Lisa: The First

Lisa: The First is a psychological horror adventure set in a contemporary world, where players take on the role of Lisa Armstrong, a young girl enduring severe abuse from her alcoholic father Marty. The game follows her desperate attempt to flee captivity, which spirals into a psychological breakdown. Gameplay involves navigating unsettling environments like Marty’s house and surreal zones, solving puzzles, avoiding enemies, and collecting VHS tapes that uncover Lisa’s traumatic memories.

Lisa: The First: Review

Introduction

Lisa: The First is not merely a game; it is a brutal, unflinching descent into the fractured psyche of a child victim of unspeakable abuse. Released as freeware in 2012 by Austin “Dingaling” Jorgensen, this RPG Maker 2003 creation stands as the harrowing foundation for the acclaimed LISA trilogy, a series renowned for its unflinching exploration of trauma, addiction, and human depravity. Unlike its sequels—which blend RPG mechanics with post-apocalyptic dark comedy—The First is a raw, atmospheric odyssey through the nightmarescape of its protagonist, Lisa Armstrong. As a professional game journalist and historian, I argue that Lisa: The First is a landmark achievement in indie game design, leveraging technical constraints to forge an experience of profound psychological horror. Its legacy lies in demonstrating how minimalist mechanics, surreal symbolism, and unfiltered thematic candor can create an unforgettable and deeply unsettling narrative that transcends its humble origins, paving the way for a wave of similarly ambitious, emotionally resonant indie games.

Development History & Context

Lisa: The First emerged from the singular vision of Austin Jorgensen, operating under Dingaling Productions during a fertile period for freeware RPG Maker experiments. Crafted entirely within RPG Maker 2003, Jorgensen deliberately embraced the engine’s limitations—default sprites, simple tilesets, and rudimentary MIDI soundscapes—to focus entirely on narrative and atmosphere. In interviews, Jorgensen candidly acknowledged the game’s kinship with Yume Nikki, calling it “basically a Yume Nikki ripoff,” but this self-awareness belied his deeper intention: to subvert the genre’s surrealism with a grounded, visceral trauma narrative. The game was inspired by Jorgensen’s ex-girlfriend, whose experiences with paternal abuse became the raw material for Lisa’s story, lending the project a disturbing authenticity.

Released in September 2012, the game arrived amid a burgeoning indie renaissance where titles like Minecraft and Journey were redefining mainstream perceptions of independent games. Yet The First occupied a niche space within the RPG Maker community, where developers pushed the engine’s boundaries for experimental, often bleak storytelling. Jorgensen’s freeware model ensured rapid dissemination but also limited commercial visibility, cementing its status as a cult phenomenon. Its development was solitary and resource-starved, relying on Jorgensen’s meticulous design of interconnected dreamscapes and symbolic puzzles to compensate for technical constraints. This frugality, however, became a strength: the stripped-down aesthetic forced players to confront the game’s emotional core without distraction, making its themes even more potent.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

The narrative of Lisa: The First is a masterclass in psychological horror, chronicling Lisa Armstrong’s desperate attempt to escape her abusive father, Marty, and the subsequent unraveling of her sanity. The game opens with Lisa confined to a squalid room, surrounded by filth and broken memories, establishing an immediate sense of entrapment. Her escape into the outside world—initially a forest with waterfalls—quickly curdles into a nightmare. Marty’s face materializes in the sky, and the environment warps into surreal manifestations of her trauma: a decaying town, a bile-choked labyrinth, and a mansion where Lisa must literally enter Marty’s body to progress.

Characters are sparse but devastatingly symbolic. Lisa, the silent protagonist, embodies helplessness and resilience. Marty, the ever-present abuser, is not a multidimensional villain but a suffocating force—watching TV in a haze of alcoholism, his dialogue reduced to guttural threats like, “You can’t run forever.” The most enigmatic figure is Tricky Rick, a phallic entity representing the sexual violation Lisa endures. Rick’s dialogue is laden with predatory innuendo (“I like exploring caves… and friction”), and his repeated defeat by Lisa—a razor, a plastic bag, pills—becomes a ritualistic act of futile defiance. Every character is a facet of Lisa’s psyche: the drunken Marty-clones in the bar, the “spider” manifestations of her fear, and the maternal figure revealed as another Marty mask, symbolizing his total colonization of her identity.

The story unfolds through VHS tapes collected across the dreamscapes, each unlocking a memory. One tape shows a happier past with Marty and Lisa playing tea, suggesting a lost innocence. Another reveals Marty’s twisted Christian hypocrisy in the Bile Room, where crosses litter a garbage-strewn hellscape. The game’s dual endings offer no catharsis. The normal ending traps Lisa in an infinite void with Marty, who declares, “You can’t fight something that already happened.” The true ending, triggered by watching a final tape, shows a maternal figure apologetically turning to reveal Marty’s face—a devastating confirmation that her abuser has erased even her memories of escape. Themes of cyclical trauma, memory as a prison, and the impossibility of escape permeate every pixel. Jorgensen uses non-linearity and environmental storytelling to mirror Lisa’s fractured state: backtracking, dead ends, and the eternal recurrence of Rick all reinforce the futility of her struggle.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

Lisa: The First eschews traditional RPG tropes for a minimalist exploration-pure experience. Core gameplay involves navigating interconnected “lobbies” (e.g., The Lobby, The Town) via doors, solving environmental puzzles, and collecting VHS tapes to access new areas. Lisa moves on a diagonal-down perspective grid, with interaction limited to walking, examining objects, and using items. There is no combat, HP, or stat progression; threats are environmental and psychological. Stealth mechanics dominate the early escape sequence, where Marty’s presence forces Lisa back to her room if caught, establishing the power dynamic.

