Running an occult antique store comes with dark complications in Strange Antiquities

Megan Bidmead, 14 July 2025

Strange Horticulture introduced us to a strange, Lovecraftian, macabre world, one you never got to see for yourself, but rather witness through other people. We're back in this world for Strange Antiquities, but this time, we're dealing with objects rather than plants.

Strange Antiquities has used the foundation of Strange Horticulture. You play as the apprentice and custodian at an antiques store, and must deal with an array of bizarre and sometimes dangerous objects. The local townspeople come to you each day with requests for specific objects for particular functions: for protection, or serenity, or bravery. Sometimes, a customer will ask for an object by name. It is your job to correctly identify the item and hand it over. Getting it right will reward you with new clues or even new antiques; getting it wrong will give you a sense of terrible doom. Too much existential fear means game over, and you'll need to complete a short dice game to start the last puzzle again.

This follow-up game features plenty of new gameplay elements, details, and tools. In Horticulture, you can consult your guidebook and look for clues. A customer might ask for a plant to calm their nerves, and you can flick through the book entries to find what they're looking for. Or they might ask for a specific species of plant, and you can look it up, see that the plant is yellow, and then rifle through your yellow plants until you find the right one based on the description in the book.

In Antiquities, the experience is much more detailed. You can inspect an object's materials, colors, sense of touch, scent, sound, and 'inner perception', which is the vibe an object gives you when you hold/approach it. It's a step up in terms of difficulty, just because there's so much detail to get right. You'll also have symbols to decode, and the properties of gemstones to investigate. There might be multiple steps to identify each object, and sometimes the clues are quite small. For example, you might need to look at what a creature in the book is wearing, or at a specific pattern that might be smaller on the actual object you're trying to identify. It does feel like each item takes a bit longer to find than the plants in the first game, which isn't a bad thing - it certainly stretched my brain in a satisfying way.

Once you're done, you get the joy of labeling the object for future use. The labeling and organizing of plants was one of my favourite things in Strange Horticulture, and it's just as fun to do the same in Strange Antiquities. In fact, you can now customize your labels even more, which makes my heart happy. There's something calming about labelling and organising objects before closing the shop at the end of the day, ready for more mysterious encounters in the morning. There are also interesting things to explore in the shop itself, which I'm looking forward to digging into in the full game.

You will have the chance to explore the town of Undermere using the map. Customers will give you hints on where to go, and exploring will give you new items or entries for your book. If you get stuck, there's a chance that the next thing you need is hiding somewhere in this strange and unnerving town, and you just need to get searching.

There are many characters to get to know, and a story seems to be developing involving ravens and 'a sickness' that the shop owner has left to take care of. In Strange Horticulture, a troubling story begins to unfold, with small snippets being revealed at the end of each day, and in the interactions you have with your customers. From what I've seen of Strange Antiquities, you will be drawn into the drama yourself, and your role in offering unusual totems, boxes, and pendants to give supernatural support will be integral. While the idea of owning a little shop selling mystical trinkets, the reality in Antiquities seems to be a bit more complicated than you might expect. I'm excited to get stuck into the full game to find out what happens.

Oh, and one more thing: the cat is back! Jupiter keeps you company every day in the shop, and you can give them a little snuggle from time to time, which is an obvious bonus. I look forward to petting them at least thirteen times…