re:curse

About re:curse

re:curse is a solo project by dev palmer, made mostly between 2020 and 2021 and released on itch.io in April 2023, with a 1.1.0 update in May. It is a Windows download at a price you choose, with fan translations in Brazilian Portuguese, Russian and Japanese added in 2024. Its maker lists OFF, Ib, LISA: The Painful RPG and Yume Nikki as inspirations.

You play Linda Langley, a researcher who is easily distracted, in a laboratory drawn in muted top-down pixel art. You walk its rooms, talk to colleagues, send emails and deal with what the maker calls a clown infestation. Then the lab starts to come apart: rooms smear and stretch, old monitors show things they should not, and a jester-like figure appears on the screens. The maker lists doors, screens, bitrot, self-fulfilling loops and computer viruses among what the game is about.

The horror is surreal and slow, built from wrongness more than chases, with some mild jumpscares, sudden sounds and graphic images. It has a dry, odd sense of humour, and the maker tags it funny, but it presents re:curse as a horror game and its warnings back that up.

The download comes with an archive of bonus material: source files, concept art, unreleased music and 3D files, and the maker says some secrets are hidden in those files rather than in play. A separate optional program, carolineHouse.exe, was released later as bonus content. It suits players who liked OFF, Ib or Yume Nikki and want a strange, story-led RPG Maker game set in a lab rather than a dream or a gallery.

How to play re:curse

1. Download the release for your language from the itch.io page; you can pay what you want or nothing.
2. Unzip it and start the game on Windows.
3. Walk Linda through the laboratory, talk to the people in it and check the computers and objects around you.
4. Follow the emails and tasks the game gives you as the lab begins to change.
5. Afterwards, if you are curious, look through the bonus files bundled with the download.

Tips

• Read the README that comes with the game first: the maker keeps the detailed content warnings there.
• Take care if flashing images affect you; the maker warns of flashing that may trigger photosensitive epilepsy.
• Check the screens and doors you pass more than once, since the lab does not stay the same.
• The maker hid extra material in the game files that you cannot reach in normal play, so the folder is worth a look once you have finished.

Questions