The Curse

Adapted from an IFCOMP24 Review

This is a throwback game. No, not that. This is a PULL-FORWARD game, updating and modernizing a game from the Wild West days of parsers when there were no rules, no deep descriptions, no thought of player experience, just raw creativity and world building and throwing gameplay at the wall to see what sticks. I have seen a few of these now, and pretty uniformly I have had two reactions to all of them:

1. How cool is it that this can be resurrected? This author is doing vital work!
2. Wow, the old days were WAY LESS ROSE COLORED than I remember.

I infer, from my brief experience with this game, that the modern efforts amounted to window management, graphics, sound, and a help system. The underlying gameplay seems to be left as is. Let’s start with the modern elements. The sound design was a pleasant surprise for me. It was atmospheric but spare, pairing quite well with the spare text of its interface. The use of color in text to delineate different classes of feedback was also a nice touch I don’t often see. The graphic design I was less enamored of. The work popped up graphic windows in first-time locations to orient you. On my monitor, those windows were BIG, and crowded each other, including the play space. Occasionally, transition or cutscene text was ALSO presented in windows, so I inevitably had a few open at any given time, without much play value. This was not appealing, but the biggest thing I wished for was a consistent graphic palette. There were attractive cartoonish people, 8-bit pyramids, high-res threatening eyes and photo realistic fog. There didn’t seem to be much esthetic unity and it really presented a patchwork interface.

I’ll get back to the new HELP system at a dramatically appropriate time, let’s cycle to gameplay.

When I complain about my self-imposed scoring system, I am almost always complaining about the top of the scale: determining when a work is “Transcendent.” I actually have a bigger problem lurking in that rubric. When is a game “Unplayable?” “Bouncy” is easy to identify - I recoil at the artistic statement or conceits. That’s visceral. “Unplayable” though, who am I to determine that? Unplayable by ME certainly, but where is the line between my shortcomings and a work’s faults? Legal scholars have been gifted a phrase by US (Supreme Court) Justice Potter Stewart, who when ruling on obscenity said [para] “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.” This bon mot is kind of unhelpful when working with cases close to the boundary, but that is not where we are with The Curse.

Nevermind its spare descriptions. Nevermind its limited area populations. There are maybe 9 locations (it’s grey if you go south), and vanishingly little to do, and absoLUTELY no signposts on how to ungate progress. Plenty of ways to die though! No, not actually true. Three ways to die, but SO MANY INSTANCES OF THOSE! This is the deepest hell of “>search X” “you find nothing” “>move X” “You find something!” I knocked about those nine areas for a full hour, dying innumerable times. Worse, in one area, I found a scoring move that I could not recreate! After trying SO MANY TIMES.

I tried everything I could think of, many many times, and got nothing new. So naturally I turned to HELP, the modern addition, to smooth things over for me. Not only was the most common answer “no help here,” an uncommon answer was a flashed graphic that meant nothing to me! Actually not nothing, it appeared to be openly mocking me by offering a (Spoiler - click to show)‘helping hand’ that provided no help. Making matters worse, consulting help PENALIZED my score, deducting points for consulting it! Fair play if I was getting actionable information. But for points that were SO HARD to secure, in exchange for mocking unhelp?? Infuriating.

I can’t say I truly ragequit. The clear labor of love of it prevented that level of ire, and in fact provided Sparks of Joy that this would be anyone's White Whale. Even the patchwork graphics have a charm of authorship to them. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t call out its weird, fun fascination with classic Rock. But as a gameplay experience for sure I was left with “glad this was rewarding for you author! I’m done.” It does feel weird to flag as “Unplayable” a work that was clearly developed and released and presumably found players decades ago. Who am I to tell them they couldn’t play this thing? I can’t speak to any of that, but against my ingrained expectations, fully informed by today’s IF norms, that’s where this lands for me.

Played: 10/10/24
Playtime: 1hr, gave up, double digit deaths, score 7/40? with another 5 I could not reclaim after an unsaved death
Artistic/Technical ratings: Sparks of Joy/Unplayable
Would Play Again?: Oh my, no

Artistic scale: Bouncy, Mechanical, Sparks of Joy, Engaging, Transcendent
Technical scale: Unplayable, Intrusive, Notable (Bugginess), Mostly Seamless, Seamless