Lily’s Lil Video Shop Review (PC)

Flash Games’ archival collection is bottomless, yet sadly shrouded by monopolized franchises and the evolutionary consequences of their creation. But for a small pocket—Lily’s Lil Video Shop, for example—a meager gap still remains between the modern world and the Flash purgatory that looms at the bottom of the eternal abyss of browser gaming. And you know what? I’m overjoyed about that. I don’t know whether it’s the burst of nostalgic energy that it coughs up with its PowerPoint-esque charm or the sense of dread that it launders from its unpredictable format. But I do know that indie web series like this are deserving of a platform to recreate their original materials, and that Lily’s Lil Video Shop, of all web series, is a superb choice to bear the torch for the Flash domain.

Lily’s Lil Video Shop looks innocent, but beneath the veil of its seemingly harmless exterior and tenderly designed graphical appearance is a much, much darker composition that yearns to appear from below the woodwork. A psychological horror at heart, Lily’s Lil Video Shop spends its time lighting the candle for a slow-burning climax—a process that takes you, the employee of an old video rental store, through a series of rather straightforward chores, like arranging the shelves, removing leftover waste, and above all, watching various VHS tapes to decipher their worth before sending them along their merry ol’ way.

To be clear, it isn’t the lengthiest game on the dock. But, where Lily’s Lil Video Shop falls short in size, it oddly makes up for in its adorable yet double-sided gameplay tropes and weirdly compelling setting. If that’s enough of a reason for you to step back in time to bathe in all its pulpy goodness, then be sure to stick around a while longer.

Blockbuster, Reborn

Lily’s Lil Video Shop is a point-and-click Flash revival of the classic Lily web series, featuring a short but familiar interactive story about the titular protagonist and her first batch of shifts at a dainty video rental store. The game, in a true Lily-like fashion, invites you to spend your time filling the character’s shoes as she goes about her usual work patterns—a routine that involves shuffling through tapes, exploring the outer and inner layers of the store, and interacting with various materials around the building—letters, cassettes, and audio recordings, being the most common of the bunch.

The game itself is, first and foremost, a classically hand-drawn 2D point-and-click experience. That said, it does also feature a small batch of three-dimensional gameplay segments, which usually involve exploring a warped version of the video rental store and collecting various clues to help shed light on the abnormalities that orbit the twilight shifts. As for whether or not you could define it as a horror game is a matter of debate, given that it shields most of its true terrors behind a veil of weirdly therapeutic puzzles and chore core clicking. But, we’ll leave that one for you to decide.

Unfortunately, Lily’s Lil Video Shop isn’t loaded with reels of content for you to watch. True to the original structure of Flash, it provides a disappointingly short but effective experience that allows its players the opportunity to take a sneak peak at a particular scene, but also refrains from overstaying its welcome for the sake of keeping things simple and to the point. And I suppose that’s all that this is: a short affair that pays homage to its original web series format.

Rewind the Tape

Of course, if you were to put Lily’s Lil Video Shop on the same pedestal as most modern horrors, then you would probably reject it in favor of another product. But that isn’t to say that it’s a bad game; it’s just a dated game that cherishes its original form, which of course stretches to its basic features and gameplay mechanics, too. Visually, it’s awfully 2000s — but in the best way possible. With hand-drawn sprites and a huge array of blocky animations, you could argue that it’s a product that has miraculously sprouted directly from a buried time capsule. But that’s exactly what it goes for: an authentic experience that keeps the bones of its predecessor intact. I can’t fault that.

While Lily’s Lil Video Shop isn’t the bone-chilling affair that you might be looking to dig your teeth into, it is a game that brings a lot of tense moments to the cutting room floor, with its sombre atmosphere and dated audiovisual elements attributing the eeriness of its chosen subject matter. Is it scary? Not really, no. But it is, on the other hard, littered with unsettling stories and what ifs to keep you second guessing the story and the wonders that lurk beyond each shift and corridor of the rental store. I wouldn’t say that it’s suitable for a younger player, though, to be honest, I’d say that a seasoned horror enthusiast might be better suited for an alternate world.

Verdict

I’ll always have a soft spot for Flash Games’ simplistic yet highly nostalgic styles, and frankly, I have just as much of a sweet tooth for Lily’s Lil Video Shop and its itty-bitty bouquet of timely horrors. It isn’t a perfect vessel for the timeless repository of Flash’s formidable favorites, and admittedly, it still has its small handful of minor flaws, though nothing of major importance. And to be fair, Lily’s Lil Video Shop isn’t really a game that strives to dethrone the modern moniker of the industry’s most popular franchises. It is, in spite of all its shortcomings, a reincarnation that just wants to inject some nostalgia fodder into its world and instill some familiar memories into its target demographic. I just happen to be one of those people who fall beneath that umbrella.

If you roll into Lily’s Lil Video Shop with the hopes of unraveling a picture-perfect indie horror that houses copious amounts of enthralling jump scares and a huge pinch of atmospheric storytelling, then honestly, you’ll probably be in for a rough surprise. Alas, Lily’s Lil Video Shop isn’t the haymaker of modern gaming; it’s a love letter to a dated period, and one that, quite frankly, has something of a dwindling audience. But if you’re on the other side of the fence—the side that shares an undying love for old-school browser games, that is—then you’ll probably find Lily’s Lil Video Shop to your liking.