Bevel's Painting is a freeware horror exploration game by Maninu made in RPG Maker VX. It's not too long, estimated to be about 2 hours, but will likely be longer than that if you replay for other endings. A girl named Bevel explores a painting of her own creation.
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INteresting, reminds me of Ib.
I'm not gonna lie. This game disappointed me a lot more than I expected it to. Seeing the screenshots, I was hoping this would be a more laid back take on the RPG Maker puzzle/ horror brand with, judging by the colorful environments and childlike aesthetic, more of an emphasis on weird puzzles and much lighter horror elements, if any at all. However, I was wrong.
The first two areas of the game are quite nice. The Blue Room especially is probably the best area in the game gameplay wise. With such a condensed, tight location, you're really left scratching your brain wondering what to do with the things you've been given, instead of being lost roaming a big open space, wondering if there's something you haven't triggered yet. The gameplay was based on hidden secrets, and simple little logic puzzles (use green paint to put leaves on a tree). And the unique visual style compared to other RPG Maker games made the game feel even more special and new. In fact, it was starting out like a much more colorful and less scary Ib. One of my favorite unique features of this game was its use of a 'mystery language' you must decode for hints in certain areas. I could see how this could be annoying to some players, but I for one love when a game encourages me to take out a piece of paper and really solve things. And I think it's handled well in the sense that you don't really need to understand the language to progress in the game. And even if you did, I was able to get a pretty good grasp on the symbols in the language with only 10-15 minutes of deciphering them, so deciphering them later on became much easier.
However, the game almost immediately abandons this unique identity. The visual style stays the same, but the game gets so needlessly violent and cliche that it starts to just feel like another generic RPG Maker game with the cliche 'evil mirror version' and 'dark evil other world' and 'spooky scary chase scenes' elements that are all too familiar to RPG Maker enthusiasts.
In fact, the last area I played before getting bored and quitting, the Black Room, was literally the opposite of everything that made the Blue Room so cool. It was this (comparatively) massive, sprawling, dimly lit mansion with tons of different rooms, each having a clear visual purpose for the sake of a house, but up until this point, rooms served as puzzles first and logical 'rooms' second. It was by this point (and honestly, reading that I was now on the 'run and hide' section of the game) that I realized the game probably didn't have any of its own identity left, and so I quit.
I get wanting to make the same kinds of games that inspired you, as that seems to be what happened here. But at a certain point, you must break free from the tropes everyone's already explored and praised before and carve your own path. This game would've been so much better if it kept the innocent, bizarre, childlike aesthetic of the first few areas, because at least then it would've been different. A different thematic and visual take on the same RPG Maker puzzle/exploration game formula. But instead, tried too hard to be like other RPG Maker horror games, failed at it, and in doing so, lost itself blended into the crowd of its peers.
The first two areas of the game are quite nice. The Blue Room especially is probably the best area in the game gameplay wise. With such a condensed, tight location, you're really left scratching your brain wondering what to do with the things you've been given, instead of being lost roaming a big open space, wondering if there's something you haven't triggered yet. The gameplay was based on hidden secrets, and simple little logic puzzles (use green paint to put leaves on a tree). And the unique visual style compared to other RPG Maker games made the game feel even more special and new. In fact, it was starting out like a much more colorful and less scary Ib. One of my favorite unique features of this game was its use of a 'mystery language' you must decode for hints in certain areas. I could see how this could be annoying to some players, but I for one love when a game encourages me to take out a piece of paper and really solve things. And I think it's handled well in the sense that you don't really need to understand the language to progress in the game. And even if you did, I was able to get a pretty good grasp on the symbols in the language with only 10-15 minutes of deciphering them, so deciphering them later on became much easier.
However, the game almost immediately abandons this unique identity. The visual style stays the same, but the game gets so needlessly violent and cliche that it starts to just feel like another generic RPG Maker game with the cliche 'evil mirror version' and 'dark evil other world' and 'spooky scary chase scenes' elements that are all too familiar to RPG Maker enthusiasts.
In fact, the last area I played before getting bored and quitting, the Black Room, was literally the opposite of everything that made the Blue Room so cool. It was this (comparatively) massive, sprawling, dimly lit mansion with tons of different rooms, each having a clear visual purpose for the sake of a house, but up until this point, rooms served as puzzles first and logical 'rooms' second. It was by this point (and honestly, reading that I was now on the 'run and hide' section of the game) that I realized the game probably didn't have any of its own identity left, and so I quit.
I get wanting to make the same kinds of games that inspired you, as that seems to be what happened here. But at a certain point, you must break free from the tropes everyone's already explored and praised before and carve your own path. This game would've been so much better if it kept the innocent, bizarre, childlike aesthetic of the first few areas, because at least then it would've been different. A different thematic and visual take on the same RPG Maker puzzle/exploration game formula. But instead, tried too hard to be like other RPG Maker horror games, failed at it, and in doing so, lost itself blended into the crowd of its peers.