Strange Antiquities review

Throughout my first two hours serving Unusual Antiquities’ clients, I tugged the bronze pendulum of an ornate clock at the least a dozen occasions, questioning what the ensuing spin and settle of its palms meant. I checked my occult encyclopaedia’s index for mentions of time and in contrast the clock face to shapes in a ebook of airtight symbols. Every time I drew a clean I yanked the pendulum a couple of extra occasions, simply in case.

This follow-up to the joyous 2022 puzzler Unusual Horticulture is filled with these guarantees of future puzzles: a locked cupboard with no key, a sliding-door cabinet with no clear objective, three empty plinths beneath your store counter, an engraved desk with 4 lacking chunks. I knew they have been all clues, I simply could not inform what for.

Till, in a collection of wonderful moments, I may.

After I realised how the clock match right into a multi-part puzzle that exposed a brand new space of my store, I genuinely chuckled with delight, and that feeling repeated a number of occasions throughout my 10-hour playthrough. It is a longer and extra uneven puzzle sport than Unusual Horticulture, but in addition extra formidable, and simply as beguiling.

The final idea stays the identical. Prospects come to your store for a particular named merchandise. Your encyclopaedia holds clues for every one, from the concrete – like the form or materials – to the extra summary, comparable to the sensation it evokes if you maintain it, or the actual fact it is used to attract blood in an initiation ritual. You contact, take heed to, and odor the objects in your cabinets, and for those who choose the proper one you’ll be able to strike it out of your lengthy checklist. Exterior, a narrative of curses and cults unfolds, and a number of the selections you make, comparable to which of two gadgets to offer a selected buyer, can change the result.

The objects are imaginative: carved totems with unfamiliar symbols, bejewelled containers that catch spirits, medallions designed within the picture of a snake god, a blood-stained stone held by an eagle’s talons. All of them look great in your cabinets, nonetheless you select to rearrange them. Descriptions are evocative, typically with double meanings that made me wish to decipher them much more. Does this necklace give me goosebumps as a result of it is chilly or as a result of it is creepy? Which of those picket objects may conceivably be described as a “finger”?

Initially, merely understanding that an object is product of bronze with a single gemstone is sufficient to determine it, however quickly the puzzles turn into tough, layered challenges. Alongside your encyclopaedia you get a ebook on gems, a ebook of symbols, and a ebook of curses, and you will typically must flip between them a number of occasions to determine a single object. A easy instance: if someone is available in for a curse remedy, you will first learn your curse ebook to determine their illness, discover that curse in your encyclopaedia’s index, after which learn all of the associated entries to determine the thing you want.

I used to be recurrently stumped, however each time I break up the puzzle into small chunks I may whittle down the potential solutions. The trace system factors you vaguely in the proper course with out outright telling you the reply, which I like, however you’ll be able to ask for a number of hints directly. If you resolve a puzzle you are handily informed which clues have been related – typically these have been particulars I hadn’t even observed, and that gave me new concepts for fixing future puzzles.

I like the sensation of mastery it builds. If you get a brand new encyclopaedia entry it flashes on display. You possibly can ignore it, however the important thing data typically caught in my thoughts. I misplaced rely of the occasions I later thought “Wait, I do know that title”, and it is satisfying to make use of information you did not even realise you had. The best way encyclopaedia entries stream from each other encourages you to observe your path of thought, and earlier than you recognize it you have recognized three or 4 objects, quite than simply the one. By the tip of the sport I would turn into a correct professional shopkeeper: I knew, with out considering, which gemstone meant loss of life and which meant fireplace, which image meant summer time, and which winter. Typically I may choose the proper object with out consulting my books, which felt incredible.

Its greatest moments – like with the clock’s pendulum – are usually not if you’re figuring out objects, however if you’re poking round your store, discovering puzzles hidden in plain sight. To open the locked cupboard in a single nook I needed to manipulate an object in a means that I hadn’t initially thought was potential, and that vacant cabinet I discussed earlier proved instrumental in a means I will not spoil, however was equally pleasant. The sport’s scope continually shocked me, and it delivers on each one of many guarantees it teases.

Even the sport’s collectible maps conceal secrets and techniques of their very own. Click on on a location and also you get a narrative vignette, typically ending with the invention of a brand new object. The clues to search out these areas – riddles, matching shapes, sample recognition – are less complicated however no much less engrossing, and later, you get a tool you need to place over one among your maps to search out the proper spots. I felt like a genius once I figured it out.

In a sport with so many puzzles, and so many several types of puzzle, a couple of duds are inevitable. I gave up figuring out a selected medallion just for the trace system to inform me I needed to first resolve one other puzzle I would picked up (and put down) a lot earlier within the sport, in what appeared like an arbitrary course of. On one other, I narrowed it down to 2 potential objects and easily needed to guess – even once I noticed the proper answer, the opposite object appeared to suit as effectively. Nonetheless, Unusual Antiquities’ density and constant generosity make it simple to forgive these small missteps.

It helped that I loved merely inhabiting the store, listening to the rain and thunder exterior. I petted my cat each morning till he purred, and stuffed my papers of their drawers each night time. After the primary buyer of on daily basis I reshuffled my cabinets to match my temper. Early on I organized medallions by materials – bronze, gold, wooden, tin – with a separate part for gadgets that regarded notably arcane. Later, I moved all my recognized objects to a separate shelf and sorted medallions by the color of their gemstone. This is not busywork – it is flexibility that makes the store really feel like a deeply private area.

I want it was barely simpler to navigate with my mouse, although. When a number of objects appeared to suit the clues, I appreciated to stack them on the desk under my counter, a ebook open subsequent to them, so I may higher evaluate their markings and gems. To maneuver an object out of your cabinets to this desk you need to seize every one, maintain it on the backside of the display till the desk seems, after which drop it – an annoyingly fiddly process when it includes shifting 4 or 5 gadgets in a row. It’s, admittedly, simpler for those who use the keyboard too, but when ever there was a sport designed for a mouse in a single hand, espresso within the different, that is it. I additionally discovered it too simple to zoom in on a ebook (double click on) once I merely meant to open it (single click on).

My enthusiasm for the puzzles additionally waned within the ultimate hours, partly as a result of its greatest challenges are all within the center, and partly as a result of I did not care about what was taking place exterior the store. The city’s story of curses, loss of life, betrayal, and rival factions is, like all of the phrases in Unusual Antiquities, finely written, direct, and concise. Mildly poetic, even. However since you spend a lot time buried in your books and watching artefacts, it is simple to overlook what the final plot growth was. And even for those who maintain monitor, the story loses its momentum about two-thirds of the way in which by, delaying and delaying what appears like an inevitable conclusion.

Even so, the satisfaction of a fully-ticked checklist saved me going to the tip, and I fortunately lingered for a couple of extra hours to determine objects I would missed. The highs of Unusual Antiquities – and there are a lot of – match these of the rest I’ve performed this 12 months, and absolutely put it up there with Blue Prince among the many greatest puzzle video games of 2025. It’s fiendish and pleasant, and hopefully, one among many extra Unusual video games to come back.