Scratches - The Curse of Jerry

[Music] so [Music] it has been way too long since we've done not just horror but something that isn't a shooty bang bang game you know what was the last one blade runner well kids it's spooky season again and i've got something i've actually thought about featuring on the show for a couple of years for one of the halloween episodes because back in 2006 i bought it for 20 at a target based on the cover and i thought you know what's the worst that could happen developed by argentinian studio nucleosis which at the time consisted of very few people augustine cornice and alejandro graziani and a composer credited as seller of rats that studio doesn't exist anymore now it's called sendscape see i had a copy of this game on a cd it's one cd right because it's an adventure game and not a giant sprawling epic with hours of full motion video this game is unfortunately considered abandonware there's a steam page for it and it's no longer available and also it's the director's cut which i don't have so i'm gonna have to track that down my memories of this game are hazy at best i remember it being incredibly creepy and i remember the ending obviously i'm not going to spoil the ending right now dark legends surround the old abandoned blackwood house secluded far away in the northern wastelands by which i assume they mean scotland it's actually northumberland but i was close rising star horror writer michael artha is gonna stay in this creepy old victorian house hoping it'll help him complete his next novel which is a plot that has never gone wrong is that lonely house inhabited by restless spirits of the past or something more sinister well i'll tell you what kids i used to know but with this alternate ending that promises to be more shocking than the original i remember this game being really creepy atmospheric and well made and we can do something that's actually scary for halloween and not some trash horror game that i can milk for laughs don't worry though i got one of those for next time yes the game is still first person but okay i know what you're thinking clearly it's all 2d and it is but also from what i can gather the devs decided instead of using an existing 3d engine which would have been perfectly acceptable in 2006 they wrote their own the simple creation engine for adventure makers and i don't know how any of this works or how it blends all of this together into some kind of cohesive environment and looks pretty good to be honest i arrived at blackwood manor one cold saturday morning amidst a thick veil of fog time to check the place out it's very moody and unpleasant outside but it is england okay that's weird doorknob doesn't work oh that's the only bug i encounter during this playthrough and i don't uh that's just odd none of the other doors are like that beautiful house very nice the purchase and legal stuff was handled by jerry michael's real estate agent really not used to such mundane job titles on this channel hello michael it's me hey jerry it's good to hear your voice i see that piece of junk you got there is working my thoughts exactly i was afraid it'd fall apart as soon as i laid my fingers on that's a rotary telephone that's a phone so old that i've never even dialed one and people call me a literal boomer all the time see to dial the rotary telephone you had to do each number like this and this game requires you to do this several times 100 scratches walk through part two how to dial a rotary telephone so how did you find everything do you like the place it's hard to tell yet i'm very impressed that's for sure i'm telling you i'm going to turn this place into a factory of horror stories i don't like how the mirrors don't show my reflection plot twist michael was a vampire the whole time what you're supposed to do in this game is explore discover it's mostly open-ended the first floor has a hallway living room dining room study kitchen maids quarters and a bathroom in the maid's quarters that's been turned into a dark room but every room is a dark room because the lights in the house don't work jerry called an electrician to come by but he doesn't ever actually come in and fix it so there's no working lights for the entire game aside from that the house is full of fancy furniture creepy fine art really really creepy fine art journals from james blackwood the former owner of this house detailing an ancient curse he might have unleashed from a largely undocumented and ancient tribe in south africa that does disturbing murder you know and one of those rooms on the second floor is completely dedicated to artifacts from that area it is a terrible place and i don't like it mr blackwood you are british plant a flag and go don't take the whole country with you the second floor also has the guest room where michael is staying in the master bedroom all the rooms in this game don't make this feel like a giant victorian mansion even though there are three floors a basement a tower a crypt a chapel and a greenhouse the environments feel small and claustrophobic more than i think a 3d engine would allow because of how the player has to be able to move around the space here it's click dissolve or click and a short video plays to show a door opening this is the kind of adventure game where you have to click and interact with