Around these parts I’m well known for picking out fun and free games on iOS. But every now and then I see a game drop in price that interests me so much I just have to pick it up. This time the game Lili found my interests and last weekend it dropped in price to under a dollar.  This was more than enough for me to  want to check it out. I’m glad I did.

The first thing I noticed about Lili is that its very ,very pretty. And unlike most games that use the unreal engine, Lili is a very bright and very colorful looking title and I love this. The next thing I noticed was just how nice the music is . I really enjoyed the very calm music, and the music turns out to be very fitting for the game in my opinion.  Simply put, the production value overall for Lili is one of the best combinations of audio and visuals I’ve ever experienced on my iPhone. You could easily mistake this title for a current gen game based on its sound and visuals.  But enough about technical aspects , how does it play and do you REALLY just pick flowers?

Yes ,the main game play mechanic is the picking of flowers. Even the “combat” is centered around picking flowers. Your character is a student who has come to a mysterious deserted island in search of magical flowers for her project that are bound to impress her professor.  It turns out, however, that spirits and constructs inhabit this so called deserted Island and the student must deal with these creatures in order to obtain the flowers that she came for. I have to admit flower picking is a strange  and quirky game play mechanic, and it may not be for everyone, but it works for the most part. Basically, Lili runs up to spirits, jumps on their back and tries to pluck as many flowers off of their head as possible before getting kicked off. The spirits become more difficult as the game progresses defending themselves with bombs ,thistles ,and all sorts of  tricks. When you defeat the spirit, you have the opportunity to have a rematch to see if you can do better.

Lily is an adventure/exploration game at its core with some very minor RPG elements. You will upgrade your character a bit, but it is nothing major. This is because while it looks and sounds like a console title it  has been designed with iOS gamers in mind. In other words, its pretty simple. The controls are very simple and very well done using touch-based mechanics that work well. Due to the platform it is on, the story, quests and other things to do are made for short bursts of gaming ,which is what most iOS gamers have in mind when playing on an iPhone. If you want a massive, complicated, time wasting adventurer game that is ” hardcore”, go play your X-BOX or better yet, your PC. Lili is not that game.

Overall, I’m enjoying my time with Lili.  It has gone back up to 2.99 ,but it has, and I am betting will again, drop in price soon. I highly recommend it for anyone who has an iOS device. The game is a nice change of pace ,it’s quirky, fun and it just looks and sounds beautiful. And while it feels like a console game, it never forgets what platform it is on and never becomes complicated or time consuming. In other words it just works on iOS.