In only a few days, this free anime horror RPG has become one of the top 10 highest-rated Steam releases of 2024
Jan. 31, 2024Paper Lily has Undertale and Doki Doki Literature Club vibes
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With existential psychological horror themes, a colorful anime pixel art aesthetic, and a fourth-wall breaking, self-referential meta narrative, it’s hard not to be reminded of games like Doki Doki Literature Club and Undertale, but there are also subtle traces of horror IPs like The Ring and even Death Note.
Gameplay, like Project Kat before it, primarily involves exploring various environments in search of clues to solve objectives and progress through the story. Puzzles can be approached from a number of different ways, and the gameplay and dialogue choices you make will lead you down one of several narrative paths and endings.
To be clear, the first chapter of Paper Lily is entirely free to play on Steam. There’s a paid “Supporter Pack” that includes “some random cool stuff to look at for like 15 minutes,” as well as a paid soundtrack, but the game itself is free. That said, it’s unclear whether future chapters will be free as well.
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After scoring a degree in English from ASU, I worked as a copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. Now, as GamesRadar’s west coast Staff Writer, I’m responsible for managing the site’s western regional executive branch, AKA my apartment, and writing about whatever horror game I’m too afraid to finish.
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