everything you can find you'll want to because certain puzzles later on mostly during the last part of the game get very point and clicky and weird click everything like this mirror this goddamn mirror every drawer that you can open sometimes it's completely pointless and then sometimes those shirts look just like my own lazy developers bring some variety to the game for crying out loud yeah take that the one guy who was doing the art direction the third floor is under construction it's a mess of half-finished bathrooms and cinder blocks lying around useful tools though the attic is full of old newspapers which you think would be useless junk but in true adventure game fashion they're necessary of finishing the game your first of many key hunts involves examining one of the maid's pictures to find a key hung above a vase it fell in there at some point and stayed so now it's in the hallway next to the kitchen so now we we get to go into the creepy basement i already don't want to go down there i don't think the basement itself is too creepy but this music the music and the ambient sound don't play all the time and i'm really glad they don't because the dead silence is less creepy whenever the music starts up in this game i feel like something terrible is gonna happen just walking around this place is tense not just because of the sound but the visuals themselves are i can't explain it there appeared to be nothing wrong with the fuses so i don't know why the power is still out i can't progress until i discover every clue that the game wants me to find you know only when michael's truly ready to go to bed at sundown like an elderly person so i'm looking around the third floor at a door that i can't open michael can see the key in the keyhole so i'm gonna do the old slip some newspaper under the door poke the key out drag it under the key still gets stuck behind the door because it's a victorian key that's the size of a small dog whoever said that dumb technique worked i feel stupid enough already for trying it thanks game when in doubt go for the phone i found the number for michael's assistant barbara on a notepad in his suitcase hello productions auth8 productions what in heaven's name was that oh hi boss i was just feeling around well don't i don't want people thinking i'm some kind of studio and don't call me boss i'm sorry it's just that no one was calling and all of a sudden i got excited i told you it was going to be that way girl but i still need you there i just hope you're not being bored to death oh don't worry i'm studying tongues during my spare time oh no what she means is that she's studying foreign languages this one line is a clue to a puzzle and you better be listening okay so the maid was italian and you find a letter of hers in her room well no you find a pad that you wrote a letter on and you use a pencil to make a rubbing of it and then put that in an envelope address the envelope leave it in the mailbox and have it sent to her because this game takes place in 1976. not that that matters there's no power you're in the middle of nowhere if you're really stuck and sometimes if you're not you know if you need someone to talk to you can call jerry jerry's the guy who knows everything you find a safe behind a painting in the master bedroom call jerry what's up michael i found a safe box in a room upstairs would you happen to know the combination i think i should let me see hmm i did take note of the combination once but i don't have it here right now oh okay i'm sure enough in battle oh god i missed the electrician the electrician missed me he left a note in the mailbox bloody hell he was supposed to meet you at the gates early this morning i thought he was just being late damn that i must have missed him for a few minutes what the heck am i supposed to do now why don't you go check the fuses yourself no i did that i don't really want to go back into the basement again what should we do now go get some candles you're joking right he wasn't but i've already searched everywhere there are no candles maybe i can get some writing done you know that thing i'm here to do [Music] oh god damn it jerry i'm freaking out i couldn't find a single candle inside this place you're kidding me i can't believe it did you look well i don't know jerry i don't show up in any of the mirrors the town isn't too far away no more than 20 minutes drive and my car is dead you left the lights on honestly michael what were you thinking jared you won't believe this it's insane my car is dead what are you sure have you checked its pulse you trying to be funny jerry if i'm not gonna write i might as well read that's what you're supposed to do as a writer you write a lot and you read a lot you read journals in the creepy old victorian house about how more people than james blackwood started hearing strange noises and started going completely insane locked up in there for years jerry do you know anything about the previous inhabitants of this house not much because there were some strange individuals there's also the murder why'd you send me to a murder house jerry it seems the owner james blackwood i think went mad and killed his wife i do remember the date though may 1963. james james blackwood according to the stuff i've been reading so you're already turning the place upside down i