Curses! hints (321 points)

It’s six months since my nephew and I last wrote asking for some hints on the amazing Curses! game. We are definitely deep into the midgame and have gotten stuck. It’s hard to know if we can’t solve a puzzle because we don’t have the right item or if we just didn’t figure out what to do.

As before, we’re looking for a gentle hint forward.

We have some objects: glowing golden orb, eight rods (Bronze, Stalking, Returning, Fire, Ice, Husbandry, Luck, Infinity), purple sash, & many other things. .

We can do some things but don’t know how they help: turn the cloak inside out, enter a mirror, roll huth consistently on a die, lean the timber spar against the folly, anoint ourselves with oil, say Shantih, ring bells in the church, kill the kraken, and use the Rod of Ice or Luck.

Some things we’d like to be able to do but can’t: bring the headless statue to life with Fire; use the spade for anything; open the Moon circle in the church; in Alexandria: get the iron key, put a coin in a mouth, open the Sosostris door, use the 3 6 1 pattern, use the astronomical mount; in the Maiden card: buy a dessert, not get killed by Zeus’ lightning bolt, sacrifice something useful in a cave, produce music to bring down the falcon.

Even a hint as to which puzzles we should be able to solve next would be helpful!

We were curious about something that we ended up trying randomly but didn’t know how we were clued for it. In particular, the device that helps us name the rods. We read the hieroglyphs but don’t know how they relate to putting the rods into that device. Are the rods “god things”? This was the only puzzle that wasn’t ultimately satisfying but perhaps we missed a hint somewhere.

Thanks for your time!

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It was some time ago a played it so I’m not certain of everything you ask and what you’ve done an not done, but one puzzle you can solve is the Zeus ligthning bolt and this will make it possible to solve the Dessert, Cave and Andromeda puzzles.

(Hints from least to most spoilery)

  1. You just need som luck to safely escape Zeus lightning bolts..
  2. You’ll need the luck rod.

  3. Strike it and point it at yourself.

Thank you! It’s good to know that if we can get past this one puzzle that will help with a few others.

We have tried that particular solution but it didn’t help. Maybe we are using the wrong verb somehow?

strike luck
The rod charges with etherial power, drawn up from the earth through ley lines…

point luck at me
You feel no different. Perhaps there’s no such thing as luck.

s
Zeus, chief of all the gods, appears and hurls a thunderbolt down just before you begin to cross into the Temple. With the kind of calculation only a god could make, Zeus has worked out exactly what would happen and aimed the thunderbolt so that it hits you straight in the back despite your attempt to weave about. Pretty impressive prediction, is your last thought.

Ooh, I don’t really remember how complex this games is. It is coming back to me now…

Actually you can’t solve the Zeus puzzle before you been to the “universe maintenance room”.

Don’t continue before you solved the garden maze.

  1. Down from the patio in the maze there is a crypt with a bronze mural.

  2. “universe maintenance room” (among other things) is behind the bronze mural.

  3. Use bronze rod on mural.

  4. Useful verb behind the mural is “smell”.

  5. There is a switch in the universe maintenance room.

  6. Turn of “determinism” (for the universe) to make the luck rod work with Zeus.

Sorry!

No need to apologize - all the puzzles usually require just one extra step. That’s what makes Curses! such a good game. I stopped at clue # 4 since that helped greatly. I imagine we’ll report back in six months!

Curses! teaches perseverance. That’s been an important lesson. Thank you again!!

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As a followup, my nephew and I have spent several new sessions discovering so many things thanks to your clue. Thank you! We really enjoyed the Oracle’s hints.

But before we continue too much further, I worry about whether we are down a giant dead end and have to go back to an old save. Here are two questions I have. All I’m looking for is whether we need to go back, not necessarily (yet) how to solve the puzzle.

1, My nephew observed that we can lean the timber spar on the folly (before it collapses). This allows us to pick up the bean pole and carry it around but we found no use for it. Was there something we should have done with the bean pole back in time?
2. Does it matter whether we say we were born in an odd or even year?

Lastly, there’s a point in the game where we had to pick a color. With lots of undos, we finally stumbled across the correct color. Is it our favorite color because of our necklace? I wondered it we missed a hint on this somewhere. Not a big deal but most puzzles are very, very satisfying and that one wasn’t.

Thanks again!

The last thing first. The color is hinted at in the calendar. It is explained in an walkthrough as this:

If you flip through the calendar east of the potting room, you’ll
notice many different daisies pictured. There is only one that should
be of any particular interest, however – the Merlyn’s Hat daisy,
which is yellow. If you looked up Isaac in the History of the
Meldrews, you must have noticed that Isaac had a particular interest in
Merlin, so when Jemima asks you what color you’re looking for, I
suggest “say yellow.”

  1. Both items are useful and you shouldn’t leave the timber spar behind. As I remember the pole is vital to get back but you shouldn’t disturb it before you’re finished back in time.
  2. Doesn’t matter as far as I know.

Thank you! I’ll take this as confirmation that we are on the right path!

Thank you again for your useful hints. We completed the game a few weeks ago. This was my favorite text adventure puzzle game I’ve played yet. Thank you!!

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