A sort of shopkeeper-detective game hybrid, Strange Horticulture found an audience of fans who liked the idea of collecting and identifying unusual plants and helping the mysterious locals with their botanical needs. Strange Antiquities, out later this week, will task you with curating and selling cursed and powerful objects instead.
This "dark and cozy" adventure game combines narrative and puzzles in a thematic way: you're new to this whole antiques business, and this is far from a normal shop. You'll need to hunt down and identify all manner of cryptic and creepy "artefacts" in order to satisfy customers. Hopefully there are no unintended consequences to these purchases...
Flipping through dusty old tomes and alchemical texts, breaking out the magnifying glass and even venturing out into the town will be required to gain expertise in hawking these magical items. Your shop has a distinct escape-room-esque vibe about it: the trailer shows off all sorts of little compartments, curios and trinkets you'll gain access to as you play.
The preceding game, Strange Horticulture, involved many of the same concepts in a different retail department: a loose mystery story with eerie, occult themes, strung together as various characters and townspeople patronized your plant store specializing in rare and little-known species with useful qualities. This looks like a pretty faithful sequel, so checking out the first entry is likely to give you a good idea of what to expect from the new one.
Strange Antiquities releases this Wednesday, September 17th. There's a demo available on Steam now.
Disclaimer: Thinky Games is part of the Carina Initiatives and may have professional relationships with individuals and businesses related to the subject of this article. Please see our Editorial Policy for details.
