Ib

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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.

Tropes used in Ib include:

• 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.
• Action Survivor: All of the protagonists. Except maybe Mary.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Quite a lot of fans felt that the burning of Mary's portrait was a near Tear Jerker. She just wants to have friends...
  • Karmic Death: Those that don't see her death as the above usually see it as this.
• 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. And Mary.

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.

• Badass Longcoat: Garry's got a pretty cool coat.
• Bittersweet Ending: Depending on which ending you get, this could be the outcome.
• Cat Scare: One of the paintings finds an... effective way past the door limitations early on in a memorable moment.
• Chekhov's Gun: The handkerchief Ib's mother reminds her about at the beginning of the game is essential for getting the best ending.
• Creepy Doll: Garry runs into some major problems with them.
• Cute and Psycho: Mary.
• The Doll Episode: Garry ends up finding a room full of the "cute" dolls.
• Dude in Distress: Sort of. You need to retrieve Garry's flower from the painting holding it hostage first before he joins you.
• 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 Garry 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.
• Gory Discretion Shot: The ending of the book Carrie Careless and the Galette des Rois.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In certain story paths, Garry gives Mary his rose in order to save Ib's life.
• 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.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Mary. Assuming Garry is still alive by the time you burn her painting, should you check on the pile of storybooks next to it, Garry will comment on one book titled "How to Make Friends".
• Intergenerational Friendship: Ib and Garry.
• Kill It with Fire: Tearing down or removing Mary's painting won't work. To kill her, you have to burn her painting with Garry's lighter.
• 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. Later, in certain story paths, Mary also does this with, again, Garry's rose. Needless to say, the results aren't pretty.
• 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. Doing so reveals nothing scary, but when you look away, you discover that a mannequin head is blocking the door. You can't budge it so you have no choice but to look into the mirror agaAAAAH THAT MANNEQUIN HEAD IS LOOKING AT US OVER GARRY'S SHOULDER.
• 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 Garry "sleeping" after Mary plucks all the petals from his rose, 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: In the Forgotten Portrait ending, The Hanged Man painting is replaced by a picture of Garry, presumably that of the "sleeping" Garry in the Toy Box area. The title of the painting is as the ending suggests.
• 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 and returns through the "Fabricated World" mural.
• Pinocchio Syndrome: Mary, being in reality just another painting, desperately wants to come to the real world. And is willing to do just about anything to do it.
• Reality Warper: Mary, as the Sketchbook and Toy Box areas show.
• 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, everyone but Ib remembers Mary as Ib's little sister.
• 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 illusionary versions of Garry and her mother in some endings. In the doll room, Ib is the only one who sees rabbits... and she sees them as dolls later in the toy box, implying that she was hallucinating at the time.
• Tomato Surprise: Mary is Guertena's final painting, not a real human.
• 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. It ends up that it's where Mary lived and kept her painting safe.
• Wistful Amnesia: The results of some endings.
• Yandere: 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.