Curse of Enchantia Download (1992 Adventure Game)

Before you download this game, I should mention that this is not your average adventure. It is difficult to determine if this game is a platform with adventure elements, or an adventure with platform elements... whatever it is, it doesn't succeed in making either part much fun to play. It is best to describe this game as the 'Dizzy' games (which are featured under the arcade section of the site) with an attempt at Pratchett humor.

The storyline is simple: You are a boy who gets zapped into the fantasy land of enchantia to serve as an ingredient in the potion of some wicked witch. Very Tolstoy, I know. You start off hanging upside down in a medieval-looking cell with no means of escape. What do you do? You cry for help, of course. A guard comes in, tells you to shut up, and walks back out right after dropping a key just within your reach. That is where your adventure begins through the world of Enchantia. From the bottom of the ocean, to caverns, to the edge of the world and an ice palace, you will travel and meet all kinds of strange monsters. That is, if you make it through the ridiculous puzzles!

First off: you can't die. This kind of makes the platform part a useless way of adding silly death-animations... however you don't die. These animations are quite funny, probably the funniest part in the entire game since there is no dialogue. What's that? Yes, you read correct, no dialogues in this adventure game. All conversations are made using text balloons (think Sims... only without their silly language). How does this blasphemous contraption work, you ask me? Well I'll give you an example: While you are at the bottom of the ocean, wearing a fishbowl so you can breathe (?!), you are in need of a new supply of air for your fishbowl. Lucky for you a fish nearby has set up a store which gives a free oxygen tank to any silly human that happens to fall out of the sky. In return you must give this enterprising fish one worm.

This entire conversation is summed up in one speech bubble portraying an oxygen tank icon = a worm icon. After this the fish floats away leaving the scene empty again. The rest of the time you spend your time jumping over a clam just in time, and poking a shark with a cattle prodding stick at just the right time.

This is all very silly and has a small amount of humor in it... but any laughs that could have been created by these situations are sucked away by the abysmal control system. First off: you have to be facing the object you wish to interact with, if not the computer will act as if the object is not there. Often you won't even notice that you can interact with an object (for example a wall) so you end up walking around a room pressing the 'look' button. When you do figure out what two objects go together you'll have a hard time explaining to the computer exactly what you want to do. Its all icon based, but instead of just one general "use" button, pressing the use button brings up an entire list of new buttons ranging from 'combine' to 'throw'.

Just when you think the logical hazards of text-adventures have been worked away by the 'new' icon-based interface "curse of enchantia" pops up and taunts your brain into trying all sorts of combinations just so the computer understands you want to throw the coin into the well. This becomes even more frustrating when you find out your commands didn't work because you weren't facing the object you wished to interact with at EXACTLY the right angle. So the puzzles, which are already totally illogical, become even more difficult due to these poor (dare I say it, abysmal) controls.

But sir, you ask me, is there nothing good about this game? The game is not a bad game. Let me put it like that. It could have been an excellent game mixing adventure and arcade elements in a witty universe. The graphics are nice and colorful and the animations are worth a chuckle. However all this becomes very, very tedious to play due to terrible controls and an annoying repetitive soundtrack.

I encourage you to give this game a try, perhaps you will find the controls easier than I did, in which case you'll probably have a fun time playing it.

Curse of Enchantia is a graphic adventure game with an icon-based interface. Lil' 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? Well? A heavily armed mercenary? Yeah, good point, but there's none available, I'm sorry. Brad'll have to do. Starting in a prison cell, you help Brad free himself and find his way on the ocean floor, through a medieval city, a junk yard and an ice castle. You command Brad via an icon bar that pops up if you press the right mouse button. Our hero can perform plenty of actions, e.g. wearing, inserting, combining or fighting. Apart from steering Brad around, you do not need to click on the screen. Brad has to stand next to the object he wants fiddle with, which will then appear as an icon in the command bar. Curse of Enchantia features an interesting design element: The game manages to do almost without written messages. There are no object descriptions - 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's either signs or comic phrases - splash! You cannot die in Curse of Enchantia; in fact, doing potentially deadly things is often rewarded with funny animations.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

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Discworld, Discworld 2: Mortality Bytes, Darkseed, Discworld Noir, Dark Eye, The, Daughter of Serpents (a.k.a. The Scroll), Cruise for a Corpse, Darkseed 2