Puzzles are obtuse and metaphor-laden. In The Town, Lisa must shift boulders to progress, a simple task layered with futility. Defeating Tricky Rick requires zone-specific items: a razor in the mountains, pills in the town, a plastic bag in the bile room. These encounters feel arbitrary yet thematically resonant, as Lisa confronts her trauma in different forms. The game uses RPG Maker’s default systems ingeniously: save points are beds, items are stored in a basic inventory, and the map’s looping design (e.g., The Blank Road) disorients players, mirroring Lisa’s mental state.

Innovatively, the game employs symbolic mechanics. The rope climb—a grueling, minutes-long ascent to a middle-finger statue—satirizes pointless game design while reinforcing Lisa’s exhaustion. Noclipping into a lake to converse with a Marty clone breaks the fourth wall, chastising the player: “Are you cheating? Fuck you,” blending meta-commentary with narrative. Yet the game suffers from accessibility issues. Puzzles like the spider maze in The Sea Room rely on trial-and-error frustration, and the lack of guidance may alienate players. These flaws, however, serve the themes: the struggle mirrors Lisa’s own helplessness, making eventual victories feel ephemeral.

World-Building, Art & Sound

The world of Lisa: The First is a dreamscape dripping with symbolism, each environment a facet of Lisa’s trauma. Marty’s house is a claustrophobic prison, with Lisa’s bare room contrasting the downstairs squalor of beer bottles and garbage. The outside world curdles from idyllic forest to a sky plastered with Marty’s face, its sound shifting from waterfalls to the drone of his TV. The Town is a purgatory of decay: a bar filled with drunken Martys, a toilet where Lisa vomits, and a cement building housing a banana-giving Marty, all probing her psyche.

Art direction is defined by RPG Maker’s limitations, yet Jorgensen elevates them. Pixel art is rudimentary but effective, with Marty’s face recurring as a motif—an omnipresent symbol of violation. Colors shift dramatically: the Bile Room’s sickly yellows and reds evoke disgust, while The Blank Road’s monochrome sterility mirrors Lisa’s emotional numbness. Environments are littered with telling details: a necklace Lisa treasures (a Memento MacGuffin), Marty’s melting-faced mutants (foreshadowing Joy Mutants in sequels), and the phallic design of Tricky Rick—all visual poetry of abuse.

Sound design is equally vital. MIDI tracks are dissonant and repetitive, amplifying unease. Ambient sounds—dripping water, static—ground the surrealism in decay. The retching noise when Lisa vomits (a higher-pitched Shenmue II sample) is visceral, while the silence of the infinite white ending is deafening. Together, art and sound create an immersive, oppressive atmosphere. The world feels alive with Lisa’s pain, every environment a chapter in her torment.

Reception & Legacy

Upon its 2012 release, Lisa: The First was a niche curiosity within the RPG Maker scene, praised for its boldness but criticized for its bleakness. As freeware, it spread through forums and Let’s Plays, gradually building a cult following. The 2014 release of LISA: The Painful RPG catapulted the trilogy into mainstream indie consciousness, prompting many players to revisit The First as the series’ dark heart. Critical reappraisals highlighted its innovative use of RPG Maker for psychological horror, with outlets like PC Gamer lauding its “unflinching portrayal of trauma.” Its MobyGames score remains unranked, but its impact is undeniable.

The First‘s legacy is multifaceted. Artistically, it pioneered the “exploration horror” subgenre, influencing games like OMORI and Yume Nikki fangames that blend surrealism with raw emotion. Culturally, it sparked debates about representation, with Jorgensen’s unvarnished depiction of sexual abuse challenging industry norms. Its design philosophy—using mechanics to reinforce narrative—paved the way for titles like Undertale, where gameplay serves theme. The game’s most enduring contribution is its thematic honesty: it proved that video games could confront uncomfortable truths without sanitization, inspiring a wave of indie developers to tackle similar subjects. By 2024, its Steam port introduced it to new audiences, solidifying its status as a foundational work in the canon of mature, narrative-driven games.

Conclusion

Lisa: The First is a masterpiece of constrained design and raw emotional power. Austin Jorgensen’s RPG Maker creation transcends its technical limitations through unwavering thematic focus, transforming exploration mechanics into a harrowing metaphor for trauma. It offers no redemption—only the suffocating reality of a child’s psyche colonized by abuse. While its obtuse puzzles and bleak tone may challenge players, these flaws are inseparable from its artistic merit. The game’s legacy is secure: it redefined what indie games could achieve, proving that minimalism and candor could forge experiences of profound depth. As progenitor to the LISA trilogy, it remains a vital, if harrowing, artifact in video game history—a necessary descent into darkness that underscores the medium’s power to explore the human condition. In a landscape of sanitized narratives, Lisa: The First stands as a bold, unsettling testament to truth.