Curate of Curiosities

Our story begins in an alleyway, where you play as a hitman being badgered by his client. Seems pretty interesting right? Nope, he's not the main character. That would actually be interesting.

Good grief, this guy's persistent. So much so, that he pushes us deeper into the alley, where a hooded figure with a gun waits for us.

They have a game they want to play with us. The way to play is to sit down while they tell us their story. It's all about our choices, and how they matter.

As much as I don't want to humor this hooded creep, but if there's anything I know about artsy games like this, it's that they're not above railroading you into experiencing their supposedly deep narratives.

That, and they're pointing a gun at us.

So we agree, and they tell us their story.

I haven't even started playing, and I'm already finding this insufferable.

It's a bit confusing, but you start off playing as some black guy, who probably isn't the person telling the story, and have to talk to two people in this sequence. The second one is the game's actual main character, while the first is their partner. And yes, you can be gay in this game.

Who is he, why is he holding this party, and why does he need to talk to two randos? He's an agent for a publishing company, and is looking for someone he can give a writing contract to. Somehow I feel that this part of the plot is autobiographical on the part of the creators. It doesn't bode well if this game was written by someone disgruntled with being unable to break into more "legitimate" media.

So, on to naming our characters...

Brooks Cracktackle lives! Sort of. I really wanted to represent him and this was the guy who resembled him the most. Something tells me we can't put him in a cowboy hat that's two sizes too small for him, either.

A reminder, this won an award.

A year passes, and...this happens. One question, is paying rent a common theme in RPG Maker games?

There's a good sign that we're doing well, when we not only can't pay our rent, but someone's offering us a temp job at a nightclub!

And we don't even have the excuse of being fired this time, judging from the fact that he has less than $20 in his bank account. Good thing we have a check from our publisher coming tomorrow! But for now, we've been evicted,

This game's set up a bit like the more recent Persona games, in which each day is divided into several segments where doing an activity will advance you to the next segment. Here, we have two options, help our elderly neighbor, or help our friend in the bar to the south of town.

We pick the latter because we need money, and we meet up with Darkeff. Sounds more like a gamertag than a proper name, so Brooks will be right at home!

Do you get it yet? Do you understand the profound, timeless messages that this game has to offer?

He has a band, and you need to set up the instruments for their performance. It's pretty easy since you can check the sign at the right of the stage, but it can be tough to tell the guitar and bass apart.

Wait, doesn't heroin usually come in syringes?

Anyways, you're just giving me drugs? Knowing this game, it'll probably give me the option to sell it, give it to some guy to enable their addiction, or get caught by the police with it and get in trouble with the law.

Also, it looks like all the options in this game are capitalized like this. What for? Is this an attempt to be different?

We're not quite done with the nightclub, though. Now we have the chance to make some more money by holding on to the nightclub guests' coats. Despite getting to see some funny dialoguy, it's boring as hell. If we got into a battle that just used the default RPG Maker combat mechanics, it would be more enjoyable than this.

These guys must be pretty good if they can make lightning storms happen on stage.

Helping out Darkeff took up the whole day, so it's time for us to go to bed. We've been given the boot, there don't seem to be any motels in this town, and even if there were, I doubt we'd be able to afford one at this point, so that leaves us one option, sleep in an alleyway like the hobo we've become.

One more thing: there's a stamina system. If it hits zero, you die.

We get a dream sequence, that's all about how Brooks plans on living high on the hog with his girlfriend off of his writing royalties. Because if there's any career that makes big bucks, its writing. And she definitely won't dip as soon as things start getting tough for him. I mean, if she didn't, we would have seen some trace of her yesterday, right?

Conveniently, I picked a sleeping spot right next to the apartment where we got kicked out of, so I can sneak back into the apartment to get my mail. Not only do we not get our check, since it depended on us having actually written a publishable book, but we get proof that Brooks' girlfriend not only left him, but is getting married to someone else, and has mailed

From here, we have two choices: cut our losses and move on, or gamble all we have left to go all the way across the country to crash the wedding of someone who's probably moved on a long time ago.

