Ever since its first press release way back in February, we’ve been excited to learn more about The Curse. Not only did it sound like an intriguing puzzle game – it had the pedigree of a near perfect-scoring developer to back it up! The team at Mojo Bones have partnered with publisher Toy Studio for their latest App Store entry, and if our time with it so far is any indication, the fruits of their game design labor are anything but cursed.
The Curse starts off by fooling you into opening an ancient tome filled with some of the world’s best brain stumpers. Also inside is – or rather was – The Mannequin, a genius antagonist who enjoys watching others squirm under the pressure of a good logic puzzle. A masked villain with a sky-high IQ is perhaps not the best thing to have running loose, so the player’s task is to seal him back in by solving all the book’s puzzles. The Mannequin remains a constant presence, popping up at gameplay milestones to taunt the player and offer gloomy predictions about the odds of victory.
He may be right. The Curse serves up 100 tests of logic and memory, spanning everything you’ve ever seen in the puzzle genre while putting useful twists on tried-and-true puzzle types, and introducing several I’ve honestly never seen until now. There are delightfully well-crafted riddles, magic squares and slider puzzles on the one hand, and bizarre exercises in marble pairing and circuitry on the other. Tying these disparate minigames together are exquisitely voice acted cutscenes and an eclectic, highly atmospheric score that absolutely swept me into the experience — let’s hope Mojo Bones and Toy Studio have plans for a soundtrack release, because something tells me I won’t be the only one asking for it!
The Curse should be hitting the App Store in the near future. Anyone with the slightest interest in logic puzzles is well advised to pay attention to the game’s official website, Facebook page and Twitter account as it nears release.