The Curse We Made

The Curse We Made drops the player off a train in Gravebrook, a small town abandoned by time and "swallowed by shadows," and sets them wandering from shop to shop solving handcrafted puzzles that restore colour to the world one location at a time. It's a short point-and-click puzzle adventure, 32 puzzles spread across nine locations, built around a slow-burn mystery involving ghosts, whispering monsters, and a family tragedy underneath the town's curse. Made and self-published by solo developer Potion Pixel, it's a debut release, out as a full, non-Early-Access title on 4 December 2025 for Windows and macOS at $3.99.

An accomplished, gorgeous first outing

The art direction is, by a wide margin, the thing every reviewer in the sample agrees on. One calls it simply "gorgeous," another "out-of-this-world," and a third admits to "doing absolutely nothing in-game and just admiring how beautifully drawn the town and its 'inhabitants' are." Several reviewers frame that praise specifically in the context of it being the developer's first game, one writes "very impressive for the debut game for what looks like a lone developer, I'd like to see more from her," and another simply says "Nice job!" on discovering the credits. The cozy-gothic tone, calm pacing with "no timers, no pressure," paired against a story with real darkness underneath it, lands well for most players too, with reviewers repeatedly describing the mix as "cozy and creepy" in equal measure. Pesto, the sarcastic cat who tells the player how many puzzles remain in each area, comes up again and again as a small touch that reviewers specifically enjoyed.

Puzzles built for atmosphere, not difficulty

The dominant complaint across the sample, by a wide margin, is that the puzzles are simply too easy. One reviewer says several puzzles could be solved "without having found the hint lying around somewhere," and that even with the hint, "it's just a no-thinker too." Another describes the whole set as suited for "elementary students," and a third calls the trailer misleading, having expected something in the vein of Rusty Lake and instead finding "a compilation of very easy puzzles connected with each other by a rather weak story." A recurring structural complaint is that clues sometimes hand over the literal answer to the next puzzle rather than requiring the player to reason it out, and that the game only accepts correct inputs, meaning some puzzles can effectively be brute-forced by trial and error rather than solved through logic. Not every reviewer minds this: several explicitly frame the low difficulty as part of the point, a calm, low-stakes experience meant to be about atmosphere and story rather than challenge, and recommend it on those terms instead.

A short, sad story that lands unevenly

The narrative, a mystery about a family tragedy that caused the town's curse, gets a more mixed reception than the art or puzzles. Several reviewers describe it as genuinely moving, one writes "As a mom, this game hit me squarely, soundly in the feels," while another calls the ending "gentle, haunting." Others find it underexplained: one reviewer specifically asks why their character, a newcomer to town, is expected to solve everyone's problems, calling the story's setup "thrown on your lap" without enough grounding. A minority of reviewers push back harder on the story's central plot beat, involving a mother secretly medicating her daughter's food, calling it underdeveloped and tonally uncomfortable rather than meaningfully handled; the game's content descriptors do flag mild horror themes, stylised blood, and narrative elements involving death and tragedy up front, so players sensitive to that subject matter have fair warning going in. Most reviewers, though, land closer to describing the runtime, 70 to 90 minutes for most, as the story's real limitation: "wish it was longer," "I'd like to see more like this," and similar sentiments recur throughout the positive reviews far more than any objection to the plot itself.

Steam's achievement data, tied one-to-one to the game's nine locations, backs up the sense of a short, low-friction experience most players see through to the end: the earliest location sits at 89.5% completion and the lowest still clears 70%, a gentle, consistent drop-off typical of a game built to be finished in a single relaxed sitting rather than one that loses players partway through.

A solo developer's first shop-by-shop world

Part of what makes the puzzle-difficulty complaints land softer than they might elsewhere is how clearly reviewers read this as a first, personal project rather than a studio product cutting corners. The nine locations, bakery, antique shop, church, train station, psychic shop, apothecary, reception, and more, are each drawn and staged as their own small diorama, and several reviewers specifically call out the variety and care in dressing each one differently rather than reusing assets across the town. One reviewer describes finishing it in a single sitting and immediately wanting to know what Potion Pixel would build next with more time and a bigger budget, a sentiment echoed by others who frame the short runtime less as padding-out-a-demo and more as a solo developer having limited hours to fill nine rooms with hand-drawn detail. A few reviews mention minor rough edges consistent with a first release, an odd translated line here, a puzzle that can be skipped by clicking around rather than thinking through it there, but even those reviewers tend to follow the complaint with encouragement rather than a discouraged score, treating the game's flaws as the visible seams of someone learning in public rather than a lack of effort. That reception matters for how the game should be judged: as a $3.99 debut with more polish and atmosphere than its price tag suggests, rather than as a full-priced puzzle box expected to compete head-on with genre veterans.

Final verdict

The Curse We Made is a confident, beautifully illustrated debut let down mainly by how little it asks of the player. Its puzzles rarely challenge, and its story doesn't always earn the weight it's reaching for, but its atmosphere, art, and small character touches like Pesto the cat make it an easy, inexpensive way to spend an evening, and a genuinely promising first outing for a developer several reviewers are already looking forward to hearing more from.