Spirit Soup: The Queensbury Curse
Game Review

Spirit Soup: The Queensbury Curse is a puzzle adventure game set in a medieval fantasy world of priests, knights, potions and curses. As primarily an adventure game, most of your time will be spent solving challenging puzzles and figuring out how to progress through the game. While hidden objects are present in the game, they are used more as a means to support the story and puzzles rather than as a major focus.

You are the protagonist of the story, having recurring nightmares ever since you arrived at Queensbury to help with the family soup kitchen. It turns out that a deadly curse is slowly being let loose upon the town, and your great uncle was a wizard who knew how to make a potion to fight this curse. Unfortunately he is no longer around, so it falls to you to obtain the recipe and ingredients for this powerful Spirit Soup. With the help of your grandmother and other townsfolk, you set out on your epic quest to save the town!

This is an adventure game reminiscent of the roleplaying games from years ago. Many of its features - including the stylized graphics and the fact that you start the adventure from your bedroom - are a tip of the hat to those great games. Various characters in the game also assign you with quests that you have to solve. Other than that, this is still a modern adventure game with plenty of puzzles to solve and hidden objects to find.

The adventure takes place in the town of Queensbury, with typical medieval fantasy locations such as the market, church, castle and docks. As you progress through the game, the physical manifestations of the curse slowly appear everywhere, marring the previously pristine environments. You will also gradually learn more about the curse and your family's history as you talk to the local populace and dig up useful information.

As mentioned earlier, you will obtain quests from various people (and pieces of paper). They serve to guide you through the story, and can range from the local priest asking you to remove a powerful sword from a stone, or your grandmother asking you to find various ingredients to create the Spirit Soup. There will also be plenty of obstacles such as locked chests and doors that you need to overcome by using items you pick up along the way. Most of these items are hidden in plain sight throughout the various locations, but there are some that will require a bit more ingenuity to find.

You will also encounter many puzzles that you need to solve. Some of them are intricate locks that you need to open, while others are mechanisms that you have to repair. Many puzzle genres are represented here, and they are thematically unique and very challenging. Thankfully there are a few stages of hints to prod you along. And if all else fails, there is also a skip button. The game also features quite a few hidden object puzzles, but they are well-integrated as part of a puzzle or quest, and don't randomly appear as separate scenes.

Besides the roleplaying game nostalgia, this game has quite a lot going for it. The story is strong and interesting, and the gameplay is challenging. The art is crisp and bright, with that nostalgic fantasy feel to it. But what makes the game shine is the humor injected into it. Funny conversations, interactions and events really make it an exciting piece of interactive entertainment.

Spirit Soup: The Queensbury Curse is a solid adventure game, and you will love it if you like the old-school roleplaying games, or the more recent fantasy adventure games such as the Princess Isabella or Love Chronicles game series. Get the Mac version here.

Related PC Games at Big Fish Games:

Princess Isabella: Return of the Curse

Dracula: Love Kills

Timeless: The Forgotten Town

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