Artificiality

Artificiality is a fantasy graphic adventure game released in 2023 for Windows, crafted with RPG Maker and featuring stunning anime/manga art in a diagonal-down perspective. Players navigate a mysterious world through direct control, unraveling a story centered on amnesia as they solve puzzles and explore an enigmatic setting filled with fantastical elements.

Artificiality: Review

Introduction

In a gaming landscape increasingly dominated by sprawling open worlds and AI-driven procedural narratives, Artificiality emerges as a quiet, introspective gem—a puzzle-solving graphic adventure that dares players to question the fragility of memory and identity. Released in 2023 amid a surge of indie titles leveraging accessible engines like RPG Maker, this fantasy tale of amnesia hooks with its immediate premise: awakening in a snowy wasteland with only fragments of self intact. As Hiber, the dispossessed protagonist, players navigate a world that denies the very existence of their destination, the elusive Tower of Winter. Amid pursuits by enigmatic uniformed girls and alliances with a self-proclaimed magician named Ion, Artificiality weaves a narrative of loss, pursuit, and revelation. My thesis: This unassuming RPG Maker creation stands as a masterful exemplar of indie storytelling restraint, blending anime aesthetics, emotional puzzles, and thematic depth on artificiality—echoing broader industry shifts toward personalized, adaptive experiences without relying on flashy tech.

Development History & Context

Artificiality, known in Chinese as 人造物 (literally “Artificial Object”), was developed by a small team including 悠乙 and 林檎树, published by Ringo Tree under Eternal Dream. Launched on February 25, 2023, exclusively for Windows via Steam at a modest $3.99 (often discounted to $1.99), it exemplifies the democratized indie scene enabled by RPG Maker. This engine, a staple since the 1990s for Japanese doujin (indie) games, empowers creators with pre-built tools for top-down adventures, puzzles, and branching narratives—perfect for tales like this without the bloat of AAA budgets.

The 2023 context was ripe for such projects. Post-pandemic, the indie boom intensified, with Steam flooded by RPG Maker titles amid rising AI tools for asset generation and procedural content (as seen in contemporary discussions from Forbes and LinkedIn on AI’s role in dynamic plots). Yet Artificiality bucks this trend, opting for handcrafted intimacy over generative sprawl. Technological constraints? RPG Maker’s diagonal-down perspective and direct control interface limit scope to 2D exploration, but this fosters tight design unhindered by hardware demands. Ringo Tree’s vision—evident in the official blurb’s emphasis on violence, blood, and emotional interaction—mirrors early 2010s RPG Maker hits like Ib or Yume Nikki, prioritizing psychological horror and puzzle logic over action. In a year of juggernauts like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Artificiality represents the enduring appeal of solo-dev passion projects, added to MobyGames in March 2024 by contributor Koterminus, underscoring its cult niche status.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

At its core, Artificiality is an amnesia-driven odyssey, a trope as old as Shadow of the Colossus yet refreshed through fantasy lenses. Hiber awakens outside a snowy capital, his mind a void save for his name and an imperative: return to the Tower of Winter. Inquiries yield denial—”The Tower of Winter does not exist”—thrusting him into flight from “girls in uniform” hunters. Enter Ion, the enigmatic magician offering aid: “You’ve lost all your memories, haven’t you? It’s just a small request. I want to find—the man who killed her.”

The plot unfolds non-linearly via clue-gathering and puzzle-solving, switching “fields of view” through Hiber’s eyes to reveal hidden truths. Dialogue probes existential queries: “You can’t run away, Mr. Hiber… But can we take back those who die by accident?” Themes of artificiality dominate—memory as constructed artifice, identity as fragile construct. Is Hiber’s past “real,” or a simulated echo? Ion’s motives blur ally/antagonist lines, evoking AI-simulated NPCs in modern discourse (e.g., procedural emotional simulations from Palos Publishing). Characters shine through sparse, poignant interactions: Hiber’s stoic vulnerability contrasts Ion’s manipulative charm, with uniformed pursuers as faceless enforcers of denial.

