Lily's Well

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Someone is calling from the bottom of the well.

Platforms: PC
Price: Free
Rated: Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam (98% of 2,671 reviews); itch.io 4.8 of 5 from about 180 ratings
Length: under an hour per run; about 3 hours for most endings
Players: 1
Made by: PureIceBlue
Released: 2022

What frightens Home alone on a rainy night, a little girl hears someone crying for help from the bottom of the well outside, and gathers anything that could become a rope to climb down; get it wrong and she falls to a grim end, and what waits at the bottom turns into body horror and dread.
Content: child death, body horror, disturbing imagery.

Lily's Well is a free pixel-art horror game. On a rainy night in 2005, little Lily is woken by a cry for help from the well outside her window, and you help her search the house and garden for things to make a rope long and strong enough to reach whoever is down there.

About Lily's Well

Lily's Well is a free game by PureIceBlue, made in RPG Maker and released on Steam and itch.io in January 2022, with later updates. A paid Bonus Pack exists only for those who want to support the developer.

It is a rainy night in the spring of 2005. Lily's papa has put her to bed and she is home alone. A voice wakes her: someone is calling for help from the old well outside her window. She decides to save them, and for that she needs rope.

You explore Lily's home and the property around it, a few screens of rooms, garden, bridge and woods drawn in harsh, dithered pixel art, looking for anything that can be tied into a rope. Some materials hold and some do not, and the game will not tell you which. The length and the materials decide Lily's fate, and there are more than ten main endings and several hidden ones, many of them cruel.

The first stretch is quiet and tense; once Lily goes down the well, reviewers say it turns to body horror and sci-fi dread, with plenty Lily should not see. Each failed attempt teaches you something toward the true ending. It suits players who like short, replayable retro horror and do not mind dark outcomes for a child.

How to play Lily's Well

Explore Lily's house and the grounds around it.
Look at and take objects that might work as rope, and check the Ropes menu.
Tie a rope together and decide when it is long enough to go down the well.
See what happens, then replay with different lengths and materials to find other endings.

Screenshots

Lily's Well screenshot: Lily, in dithered pixel art, walks a path to a rope bridge over a dark blue river in the rain

Lily's Well screenshot: a dark river under tree roots, with the text that the water could easily drag you under

Lily's Well screenshot: the inventory screen showing shears and a rock, with tabs for Stuff, Ropes, Keys and Files

Lily's Well screenshot: a Look, Take menu beside a cabin, with the line that your tire swing hangs empty and alone

Tips

Search every piece of furniture closely; some items hide in specific parts of objects.
Not every material is safe; learn from each ending which ones fail.
Keep notes of the endings you have seen.
Explore outside too: the garden, bridge and woods hold items and secrets.