Curses

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Outstanding game! By far my favorite text adventure!, March 13, 2022

I've been playing this masterpiece off and on for years now, always getting sucked back in by the masterful descriptions, the quaint English settings and sense of humour.

Its bastard hard, for me, but I love it anyway. One day I will finish this!

It starts off simply enough, but "escalates quickly" as they say into a swarm of puzzles and exploration of the old hall and surrounds. I love the way the author weaves in elements of the old family history into the houses history throughout the ages.

Well-crafted, self-scaling, puzzle-filled labor-of-love!, December 9, 2021

I spent a glorious year playing Curses with my nephew over Zoom. The puzzles are well-crafted and usually obvious in retrospect. Although it starts with wandering around your attic, pretty soon you have adventures in many locations, all of which are cleverly presented and contained. There is so much joy in the witty responses and the vocabulary-expanding descriptions. The in-game hint system (once you find it) is a delight.

We got frustrated mid-game with so many rooms and unused items that we couldn't figure out how to proceed. (Did we not have the right items yet? Did we miss some detail?) The community at intfiction.org provided a few crucial hints that helped us finish.

One can win the game without getting a full score -- perhaps that's a bug or a final "curse" that we can never resolve.

Mystery and humour, December 5, 2020

I came to Curses! as a relatively new, but not completely inexperienced, player of IF. I had recently completed Emily Short's rich and beautiful game Bronze, and was looking for a game to fill the gap, one with a fascinating atmosphere and which was long and challenging enough to get my teeth into. Curses! was everything I wanted, and more.

This game manages to combine a sense of awe and wonder with an excellent sense of humour, as a simple search for a map takes you on a journey through time and space, through the mysteries of the Tarot pack and of ancient Egypt, and into heaven and hell themselves, with the odd joke thrown in. The puzzles are good enough to get your brain going, and I was often proud of myself for figuring out some which were at first glance far too difficult. Whenever the going got a bit too tough, I consulted Russ Bryan's excellent walkthrough until I could progress further.

As some other reviewers have noted, some of the puzzles are very difficult, and others require some strange actions or choices of verb. I advise playing in 'long' mode, and noting that you can speak to characters (or non-human entities) by typing their name followed by a comma, and then what you want to say: e.g. 'Jemima, hello'. Examine everything, and try pushing and pulling things. Occasionally you will need to watch the actions of other characters, and imitate them. Although the game is huge, often you will find that the item you need is not far away from the puzzle it exists to solve.

I began Curses! shortly before the Coronavirus lockdown of spring 2020 and can honestly say that it kept me well occupied during this unexpected rise in alone time at home. If you like satisfying puzzles, ancient mysteries, classical civilisation, T. S. Eliot, slider puzzles, or cats, and don't mind consulting a walkthrough, then this is a game for you.

problem with curses , September 26, 2019

I have been playing curses for a little while now but I can't seem to lagach The painting or other artifacts if someone could help me with this I would appreciate it

Classic and brilliant adventure, September 3, 2019

The game is huge, well-written and thoroughly enjoyable.
I love the atmosphere, the humour and the setting for this adventure, very much. It is my favorite all time adventure.

Stuck and rage quitting, December 6, 2016

I really enjoyed the game in the beginning. Sure, I got stuck almost immediately, but I pulled up a walkthrough to get a general idea of what I was supposed to do. I made my way through a large chunk of the game, while writing down important pieces information and hand-drawing maps. I was starting to feel good until I got stuck again. I then realized I'm messed something up ~15 save files ago. Never would have guessed it was a mistake.

Well, I went back and fixed my error, but when the same thing happened again I packed up all my notes and maps and moved onto another game. I didn't want to follow a walkthrough word-for-word, but it felt like that was the only way I was ever going to finish.

Perhaps I'm simply not experienced or patient enough, but this just isn't a good game for me.

