Artificial Mansion

The art is nice but the story is inane. Rather for younger audiences. Still it is well executed.

It's been awhile since I've had a chance to enjoy a visual novel, and I've wanted to get back to the genre. So why not jump back in with this one? It's about...dolls that come to life and battle. Well, that's certainly a choice of all time...

Artificial Mansion is the wild story of Reuben, who recently inherited his rich uncle's mansion. After discovering two life-sized dolls named Lottie and Briar, he suddenly finds himself in a battle for his life. For five nights (heh heh), he and his new doll friends must survive against Adelaide, another doll who's evil and much more powerful. Thankfully, during the daytime, Reuben gets a chance to put his dating sim skills to test with Lottie or Briar, which will determine the good ending he gets upon surviving. It's up to the player to make the right choices for him to survive though!

Any good visual novel will need solid art, and Artificial Mansion delivers in this regard. The character designs are quite nice, striking a nice balance between details and overall appeal. I feel like Adelaide's design is missing something that Lottie and Briar have, but they're all great. The CGs do a fine job matching the main style as well, which is greatly appreciated. I think the most impressive art is the backgrounds, however. They clearly show a lot of care, which is not sadly something easily found these days. As for the audio, I like the music, though there's not much of it. Sounds effects are fine, nothing special. It all makes for a pretty experience.

As for the story itself, I found the premise a bit goofy, but it worked out quite well. Each of the five days are split into daytime for Reuben to be social, and nighttime for the action. At night, you simply have to make the right choices to avoid a game over. Each night gets a bit more complex, but the objective is always to survive. Adelaide can't function during the day, so this is when Reuben gets the chance to get closer to Lottie or Briar, depending again on your choices. Both of the girls are unique, with Lottie being the sweet one, while Briar is...not so sweet. Each of them have a route that leads to a romance ending, and there's a third good ending in which they're equally friends with Reuben. Naturally, I first went for Lottie's route, and I was rather happy how it turned out. She's a good character, and her story didn't disappoint. Next, I got the friendship ending, which was fine but didn't feel very conclusive. Finally was Briar's route, and I was pleasantly surprised by her. Normally I can't stand tsunderes, but Briar managed to intrigue me. None of the routes are all that long, so I definitely respect how much was accomplished in only a handful of scenes. My only complaints are a lack of interactions with Adelaide (no route for her, sadly), and the endings are all rather abrupt. My playtime didn't track for some reason, but in total I believe was a pretty solid three hour experience.

So there you have it, playing with dolls was worth it. Artificial Mansion is my second encounter with RhinoGearz, and I really like their work. This one isn't quite as good as my first time with them -- that being Dimension of Monster Girls (I reviewed that as well, of course) -- but this team is quite good at what they do, and I look forward to seeing more from them soon. I'm really hopeful for the best!

I've been rather prejudiced against Visual Novels, leading to a particular bias against anime-style, both in art and in dialogue/character tropes/development/etc.

Well, RhinoGearz, this one hobbyist making budget-friendly VN's over here in the Americas, made my reconsider my biases in a sweeping way with the awfully corny yet charming Dimension of Monster Girls, leading me to check out more of his stuff.

Any seasoned VN fans, especially weaboos, who insist on Japanese-made, or hyper-japanophile-made, 'high-budget' stuff best turn away now. They won't like the praise I have to give for this little project. This, the moreso as it's hard not to compliment this game without mentioning what it does right that other VN's actually from Japan (and from the dens of really hardcore of japanophiles with money to swing) I've tried so often seem to get wrong - which, to be fair, RhinoGearz himself has in past titles as well.

In accepting Artificial Mansion as the small project it is, and that RhinoGearz's head man is indeed one guy taking his vision and inspiration in his own hands, I find Artificial Mansion to be my favorite of his pieces yet in the way of choices, pacing, and character building. and there's actually a goal portrayed in this - survive a week against a magical porcelain psychopath. It's not like most other VN's I've tried that just seem to trudge on with slice of life stuff until the writers got bored.

The buildup in this game is successful in my opinion, with the MC taking plenty of time to explain the plot and discover the mansion in a way that feels approachably-paced instead of forcing us all to get it or be lost - and, after the intro, a lot of this comes down to exposition through dialogue and reported discovery rather than asides to us directly.

The characters are very few. Combined with the generously slow pace, this allows a quality-over-quantity character development experience. Sure, a few things are ridiculously out of left field, like the two lead ally dolls just *suddenly* jumping in to protect the MC in his first encounter with the one-and-only villain, and a sudden team-building experience that the healer of the two allies decides in a moment that everyone needs, but apart from that, things are slow and approachable. Briar and Lottie are actually likeable, even loveable, and I think the keystone of that is just how generous Brandon is with the pace and allowing Reuben to be actually surprised and made unsure by them.

