The Doll's Window

:3

I'll say it like this: as other comments said, this game does feel a lot like Ib (so much so that I'm pretty sure it even uses the same font), but that is not a bad thing in itself. The art is good (in a way cute, at least in my opinion), and I'm sure the story wasn't all that bad, even though I never experienced it fully. And that's because this game lacks a sense of purpose. The story feels fragmented - as if it were a complete story, but then someone rearranged the events and loosely put them together so you're not weirded out. Maybe that's where all parallels to Ib come to light the most - it does feel like a copied and rearranged plot from Ib. It also doesn't give the player any goals. Why are we going to the circus in the first place? Why is it different or weird enough for us to sneak backstage? Why are we trying to help Elma (as, if I remember correctly, we said we came here to do)? It felt like the backstory wasn't properly laid out for the player to care about moving forward. Other, easier-to-fix complaints would be that sometimes it's not clear that there are doors you can walk through (sometimes I wouldn't notice a passage because it just looked like a wall, not a door), and the protagonist walks too slowly, especially compared to how fast some enemies are. And as other people have already mentioned, the puzzles can be confusing, or they don't seem like puzzles at all. The puzzle guide also feels a bit vague at times. Overall, just stick to playing Ib, even the 2012 version will do. Very similar concept, far better execution.