Curses

by Graham Nelson

Haunted House, Historical, Travel, Time Travel
1993

Return to the game's main page

Reviews and Ratings

5 star:
(56)
4 star:
(45)
3 star:
(20)
2 star:
(7)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating:
Number of Ratings: 128
Write a review


Previous | << 1 2 3 4 5 6 >> | Next | Show All


- Zape, December 15, 2023

- Egas, December 2, 2023

- Max Fog, November 10, 2023

- Arioch, October 30, 2023

- gattociao, August 11, 2023

- Drew Cook (Acadiana, USA), July 26, 2023

- Bell Cyborg (Canada), July 21, 2023

- HawkeyeFierce , May 20, 2023

- Kastel, April 12, 2023

- Amun100 (UK), July 27, 2022

- aluminumoxynitride, May 29, 2022

- Canalboy (London, UK.), May 5, 2022

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
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.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

- cgasquid (west of house), January 31, 2022

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Well-crafted, self-scaling, puzzle-filled labor-of-love!, December 9, 2021
by dvs

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.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

- Ry (Philippines), November 1, 2021

- TheBoxThinker, October 16, 2021

- Frodelius, September 19, 2021

- Karlok (Netherlands), April 14, 2021

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Mystery and humour, December 5, 2020
by Wynter (London, UK)

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.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

- peachesncream, November 15, 2020

- mifga (Brooklyn, NY), October 14, 2020

- heasm66 (Sweden), August 10, 2020

- kierlani, May 1, 2020

- patytrico, November 14, 2019


Previous | << 1 2 3 4 5 6 >> | Next | Show All | Return to game's main page