Not for the beginner..., June 9, 2016

I am a seasoned veteran, having played most of the old Infocom games during my teenage and into my 20s(I am now 46). So, I went into this game thinking that it would be an easy one, thinking that I would 'whip' it in only a matter of days. It took me almost 3 weeks. The game is incredibly intricate, covers a lot of territory. I would not recommend it to a beginner, the Zork series is difficult enough--in Zork, you have only ONE wand(which is not even yours), in Curses!, there are more than TEN! This game also has teleportation, time travel to various places, the obligatory maze, plenty of NPCs. There were a couple of places where I had to start over, because I had missed an object irrevocably---I was in the kind of space that most IFers dread, where you flounder about, wondering what to do next and get this strange feeling that you had missed something, then finally give in and consult the walkthrough, only to find out that you were really to supposed to take X or do Y while you were in Z location and time(in addition to doing what you DID do), when you thought you were done with that area(and, of course, there's no way of going back). Yes, there were a couple of places in this game where I thought it wasn't being 'fair' in its description of the place or clear as to what was to be accomplished in this or that area, and if you are not accustomed to examining EVERY object, or searching EVERY possible place, and mapping EVERY accessible passage and room, you might get stuck. There were a few objects that were hidden in places that were not prominently or directly referred to in the room descriptions. Also, I think something must be said about the sequence in which the various areas(and there are many) in this game are played and solved--some must be solved before others and there is at least one that must be completed during your first--and only--visit. With all that said, I had fun with this game. I am a veteran, so while I was a little frustrated with the inconveniences mentioned, I must admit that they are par for the course in games like this and the author, if asked about them, would probably just say, 'That's life! It's part of the challenge!' I had fun with the hint system built into the game(and the reader will understand what I mean when s/he encounters it). In fact, I would advise any player, new or experienced, to save the game very often, at every new discovery, and use the hint system to 'the max', by saving his/her position near where the hints are being offered(which is easily worked out). Again, this is a big game, with many fronts, puzzles at every turn, especially at the house. A tour-de-force for the experienced IFer.

Too clever or too smart?, September 28, 2015

Of course, this game is very well written, and there is a lot of findings and innovative ideas, even two imaginary languages have been created, making the gameplay quite unique. There are some humorous comments, there are parts which are very realistic while others are oniric (and sometimes absurd).
Nevertheless, the game greatly suffers from the fact that it is extremely difficult, requiring the help from a walkthrough, and absolutely unfair to the player, up to the point that the author seems to have forgotten that a game (or a novel, or whatever) must not be done for oneself but for others to enjoy. Let me sum up the weakpoints:

* too many puzzles are of the "guess-the-verb" type. Sometimes the verb is common, but the action is absurd. Some examples are (Spoiler - click to show)go port, say time, say yellow, turn noise, tighten the skull, push cat to, jump, wave branch, blow whistle, "hole,!go west", etc
* the command "look at" is poorly implemented ("you see nothing special about...") where it could have been used to give a small hint to the player and make the game a lot more enjoyable. This is also the case for other commands and objects, as explained in another review of this game on this website.
* the order in which you visit locations is vital. If you visit them in the wrong order you can get stuck without knowing it! The problem is that you are not allowed to teleport twice to the same location using the device (Spoiler - click to show)the projector using cards, so you are not free to explore, and guess the solution by some trial-and-error. And there are no clue of what is the right order, or the clues are very obscure.
* some objects are absolutely mandatory to finish the game, but these objects must also be magically converted at some point to other objects(Spoiler - click to show)(rods). The problem is that they can not be converted back, so you get stuck long after having wrongly converted the object, thinking doing right, with the only option to restore a previous saved game.

In conclusion, unless you like twisted and cruel games, and don't bother saving/restoring a hundred times and restarting from the beginning several times, don't play this game!

The quintessential interactive fiction game, April 5, 2015

Curses is the first game I think of when I think of interactive fiction, together with Anchorhead. Sprawling, light-hearted, with a compelling backstory and cast of supporting characters.

For me, the beauty of the game is in the development of the plot, with a continually increasing sense of wonder. Another wonderful aspect is the open sandbox feel; this is a very non-linear game.

Although the game is very difficult (I've played through it three times, and had to resort to a walkthrough every time), there are so many puzzles that you will still solve quite a few on your own. Many puzzles have multiple solutions, or can be bypassed completely.

*Amusing things: There are three characters that have interesting reactions to all ten of the (Spoiler - click to show)rods. Those characters are (Spoiler - click to show)yourself, the knight, and Austin.

Curses, indeed, September 17, 2011

I really liked this game when I first started. Finding a map in the attic sounds like a wonderful puzzle! Unfortunately, my curiosity got me stuck very early on and I had no idea how to progress. (Spoiler - click to show)I read a book from the bookshelf and was transported to a garden. I had no Idea how I had gotten there or how to get back. It was completely frustrating and disorienting. I am not sure I want to even try this game again, if this sort of thing is bound to happen. I like games that make logical sense and so far as I can tell, this one doesn't.

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