I found The Curse completely by accident. I was looking to download The Riddle by Nik Kershaw for a future feature and searched the iTunes Store for "the riddle" (assuming the song was popular enough to just pop up) but what instead caught my eye was the icon for this iOS / Android puzzle app. It featured the face of Mannequin (we'll get to him later) pulling a rather cocky expression (who doesn't love a smug smile and a raised eyebrow? Oh...just me...) and the Riddler fangirl in me thought, "Cocky chap with some riddles for me?! I'm sold!"
The Aim
Oh you idiot! Did you just scan your finger to open the book?! You've only gone and let evil genius and mysterioso Mannequin out and he has no plan of going back in! Lucky for you he's a 'fair' villain and if you can solve all 100 of his puzzles plus his final puzzle he will accept defeat. Be careful though! He's a tricky chappy! You never know when you might be looking at a clue and you never know when you might be being led astray!
The Gameplay
Simple. Solve the puzzles to collect cogs to unlock the final puzzle. The types of puzzles include tangrams, riddles, 'classic' puzzles, sliding block puzzles, logic problems, number puzzles, perception puzzles and reaction tests. The first thirty are easy and then they become progressively harder. There's no doubt that unless you are a true genius there will come some point where you will need a hint. You start with one free hint and can earn more with your altercations with Mannequin (I'll get on to these next). If you need more you can buy hint packs, the cheapest being four for 69p ($0.99). On the basis that I got the game for free and was really enjoying it I was definitely happy to pay 69p for some hints.
The Cut Scenes
One of the things the game prides itself on are the interactive cut scenes. Now don't go expecting 1080 HD surround sound spectaculars. It's a cartoon dude in a mask on a black background ripping the piss out of you...but it's also really fun and what you find yourself playing for! Because unlike most cut scenes you choose how they go. Mannequin is a master goader and will do anything to undermine your puzzling skills from his witty monologues to calling your phone (if you don't answer he gets very upset). He'll quiz you, he'll trap you, he'll try and sell you naff t-shirts and all of it is interactive! Like I said, you don't HAVE to interact with him but it's much more fun if you do (at one point you are challenged to a staring contest with dire consequences to your mobile)!
The cut scenes are fully voiced and though at first it feels a little weird to hear Mannequin with a British accent (I've spent far too long being taunted by Wally Wingert's perfect Edward Nygma whilst playing Arkham City) you soon get used to him. It definitely helps that the cut scenes include The Mannequin's Theme - a super little jazz number which fits his character perfectly!
Overall
As regular readers know I'm a puzzle fiend! I love matching wits with narcissistic, masked men (total mental foreplay). One of my favourite apps is A Year of Riddles (which I find very hard to keep from doing more than once a day). Due to this I found The Curse great fun. It really filled the gap between Professor Layton games (it's basically a Professor Layton game without the story) and made me feel better about the fact I've played Arkham City so many times I don't find the Riddler side quest hard anymore (it's gone from frustrating to relaxing lol).
I found the majority of the puzzles easy to do-able. The only types of puzzles I massively struggled at were ones where an action has a reaction such as the below rotating circles game and lights out games (where turning off one light turns on / off the lights around it). Those were where I spent all my hints! But then there were other games such as the Hamiltonians and rope games that were so much fun I wish there was a whole app dedicated just to them! The riddles were challenging without being obtuse. They are the best kind of riddles - ones where the answer is deviously hard to guess without a hint but once you do get it seems so obvious that it could be nothing else. None of those ten line long rhyming riddles which don't even make sense when you know the answer.
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| Looks easy, huh? Not when rotating one circle moves another! |
One of the reviews for The Curse stated that the player had spent £2.18 on hints and still couldn't get past the third puzzle...blaming the game for this. All I can really say is if you're dense enough to blow £2.18 by puzzle three then you deserve to lose that £2.18. I mean, I honestly can't imagine how anyone couldn't solve the first few puzzles without help but if puzzle games aren't for you then it's probably best to give this game a miss - the first three puzzles really aren't hard but the last twenty really aren't easy either. It's supposed to be hard. It's supposed to be a challenge. That's where the sense achievement comes in when you get one right...right?
The Curse's usual price is £2.69 / $2.99 but it is currently on sale for 69p / $0.99 which is SOOOO cheap for such a good game! Snap it up! Seriously! Do it now! Not only is it a small price to pay for a good game but you'll be supporting the lovely guys who made it. Seriously. They genuinely care that you enjoy their game. Tweet them and they'll tweet you back. Have a question and they'll answer it. When I tweeted that I finished the game they sent me a well done! When I said I liked Mannequin's Theme they said I could have an MP3 of it and when it took them a little while to send it they decided to make up for it by sending me the whole soundtrack instead! How nice is that?! So buy The Curse NOW!
Mannequin's Theme
Next week: Back to music...we survive Friday with The Kills
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