Lylian Episode 1: Paranoid Friendship Review [PC]

Posted December 6, 2010 by Matthew Lee.

Oh, great: another videogame character trapped in an insane asylum. Tragically misunderstood, and comically wacky, I’ll bet. You know, the way all the mentally ill secretly are. Well… not quite. Episode 1 of indie developer PixelPickle’s action title is decidedly rough around the edges, not to mention fairly short, but it’s surprisingly creepy all the same. It’s a bittersweet love letter to old-school PC gaming (think Sanitarium) and a pretty good way to spend five dollars.

Lylian’s locked up at Hacklaster mental hospital, abandoned by her parents for reasons unknown, when she’s broken out of her restraints by an unseen helper. Something about the place is even more oppressive than usual, with hordes of tight-lipped nurses and drooling, freakish patients trying to make sure Lylian doesn’t escape. It turns out she was locked away because her insanity can change the very nature of reality around her, something in which the people running the asylum are very interested. Along with her patchwork bear, Bob, Lylian sets out to fight her way to freedom.

What this translates to is a fairly simple side-scroller, which sees you moving left or right across the screen and batting at incoming enemies with the sleeves of Lylian’s straitjacket. There’s a simple three attacks, and collecting the orbs that rise from dying enemies charges up a specials gauge. When full, Lylian can trigger her imagination to warp reality – this basically means she flips the immediate area over to one of a number of possible parallel levels for a limited time, allowing her to reach otherwise inaccessible areas once the effect runs out.

PixelPickle is Robert Dowling, a one-man band who earns his living as a contract animator. He’s clearly pretty good at this – the CG cutscene that kicks off Episode 1 is hardly Pixar, but still beautifully emotive. Lylian does seem to be the archetypal kick-ass goth-girl, at least in part, but she’s also rather sad, even oddly pathetic, and the music along with the wordless exposition sets this up nicely.

The game itself is markedly less impressive, at least in a technical sense. It looks like something from a good ten years ago you might find tucked away on some dusty little abandonware site, all simple rendered sprites over copy-and-pasted backgrounds. There’s only a handful of enemy types flinging themselves at you, repeating the same canned animations as you sit there hammering the space bar.

But while Dowling may not be the world’s greatest level designer, his artistry still shines through: even with such crude building blocks he’s got a feel for mood and a kind of cartoon tension that’s surprisingly effective. The setpieces are fairly basic, but put alongside a protagonist who’s all icky childish neuroses, they do actually manage to put the wind up you.

The combat’s simplistic and you can easily see the joins. You don’t feel immersed per se; part of you is constantly aware of it in pure game terms – as in, ‘okay, this is the point where I need to open a hidden door while repeatedly coming under attack from behind.’ But it’s always atmospheric enough to impress – you’re also thinking, ‘Christ, I’m trapped in an underground steampunk dystopia run by lunatics, being attacked by rat-babies in romper suits.’ It never feels lazy or workmanlike; merely the product of one man who had some really good ideas but was constantly pressed for time and still learning on the job.

The obvious dedication Dowling’s invested pays off, for the most part. You’re genuinely concerned for his strange, broken, raggle-taggle heroine and want to shepherd her just a little bit further. Ultimately, that’s the best recommendation Lylian warrants: it’s good enough that, despite its flaws, you want to see more. Urging people to drop five dollars on an episodic game because the next instalments might get better probably seems like damning with faint praise, but it’s not meant that way.

Lylian Episode 1 is simple, it’s over all too soon and it was clearly made by one man, but there’s enough real creativity and spark here to make you want to see Episodes 2, 3 and beyond. (And hey, plenty of blockbuster triple-A projects don’t even manage that much.) Pop over to PixelPickle’s website, get the card out, and maybe he’ll have the chance.