Ib

Ib is a horror adventure game created by kouri in February 2012, using RPG Maker 2000. It follows the experiences of a nine-year-old girl named Ib, who visits an art gallery with her parents. While looking around, she finds herself stuck in a strange, surreal world where the art has come to life. What's worse, Ib's life is now linked to that of a red rose she picks up, and if all the petals fall she will die.

Luckily, Ib finds friends along her journey--a man named Garry whom she saves, and a girl about her own age named Mary whom they bump into later, both of whom have roses of their own. Together, the three of them solve puzzles and try to find a way to get back to the real world.

An English-translated version can be obtained here.

Ib contains examples of:
"It's said that spirits dwell in objects into which people put their feelings. I've always thought that, if that's true, then the same must be true of artwork. So today, I shall immerse myself in work, so as to impart my own spirit into my creations."
 * Action Survivor: All of the protagonists.
 * Abhorrent Admirer: One little blue doll is quite taken with Garry, and follows him everywhere trying to get him to play. This being Garry, he's terrified of her.
 * Ambiguously Gay: Garry uses lavender linguistics common of gay men in Japan, but this could be a personal choice that doesn't necessarily reflect his sexual identity. If you ask him why he talks like that, he's vague about it.
 * Art Initiates Life: As Guertena seems to believe. What with the Ladies paintings chasing you down, this seems to be true for at least the "other" art gallery.


 * Badass Longcoat: Garry's got a pretty cool coat.
 * Bittersweet Ending: Depending on which ending you get, this could be the outcome.
 * Cat Scare:
 * Chekhov's Gun: The handkerchief Ib's mother reminds her about at the beginning of the game.
 * Creepy Doll: Garry runs into some major problems with them.
 * Dude in Distress: Sort of. You need to retrieve Garry's flower from the painting holding it hostage first before he joins you.
 * The Doll Episode: Garry ends up finding a room full of the "cute" dolls.
 * Everything Trying to Kill You
 * Flower Motifs: Garry's blue rose and Mary's yellow rose both have floriography meanings significant to their personalities.
 * Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: The only way to fix if the character spends too much time on their "treasure hunt" and breaks psychologically.
 * Gold Digger: A book in one of the rooms reveals the Lady in Red painting as a representation of the "ugly, haughty" women who want to marry Guertena for his money, while not depicting a specific one.
 * : The ending of the book Carrie Careless and the Galette des Rois.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: In certain story paths,.
 * I Just Want to Have Friends:
 * Intergenerational Friendship: Ib and Garry.
 * If We Get Through This: If you talk to Garry under the fake sunlight in the Sketchbook area, he will mention eating macarons at a cafe the day before going to the art gallery. He will then ask Ib if she wants to go there together if they manage to get out, before proceeding to fix his words and promise that they will get out and will eat macarons together.
 * Kill It with Fire:
 * Laser-Guided Karma: Breaking lots of artwork is generally not a good idea and smashing or kicking the Creepy Dolls and mannequin heads will lock you out of the game's best endings.
 * Life Meter: Each character you control has a rose with a number near it on the top of the screen. Should the number hit zero from coming in contact with too many dangerous enemies, it's Game Over.
 * Living Statue: Some of the statues come to life and chase you.
 * Loves Me Not: There is a book in one of the rooms saying that "the women here love playing 'Loves Me, Loves Me Not'". Which probably refers to the Ladies, seeing as your first meeting with Garry includes him getting wounded all over the place as Lady in Blue plucks his rose petals somewhere else.
 * Mad Artist: Guertena.
 * Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: A common joke interpretation of Ib and Garry's relationship.
 * Mirror Scare: At one point, you and Garry find yourselves in a room where the only thing you can do is to look in a mirror.
 * Multiple Endings
 * Never Say "Die": In spite of death being a very real threat in this game, the D-word is never explicitly said. This becomes rather heartbreaking in the endings where Ib finds, the implication being that she is too young to realize the full truth.
 * Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: The story/cutscene Carrie Careless and the Galette des Rois and certain areas of the Sketchbook world.
 * Ominous Music Box Tune: The opening screen plays a rather Sad and wistful tune incorporating a music-box like melody.
 * Peek-a-Bangs: Garry.
 * Phantom Zone Picture:
 * Porn Stash: There's a book of in one of the rooms in the purple gallery. Ib doesn't understand most of the words, and Garry abruptly closes the book, saying it is too soon for her to read that, hinting that it is a book of erotic stories.
 * Portal Picture: Ib goes into the other world through the "Abyss of the Deep" painting
 * Reality Warper:
 * Relationship Values: Which ending you get depends heavily on how well you treat the painting world's inhabitants and how close you are to Garry.
 * Remember the New Guy?: In the "Together Forever" ending,.
 * Spooky Painting: And HOW.
 * Strange Girl: Mary.
 * Tarot Motifs: Garry is associated with The Hanged Man.
 * Through the Eyes of Madness: As one book discloses: "If your spirit suffers too much, you will soon start to hallucinate and in the end you will be destroyed. And more worrying yet is that you will not even be conscious of that fact." This is also almost certainly the explanation for why Garry sees Creepy Dolls instead of the cute bunnies that Mary and Ib see and why Ib sees in some endings.
 * Tomato Surprise:
 * The Tragic Rose: Roses might represent life in this game, but this means that it's all too easy for them to wilt away or have their petals plucked away to nothing. There's also a sculpture of a thorny rose in the gallery titled "Embodiment of Spirit" and is described as "beautiful at first glance, but if you get too close, it will induce pain."
 * Wackyland: The sketchbook area.
 * Wistful Amnesia: The results of some endings.
 * : Mary.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Garry. While both Ib and Mary have real-life hair colors, Garry stands out with his purple hair. It could be dyed, though.
 * Wistful Amnesia: The results of some endings.
 * : Mary.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Garry. While both Ib and Mary have real-life hair colors, Garry stands out with his purple hair. It could be dyed, though.