Branching paths emerge via emotional interactions—manipulating “emotions” as puzzle keys—culminating in multiple endings (tagged on Steam). Bloodied violence underscores mortality’s permanence, thematically paralleling industry evolutions toward empathetic AI storytelling (LinkedIn’s “social and emotional simulations”). No hand-holding; revelations demand player inference, rewarding replays with deeper lore on loss and fabrication, positioning Artificiality as a microcosm of gaming’s shift from linear tales to player-co-authored realities.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

Artificiality thrives as a graphic adventure, its core loop a hypnotic blend of exploration, interaction, and deduction. Direct control moves Hiber in diagonal-down view across compact, hand-drawn locales—snowy outskirts to labyrinthine capital interiors. Puzzles form the spine: collect/use clues, switch perceptual “fields of view” (e.g., emotional overlays revealing invisible paths), and interact with dynamic “emotions” tied to NPCs/objects.

Core Loops:
– Exploration: Top-down traversal uncovers items/dialogue triggers; no map forces spatial memory.
– Puzzles: Innovative “emotion” mechanics—agitate/calm entities to unlock dialogues or paths. Example: Provoke a guard’s fear to expose a hidden route, blending logic with psychological simulation.
– Progression: No levels/XP; narrative advancement via clue trees. Multiple endings encourage experimentation.

UI is minimalist RPG Maker fare—clean inventory, context-sensitive prompts—but flawless in intuition. Flaws? Occasional pixel-hunting frustrates, and violence/gore spikes unpredictably (content warning apt). Combat? Absent; tension builds via evasion/chases. Innovation lies in view-switching, prefiguring AI-driven adaptive interfaces (Forbes’ dynamic difficulty). Replayable (Steam tags: Multiple Endings, Puzzle), clocking 4-6 hours per run, it’s a taut system rewarding patience over grind—flawed yet elegant, like early Myst heirs.

Mechanic	Strengths	Weaknesses
View-Switching	Reveals layered realities; thematic tie-in	Can feel gimmicky early
Emotion Interaction	Deep NPC psychology	Trial-and-error heavy
Puzzle Design	Clue-based, non-telegraphed	Rare obtuse solutions
Progression	Branching, replay-focused	Linear spine limits scope

World-Building, Art & Sound

The fantasy setting—a wintry capital rife with denial and pursuit—pulses with atmospheric dread. No vast realms; intimate locales (towers, alleys) foster claustrophobia, enhanced by anime/manga art: fluid character sprites, evocative diagonals, crimson gore splatters. Visual direction evokes Madotsuki‘s dreamscapes, with snow-blanketed vistas masking horrors.

Sound design amplifies immersion: Sparse ambient tracks—howling winds, muffled footsteps—build unease; dialogue delivery (likely text-with-SFX) pierces silence. No voice acting preserves mystery, aligning with amnesia theme. Collectively, elements craft a cohesive mood: artificial serenity veiling chaos, mirroring AI’s “uncanny valley” in NPCs (historical AI evolution from Pac-Man ghosts to GOAP in F.E.A.R.). Replay elevates appreciation—hidden details bloom, worlds feeling alive yet fabricated.

Reception & Legacy

Launch reception skews player-driven: Steam’s “Very Positive” (90/100 from 77 reviews) praises puzzles/story, critiquing brevity. MobyGames lacks critic scores/reviews, signaling obscurity amid 2023’s titans (Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom at 96 Metacritic). No Metacritic/OpenCritic entry; it’s a stealth hit for RPG Maker fans.

Legacy? Nascent but poignant. As 2023’s AI hype peaked (e.g., Marek Rosa’s 2033 predictions of LLM NPCs), Artificiality inversely champions human-crafted intimacy. Influences future indies: emotion-puzzles prefigure AI dialogue (ReelMind’s plot AI). No direct successors, but tags link to Zold:out/reus 2—niche fantasy adventures. Commercially modest ($1.99 sales), its preservation via MobyGames cements historical footnote: RPG Maker’s enduring power in an AI-flooded era.

Conclusion

Artificiality distills indie adventure essence—puzzles that probe psyche, a world of feigned normalcy, themes eternally relevant. Flaws (pacing, scope) pale against strengths: evocative narrative, clever mechanics, haunting art. In video game history, it claims a vital niche: reminder that amid AI revolutions (procedural plots, neural interfaces), human fragility endures. Definitive verdict: Essential for puzzle aficionados; a 9/10 landmark in RPG Maker legacy, urging players to reclaim what’s “accidentally” lost. Play it—before memory denies its Tower.