Curate of Curiosities

Previously, we met Miriam Goodwin, assistant to Daybreak's mayor and our second party member. While she initally did not have an Evocation bonded to her, and thus, had no special abilities, but that changed when we met Farudon, one of the Outer Evocations, who himself had been infected at the hands of one of the Inner Evocations responsible for Daybreak being cut off from the rest of reality.

Her skills tend to focus on pure damage, with some added status effects, as opposed to Alicia's having healing and debuff skills on top of a damaging attack.

Unlike other RPGs' usage of fire, ice, and other natural elements as attributes, this game's elements relate to mental states like terror and rage, which I suppose makes sense when you're dealing with psychic-powered abilities. For now, this isn't something that we have to worry about.

The fact that Jeff the Killer has somehow made his way to this town, on the other hand, is.

Also, remember the Indigestion miniboss from 30 minutes ago? It's a random encounter here.

There is a boss warning here, but I couldn't screen shot it in time.

And here's the boss. The gimmick here is that it regenerates health while inside its barrier, something that you would expect to be countered by, say, a status effect that does steady damage over time. Now, what was Farudon's main thing again?

In other words, expect more throwaway bosses like this going forward.

Up ahead is Fulgham Grove, where Dottie lives. It's cordonned off for the sole purpose of padding the game's length by another 10 minutes or so.

As a general rule, don't trust anything that's red and has an eye motif.

It's like a regular Vedim Space area, but bigger. It's set up a lot like the area Alicia went through in the first hour. The only thing of note here is the encounters.

Now, I knew from the start that this game would have a Lovecraftian theme, but I didn't think it would go as far as to straight-up use creatures from the mythos.

In the same area, you can fight creatures that bear a more-than-coincidential resemblance to the penanggalan.

Through this lengthy passage through the eldritch parallel dimension, we have managed to traverse a distance of around 20 feet.

And just to round things off, after the creepypasta characters, Lovecraft cribs, and Southeast Asian folklore monsters, we encounter a youkai as well.

For whatever reason, as soon as you enter this neighborhood, you are attacked by a robot.

We make it to Dottie's house, but Dottie's nowhere to be seen. Alicia's first impression is that her niece didn't make it after all.

Of course, she didn't see the opening cutscene. If she did, she would have known that Dottie wasn't even at home when all this started.

While Alicia is busy mourning the possible loss of her niece, Sadie, that one survivor from earlier, shows up.

She then introduces us to a group of other survivors, led by a man named Gregg. It's nice to see that Daybreak isn't completely abandoned, I guess.

Gregg here takes us to his bunker, where we can ride out this disaster along with the other survivors. Unlike them, we actually have something to do her, so we leave first chance we get.

Meet Clayton. This cultist-looking guy is our one-off throwaway villain of the day. I wouldn't expect him to do too much while he's around.

As you can plainly see, while our party is more than capable of taking on the horrors that have taken over the town, most of its inhabitants weren't so lucky. There are more than a dozen confirmed dead (which, by RPG standards, is a lot) in this neighborhood alone! No wonder they built a bunker!

Though I suppose that most of the victims didn't have the support of the clergy. Supernatural problems requires supernatural solutions, after all.

In the cave behind this house is our treasure: ammunition blessed by Christ himself.

Oh, and also a keycard needed to progress.

As I mentioned back on the main page, Housekeeping (real name Kasey Ozymy) contributed to this game's soundtrack. Did everyone who worked on this game get graffiti dedicated to them?

I remember that the first time I played this game, I didn't have enough fortune tickets to give to this man. I guess I was much more thorough this time around.

Zener cards? Say what you will, but this game is more committed to the psychic theme than I expected.

It unlocks a door which leads to this unassuming-looking guy, who is actually one of the Evocations. But rather than offer your party power or antagonize you, he's just here to give us a lore dump.

Here's the rundown: all of the Evocations were born from Xelanyel, the mother. The Inner Evocations are named as such because they lived close to her, and could hear her song. Conversely, the Outer Evocations were unable to her the song.

Another boss warning, but all the "powerful" enemies we've been warned about have been anything but.

Clayton sics another Delegate boss on us. It's a bit hardier than the first guy, but still nothing worth remarking on.

We go on ahead, and find ourselves suddenly teleported to the inside of a UFO, complete with probing table.

The NPCs here, in a unique twist, speak partially in English and partially in the Eldritch language we've seen earlier. I guess now we know what kind of cult Clayton's running.

Bootleg Xenomorphs? Sure, why not? If it fits the alien theme, then so be it.

Every self-respecting indie RPG dungeon needs a gimmick. For this one, you press colored buttons in order to open the doors leading to different parts of the dungeon.

We're not in the sky at all. In fact, we're not even in a UFO, we're just in the Vedim Space remodeled to look like one.

While here, I'm sure to pick up this skill for Alicia, as it's the only dedicated healing skill we'll have for a while, and even then, it has a cooldown.

A Xenomorph, a youkai, and a UFO with the Starman insignia. Is there no end to this game's gratuitous references?

At the end of the dungeon, you encounter Clayton, of course. And what's a throwaway villain encounter without a minor plot twist? All of the alien NPCs we found in this dungeon were once humans, transformed by the power of Ailtur, the Evocation bonded to him. Yep, this is the work of an enemy evocation. One that's in league with that Phritotch mentioned earlier, no less.

He could be considered the first "real" boss fight--while all the previous bosses amounted to just random goons, this guy is a human empowered by an Evocation, similar to our party members. Though even with these powers, he's nothing special at first.

After taking enough damage, Ailtur decides to take full control of Clayton. Quite unlike the symbiotic relationship between our party members and their Evocations, isn't it? He's accompanied by two robots, which both fall quickly to Miriam's area of effect attacks. Without them, he's surprisingly feeble, even if he didn't waste most of his turns panicking. Sure, Ailtur decides to get serious when his host is close to death, but by that time, it's too little, too late.

But such is the nature of these creatures; they offer humans the chance to realize their dreams, only to use them as flesh puppets and throw them away whan they're no longer useful.

Unfortunately, Clayton was a load-bearing vessel for an eldritch god, so now that he's dead and Ailtur has ran off, this section of Vedim Space is about to collapse in on itself.