should have thought so yeah i was looking for candles [ __ ] jerry was helpful in that he gave me a date i could look up in the stack of newspapers and i was able to find an article about how james blackwood was photographed by the maid burying his wife's body which is pretty damning evidence so what murder house nothing wrong with that time for bed [Music] game isn't letting me go anywhere besides the creepy gallery of stolen south african antiquities this door wasn't here before oh that was a dream this isn't a dream and this is worse yeah just listen to the fireplace with a stethoscope i can't move this big cabinet in the gallery yet the noises are coming from the basement i don't want to go down there and neither does michael since he doesn't have any light so back to bed hello michael how are you doing over there the sky is falling here you mean this storm has hit there too seems the entire universe is falling here i'm afraid to go outside that's right the entire day is spent inside this creepy murder house and the electrician isn't coming and neither is jerry he does at least give you that safe combination so you can continue not finishing your book you find a bill from the contractors for the work done on the upstairs that isn't finished a number for the bank which isn't open on sunday so i'm not getting anything out of them and a key to one of the unfinished third floor rooms that i couldn't open before oh no never mind it's full of devil paintings evil black magic [ __ ] nope nope but also the adjacent rooms have important tools you need [Applause] not that you'd know unless you were paying attention to the very subtle hints like a very dirty can one of the cans is particularly dusty take your cloth and wipe it off then yeah motor oil which you can poke a hole in and fill your lantern with so you can explore dark areas great and a rope so i can solve an adventure game puzzle no the rope is actually useful and you use it to climb exactly as you'd expect because see in the creepy art studio there's a copy of the house's blueprints and there's a room on the second floor that we haven't seen besides the one from that dream this one is next to the master bedroom and bricked off so obviously tie a rope here and repel down in the middle of a thunderstorm [Music] [Music] let's [ __ ] write something michael [Music] oh god it's creepy nursery with creepy nursery music the black woods had a child that they'd like to forget see these blocks these blocks are important swear to god but from this birth certificate we have another date to look up and that baby's dead from a strange ailment why'd you send me to a double murder house jerry sounds like code for south african mass curse i'm getting to the bottom of this i didn't mean for that to be a pun i'm sorry but this thing had wheels the whole time i just needed to oil them and move it out of the way yup that's a door for my dream and it's not like i can not open it the room inside is dark you know i've only got a limited amount of matches this whole time yeah michael doesn't smoke even though it's the 70s so he's got matches for oh my god this one i can tell is the boss mask accompanied by a letter with even more information about the tribe that blackwood stole it from who slaughtered entire villages with their bare hands elimination process of a useless member unnecessary child oh oh very cool can i go no well maybe i can actually get some writing done okay let me see what flows out you know when you're a writer it's all stream of consciousness man there's no planning there's no notes big conspiracy boards with characters connections motivations jerry it's me why don't you send me to a double murder south african curse house jerry you won't believe what i found here try me it's about the happenings that led to the murder you told me about there's an impressive backstory surrounding this place and many loose inns it would seem nobody ever stumbled upon this shouldn't you be working on your book goddammit jerry i was working on my book look right here well [ __ ] okay time for bed i guess there's no scratching going on i have free roam of the house so i'm not railroaded in a dream still feel compelled to check on that creepy mask that's that's not good [Music] okay this time i'm definitely not dreaming because the horrible scratching sounds are happening and now i have a lantern okay basement is the same creepy as ever furnace in it furnaces no nope no no no no that is the worst idea but i guess we're doing it [Music] that's some kind of door i mean if i've gotten this far i might as well leave this horrible place and never look back yep that's what i'll do i remember not expecting a point-and-click adventure game to terrify me but here we are michael decides the best course of action is to go back to bed michael is dumb i would be hopping this fence and taking my chances on the road by now [ __ ] this at least the text here says that this is his third and final day at the manor so he's gonna actually leave or die he's not gonna get any writing done today either now monday is the game's final act the one where the puzzles are greater in number and difficulty i've put a spoiler warning up because after this everything gets explained for better or worse michael [ __ ] that it's very cold inside the house now so i use