Strange Antiquities Review Overview
What is Strange Antiquities?
Strange Antiquities is a cozy occult-themed puzzle game where players take on the role of an Apprentice Thaumaturge dealing with mystical antiquities and artifacts in the shop of the same name. With the shop’s proprietor and their mentor out on official business, the apprentice is tasked with running things in his absence. In the quiet town of Undermere, townspeople need their help to provide remedies, solutions, answers to their problems—all in the form of supernatural trinkets called Objects that hold some sort of unique power. However, there is something else brewing in the shadows of the town—something far more sinister and mysterious than they would have ever imagined.
Developed by indie developer duo Bad Viking and published by Iceberg Interactive, Strange Antiquities is the second game from the developer, following the successful launch of its predecessor with a similar premise, Strange Horticulture.
Strange Antiquities features:
⚫︎ Dozens of Strange Artifacts to Examine
⚫︎ An Intriguing Town Mystery
⚫︎ A Wide Variety of Puzzles and Riddles
⚫︎ Relaxing and Slow-Paced Point-and-Click
⚫︎ Jupiter, the Best Cat!
| Digital Storefronts | |
|---|---|
 Steam |
 eShop |
| $17.99 | |
Strange Antiquities Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Engaging Puzzle Gameplay Intriguing Mystery Narrative Lots of Objects to Collect Pettable Cat (always a pro) |
A Bit of Filler Content Controls Can Be Finicky |
Strange Antiquities Overall Score - 86/100
Strange Antiquities is a charming and cozy occult puzzle game that is surely a treat for budding detectives and puzzle-lovers. With its simple point-and-click gameplay that complements a variety of complex challenges and riddles that require extra brainpower, this puzzle game will surely take you on a spooky but intriguing text adventure through the town of Undermere and the secrets that lie within.
Strange Antiquities Story - 8/10
The game’s overarching narrative is solid and somehow keeps you on the edge of your seat, but to me, it felt quite all over the place compared to the previous installment. There’s a lot going on in town, and most of them come flocking over to your place for some kind of remedy—so much so that you don’t know which issues are important and related to the real problem or if it’s just a one-off thing. However, it’s still an intriguing narrative that keeps you wanting for more.
Strange Antiquities Gameplay - 9/10
Strange Antiquities’ slow-paced, riddle-solving gameplay is a treat. Its calmness and cycle of identifying and observing isn’t boring at all, especially with the challenge that each puzzle holds. Some are easy as 1-2-3, while others require a bit more observation skills and putting the pieces together to solve. Every solved puzzle or customer inquiry is satisfying, and brings in a sense of accomplishment. Some puzzles are really vague, and controls are a little finicky sometimes, but nothing gamebreaking or anything that entirely sours the experience.
Strange Antiquities Visuals - 10/10
Its cartoon-y visuals are charming and fits well with the setting, reminding the player that despite its dark themes, it’s still somehow cozy—there’s no horror in it at all. Great detail has been done in the shop proper, candle-lit and just the right bit of spooky, as well as the designs of the artifacts, the tools, the maps, and even the characters. Performance-wise, it plays well and feels optimized, lending itself to an even more immersive experience with how buttery smooth it was in my playthrough.
Strange Antiquities Audio - 8/10
Sound design is good and snappy, the background music is calming and perfectly suits the setting, with subtle changes as the story progresses through the days. It lacks voice acting, which isn’t a requirement, of course, but a narrative-heavy game like this would have benefitted a lot from it. The trailer for the game was voiced, so I was hoping it would reflect that too.
Strange Antiquities Value for Money - 8/10
For $18, it has a decent runtime of up to 10-12 hours for one ending, and perhaps up to 15 to 20 to try and get the other endings since you can easily reload at the start of every day—the game’s FAQ lists eight different endings to gun for, enhancing its replayability.
