I've become a green lime
Sylvie Lime is a 2022 platformer adventure game by sylvie
, the developer behind cat planet and various other notable indie games, and Aria, whose past work includes Masochistic Maiden Aria and the Cavern of Blissful Agony and Dead Girl's Notebook. Initially released as part of the Indiepocalypse #34 jam, a free independent release is available to download here.The game stars an Author Avatar of Sylvie, who finds herself transported to a digital world with a strange new ability: transforming herself into a lime, allowing her to get far more vertical and horizontal movement than humanly possible. In order to return home, she must navigate the world and defeat various bosses, each of which holds a data disk containing the Virtual Ghost of a member of More Magic, the computer club that made the world before graduating and disbanding.
Sylvie Lime makes use of the following tropes:
- Bonus Feature Failure: In-Universe. For causing a miracle and reuniting the club, Silica unlocks a hidden switch on the back of the exit sign that is meant to let Sylvie keep her ability to change into a lime when she leaves their world if flipped from "Magic" to "More Magic". However, no matter how much Sylvie struggles, it refuses to flip, though she still ends up thankful to everyone for the fun adventure she had.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Terra and Rammy's sidequest has the former encode a special message to Rammy in an item, confessing that the reason she never flirted with her in real life is because she was too scared of being rejected. Rammy, upon getting the message, decides to confront Terra about it, revealing she added a secret feature to the Locket that pops up the Options menu that allows her to download her Virtual Ghost into it, which Sylvie can bring back to Terra and leads to them admitting their love for each other.
- Casanova Wannabe: Terra has flirted with fellow More Magic Club members Silica, Loop, and Cache, all of whom turned her down. She's also genuinely in love with Rammy, the last member, but never flirted with her while the club was still formed out of fear of rejection.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The game's opening song, and the one playing during the True Lime End credits, both have vocals from the devs.
- Fetch Quest: Each of the More Magic club members has an optional task for Sylvie that's required for unlocking the best ending: Terra wants a Rainbow Flower, Rammy wants to talk to Terra after being shown the Rainbow Flower by getting transferred into the Locket, Silica wants to read the mystery story in Cache's locked notebook laptop, and Loop wants to see a Fish, then changes her mind and wants to see a Kitty, then changes her mind again and dispels a curse so Sylvie can retrieve the Elf Doll, which enables her room to project holograms, so she can host a club reunion when the other members are brought in using the Locket and Cache's laptop.
- Fun with Acronyms: The game's options menu is accessible during the game by finding and using the Locket, which activates the Lime Options Changing Kit (L.O.C.K.).
- The Gadfly: Loop is the most willing of the More Magic team to clash against common logic for her own amusement, such as having the game's frame rate and "coyote time" be toggled by items that have to be found.
- Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: While the game contains no fall damage, one of the collectable power-ups is the Coyote Boots, named after "coyote time" and their inspiration Wile E. Coyote, and lets Sylvie hover for a moment in the air after walking off a ledge instead of immediately falling. Asking the club members about it has them state Silica and Loop used to argue about whether making games more accessible took away some of the fun, leading to it being implemented as a togglable item rather than always on or off.
- Meaningful Name:
- The aliases of the More Magic club are all connected to computers: Silica (silicon being used in computer manufacturing), Loop, Terra (as in terabyte), Rammy (as in RAM), and Cache.
- As explained by its members in-game, the club itself is named after an old computing story about a weird switch attached to a computer labeled "Magic" and "More Magic", which allegedly caused a computer to crash when flipped to just "Magic".
- Metafiction: The game's world doesn't have a cohesive plot, with Sylvie having to avoid floating spikes and navigate platforms in order to beat inexplicable bosses and find her way home. The real story is about the More Magic club that made the world, and the relationships between them...all of whom are themselves fictional people created by Sylvie and Aria.
- Multiple Endings: The normal ending of the game can be reached by reactivating the terminals of four members of the More Magic club to gain access to the final area, and then reaching the sign at the end that allows Sylvie to leave. By also beating the final boss and completing every member's sidequests, a new option can be selected at the sign, and repeatedly selecting it unlocks the True Lime End.
- Nervous Wreck: Cache is easily flustered and has little confidence in herself, often left flustered whenever she recalls Silica praising her writing.
- Optional Boss: After defeating Servant C to obtain Cache's data disk, a huge black worm named Red Lily rises from the pool of lava they were fought over and devours the Servant's body. The worm can be defeated, but if Sylvie dies to it, it goes away and she gets the disk regardless.
