Curate of Curiosities

This game begins in a very similar manner to its predecessor.

However, right from the start, you'll notice a major difference; there's a status bar at the top of the screen showing how many Bitcoins and fiat dollars you have.

You go to the bitcoin forum like last time, where you find out that you can receive Bitcoin tips by praising Bitcoin.

You do this, but the Bitcoin isn't added to your account right away; you have to go through this long process of creating an account with the tipping service, which takes just long enough that you will end up losing the tip.

When you're done, tips are added to your account automatically, but it doesn't take long before another problem arises.

You come across a floating point error, preventing you from accepting more tips for some reason.

It doesn't take particularly long for that to be resolved, however.

After a while, a new mechanic is introduced; telling sob stories to the forum for generous tips.

Like praising Bitcoin, this operates on a cooldown system, where it takes some time between clicking the button and receiving the tip. A lot of things in this game also make use of this system.

After suckering earning a couple more tips this way, your character gets an idea.

Oops. Well, looks like it's time to find another developer to help us.

You get the autoposter set up, and it gives you a steady flow of Bitcoins...

But we can do better than that.

You know, the first time I played this game, I knew very little about the crypto community, but I still found this hilarious.

While browsing the Bitcoin forum, you find a way to trade Bitcoins for fiat currency. You set up a meeting at the local coffee shop.

Figures. But while we're at it, why don't we pay a visit to the local grocery store?

At this point, you might be thinking that this is just a better-looking rehash of Advanced Bitcoin Simulator, given that you once again fail to exchange your Bitcoins for something tangible. However, after a few more failed exchanges, this happens.

Just in case you forgot about the overlap between Bitcoiners and fraudsters.

Well, this one seems promising.

Shit. Well, remember what I said about common criminals?

The only way to defend yourself, in this case, seems to be to become a criminal yourself, and use your crypto to buy illegal goods from the Darknet.

You reach a storefront called the Spanish Main, which has a selection of weapons available. Unfortunately, two of them fail to reach you.

You do manage to get your hands on the last and cheapest weapon, complete with a complimentary tactical club.

Looks like it's time to take our revenge!

Healing potions may not be real, but we can get the next best thing: illegal drugs.

There are three different drugs that you can buy. There's the Chinese research chemical, which restores health, and weasel dust, which does what you'd expect. The Soviet drug immediately cancels out the effect of weasel dust, so it's not particularly useful at this point.

On top of this, you find out about Bitcoin exchanges, which there are more of here than in ABS.

Of course, most of them end up closing down at some point.

Time to get blitzed.

Who would have guessed that looks like there was a way to exchange Bitcoins for dollars after all: use them to buy drugs, then rob people while under the influence.

Now that we have our fiat currency, we can finally buy some miners.

Though, doing some research wouldn't hurt. Wouldn't want a repeat of last time.

Alright, I get it, game. Making money with crypto is a fools--

Hm? How long has that red square been there?

Looks like we have another scenario to play with, this time from the point of view of a miner manufacturer. (In case you don't remember, Flutterby Labs was the manufacturer that made the miners in the previous game.)

You even have your own separate achievements!

It should be noted that here, the cooldown periods are incredibly long, so naturally, you end up way behind schedule with shipping the miners

But hey, at least you got those suckers' money.

Eventually, you receive the miners. Time to ship, right?

What? After all that work, this is how I'm treated?

No matter. Nothing a little corporate sabotage can't fix. While we're at it, why don't we engage in some misdirection?

Well, that's everything we can do here. Time to go back home.

And would you look at that, we've found a calculator that supports our pie-in-the-sky delusions that's actually useful. Time to order.

It's stuck? What gives?

Oh, looks like the manufacturer needs to actually make new miners.

No harm in testing unproven products, right?

Okay, now that's everything we can do with Flutterby Labs--wait...

More boxes. Let's check the green one first.

Here, we seem to be playing as an executive for a company involved in transfering Bitcoin, which we're pocketing for ourselves.

We have a whole bunch of skills, but none of them seem to work.

Well, that was pointless. Let's move on to the blue screen.

Now, some of you might not be familiar with this, but this is a DOS command prompt.
While I don't have much familiarity with these, I have taken classes with UNIX, which works similarly.

For example, if you type in "dir," you will find a list of files in your current directory.

And in order to execute a program, you type its name.

You end up in what's clearly a parody of The Secret of Monkey Island, the classic LucasArts adventure game.

Like its inspiration, this game has you playing as a man who dreams of being a pirate. Of course, since this is the Bitcoin community, being a pirate means something very different than it did in Monkey Island.

You can walk straight down the pier to the bar, and talk to the people sitting there.

The man in the pirate outfit offers citizenship to an island nation in the Carribean. It turns out that he's a wanted criminal who was put in jail for something involving explosives.

The man on the right is clearly just Satoshi Nakamoto in an eyepatch, even though he keeps denying it, and the man on the left is completely unintelligible.

Aside from a bunch of in-jokes, it seems that the bar is just a red herring. Here's what you're supposed to do here.

You go outside and use the hit command on the moon. (Typical adventure game logic.)

Time to go back to the white screen and load up on drugs. You'll need a lot of them for this next section.

First, deal with the problem in Tokyo. You get a sweet katana out of it.

Next, while on weasel dust, you go to the Dark Web and accept the contract to go to the moon.

Before we do that, we can take on a quest at the local tavern to slay the monsters threatening the village.

You gain access to the dungeon, where you fight through waves of goblins, orcs, and trolls. Upon finishing the third level, you get a key with a dog on it. (Possible reference to Dogecoin?)

Now it's time to go to the moon.

This section takes the form of a first person dungeon crawler, similar to games such as Wizardry.

This is why we picked up the key earlier; you need it to unlock the door in the first room.

While exploring the moon dungeon, you will be attacked by bitcoiners and moonzombies, come to steal your precious crypto. They go down pretty easily though.

What's more, if you bought FBL miners, you can use them in battle for an AoE attack.

Towards the end of the second floor, you are told that you can eat Bitcoin to get more health. I'm not entirely sure how that would work.

After reaching the end of the second floor, you are suddenly attacked by 12 bitcoiners.

They instantly die to a single miner.

On the third floor, you can recruit a guy in a maid outfit and a self-proclaimed financial expert, because reasons.

You also fight two moon trolls. They blow up real good.

Finally, you reach the final boss' lair. What sort of challenge awaits our party?

And how will our team of Bitcoin-loving degenerates be able to overcome it?

...Of course. It's not even in the dungeon. It's in our bathroom.

Of all the parts of this game, the moon dungeon and the tavern dungeon are the ones that raise the most questions. Are the enemies we fight there real or not? They have to be, if they drop both bitcoin and fiat currency.

Well, before we take on the endboss, why don't we clear up some unfinished business?

The fourth level of the dungeon pits you against two trolls and a wyvern. Easy with boosted health and armor from the moon.

The fifth level however, requires you to buy 100 Bitcoin from a bearwhale. Unfortunately, this requires far more fiat currency than we already have.

Looks like there's no choice but to take on the endboss.

Notice that you can access it even while sober.

Here goes nothing.

The chairman is a cat? Why?

So this is the end of the game: you get lectured by something that's not a cat while passed out, and possibly dying, from a drug overdose in your bathroom.

And that was Bitcoin Mining Profit Calculator: Gaiden.