Curate of Curiosities

Here is the intro to the game, presented verbatim:

He was abandoned when he was 4 years old.
He has no memory of his parents, and he is the type to start many fights.
He has A fear of losing people around him.
Because he is so violent at times...
But it is understandable if you see it through his eyes.

If the game's description didn't already tip you off, the creator of this game doesn't have the best grasp of grammar, formatting, or proper sentence flow.

So he changed himself to be better and less violent toward others.

The two of them met and was instantly in love with one another.

Everything seemed well for the life of this family.
Until a fatal accident struck them apart.
Matt has not lived it down to this day.

I wouldn't want to remember it either, if it was this awkwardly written.

Matt suddenly hears a knock on his door, and decides to go get a weapon.

You're given the choice between a poorly-drawn fist, a knife without a handle, and a gun.

This is what happens when your foreground objects are colored the same as the background.

Naturally, I pick the gun. Better safe than sorry.

Look at the staircase on the right. You'd think it would lead upstairs, but when you go through it...

You end up right next to another staircase going up. Add poor graphic design to the list of this game's sins.

We go outside, and are met with a masked man pointing a gun at us. It's a good thing, then, that we also picked up a gun.

Some bald guy walks in and offers to help us.

Sure, another meat shield could be helpful.

Here's our first battle. Combat in this game is exactly like Lisa's (which in turn, was a barely modified version of the default RPG Maker combat engine).

While Matt doesn't have any usable skills yet, but his new partner has one. It does what the text in the screenshot above says, which somehow heals for a small amount.

After defeating this thug, we go back home.

It looks like Matt's thug problems have chased him all the way from wherever he lived before. This makes him concerned for his son's safety.

He decides to take Jimmy to see his uncle Gilbert, believing that he will be better able to protect the boy.

The next morning, Matt takes Jimmy with him, and goes outside.

Before we head outside, we're warned of riots spreading throughout Detroit and it's surrounding areas.

Try to go to the left, and you're met with this blatantly fourth-wall breaking message.

Go to the right, on the other hand, and you will find a very conspicuous cave entrance next to a broken bridge.

There's nothing of interest inside, just another crudely-drawn thug to fight. At least this one takes slightly longer to kill than the last one.

After exiting the cave, we are introduced to this game's one and only unique mechanic: cooking healing items.

We can cook either chicken or fish, but so far we don't have the materials for either.

Not far from here is a rather crudely-drawn town. As Matt helpfully informs us, we're not in Detroit just yet.

Like any RPG town worth its salt, this place provides a number of services.

The first building you can enter is a bar, where you can buy healing items.

This next building looks prettiy inviting.

Inside, you see a man subjected to some poorly drawn torture.

The person overseeing this notices Matt and invites him to play the knife game.

Notice that you have no real choice in the matter. If you say no, the game softlocks.

Real quality game design here.

The object of the knife game is to move the knife-shaped cursor over the cracks in the table, then press the action button to stab. You do this three times, with the cursor moving faster each time.

And just so you know, you don't seem to get anything from it.

No, I don't think I want to play your "kinfe game" again.

The next building is a "dispencery" that looks like it was drawn in 10 seconds using MS Paint. Here you can buy weed, which serves as an effective healing item. You need a medical card to do so, and we can't afford one at the moment.

Next is a hotel where you can climb up the wall.

Finally there's a restaurant. There's a poorly drawn chef selling items that you can cook.

At the far right side of town, you can find a fisherman who talks to you for a while, then gives you a fishing rod. He tells you that you can only fish in certain spots.

Can you find the fishing spot in this screenshot?

No?

Well, it just so happens to be right under where Matt is standing. The only way you can tell is the presence of a few white pixels that blend into the background tiles.

I didn't even notice anything unusual here at first. I had to look through the game's source code to find out that you could fish here!

Anyways, you give a fish to the fisherman in exchange for a key that let's you enter the building next to him.

Inside, you meet this thing.

It asks you to find its friends, but that's not important right now. We just take the elevator to the second floor.

We don't find any friends, but we do meet this samurai-looking guy who claims to be our repressed thoughts, in a sequence that I believe is only here because Lisa did something similar.

It even rips off that game's habit of having surreal, disturbing visuals flash on screen, even though the reason this happened in Lisa to begin with was to show the effects of the main character's drug addiction. So far, Matt hasn't been characterized well enough to be able to explain why he would suffer anything similar.

We then abruptly transition to a scene where Matt attempts to abandon his baby, then hang himself. Again, the game is only doing this because Lisa did something like this.

After this is over, the samurai leaves behind a mask that the game tells us will let us enter the gang's hideout.

On the way back, some guy with a face like the Pringles mascot tries to block our path, but ends up falling flat on his face.

Trying to walk past him results in a pretty easy fight.

However, if you try to walk away from him, he will view it as you sparing his life, and join you.

The gang's hideout is in the cave near the town entrance.

To get in, you'll need to be wearing the mask while talking to the thug at the entrance.

You find a jetski, being guarded by a thug with orange skin and a...what's he got in his hand? A Molotov?

Whatever he has, it's no match for Matt's gun.

(This thug does fight us anyway, despite the dialogue indicating otherwise.)

If you go back to the far east side of town, the fisherman will be gone, and there will be a tile that looks like the fishing spot in his place. This is where you're supposed to use the jetski.

You can barely see it, but Matt has a slight smirk while riding the jetski.

To the east of town is an island with a save point.

Further to the east is a cruise ship. That's our next destination.