Review: Strange Antiquities (Switch) – A Wicked Good Occult Puzzler & Sequel
By In 2022’s Strange Horticulture, you ran a little shop of horrors, dealing plants with an occult edge to the inhabitants of a mysterious dark town. Now, Bad Viking and Iceberg Interactive’s follow-up, Strange Antiquities, takes us back to Undermere. Again, something strange is afoot. Again, you hear residents’ problems and offer up solutions from your range. Again, there’s a cat you can pat (!) who gets startled by the shop bell.
But this time, instead of being plant-based, the solutions are antique-based. If you enjoyed the first instalment for its puzzles and sinister aura, be sure to reach for this treasure, because it’s just as fun. (Either way, the first game is worth playing.)
In Strange Antiquities, you’re the apprentice of a thaumaturge (a sort of magic miracle-worker) who has left you to run his shop while he investigates peculiar goings-on. He gives you a map of Undermere and a book called ‘Strange Artefacts: A guide to occult objects’, the latter your bible for working out which among the oddities at your disposal will aid various customers’ misfortunes. And there are shelves on shelves of these otherworldly items: a stag carved of wood, a pendant with a moving eye, a disfigured hand. You know, your usual macabre bric-a-brac.
Much of the play is listening to customers’ requests for mystical antiques. They might be caring for an ailing loved one, or setting out on a journey, or seeking a gift. They might have a particular object in mind, or they’ll just describe the situation and you need to suggest something. You deduce the required trinket by matching the description in your book with the shop’s wares. Clues can be a bit obscure but there are clever hints to help. And when you match each antique successfully, you get more clues, more puzzles. I was so consumed with this gameplay loop that I missed my (IRL) bedtime in my first play session.
Present the wrong antique, however, and you’ll increase a type of anti-health bar. When the meter fills up, you’ll feel ‘a deep fear has taken root’. This takes you to a dice roll minigame where you need to match symbols on dice to those on a board to diminish the fear. It’s quite fun in itself and its spiritual symbols of cats, snakes, suns, moons, etc., feel right at home with the unearthly undercurrent.
But the plot thickens: a customer comes in with a problem and your solution can be one of two items – here the game warns you that your choice will determine the fate of the story. These ethical quandaries arise a few times throughout, and while I won’t spoil anything, I will say I delighted in seeing the consequences of my chosen antiquity.
Around this time the game also opens up new areas and new ways of thinking: you need to procure new items for the store. Dialogue, letters, cards, and other paraphernalia pile on your desk, each hinting at a locale on your map where you can unearth these antiques. This ‘exploration’ doesn’t involve much visual change of scene (the store remains static), but the story unfolds through thrilling Arthur Conan Doyle-style prose.
In that way, the worldbuilding often functions like a visual novel: your imagination is left to fill in the blanks. These moments were when I noticed how masterful the storytelling is, always building intrigue and pulling you through, even when not much is happening on screen. It’s impressive that such a rich world fits into such a tiny space.
As you progress, the puzzle ‘pieces’ become more scattered. I found myself cross-referencing various books and tools, and jumping in and out of item inspection. I used my own notes and screenshots to document clues, but it would’ve been nice if findings were logged somewhere in-game.
Having said that, I was never stuck. Whenever I’d feel lost on one puzzle, I’d put it aside and work on another. Lo and behold, the puzzles interlinked and I was able to solve both. This means things flow quite smoothly – making the game all the more addictive.
Like its predecessor, Strange Antiquities is PC-first. Its point-and-click function longs for a mouse like Tess Sherwood longs for a Horned Shackle, because moving the cursor with the joystick is a bit of a drag. Bad Viking has added options for cursor speed to address this, though I still found the joystick a little laggy. You’d think, then, the game would be an ideal candidate for Switch 2’s mouse feature, but at this stage it’s not supported. So: good ol’ handheld is your friend here – an appropriately cosy way to play.
Along with cursor speed, there’s a good range of settings, such as arachnophobia mode and easy-to-read fonts (unfortunately font size is static, but your magnifying glass can embiggen it). Early Strange Horticulture fans will be excited to enable autolabelling – a blessing for those who find typing on the Switch cursed.
Every artefact, map, and character has been designed with intricate attention to detail – no easy feat when there are so many. The style is dark enough to maintain its arcane leanings, yet cartoonish enough that you know it won’t haunt you at night. It strikes the balance of cosy-spooky (or, as my partner says, ‘kooky’). Likewise, the slow tempo and minor-key piano music is a little eerie without being disturbing in a true horror sense; no jumpscares here.
Conclusion
In Strange Antiquities, Bad Viking expands the rich world of Strange Horticulture – this time in an antique shop specialising in the occult. The puzzles are cryptic but rarely skull-cracking, forming an addictive gameplay loop: who knew hunting down magic antiques to solve customers’ conundrums could be so satisfying?
The whole thing is cloaked in a gripping mystery narrative, which you can influence with the right (or wrong) occult oddity. And with the possibility of multiple endings, replay value is high – at least for those of you who want to see just how much strangeness is in store.