Princess of the Water Lilies

Paw pads to lily pads

Abandoned in a box and left to float down a rushing stream in a storm, a kitten comes to rest upon a shore. Near death, you crawl away from the box and draw the curious looks of the surrounding forest's critters and mostly from the amphibious denizens. The frogs decide to take you in and heal you, but more than that, they become your new family. They teach you their ways, and eventually, you are given a magical blossom amulet, truly marking that you are one of them. 

They show you as well that bonds of love and family are sometimes ones that are built and can come from unlikely places. However, peace does not last, and disaster strikes in the form of a tree-devouring fire and multitudes of robots that snatch away your forest friends and froggy family. You narrowly escape the clutches of said robots and are chased away from the only home you've ever known. Again, you are lost and alone, but this time, you have your gifted flower amulet and a heart full of love for your family and the determination to save them!

The gameplay is simple, but it is a wonderfully crafted 2D side scroller that never feels too stale or boring despite the basic controls. It's the way that these simple controls (jumping, paw swipes, magic purring, crawling) are utilized with the levels that make each level a unique experience. Traversing from screen to screen is done through well-placed puzzles. For example, a sparsely spiked square that's attached to the walls and ceilings of the tunnels needs to be activated with the cat's magical purrs so that it will begin to crawl along the surfaces and allow you to reach platforms too high to jump to. As you progress, the puzzles become more complicated, but happily not too obtuse that you will become lost or stuck. I loved the challenge and rewards that these puzzles and obstacles presented.

Speaking of challenges, the frustrating aspects of the game came not from the puzzles themselves, but from the steep spike in difficulty involving the addition of any enemies and bosses. You are not given any hearts or health bars, but you will be taken out by a single hit. This can lead to an exercise in patience as you can die many times trying to cross a room full of enemies. With the bosses, the encounters mostly boil down to a chase scene where the screen scrolls (painfully slow, I might add) behind the boss, and you must dodge what they fire at you in addition to their long-reaching claws and limbs. This can be hard enough on its own, but is made worse by platforms, obstacles, and enemies coming into view as the screen mercilessly moves the action on. 

You would surmise that stunning the boss with your power would allow you to pull ahead enough to give you breathing room. However, this is not the case. The screen will stop with the boss and only move on when they regain movement. The tough part is that you will not be given any reprieve and can't see your path of escape coming till it is often too late. The slow scroll of the screen, coupled with being unable to see what's coming, mostly gives a boss encounter a frustrating, claustrophobic experience, instead of an exciting adrenaline rush of narrowly escaping death.

I honestly hope that maybe the developers would consider a couple of quality-of-life additions to ease the tension on the player, should they choose to select them. The first suggestion would be the addition of a health bar or perhaps giving the player a “9 Lives” mode to select, which could be the ability to take 9 hits before fading to black. As the main character is a cat, I'm not sure how this hasn't been an option from the beginning. The second idea is a more intuitive screen movement. Speeding up the screen movement in general, or at least in boss chases. This would add more fair strategy elements to the encounters and make it less of a panic scrabbling of movement as you try to dodge the boss while you wait for anything to come into view.

Princess of the Lillies’ beautiful visuals, accompanied by a surprisingly cinematic musical score, seamlessly transport you into an open storybook. Every detail has a hand-drawn quality and is brought to life with wondrous colors and vibrant wildlife around every corner. The characters and enemies move with fluid animation akin to real paper puppets given motion. When I was not in a boss encounter, I felt like I was inside a fairy tale that I wanted to explore with each new step of my paws. I fell in love with the presentation and music of Princess of the Lilies.

If you are craving a cute and whimsical fairytale to play, I urge you to give Princess of the Lillies a chance. Aside from the frustration of the difficulty spike and screen movement, I loved this storybook adventure. I really feel that developer Whyknot has created something really special here, and I am eager to see what they might create in the future!

Developer - Red Dune Games. Publisher - Why Knot Studio. Released - November 20th, 2025. Available On - PC (Steam). Rated - (N/A) No Descriptor. Platform Reviewed - PC (Steam) Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.