Day 1070
Despite the fact I did terribly on the demo, I still went ahead and brought the game Strange Antiquities. This is because I had played Strange Horticulture when it first released, and found I really loved the game. That being said, I didn’t have a huge amount of trouble with the full game. I’m not sure if the game was tweaked before release or it was the result of not having access to everything in the demo.
Both games are probably best described as a point and click deduction game. The game gives you riddles in the form of customer requests, cryptic dreams and even more cryptic letters in which you must deduce what item is needed from your shop, or where to find said item for your shop.
But what really makes these games fascinating is the world in which they take place in. In both games, the setting is a British-sque town called Undermere. In this town (at the very least) the supernatural isn’t just a thing hidden in the shadows, it is a way of life. It is a place where both gods named and nameless still have followers, and omens are to be paid attention to.
In Strange Antiquities, you have recently been accepted as an apprentice Thaumaturge by the shop owner Eli White. A Thaumaturge is a person who handles, identifies and provides to their customers magical items that can help or hinder. Not that the world of Undermere calls it ‘magic’, where the occult is real, magic doesn’t quite give the right vibe to what is happening.
Unfortunately for you, Eli is called away on business, leaving you alone to run the shop. A terrible time to leave as a flock of ravens have been hanging around Undermere, a dark omen indeed. In between running the shop, and chasing leads for new items, you’re caught up in the mystery of victims being discovered with black eyes.
It leads into a wonderful time of solving riddles, making discoveries, and watching as everything unfolds to the climax where you must make choices.
The thing I really enjoyed about Strange Antiquities is how the developers really expanded the original gameplay idea from Strange Horticulture. In Strange Horticulture you were identifying questionable plants using a single book, while looking for new ones by exploring a map of Undermere with cryptic dream clues as your guide.
Strange Antiquities in turn became much larger in scope, while still remaining in a small shop. Over the course of the game, there are three books to unlock that help you identify a wide variety of items in your shop, as well as three maps for you to explore to find even more items. Some of those items also interact with the environment, requiring the player to get creative in how they go about identifying an unknown object.
That being said, while the game is much larger, it never feels overwhelming. The game parses its riddles and clues day by day. There is an expectation, especially with the exploration clues that you solve them the moment you get them as they provide more items for your shop that a customer will request. So you really can’t leave a riddle or clue for too long, ideally it should be solved the moment you get it.
Honestly, what I love most about this game, besides the riddles, is the location itself. It would make for a lovely tabletop role play game or even a solo journaling game I think. Just to live in that world for a bit longer.
