Adam the Artist

I picked up Lili for the iPad recently, a game developed by a team of former Epic employees. I like to imagine them working on Gears of War, constantly pitching flower-based game mechanics. “What if instead of a chainsaw machine gun, you jump on their backs and pick flowers? Why won’t anyone listen to us? We quit.”

Aside from being very pretty for an iPad title, they’ve created a world that’s genuinely fun to explore. The combat mechanic’s pretty straightforward. It’s tactile and it fits the device well, but it’s not really the core of the game. I had just as much fun wandering around talking to people.

My biggest gameplay qualm was with the last area, Mill Hill, which had some ridiculously tough enemies. So much so that I ran out of buffer items, and just gave up and switched to easy mode. I wonder if that was intentionally to get people to buy IAP, or just a bad progression of difficulty. Or maybe I just suck, but those guys felt impossible to topple without LOTS of items.

Alex the Codesmith

is a busy man this month.