feels bad and decides to go home as well, hoping that the next time she tries the ritual, no one else will be around.
- Dead End K7 - Girls' Night Out: Achieved by befriending and grouping up with the girls, then collecting everything needed for the ritual but not drawing the chalk lines or assembling the candles and instead going to the storage room. After everything is prepared for the ritual, except for the candles and chalk lines, Kat and the girls come across the locked storage room. Realizing none of them has ever seen what's inside of it, they decide to pick the lock and take a look. When they try to leave again, they get stuck in what appears to be an endless loop of one weirdly arranged storage room after another. Eventually they come across a mysterious figure who tells them that the ritual works, but because they didn't complete it there is still a chance for them to get out before it's too late. Kat refuses, as she hasn't found the answers she's looking for, but the figure implores her to reconsider, telling her that her, Saki, Kaya and Juli will die if she continues. Kat relents and leaves together with the girls. Shortly before leaving the storage room, she asks the mysterious figure if they were the one who warned her away in her dream at the beginning of the game. The figure replies it was most likely just her subconscious trying to warn her about the dangers of the ritual as well. As the four girls are walking home, Saki, Kaya and Juli notice Kat seems down and decide to take her to a karaoke bar to cheer her up. Kat accepts the invitation and the girls have a fun night together, with Kat deciding that maybe forgetting about the ritual would be for the best.
- Dead End K8 - My Way: Achieved by ignoring the vision of Kat's past and choosing 'Be Strong' when trapped in the enclosed room. Kat defies the mysterious entity and decides to just do nothing until it gets bored. The entity is disappointed and leaves Kat in the room by herself, waiting for a rescue that will never come. The game ends.
- Ominous Obsidian Ooze: There are large puddles of unidentifiable black gunk underneath several staircases and on the walls of the hallway in the other world.
- The Quiet One: Kaya, dubbed "The Quiet Girl" before learning her name, lives up to her description, not wasting too much words.
- Shout-Out: When Juli complains about the mess the Three Room Ritual leaves, Kat asks her: "What's the matter? Are you not entertained?"
- Too Dumb to Live: Most of the bad endings happen because Kat messed up the ritual, despite the instructions being incredibly easy to follow - and the true ending happens because everything has Gone Horribly Right. Who would've thought doing an ominous ritual with heavily demonic overtones would lead to a bad thing? In the Golden Ending, Kat defies this trope by taking the mysterious figure's advice and abandoning the ritual while she has a chance.
- Unnaturally Looping Location: This always happens in some way, shape or form when the ritual is bungled or aborted. In the Academic Spiral ending, Kat is trapped in a never-ending stairwell. If Kat, Saki, Juli, and Kaya try to leave after the ritual is almost complete, the hallway will start to loop until they turn back and in the Girls' Night Out ending, the storage room starts to loop when the girls enter the door on the far side.
- Video Game Caring Potential:
- You have the option of returning the theater club room key to Saki after you have used it.
- If the girls have joined your party, you can still decide to cut your own hair instead of asking them to cut theirs.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential:
- Kat can cut off a tuft of either Saki's, Kaya's or Juli's hair without befriending them first. The girls react accordingly if you do this.
- Kat can cut the plants in the three classrooms. If she does this when Saki, Kaya, and Juli are in her party, they will be disgusted with her and leave.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Kat can choose to cut the hair of one of the other girls before befriending them, but doing so will effectively lock you out of a lot of the endings, including the Golden Ending, as the girls will get angry and will not talk to Kat anymore after that. You also can't get the key to the theater club room anymore, forcing Kat to pick the lock instead, which is much harder and more tedious in terms of gameplay.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Kaya, Juli and Saki do this to Kat on two separate occasions.
- If Kat cuts their hair without befriending them first, the girls will get angry and throw Kat out of the room.
- In the Snip Snip ending, they become disturbed by Kat's needlessly cruel plant-murder and decide they want nothing to do with her anymore.