one of my precious matches to light a fire finally and also naturally call jerry who is it it's me the ghost hunter any contact with the other world yet actually i'm not sure jerry i'm definitely not alone in this house jerry half believes you says he's going to call the police but michael tells him to not call the police because michael has a death wish i don't remember when i got a key to open the garage but it's the most important key in the game as far as i'm concerned it gives you a screwdriver and some wire cutters the wire cutters you need to get inside the crypt and in the most baffling puzzle in the game you keep the wire right and you use a screwdriver to remove a mirror in the master bedroom so you can put the wire on and hang it in the [ __ ] to reflect light towards a plaque under the baby's coffin so you can read one letter on the faded inscription so you can find out the baby's name was robin and the numbers associated with those letters that were on the blocks in the nursery but the light you need to reflect comes from the dome on top of the crypt which you need to break with a stone but you don't do it on the first try you don't do it on the first try so you have to find the stone again and assume that unlike in video games when you tell it to do something it does the thing and you have to try again so that the window breaks and the light comes in and i know you all want to see a corpse so here you go this is catherine blackwood's corpse and i know what you're thinking didn't james blackwood kill her and bury her body in the yard and yes and no because he did bury her body in the yard that's true there's photographic evidence of that the maid stashed it under the floorboard in a room which she mentions in the translated letter that barbara somehow gets back to you within two days of sending it and you have to use the shadow from the tower to find the grave but only at four o'clock and nowhere earlier or later you're running around this house back and forth between rooms and outdoors all over the grounds and this is completely intentional and it fills the player with dread because every time you round one of the tight corners in this house you're expecting something to be there that's gonna chop your head off or sacrifice you to some ancient mass god but then this kind of deflates it michael i was worried about you are you doing okay yes i'm fine and i think i know the identity of my intruder tell me who is it james blackwood i mean james blackwood himself alive in this house james blackwood who by this point in the story would be 69 years old uh what what is this now okay so now i have two numbers to call i thought i had an assistant for this kind of stuff first up the bank i asked about blackwood's doctor who supposedly helped him fake his own death pretending to be a doctor from the hospital he worked at and this doesn't work i've completely botched it oh you again if you persist i shall have to inform the authorities all right all right relax so i call the number from the article about blackwood staff the chief of police who does not want to talk to me and tells me that no one was allowed to investigate the grounds of the manor after the [ __ ] murder they had photographic evidence of because he was rich you see okay yeah that checks out after all this time i find out that all i needed to do was oil the door to the greenhouse a little to get it open but it is extremely important yes because there's a rare south african plant in there that i need as well as an entire puzzle to get an extremely small key that i didn't even know what to do with until i remembered the drawer in the study that i'd forgotten about so that drawer has the lock box that robin's name opens and there's a key in it but i could figure out where it goes just by looking at it [Music] oh god that's terrifying was it really necessary to make the big wooden jesus so goddamn unsettling were they catholic underneath this altar is a secret room which has the steps to create an amulet that will settle that horrible masked spirit down you need a lion's claw which is on a necklace in the gallery you need a piece of the victim oh boy we get to dig up kathryn to take one of her teeth out sorry grind up both of them mixed with the south african plant we found in the greenhouse cook them up with this stove on a can lid the can lid i don't even remember where i found it or when but it was essential and use them on the mask [Music] uh oh right at first nothing seemed to happen but then the atmosphere felt lighter as if the house had been relieved of a monstrous burden there you go listen to that music this house is clean i'm not sure i could truly explain why this game is so effective with its atmosphere until the end where the spoilers are because you gotta realize this whole time there was nothing there was no one chasing you around nothing waiting around the corner i knew that from the last time i played this game and it's still so goddamn tense and unsettling okay well i think it's time to go i charge the car battery with an improbable device on a bike and [Music] no no god dammit this is all jerry's fault wait there's a letter here due to the irregularities during its acquisition process carried over by mr jerry p carter you are ordered to immediately leave the property jerry you