Lily

Introduction
Sometimes it isn’t a single scare or puzzle that stays with you after an escape room, but the moment when the room itself suddenly seems to come alive. LILY was exactly that kind of experience.

Our journey began inside a telephone booth, from where we were drawn into the mystery surrounding a missing girl named LILY. What followed was a dark supernatural story that gradually grew far beyond what we expected from our unusual starting point.

Story & Emotion
The story revolves around LILY and a tragic family history, but what made it particularly effective for me was how our relationship with LILY changed throughout the experience.

Our first encounters with LILY were genuinely creepy. Her movements and behaviour immediately made us wary of her, especially with the already oppressive atmosphere surrounding the house. But as the story developed, we spent more time with her, interacted with her and slowly gained her trust. The frightening child we had initially encountered became someone we actually wanted to help.
This created an interesting emotional shift. Rather than simply trying to escape from something supernatural, we became involved in LILY’s fate and gradually discovered why she was trapped in this strange existence.
Several scenes allowed us to witness parts of the past rather than simply being told what had happened. This gave the game a theatrical quality and made the tragic story much easier to connect.

Set & Atmosphere
LILY uses its environment in a way that constantly made us question what was actually possible inside the space.

Rather than relying primarily on decoration to create immersion, the game repeatedly transformed our surroundings as part of the storytelling. Locations changed, scenes appeared where we didn’t expect them, and even moments that initially seemed relatively safe could suddenly develop in a completely different direction.

The impressive part was how actively the surrounding participated in the experience. We weren’t just walking through different rooms—the world around us seemed to react to what was happening.

Combined with three actors and a high level of darkness and uncertainty, this made LILY genuinely unpredictable and very creepy.

Puzzles & Teamwork
The gameplay is primarily task-based, with our actions used to move the story forward and bring us into direct contact with its characters.
There were also several individual missions, meaning that occasionally one or two of us had to leave the relative comfort of the group behind. With a scare level of 8/10, even a simple task can suddenly require considerably more courage when you have to do it with less people.
This approach suited the experience extremely well. We never felt that the story had stopped instead, interacting, exploring, following instructions and occasionally overcoming our own reluctance became the gameplay.

Final Thoughts
What stayed with us most was its unpredictability. The game repeatedly played with our expectations of the space itself, while our changing relationship with LILY gave all the spectacle an emotional purpose.
It was creepy, technically ambitious and exactly the kind of experience that made playing escape rooms in China so fascinating.