Ib 1.07

Escape the art museum

Ib is a free horror adventurevideo game wherein you must escape the madness of an art museum. Developed by kouri, this Japanese psychological horror indie game is a classic RPG Maker title that uses a top-down perspective, semi-pixelated graphics, and hand-drawn character art. Take note, however, that the original game was released in Japanese only; to play it in English, there’s a free translated version done by vgperson that’s downloadable from their website.

Stay alive with your rose

In Ib, you play as the titular character Ib—pronounced as “Eeb” or “Eve”—a young girl who visits an art museum with her parents. She had simply been wandering off on her own when she suddenly realizes that the museum is now empty and she can’t seem to leave. She must explore the strange place, solve puzzles, team up withnewfound allies, and try to steer clear of the strange monsters from the paintings to escape.

Created with RPG Maker 2000, this indie game is played in a top-down view and mostly requires you to interact with objects to progress the story. However, you need to be alert as deadly traps and hostile creatures will often come after you—and you lose if your health reaches zero. There are no combat mechanics so you can only run and evade them. You have 7 endings you can achieve by simply saving and loading.

The endings will depend on the actions you choose and how close you’ve gotten to your two companions in relation to your choices. This all ties in with this game’s stellar writing and story pacing, as the horror elements found can be cruel and unforgiving to all characters. There are jump scares and creepy scenes but the endings themselves really hammer in the fear. This is why this indie game is well-loved by RPG Maker horror fans.

A beloved horror game

All in all, Ib really deserves the praise and love it’s garnered for how well its story and gameplay were delivered. There aren’t many issues with the game itself. Mostly, you’ll just have to fix the bugs caused by the unstable RPG Maker 2000 runtime—and its solution something well-documented by both language versions for everyone’s convenience. If you like indie horror games such as The Witch’s House and Mad Father, then this is a highly recommended title.