Curate of Curiosities

I played this game on release, and since then, it has recieved several updates that change the way a number of mechanics work, among them the save system. While on release, you could save practically anywhere, in the current version, you can only save in the main character's room. I guess the game just wasn't aggravating enough for the dev's tastes.

Anyways, the game begins with our heroine suddenly getting fired from her job.

And as if losing her livelihood wasn't bad enough, her boss thinks that telling a horrible pun will make her feel better about it.

And so the game begins. Yes, this is what the whole game looks like.

The very first thing you should do is have Ramona pick up the knife on the table. Given her situation, you never know when a kitchen knife could be useful.

Just when we're about to try to make sense of what's happened, in pops her landlord. And I mean, he literally teleports behind us to remind her that even though we've just been fired, we still have to pay our rent.

There are quite a few messages about society that this game seeks to impart upon you, the player. One of those is that landlords are evil, without exception.

Easy money, you say? In adventuring? You mean like crawling through dungeons and slaying monsters and all that? There is definitely some catch to this, and he knows it.

Right outside the apartment, as though in response to the landlord's suggestion, we meet an adventurer who directs us to a local bar, but if his dialogue is any indication, becoming an adventurer won't be much of an improvement over her current situation.

Next to him is a man who asks us to gather raccoon souls from the raccoons who live in the dumpster.

The raccoons only drop $1 apiece, so obviously, we won't be earning enough to pay rent anytime soon.

After successfully murdering every raccoon in the dumpster, we go back to the quest giver. Sadly, we could only get one soul, so no weapon for us.

But there wasn't even any weapon to earn in the first place; he just talked Ramona into doing his job for him!

The longer we take to pay the rent, the higher her rent gets, so its best for us to find a way that's more effective than stabbing small mammals in trash bins.

Right in the middle of the parking lot is a shopkeep who provides equipment for the adventurers who are employed here.

But since we're not an adventurer yet, there's not much they can do for us right now.

Yes, that is a slime. We'll get to why that is later. What isn't explained, however, is why he's named for a central Asian country. For now, he's the one we go to so we can become an adventurer.

However, she needs a license in order to actually start putting her life on the line adventuring, and for that, he directs us to a shrine in the middle of the woods and meet up with the sage there.

You take the bus to the forest, and follow the rather short path to the shrine, getting harrassed by bees on the way. Bees that can poison you, and we're not even 10 minutes into the game. Yes, I get it, shrines in the woods, standard RPG stuff, but why do I have the feeling that that slime guy was just trying to weed us out to make room for more fit adventurers?

This is the sage. I'd make a joke about her obviously being a furry, but it seems the game beat me to the punch. Did we make a mistake coming here?

Bah, we've almost got our license, so no use worrying about any subcultures she may or may not be part of. All we have to do is complete her trials.

The first trial is an endless looping hallway. While you're supposed to immediately figure out what's happening and go back the way you came, I decided to go through it for two or three minutes, just to humor her.

The second trial is self-explanatory. Tell the real sage apart from the illusions.

It's the one who hits harder, which is always the second one from the right. Not very hard to figure out. And there isn't even any penalty that I can see for taking out the copies. So much for the weeding out unfit adventurers theory.

And with that, Ramona is finally (after less than a day) employed again! Don't expect things to get any easier for her though. This game's mission statement is stated in the title, after all.