Lisa

Title screen.

**Lisa** (also known as **Lisa: The First**) is a 2012 American psychological adventure game developed by Dingaling Productions, using the RPG Maker 2003 program.

*The First* is an inaugural installment of Lisa trilogy, followed by *Painful* and *Joyful*; unlike the first installment as freeware, both were commercial releases and using the RPG Maker VX Ace program.

## Premise

Set within the mind of the protagonist Lisa Armstrong, an abused young woman attempts to escape internally in stem of Marty's physical and sexual abuse she suffers. Her only goal is to search VHS tapes that reveal Lisa's memories to the player.

## Gameplay

Like many adventure and horror genres in RPG Maker games, the player moves Lisa through two-dimensional fields, interacting with and examining various objects.

*The First* doesn’t focus on combat, instead focusing on exploration that is reflective of the character’s mental state and puzzle solving, beyond the former deals with themes of sexual abuse, generational trauma, and suicide.

## Endings

Normal End
When you go to the white room and let Marty speak to Lisa automatically, shows that regardless of the struggle Lisa went through and how much she runs, Marty will always be inside her head tormenting her. No matter how far she walks, Marty's face will always resonate in her mind.

True End

When you go to the white room, just go to the left to find the last tape. Back to her mind, use the tape on the television and go up straight until Lisa's mother shows up; it is revealed that Lisa is actually Marty's daughter and not a spouse, her mother told with distorting dialogues to Lisa. After this, her mother's face turn herself as Marty, who chastised and tormented every memory including her mother she had by him. Similar to the normal ending, this has nothing to do but walks until the game ends; except the ending screen is a "game over".

## Development

The game was loosely based on his ex-girlfriend and her abusive father; according to Austin talking with her about abuse she had suffered through and musing on how our memories affect us, telling a story of a girl’s horrific history of abuse from her father by having the player explore her mind.

He built his first game serves as an "experimental project" for Dingaling, stated that it (alongside his future installments) was inspired by *Earthbound* and *Yume Nikki* for the game's mechanics, comic relief, and art style; despite the fact being heavily inspirations on the latter, he declared the game himself as a "ripoff" where it borrows the same structure with an end goal but replaced with more abstract imagery with darkly comedic sights alongside nightmarish, grotesque places designed by him.

## Trivia

* It remains unclear in the true ending, where Lisa committed suicide by hanging following her father's eternal abuse; it is later revealed in the sequel's game title indicates Lisa's suicide, and her appearances still mentioned or reprised as her brother Brad's hallucination in the last two sequels.
* Lisa Armstrong is the only character appeared in all installments in the trilogy.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Game Cred: Causality, Generational Trauma, and Failed Masculinity in 'The LISA Trilogy' - Film Cred (film-cred.com)
2. ↑ LISA: THE FIRST | Lisa RPG Wiki | Fandom
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lisa The First – Hardcore Gaming 101
4. ↑ Games Inspired By Earthbound (msn.com)
5. ↑ Kaharl, Jonathan (September 19, 2017). Lisa The First.
6. ↑ Sup, Holmes? Ep 92 w/ Austin Jorgensen (LISA the Painful RPG) (January 21, 2014).