Curse of Enchantia

Moby ID: 2409
DOS Specs

Description official descriptions

Little Brad didn't believe in witches until he met one. The evil hag torments the fantasy land of Enchantia, and has just summoned Brad from the Earth as an ingredient to her potion of eternal youth. Brad doesn't like this plan. And who would be better suited to rid Enchantia of the sorceress than a tender teen?

Curse of Enchantia is a graphic adventure game with an icon-based interface. The game contains almost no text: there are no object descriptions, and the purpose of most items is apparent. In the rare occasions of interaction with other characters, symbols in balloons substitute words. If there is text on the screen, it usually consists of either signs or comic phrases.

Starting in a prison cell, Brad will have to free himself and find his way on the ocean floor, through a medieval city, a junkyard and an ice castle. The player commands Brad via an icon bar that pops up if the right mouse button is pressed. The hero can perform a variety of actions, e.g. wearing, inserting, combining or fighting. Apart from steering Brad around, there is no need to click on the screen. Brad has to stand next to the object he wants to interact with, which will then appear as an icon in the command bar. It is impossible to die in the game: in fact, doing potentially deadly things is often rewarded with funny animations.

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

14 People (12 developers, 2 thanks)

Producer
Game Design and Puzzles
IBM Programming
Amiga Programming
Backgrounds
Sprites
Music & Sound
Playtesting
Documentation
Special Thanks To
  • Rob Northen
  • Everyone at Core Design for their ideas and help in producing this game

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 72% (based on 19 ratings)

Players

Average score: 2.4 out of 5 (based on 33 ratings with 5 reviews)

Cute and colorful game for newbies

The Good
It's nice to see that Core Design could make an adventure game or a two, even if it was in the old days (before getting obsessed with Tomb raider). It's amazing to see how much artwork went into the game as our character travels from one diverse land to another. I loved the part in the graveyard. Trapped in a grave and knowing how it feels to be buried alive was a unique touch. Then being chased by the poor vampire who's trying his best to attack Brad, but with drastic results was hilarious. I can't comment on the music in the game, since I only played it with PC speaker. However, the sounds on the speaker were amusing enough. Interestingly, Brad has only two words in his vocabulary "HI" and "HELP" (sounds like a typical American teen, right? heh!) Puzzles were easy enough (with a few exceptions) and they were no horrible mazes as found in most adventure games. Jokes were amusing like a band of slugs playing a tune (probably a parody of the band - Beatles).

The Bad
The game has an icon-driven interface which the player is supposed to use to perform various functions. It was supposed to be intuitive, but sometimes it was quite obscure. Occasionally, I had to click on all icons after clicking on an object to use it. Yikes!! Some puzzles were vague, illogical and even tricky like the icicle puzzle at the entrance of the ice palace or walking on the cloud to get an item or placing the planks in the right order to cross the stream etc. The plot is pretty weak too.

The Bottom Line
The plot goes as such, Brad is magically transported to the land of Enchantia, while playing a game of baseball. He finds himself imprisoned and chained to the wall. So, he must figure out a way to escape (solve the various puzzles here and there) and defeat the evil queen, who's responsible for it all. It's a nice, fairly easy adventure game for beginners or those new to the genre. Kids will especially enjoy it, since the hero of the game, Brad doesn't die no matter what you do. Although, he does pose as a mud monster's mate and a pig. So, if that bothers you, be warned! ;)

DOS · by Roger Wilco (1144) · 2003

The worst Amiga adventure I have ever played.

The Good
The advantages of this game are barely visible and frankly speaking even those that exist are difficult to be found. Maybe the lack of text might be one of them but after a short time spend with this game, I found it a problem due to its myriad of other disadvantages.

The Bad
Let's be honest - this is one of the most annoying and illogical adventure games. First of all - the interface. It is original but it is a curse at the same time. Number of possibilities that you can do with an object does not correspond with logical solution that is really needed. Because of this the player is perplexed why things do not work and he resigns looking for another solution.

The next problem lays in the fact that you don't know what is on the screen until you get close to the object and only then it can be visible from the interface perspective. Bearing in mind that there is no text in this game it is very difficult to figure out what is really needed and what is in the location. Maybe you don't get stuck but certainly get irritated.

Graphics are reduced version from PC and unfortunately it lost a lot - starting with lack of colours and visibility of crucial objects on the screen. Sound is also ridicilous. Some small samples of background sounds and stupid words "Hi" and "Help" spoken by the main character is all you will hear. There is absolutely no music which is an original sin when it comes to adventure games.

Next thing is the existence of arcade sections. Dogdy mouse pointer and blocky scrolling make some pixel perfect sections almost impossible to get through.

The game does not have any introduction (unless you read it in the manual). Basically the player has no clue where he is or what he should do. Puzzles and location seem to be a mixed collection of different styles and tales that does not go together and sometimes are completely out of place and out of time.

The Bottom Line
This is clearly one of the worst adventure games I have ever played on Amiga. Much overhyped by Amiga press back in the day.

Amiga · by mailmanppa (6060) · 2016

Curse of the bad puzzles.

The Good
To keep this short: Curse of Enchantia isn't a good game, but it's not entirely bad either. In fact, it's one of these cool-shell-rotten-core titles that make you drag your best friends to your screen to show them the awesome graphics, but drive you to insanity when you actually play it. Enchantia could have found its place in the annals of gaming history as a light-hearted, humorous fantasy adventure with cool animations, if it wasn't for...

The Bad
...the puzzles. They're the mind-boggling, far-out, illogical kind that keep you banging your head against the keyboard, shouting "How am I supposed to know that I need to whack the robot with a gold-filled sock?" You do not get hints. You never know which icon to use. To push a gun from a shelf with a broom, you need to click on the "fight" symbol. Yeah, sure. Curse of Enchantia is a trial-and-error adventure. Trial-and-error is not entertainment.
Additionally, there's the slightly awkward icon interface, but you can cope with that.

The Bottom Line
Curse of Enchantia features nice graphics, excellent animations and a few really funny scenes. Too bad you'll probably never see them -- the puzzles are ridiculous.

DOS · by -Chris (7762) · 2000

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
The game crashes when I enter the door Nowhere Girl (8680) Dec 18, 2017

Trivia

References

In Ben's costume shop, even the caped crusader (or Batman to you ordinary folks) outfit is on display. Check the screenshot to see it.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by -Chris.

Amiga added by Rantanplan.

Additional contributors: Roger Wilco, Jeanne, Patrick Bregger.

Game added September 16, 2000. Last modified February 22, 2023.