As with most Blue Tea games, Cursery: The Crooked Man and the Crooked Cat was a marvel to behold, with rich, lush graphics adorning detailed scenes and color palettes stolen from the secret heart of a fairy garden.
Everything was aglow with deeply shadowed nooks and brightly lit crannies, visual wonders tugging insistently at your sleeve and demanding your utmost attention.
It's always with a little sigh of contentment that I settle down for a Blue Tea adventure, knowing that I can expect that great care went into every inch of making this game. And Cursery: The Crooked Man and the Crooked Cat did not break the mold of that expectation.
As with most of their games, Cursery leans lightly on fairy tales to build the plot, or, as in this case, an old Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme. For those of you unfamiliar with the rhyme, here's how it goes:
There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.
The Crooked Man is our villain here, him and his gorgeous, if cantankerous, black Crooked Cat. The scene develops as you and your sister, Renee, trundle down an old worn path in your horse drawn wagon. Darkness is settling in as Renee turns to you and, in a quite vivid and well put together animated cut scene, asks if you've heard the stories that haunt the very path you are on. Her child-like voice weaves together a tale of how young girls around her age disappear from this path and are never heard from again.
As soon as she finishes her story, you are assaulted by a large black cat spitting vitriol, as it launches itself at you and knocks you to the ground. A man, wearing what appears to be a lavender silk suit and a matching embroidered top hat that would make the mad hatter go green with envy, appears out of the darkness, his eyes glowing an ominous scarlet. He steals away into the night with your sister thrown over his shoulder, leaving you helpless on the cold, hard ground.
And here's where your adventure begins as you dust yourself off and prepare to launch yourself head first into the darkened wood in pursuit of your sister and the sinister-looking man who stole her away.
As you begin gameplay, your senses are assaulted by a wave of music that carries with it an old-world feel that simply sweeps you away in its sweet melody. The instruments are varied, from the soft sorrowful sighs of the violins to the plucky trill of an organ, ranging from haunting to jaunty. I always take a moment to listen to the music that accompanies Blue Tea games, because they usually do a superb job in crafting the perfect score. And the music for Cursery: The Crooked Man and The Crooked Cat was no exception.
The same goes for the sounds drifting in and out from the backgrounds. They were full and heavy, brimming with all sorts of noises from hooting owls, to wolves howling in the distance, to the gentle clang of chimes tapping together from somewhere deep in the wood. It comes together to create a truly immersive gaming experience.
As with the famed Dark Parables games, Cursery: The Crooked Man and The Crooked Cat featured FROGS instead of your traditional HOGs. That is, fragmented object games. I always enjoy these, simply because the scenes are unusually so detailed and organic, it's exciting to piece together an ornate object from the scattered bits lying about.
There's also 20 cursed morphing objects for you to find throughout the game, so be watchful for their shifting transformations as you play along.
Cursery: The Crooked Man and The Crooked Cat is heavy on the mini-games, which normally I don't mind, because Blue Tea tends to feature unique puzzles that are story driven. I have to admit, the puzzles in this game didn't wow me. I thought there were far too many for my taste, and there weren't many that drew me in. In fact, I made ample use of that skip button because I couldn't be bothered to click away in hopes I'd find the right pattern to solve the twisting gears or flipping patterns.
For one brief, tantalizing moment, I thought my biggest pet peeve in these games had been addressed... but then I plodded through the thick brush and heard the click-clack of those ever-present stiletto hooker heels I surely must be wearing to make such a racket on the dirt path of the forest... Really? Why must you ruin a perfectly exceptional game with the click-clack of high heels? Even if we're wearing heels, we certainly wouldn't make that noise in the woods!! Sigh...
Anyhow, despite its one sound malfunction and the overabundance of underwhelming mini-games, Cursery: The Crooked Man and The Crooked Cat was another visual masterpiece and a compelling tale from one of my favorite developers, and certainly worthy of being added to the collection.