Cursed

I loved it. Cursed (1) feels like a true piece of gaming art, a lost relic, a cult classic. It has the structure of the Macventure games, such as Beyond Shadowgate or Infested, but with a unique amateurish charm that I’m a real sucker for.

The art I can best describe as pixel line art, with a childlike charm and some serious demented body horror flavoring. Many scenes were just a visual delight and the weird mix of twisted monstrosity with a kindergarten execution just made me so happy.

The gameplay definitely had a mix of jank with some pretty fun puzzling. The inventory is strange - you can only choose to use items on scenes, but not specifically where in the scene. This is helpful though because some puzzle solutions aren’t obvious, so often you are trial and erroring your way through. There are definitely some well designed ones though. The combat on the other hand is very primitive, some things I had to check on a walkthrough. There is also of course some cheap death scenes so save often - this comes with the genre though.

Absolutely worth checking this one out if you feel any kinship with my, albeit somewhat niche, tastes. Can’t wait to see the more refined entries in the trilogy, and I am keeping my eye out for the upcoming remake of this one!