Ib - Review

So as we have broken up for Christmas I though it would be a good time to play some different games as I get on with work. The first of these is Ib.

Ib is a game created in RPG Maker where you play a young girl who travels with her parents to an art museum when things start to take a strange turn where the art takes on a life of it's own and she gets trapped alone in a world where strange things are commonplace.

The game is a mixture of puzzle solving in a strange and weird environment and jump scares. It makes exploring the world interesting as it is a very unpredictable game and by the end I felt myself feeling for the characters much more than I though.

The levels are well thought through and know how to make you cautious and certain set pieces are amazingly clever in a way that completely freaks you out. So I have to applaud some of the puzzles. Unfortunately I cannot say that for them all. While I may not be the best puzzle solver there were a few moments where I had to check a guide as it was just confusing or hard to find the exact part where the player was expected to do something. This was not a problem too often however so it wasn't game breaking.

Although I am not a jumpy person when I get scared the game got me a few times during the game when things suddenly attack you or jump out of hiding.

The endings are also nice and varied and I won't ruin them here. The endings are not entirely different and there isn't any major plot twists you can miss, it just depends how much you care about what happens to the characters. Needless to say I got what I would consider the worst ending, clearly I need more practice at these games. I obviously researched the endings...for....science... and some of the endings certainly leave a nicer after taste but the only thing that really changes is what happens to Ib herself.

The art work within the game is well done for saying it is an RPG Maker game although I have to point out that the player character Ib looks much older when she is walking around than she is meant to be, this game as a sudden shock when I was already quite far through the game and looked into a mirror, showing a piece of artwork of my reflection.

The music within the game is a nice touch and it's used well to build tension and to warn of the arrival of something sinister. It certainly adds a whole new level of immersion to the experience.

I feel like I'm going to be saying this a lot for these indie title reviews, but you really must play it. It is not exactly a ground breaking game but you're sure to enjoy it and a review really cant get across how good it is even if I fill the review with spoilers.