Strange Antiquities Review: Strangely Exquisite
Strange Antiquities is finally here! Indie developer Bad Viking is back at it again with another cozy occult and supernatural-themed shopkeeper simulation game, and boy, was I excited for it since its announcement. I absolutely loved Strange Horticulture back in 2022, and it was a joy (as joyful as it gets in a game like this) to return to Undermere, not as a horticulturist, but as an assistant of a Thaumaturgist, handling occult objects and oddities.
Even before Strange Horticulture, I was already a huge fan of slow-paced point-and-click games from childhood. Detective-themed ones such as the Nancy Drew video games and the Flash-made (RIP Flash) escape room puzzles were my favorite. It was a no-brainer that I was interested in Strange Horticulture the moment I saw it—and boy, was I hooked. I finished the game rather quickly, and I loved every minute of it. Creepy plants, intriguing characters, a deep, dark secret…but mostly the creepy but magical plants. Well, Strange Antiquities is now here, and it definitely lives up to its lovely blend of cozy and the supernatural.
Players return to Undermere, the same town as Strange Horticulture (a little Easter Egg up top—the odd plant store is also still in the game!), as Thaumaturge Eli White’s newest (and only) Apprentice Thaumaturge. As always in this little gloomy town with more dark secrets than there is grass on the ground, something is amiss. Strange things are happening, sinister-looking ravens have made Undermere their home, and people have grown incredibly paranoid.
And in the middle of it all…is you, the Assistant Thaumaturge. The shop’s proprietor and your mentor Eli has his work cut out for him because of these strange occurrences, and is travelling from place to place—thus, you are in charge of handling the shop in his absence. Will you play your part as a good little shopkeeper? Or will you actually be dipping your fingers into the town’s fate with how you run things?
Chill, Calming Gameplay, Improved from the First
Just like its predecessor, Strange Antiquities is a puzzle-centric point-and-click game. Across a period of 17 in-game days, players will cater to different customers and their Object needs, ranging from protective totems and alleviating pain symptoms to items used for espionage and information gathering. The right Object is then identified through careful examination, deduction, and referencing the special tomes that are readily available in the shop.
New Objects can be acquired through different means, such as through customers or other citizens sending in strange trinkets. The most common way is through map exploration, where a riddle from a letter, a book, or a tarot card leads the player to a specific location on the map.
As an occult shopkeeper, players also have opportunities to change the outcome through several choices, all dependent on what type of Object they decide to give the customer. Give an ailing man a magic vessel for tea that can calm the mind, or give them a risky trinket that makes the wearer go through excruciating pain for some time before finally being relieved of their ailment? It’s your call. However, news travels fast in the small town of Undermere, and if you harm any of their people...they’ll know.
Coming from the first game, I noticed that Strange Antiquities cranked it up a notch with just a tad more of—well, everything. Strange Horticulture simply had one book and one map for you to work with (if my memory doesn’t fail me). Here, you have several maps, and several tomes and encyclopedias to cross-check. Not everything is in one place, which forces you to be more mindful about where things are and to be more observant—feeling like a true detective, indeed.
I also like how the developers improved on the first game’s systems and upgraded them in all possible ways—better UI, a more interactive gameplay interface with getting all up close with the Objects using your senses (the first game didn’t let you examine individual parts), and even a more forgiving strike system if you misclick or get to the wrong conclusion during map exploration. Although, with much more things to keep track of, the controls can be a little finicky and unintuitive at times, and there isn’t an option to change keybinds. However, it’s a slight nitpick—it doesn’t detract from the experience apart from those annoyed grumbles when you accidentally right click instead of left.
A Puzzle Lover’s Dream
While we’re on the topic of the gameplay, puzzles and riddles are the game’s bread and butter—it’s in everything you do. Answers aren’t given out to you all willy-nilly, and finding the solution isn’t a simple task. You need to use a lot of context clues and cross-referencing, as well as getting all up and close with all the spooky artifacts around you. Use your sight, touch, smell, and inner perception to find the right one. This extends to figuring out riddles that take you outside of the shop and into the town of Undermere and its special locations like the castle and the catacombs, really challenging your sense of perception and sight.