Hey, I remember you! You were that guy we played as for about a minute at the intro!

He's in hot water too: since we don't have a book, the publisher isn't seeing any returns. We have a way to salvage this, however; we can keep a diary of the next 30 days, so that at the end of that time, he can offer it to the publisher.

So let's see if I have this right. The events of the game so far are a story that some guy is telling to a hitman and his increasingly frustrated client. But it's also part of someone's journal that's presumably being made into a book. Because such a profound, artistic game can't stick to just one framing device!

At least now we have a reason to skip town. But the only way out is to take a bus which costs even more than the rent did. You know what that means, more begging for errands!

Here's an opportunity, someone's willing to take in the town's stray dogs.

It's a bit weird that dog food is considerably more expensive than everything else at the grocery store, but

And when your're done, you take them to the shady-looking warehouse at the south of town, where you hear something that sounds a lot like a dog being tormented. Yes, I'm sure there's a point to this.

By the way, that's a weird thing for the hooded guy to bring up. I wonder what the hitman's thinking, listening to all this stuff about some evicted loser doing odd jobs around town.

No, in our current state, we need something a lot more stable than trading sandwiches.

Something like this. How convenient, the local news outlet is taking in washed-up failed writers!

The best part of playing indie games is running into thinly-veiled parodies of then-popular e-celebs. And this isn't the first time I've seen a parody of this person in particular.

And speaking of The Escapist, don't look at their most recent videos if you don't want to be reminded of what a sorry state today's Internet is in.

And here's the subject of our story: the movie theater is run by a corporate fat cat who is going to screw over the residents of this town by building a new theater right in the center where people live.

We can either report the story as it's presented to us, or blow this land development scheme wide open. But we really need the cash to leave town, so...

That is one weirdly scaled movie theater. Not to mention really out-of-place right next door to a dump where hobos live.

Speaking of, it looks like much of the east side of town is dominated with them. Quite a few on the streets too.

Our next step is to talk with some guy who got fired from his advertising job. If the next part involves going into a forest filled with poisonous bees, I might have a few questions about it.

We're only about an hour in, this is way too early for this game to serenade us with whatever the writer could remember from their Intro to Philosophy class. Furthermore, I'm distracted by how far apart his eyes are.

Well, I hope whatever decision you made matters. I also hope it doesn't get used by some pretentious hobo to preach at people.

Since we have some time to spare before nightfall, we can take up a job processing soy. Like the coat check minigame, it's also boring.

That's one day down, time to go back to the mattress.

The next morning, Darkeff has some news for us: that one chick who offered us a baggie of heroin the other day OD'd, and the doctor is charging an obscene amount to treat her. That's the American (?) healthcare system for you.

Subtlety!

But while I care as much about Grunge Miku as he does, maybe helping her get better will get us closer to Beaton.

We have two options, smash up his car or sneak into his mansion to blackmail him. I prefer to take the stealthy approach.

Good thing all doctors leave their login passwords easily accessible.

So is that an actual teddy bear or just someone dressed as one? Anyways, as far as blackmail material goes, "embarassing fetish" was probably the second thing I would have thought of.

Because according to Vagabond Dog, no one in their right mind would want medical care from someone into S&M. But who knows, there might be some freaks into that combination.

Whatever it is, it's enough to get him to treat her. It's not enough for us to afford the bus ticket, though.

We have a far more effective way to make money than making soy burgers: butchering living pigs. And since this game makes a big deal about choices and consequences, you'd expect there to be some kind of downside to this, but there are none that I can see. Okay, maybe just one, the pigs are adorable, so you'd probably feel bad about slaughtering them, but it doesn't mean much when the player character shows no signs of being affected by it.

But we don't have to worry about buying the bus ticket after all, because that depressed guy we helped earlier is willing to take us to Beaton!

And that's the game's first chapter. We helped what I assume to be this game's equivalent to Michael Vick, ran into a conflict between landowners and the working class, and exposed a doctor's kink, Anything for love, eh?