stuck me in a cursed murder house and made a crooked real estate deal on it i guess we know who the real villain of this story is the fire i started in the morning burned all the wood in the fireplace now there's a hole leading down there and if i want to finish this game i have to go down there yup here's that door i saw from the furnace remember when michael climbed into a giant furnace i am amazed he's still alive so i hadn't played this game in let's say 15 years but i remember this most vividly see that that's raw meat dropped from a grape see this here [ __ ] up teddy bear that was torn in a really strangely similar way to how catherine blackwood was killed did you ever consider that no one was really murdered in the traditional sense of the word that maybe that haunted mask stuff was [ __ ] i don't know let's ask robin [Music] yeah you bet that's still burned into my brain after 15 years i didn't find the secret ending either that one no i didn't go for that and it's not like it comes out of nowhere the game has been hinting at this the whole time implying the haunted mask thing is superstition and there's an extra chapter in director's cut that sucks are you [ __ ] kidding me now the doorknob's on the other side and it over explains and kind of ruins things so let's forget about it but there's two things that it spells out that i have to bring up one jerry spent four years in jail for fraud after this whole debacle [ __ ] jerry so you're rifling through the drawers in the master bedroom on the first day and in there you find these medical vials and this is something i don't remember from my playthrough all those years ago but i was curious why i couldn't click on them or examine them closer we're about to get super dark here kids more than i like to get on this show so be ready this text is barely readable but you can make out most of the word on there thalidomide a bottle of thalidomide i remember reading something about that drug not just a word that billy joel once rhymed with homicide thalidomide was a drug invented in the 1950s where it was sold as a treatment for many things nowadays it's used for cancer treatments but back then they sold it over the counter for women to help with morning sickness thing is it caused very serious birth defects i'm not showing pictures of thalidomide babies they're not gruesome or anything but i'm still not gonna do it thalidomide actually has its own history and is also a horror story that i don't want to get into in my stupid youtube video gonna be real though i'm not sure it would have done this to someone but in this story james blackwood his doctor his wife these upper-class rich victorian lunatics when they weren't pilfering antiquities from african countries had a disfigured child and locked it away in a dungeon fed it for years and years and when some hack horror writer shows up and hears him scratching against his cage accidentally leaves the door open when he runs out and it's all [ __ ] jerry's fault there isn't really any interesting gameplay to show off in the credits when i'm playing a game like scratches so here's a couple demos people kept asking me about first up fall and ace is the newest new blood demo which is fun and so polished you'd think they delayed it two months to work on that fun combat and i'm not actually going to say anything else about it because new blood keeps putting up quotes about my dick on the store page so here's some of gianni [ __ ] come on that's a perfect lead into a new postal game postal brain damaged also got a demo and that is also cool because they don't have to play by the semi-realistic rules of a regular postal game developer hyperstrange went nuts with this and so far it's the least janky postal game ever created you can tell it takes some things for other games like doom eternal this pistol secondary is from titanfall 2 but it's still pretty fun i thought being able to go into almost all of the houses which are all copied and pasted was a little much but it does point you directly to the keys this crouch slide hopping is nice and corey crews is back and having a blast they kept the one good thing from postal 3. now is that pronounced gib or jib stay the [ __ ] [Music] you

Channel: Civvie 11

Views: 525,545

Keywords: cv11, civvie11, civvie's dungeon, civvie, scratches, horror, review, recap, let's play, adventure game

Id: 1o_YLoz7nOA

Length: 28min 1sec (1681 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 12 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/scottishdrunkard]

I'm not a fan of horror games, but I applaud horror games which put you in no danger, but do their darndest to make you feel like you are always in danger. Like Gone Home.

[u/TarJack]

Morons on r/Games removed this lol

[u/prossnip42]

Glad to see him branch out from his boomer shooters every now and then

[u/Chewingupsidedown]

How many jumpscares are in this and how many are there?

Civvie is usually chill time for me, and I am completely unphased by violence and horror... but, jumpscares... fuck jumpscares.

[u/capnchicken]

Check the YouTube comments, it looks like the developer of the game is in there with info about what we're going to be possible sequels.

[u/Defiant-Print-318]

Imo old adventure games are creepier than some modern horror games...

[u/bawynnoJ]

Fuck Jerry