Strange Antiquities

Here in the UK, autumn has started to creep in; the sun isn’t as hot in the sky, early evenings are drawing closer, and our minds are starting to turn towards the more spooky side of life. Enter Strange Antiquities. The follow-up to Strange Horticulture couldn’t have landed at a better time: a game that thrives on patience, curiosity, and rainy days. Like its predecessor, the game centres on a small shop filled with occult curiosities, strange customers, and mysteries both big and small.

Returning to the city of Undermere in Cumbria, the player embodies an apprentice thaumaturge tasked with running the occult artefact store Strange Antiquities after the owner leaves to take care of mysterious business. Over the next eighteen days, customers arrive with requests ranging from “relieve my nightmares” to “help me stop my maid from stealing my jewellery” to “lift this curse from me”. No one else seems to be around to help, so a shop with bizarre artefacts must have at least some answers. 

Your task is deceptively simple: listen to (or rather read, as there is no voice acting in this game) the customer’s request and find the right artefact from the many as-yet unlabelled trinkets lining the shelves: eerie figurines, jewelled totems, and pendants that may well be looking right back at you. To aid you in your daily quests, you have access to a book of compiled ancient lore, a guide to gemstones and their meanings, a volume of symbology, and a beginners’ guide to spotting curses. Each object can also be examined: how it smells, what it sounds like, how it feels in your hands, what your inner perceptions tell you and the emotions they stir. It’s not just the items that are puzzles; the store itself holds secrets if you know how to unlock them.

All this detective work is, at its best, genuinely satisfying. You piece together the clues from layers of information and different sources until a single solution is found. Finally, you give the customer exactly the antiquity they need, though not necessarily the one they want. Over the hours of play, a sense of mastery unfolds as you remember more and more. You read a particularly unhelpful bit of lore in the thaumaturgy guide. Still, something pings in your mind as you recall reading about something similar for a different customer or that a certain symbol is linked to what the artefact is supposed to do; there’s a definite thrill in finding the right artefact without even opening a book. Of course, you won’t always get it right. Mistakes happen, and if too many pile up, your fear meter goes into the red.

Once in the red, you’re met with a playful dice game designed to help you overcome madness and fear, ensuring the process of discovery stays light. However, this dice game gets a little repetitive after a while, and sadly, that repetition seeps into the rest of the game. Like an overworked student, much of the gameplay comes down to hitting the books, and while nothing is trivial, it can certainly feel predictable. That little rush of endorphins isn’t always enough. The game counters this with a dash of variety here and there. 

Unfortunately, not every puzzle lands perfectly. A handful rely on steps that should have been done earlier in the game but were completely missed or put off, leading to the frustration of having to backtrack slightly. Sometimes you’re given two options as to which artefact to hand over, and it’s up to the player to decide which outcome will be best, but as both outcomes often carry negative consequences, the whole system can feel a little unsatisfying.

On the other hand, the occasions where you have to deduce what artefact the customer needs by spotting clues in the text are far more rewarding. There’s also a generous hint option that points you in the right direction without spoiling anything, though it doesn’t apply to puzzles relating to the shop, letters, or tarot cards. Despite this, the game doesn’t punish too harshly and remains accessible to methodical and patient players.

As mentioned previously, the shop itself is also a puzzle. One of the first things a player will notice when exploring the shop is that it’s riddled with secrets: the clock face revolves to show the moon, and the pendulum can be pulled down, changing the hands to show specific times, for reasons you don’t yet know. The desk has hidden runes, and a cabinet is missing an artefact you haven’t found yet. As the story develops, clues to solving these mysteries are revealed, but it’s up to the player to figure out which piece goes where.

Much like the previous entry, the player has access to the wider world of Undermere via a map, customer letters, interactions, and tarot cards that unlock at the end of each day. These take you out into familiar streets, to ancient castles and crypts, tracing directions, deciphering riddles, and locating artefacts through short narrative vignettes. These lighter puzzles provide welcome breaks from the object-identification grind, though they don’t quite match the intensity of the core mechanics.

The truly standout feature of Strange Antiquities is its atmosphere. The shop is cosy and alive: ambient sounds and gentle music fill the air, and the shop cat, Jupiter (remarkably nicknamed “The Destroyer of Souls”), curls up on the counter, and yes, you can pet the cat, causing him to purr. He’ll also knock items off the counter if placed next to him. This cosiness provides a layer of autumnal comfort when surrounded by grotesque curiosities. To deepen the sense of involvement and immersion, you can arrange the items on the shelves in any way you see fit, whether by gem colour, object type or material. There’s also an auto-labelling option if, like me, you don’t fancy spending all that time cataloguing. 

None of this serves any real functional purpose beyond helping the player to expedite puzzle-solving, but it creates the satisfaction of having a cluttered space that still feels like yours. This warmth and charm, however, is slightly undone by fiddly controls and a mild sense of monotony: awkward item dragging and sensitive book navigation. During my playthrough, I often accidentally closed a book instead of turning the page, and only seeing other locations via a map and my own imagination led me to become a little bored by the setting.

Sadly, the game’s narrative doesn’t hold up compared to the puzzles. Tales of curses, cults, and betrayals are written well and, in some cases, somewhat poetically, but they often fade into the background of grinding through puzzles. The plot starts off well, with a creeping sense of fear and oncoming doom conveyed through mysterious illnesses and an unkindness of ravens massing around town. However, in the latter half, it loses momentum and falls into a level of near-tedious predictability, delaying an inevitable conclusion instead of delivering a surprising one. 

It also doesn’t replicate the narrative punch or novelty of its predecessor. The first game’s tighter story and element of surprise gave it an edge that the sequel often lacks. What Strange Antiquities does do is expand the ambition and atmosphere, rewarding the player with real ‘aha’ moments, feeling like Poirot or Dr House when they make a grand revelation and solve the whole case. The balance between cosy and unsettling remains remarkable, creating a world where methodical puzzle-solving feels as magical as it is meticulous.

There are times when your choices have direct consequences, leading you to one of multiple endings, which gives the game some replayability, but the story rarely demands the same attention as the puzzles. During my playthrough, I completely missed the final fate of a character because I was busy figuring out what the customer was about to request.

Ironically, it’s the customer stories that are probably most memorable. For example, one story involves a customer catnapping Jupiter and holding him for ransom. This heinous act lingered in the mind far longer than the grand conspiracy central to the game’s plot. These intimate dilemmas, choices and consequences are what resonate most.

Ultimately, Strange Antiquities is a clever, atmospheric, and richly detailed game that rewards patience and curiosity. Its cosy, macabre charm, layered puzzles, and attention to detail make it a standout for fans of slow-burn, cerebral gaming. The joy lies in losing yourself among books, artefacts, and hidden compartments, in watching the shop gradually reveal its secrets, and in feeling your mastery grow with each solved mystery.

Its best sequences deliver highly satisfying moments, though repetition tempers some of the novelty, and the narrative lacks the spark of its predecessor. While it doesn’t do much to reimagine the genre or deliver the same punch as Strange Horticulture, it remains a charming sequel that will captivate methodical puzzle lovers even as it occasionally frustrates.