And because there’s quite a bit to do, it’s incredibly slow-paced—in a good way! You have all the time in the world (no customer waiting time here, thankfully) to solve those conundrums, which seems to be deliberately vague in order for you to put that noggin to the test. Sometimes, you get it on your first try (and you feel incredible), or sometimes you can take a whole five minutes just checking every bit of info you have on it, maybe even bring out that pen and paper to draw symbols. It’s also a nice tidbit that even as you progress later in the story, those bits and pieces of info you learned earlier on will be more than useful in later puzzles.
Initially, you can get by with just looking at the main encyclopedia and deducing things based on its descriptions, but as the game progresses and you get more Objects, things get more complicated—you’d need to be looking at those odd symbols, the underlying meaning of the gemstones, figure out which Thaumic Discipline these symbols are…and more. Heck, there are even secret puzzles in the shop itself, in the form of hidden compartments and cupboards that hide away important trinkets. There is a puzzle to be solved in almost every nook and cranny in this small town, and it makes everything so much more interesting.
Narrative is Decent, but Feels Lacking
However, as great of a game as it is, it’s not without a few minor gripes. Strange Antiquities has a pretty solid foundation going on—weird incidents in an equally weird, gloomy town, and you’re caught in the middle of it all since everyone needs your help with them in some way or another. What throws me off a little is that it feels like there’s a lot of filler content, more so than the first game.
In Strange Horticulture, by the second half of the playthrough, you have a solid understanding of what’s happening. In Strange Antiquities, however, it seems that there are way too many characters and off-shoot incidents all happening at the same time that everything starts blurring together. There’s a lot of side stories that come your way, and you don’t know if that bit of information is substantial for the overall plot or not. At day 16 of the playthrough, some things are still not entirely clear to me, which I will keep quiet for the sake of not delving into spoiler territory.
However, it’s still an intriguing plot, one that will definitely get you thinking, especially during times where the storyline begins to branch out. Help the important character with their risky method, or will you sneakily give them something else so that they forget about it? Every little choice means something to the story, and it stays with you up until the end, especially when you see the consequences of your actions unfold.
Is Strange Antiquities Worth It?
Worth Getting Hexed For
The first game was already a well-polished game—Strange Antiquities takes that up a notch and improves on what is already good. Whether or not you’ve played the first game (which isn’t a requirement at all, by the way), Strange Antiquities is a charming, dark cozy occult puzzle game that will surely have your brain working on overdrive almost the entire time, all in a good way. For a rather decent $18, you’re getting your entire money’s worth—a fun gameplay experience with tons of puzzles and riddles to solve, pretty great music, appealing visuals, all in one.
Puzzle and detective game enthusiasts will surely love the game as much as I did, and it’s not terribly difficult for casual or new gamers as well. The fun in Strange Antiquities is taking your time to solve all the riddles with no time limit—no pressure, no unruly customers (kind of), just you, your books, and the dozens of artifacts in your little shop.
And one of the best parts about it? You can pet the shop’s adorable kitty, Jupiter, to your heart’s content. A pettable animal always makes a game worth it. I’m definitely looking forward to the next Strange shop that Bad Viking may have up their sleeves.
| Digital Storefronts | |
|---|---|
| Steam |
eShop |
| $17.99 | |
Strange Antiquities FAQ
Is Strange Antiquities coming to mobile?
As of writing, Strange Antiquities is only available to play on Steam and on the Nintendo Switch. Bad Viking and Iceberg Interactive have yet to confirm any release on other platforms.
Is a demo available for Strange Antiquities?
A Strange Antiquities demo is available on Steam should players wish to try it out first before purchasing.
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Strange Antiquities Product Information
 |
|
| Title | Strange Antiquities |
|---|---|
| Release Date | September 17, 2025 |
| Developer | Bad Viking |
| Publisher | Iceberg Interactive |
| Supported Platforms | Steam, Nintendo Switch |
| Genre | Adventure, Casual, Indie, Simulation |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | RP |
| Official Website | Strange Antiquities Official Website |
