Strange Antiquities

很有意思，第一次玩这种类型的解谜游戏，就是翻译水平比较一般

번역이 거슬려서 게임에 집중이 안 됨

A really fun puzzle game of identifying magical artifacts. A short game but very atmospheric, with a dark storyline and a cozy feel. This game is a sequel to Strange Horticulture, and you can tell the developers improved from the last game in terms of UI and art style. I really recommend this for anyone who likes the dark academia style.

Loved it

This was a lot more challenging than Strange Horticulture. You really had to dig in deep. I wasn't the biggest fan of going up and down over and over again to test frequencies, but the mechanic was cool. I did love the cross referencing of books, a challenging added layer to solving the puzzle! Some clues I either felt incredibly dumb or I was frustrated because "who would've even thought to put two and two together the way they did" -- I liked the explanations, because it helped you understand how to solve the next puzzle. LOVED the multiple maps, the next day animation for tracing was kinda stupid and unnecessary, I prefer just flipping a card. I wonder what is next in this series? STRANGE POTIONS? STRANGE ARMORY? STRANGE CREATURES?

Fun and quirky cozy game. Addictive as well

Strange Antiquities is another atmospheric logic game with a cosmic horror plot from Bad Viking. I adored Strange Horticulture, and this sequel was equally enjoyable for me. I'm definitely a fan of this developer.

Despite its flaws, I enjoyed Strange Antiquities for the most part. I've also played Strange Horticulture before. Here are some of my thoughts for improvement for SA. Some of the opinions are reiterated from other reviews which I find particularly relevant. 1. Puzzle design. The tarot card puzzles are fine (the one with a spool of yarn being an exception); the hard part is usually about gathering required information instead of intensive reasoning based on few existing known rules. Some mechanics are used only once and that puzzle was frustrating. The highlights are the ones that unlock different parts of the shop, using objects within the shop. The game is quite satisfying when there's a puzzle that rewards attention and observation. It strays from that when the mechanic is arbitrary or it is just "looking up/ matching information" from books-see next part. 2. Frustrating look up system/poor QoL design choices: The game introduces a (in my view) large amount of information and objects have gained several attributes besides appearance. This has been mentioned in other reviews. It dramatically increases the amount of information the player needs to sift through. For example, the fields that they produce. There should be a way to record the field in the symbology book, instead of having to redo it every time (can't be bothered to memorize it). Inspection also feels tedious soon afterwards as there are four categories that the player needs to click every time. And a lot of the time, it gives nothing (I have no remarks). The unskippable animation of flipping pages also adds to the sense of slowness. There has to be a better way to do this. 3. World Building. I have to say that the writing and lore in Strange Antiquities still feels lacking. Same in Strange Horticulture. It's a lot of text that feels generic. I finished the game because I like solving puzzles and not because I cared about the plot. (I just rushed the main ending and don't feel interested at all) Something bad is happening and the player's job is to save the town (or make evil choices idk). The overall dialogue also feels a little affected, the quaintness heavyhanded. And I wish artifact discovery isn't mostly a paragraph long version of "I found this, I found that in such and such corner" (I skipped reading them after the first couple times). It's more interesting when it actually feels like "exploring" (such as when there are subquests asking for the right artifact to proceed)