On which note, Reuben is so far the most likable VN protagonist I've met - in a RhinoGearz VN or any other. He's not cavity-inducingly sweet, but he's also not an obnoxious, callous, misogynistic, ungrateful prick - making him superior to the male leads in "Within a Rose" and "Dimension of Monster Girls", respectively. Again, Brandon dares to let him be scared - and reasonably so. When new stuff comes up, the MC isn't either this stone-faced, empty thing, but neither is he an irritatingly over-the-top panicking baby-in-a-big-boy-body. He tempers his nervousness, and when he's terrified, it makes sense.He actually feels like a person trying to comprehend the fact that dolls are supposedly coming to life and at least one is trying to kill him. Reuben's asides in this - at least, when compared to the asides VN MC's usually make - are rarely awfully obnoxious or patronizing.

Lastly, Artificial Mansion blows RhinoGearz's other VN's I've played out of the water when it comes to choices. It almost feels like exploring an open world in VN form, given the different choices and multiple endings - multiple endings! - that are available based on choices, which always seem to make sense after the fact.

There's much else to say, but the smallness and quality-over-quantity nature of Artificial Mansion - even if its quantity is greater than that of Brandon's past games - is one of its draws, and I worry I'll dishonor that if I delve much deeper here. Besides I'm pretty sure I've scrambled this review up and had better post it so I can read it and re-sort it.

I do, at any rate, recommend giving Artificial Mansion a shot if you're interested in what one guy's passion project can look like, and if you're curious to see anime-esque characters in the hands of a Western writer paying homage to Japanese influence without tying himself to it.

Not my jam. It has three endings, one for each doll you're partnered with and a blanket friendship ending.

There are dead ends but I didn't experience any of them cuz I don't feel like punishing my self for no good reason and I'm not interested enough in the narrative to check em out.

The MC is pretty uhhh soft, (to put it nicely) makes him a bit grating when every thing that come from his mouth is friendship, communication, your feelings are power, ect.. Dude sez some very cringy/desperate sounding things in the course of this shit.

This is a cute story about making friends with dolls when you get stuck in you new mansion that you acquired from your Uncle's will.... Game cost me just over $1 and took me 8 hours to finish.

PROS are that you can romance the dolls and get to know them while you try to prevent yourself from being killed. You have various routes where you can end up in love with one of the dolls.

CONS would be that some of the fighting scenes are pretty quick and You can't redeem or romance Adelaide and her ending is kind of sad and useless so it's mainly about talking to the dolls and making friends.

CONCLUSION is that I recommend this if you want a unique story about living dolls in your home.

This is quite a short game with 2 love interests to choose from and a magical setting.

The game concept is quite unique and nice. Your goal is to stay alive for a specific number of days. And you have artificial girls to help you.

What we have:
- simple, but nice, art style
- the music is not bad, but I was annoyed by it
- several CGs to go for
- several death endings
- good endings with love interests

The story is ¬2 hrs read (or even less) per route.

In my opinion, the game is quite simple and there is no need for guides to clear it 100% at all.

In conclusion:
This is a light read that I recommend if you have a free evening and want something simple and quite relaxing.

Artificial Mansion is not a bad story. The game feels like a low budget work created by a single person, but there’s some heart behind it.

The story features the protagonist inheriting a mansion and discovering two intricate living dolls. The trio end up building their friendship over the course of a five day battle of survival against an increasingly powerful foe. The characters are enjoyable and the story touches on some interesting themes and emotions, but the short play time makes many elements feel very rushed, particularly the intro and ending.

The artwork and environments are limited, and there is no voice acting or achievements, but some of the CG’s are quite nice. The game features a number of choices which will funnel you to some bad ends, an ending for each of the girls or a neutral end.

I don’t have strong feelings about this one, but I enjoyed the setting and the fact that the story avoids some of the most common VN tropes.

Interesting story. I hope it will be longer but with low price, this is worth for purchase.

I like this Visual Novel, the story is interesting and the length of the story is decent and draws you in with its setting in a large mansion and 3 magic infused lifelike dolls 1 called Adelaide who desires nothing more to seek your death, when she was woken up from her slumber, when the protagonist accidentally stumbles upon there hidden room and opens the caskets of the 2 dolls Lotte and Briar who wants to end the cycle of death, Adelaide's brings whenever she wakes up.
If i had to give it a rating i would give it a 4/5 stars I feel like the developer could've added some more special BG scenes, for eg. there is one BG image for one of the bad endings. still a good visual novel and worth a look and read.

