Are You Afraid of the Dark?: The Tale of Orpheo's Curse Review

A group of kids surround a campfire to hear one of their members tell a dark tale.

Imagine, if you will, a tale of magic and horror. A tale of an old, run-down magic theater named Orpheo’s Palace…and two kids willing to explore it. Terry, a young girl entranced by magic, wants to go inside and explore the theatre with her older brother, Alex. Alex is a skeptic and doesn’t believe in magic. Terry hopes to prove her brother wrong by exploring the supposedly haunted theater, in hoping to find any of Orpheo’s curios.

In exploring the outside of the closed theater, they find a side door with a sign that says “Special Private Midnight Performance Tonight.” Thinking nothing of it, the siblings try to open the door, only to find it locked. As they turn to leave, the door opens by itself. Terry moves to check it out, followed by Alex, who REALLY doesn’t want to explore the place. They find themselves backstage, but when they try to take a step forward, a ghost floats toward the siblings, and loses her head; which promptly bounces towards them!

The kids at the campfire are spooked, yet excited to hear what happens next. The person who was telling the story says that what happens next depends on the story-teller…

…You.

Before I continue, a little history; back in the 90’s, there was a series called Are You Afraid of the Dark? on Nickelodeon. It was a series in which a group of kids, known as the Midnight Society, gather round a campfire to tell scary stories. "The Tale of Orpheo’s Curse" isn’t a story in the series; it’s a game. It is a horror-adventure game in which you are a story-teller that wishes to join the Midnight Society. You must continue the Tale of Orpheo’s Curse and guide it to its best conclusion. The Midnight Society offers you guidelines about how to proceed; they want you to tell a good story, while helping you out at the same time.

As you take the reins and continue with the story, you will guide Terry and Alex through the theater. As you explore it, you realize that not only did Orpheo own a theater, he owned an extensive wax museum as well. As you explore the museum, you realize that something is a little…off.

This brings me to talk about one of my favorite parts of this game: the scares. This game is the single utmost reason as to why I am legitimately freaked out by wax museums. After I played this game as a kid, I was always nervous about wax exhibits coming to life (to this day, I’m still a bit nervous). Why was I nervous? Because a good chunk of the wax museums move. You will find this out the easy way, or the hard way. The easy was is examining an exhibit and seeing it twitch or do some other action. The hard way is moving away from a wax exhibit…only to have that exhibit start chasing you!!!

Being an abandoned theater and wax museum, there are bound to be a few scares that will make you jump, but won’t do any true harm. Then there are scares that will occur if either Terry or Alex get caught, or if you guide them to obvious pitfalls.