I feel obligated to write a review as I feel as though I have stumbled across a hidden gem. Normally a visual novel of such a short length has the issue of not giving you enough time to care about the characters, but in less than 3 hours I was pretty invested. And honestly I feel like I wish it could have been longer, so that I could have enjoyed it for longer. But all in all its a well written short story and is a lot better than what I had expected going into it.

Nice game, not too long, not too short. Decent amount of choices, nothing too complicated.
The main appeal of the game, apart from the surviving element is the personality/emotions of the dolls, learning about their past and how it has shaped their behaviour.

It was very nice, but I was sorry about Adelinde. We hope that in the end it seems that he was "corrupt" and that he becomes a good person. Anyway Briar was a very interesting character, especially when she expected to choose Lottie.

Artificial Mansion is exactly what the Description says it is. It also took me around 3 hours to finish one of the two Main Routes, so even the estimated Time is correct. The Story is pretty interesting and something very different than a lot of the other Visual Novels on Steam. Just like other Games from RhinoGearz this one also has a lot of Writing about how they feel and what their Emotions are like. I would say that the Writing is good, but all the emotional talk could be a little much for some people. The Art is very good and the Translation had no Mistakes, at least I didnt find any. A slight minus is that the entire Game only has 2 Soundtracks if I am not mistaken and there is no real After Story, after you survive the few Nights. The few Choices that you have to do really make a difference bewteen gettign a good or a bad endings which was pretty nice.

Overall I would say that it was a decent read. I didnt like it as much as RhinoGearz other Titles, but I still enjoyed it and for the low Price you cant really go wrong.

Score: 7.5/10

Check out my Curator Page: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34401214/

Only found 2 endings, cant tell if there's more. Very good, enjoyed all three dolls personalities and wish i could learn more about Adelaide. Worth the price.

Wish the options were more meaningful, the choices to go forward are obvious. Then the choices that work don't create much of a different outcome.

Great Short Story though.

Only downside with the story is the fact the main character has no ****, a total coward. Not much of a man.

Quite good for it's short length. I would like to learn more about Adelaide and perhaps some have some more content after the finale for Briar and Lottie.

One day the MC person Found out about His so called Mansion That he Now owned due to his Grandfather passing And He wanted to take good care of it. Little did the mc know Something or rather someone was not right He was checking the place out when all of sudden These Lifeless Dolls appeared out of Nowhere. There was Red and Beige Colored one And They wanted To Heed Waring To Him but he would not Listen. When finally the First day ended He was Told he has 5 Days to Survive Adline Attacks Before she was Finally defeated And the Mansion would be saved. Little did they all know The Psychopath Killer Showed Every Midnight and each time she Got Attacked she grew Stronger. The Red Haired Doll Had Fire Magic while The beige Doll had Healing Magic That Protected everyone. The 2 Dolls were born In nice Shop where kind person brought them to life with Magic Infused But The Killer one was Enveloped IN darkness and Nothing more. She would do Anything to see the dolls dead even if it means Crushing there skulls or Beating them to death. In All The Game was Amazing Short and sweet But good ^^ I would Def Recc this For people Who Like the Doll Aspect Story.

Great story. Would have liked to see a bit more on why Adelaide is the way she is. Regardless of that fact, it is definitely worth the price and the time.

Artificial Mansion is a short length VN, one play through took me about 3 hours. Like other RhinoGearz titles this fits a size that is probably on par with a nice weekend afternoon or a couple nights. Choices are about an average number for size a length, leading to both a few good and several bad ends as you try to survive the week.

The story is a nice concept. I think it could have done with a bit more exposition on why Adelaide is who she is and how her powers grow but you can only squeeze so much into such a length visual novel. It's still a pretty safe bet that simply burying her case in the garden wouldn't be smart, so much as make her extra angry for lopping your head off.

Being a RhinoGearz title it is assumable that you are here for the story and not bouncing cleavage. I think Artificial Mansion shows a better balance between writing experience and exposition than some of their earlier titles, all of which I enjoyed. Art and music are solid as usual. Character and plot depth fits with what you can expect from this length, which is about the most you can ask for in a $5 VN.

At the end: I think the questions to ask yourself for any visual novel are: did you enjoy the story? (I did), was the art any good? (It is), and did it leave you with anything to think about? (Yes).

Can you survive a week of Adelaide's murderous fury or will you doom Lottie and Briar to another cycle of seeing everyone they meet cut down?

Interesting characters, but since the story is short there is not enough time to develop their relationship. I would say for the price it is worth buying. I hope the developers would expand the game more.