The game tells the comic fantasy story of Brad, a teenage boy from modern Earth who was magically abducted to the world of Enchantia by an evil witch-queen.

Curse of Enchantia, at first known as Zeloria, was Core Design's first attempt in the adventure genre as they set up to compete with LucasArts and Sierra On-Line.

Curse of Enchantia uses a point and click style user interface, similar to Sierra's Creative Interpreter from the King's Quest series.

Their vain and terrible queen, who managed to surpass the rest in depravity, seeks a live male child from another dimension as the main ingredient of her desired spell of eternal youth.

Having borrowed magic powers from all the other witches in Enchantia on the promise to make them too young forever, she created an invisible portal connection to Earth.

One day in the 1990s,[9] a young English teenager named Brad plays a baseball practice with his sister Jenny when the witch spots him through the portal and incants a summoning spell, making him suddenly vanish in a flash of light.

In the course of his surreal adventure, he braves various dangers, meets a host of friendly and hostile characters, and rises to become a reluctant hero who just might break the titular curse and bring down the evil's reign.

Reaching the surface, he arrives at a nearby village; this location is repeatedly revisited throughout the game, as Brad comes back there after traveling to the various corners of the land, encountering bizarre characters and experiencing absurd adventures: the Edge of the World cliff, the Ice Palace, and the Valley of the Lost (a place where all kinds of things lost on Earth have gone to), all while searching for an unlikely set of items that would help him emerge victorious from the game's final showdown (including a fire extinguisher and a mechanical fan[13]).

[8] Regarding the decision to keep the onscreen text to a minimum, Toone said that "too much reading can slow the game or kill it, like The Adventures of Willy Beamish," with the main artist Rolf Mohr adding that "hopefully, a picture will say a thousand words and make this system easy to use.

"[32] The two versions of the game, for the PC and the Amiga, were developed separately and simultaneously, in order to make the best possible product for each platform rather than a quick port from one system to another.

[35] The animators Billy Allison and Stuart Atkinson created "huge" DPaint-made character sequences but they had to implement them in game in more efficient way due to computer memory limitations.

"[54] The game's story and elements were partially inspired by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Snow Queen, and Disney animated films,[2][55][56] and relies heavily on surreal humor and slapstick.

[59] As written in adventure gaming magazine Red Herring, "obvious similarities abound as you find that: 'the downtrodden villagers are praying for a return to a peaceful life, and the death of the evil one', which Is pretty much what they are doing in Lure of the Temptress.

"[60] Curse of Enchantia was officially revealed under this title at the European Computer Trade Show (ECTS) in April 1992,[25][58] after missing the original March/April release date announced when it was known as Zeloria.

"[73] However, the game was derided by some for its confusing user interface system, often illogical puzzle solutions and what some reviewers thought was a lack of quality humor, plot development and atmosphere, attributing it to the absence of text and dialogue.

The "absolutely enchanted" Ken Simpson from Australia's ACAR said the game's "delightful" graphics and animation "are among the most tastefully executed [he has] ever seen," but noted the problems with its interface system and difficulty.

[68] One preview in North American magazine Computer Gaming World called it "a pretty looking product" of "a Loom / KQV / Legend of Kyrandia approach,"[76] even as another called it "actually more of a multi-screen puzzle game than a traditional animated adventure," adding that "gamers with a strong penchant for puzzle should find it entertaining" despite its "a bit clumsy" interface.

This may be partly due to the lack of text in the game - it's hard to relate to the characters you meet," and "although entertaining, Curse of Enchantia is to Monkey Island 2 what Smash is to mashed potato," that is "just a weaker substitute.

"[10] Lee Perkins of The Age opined that "Curse of Enchantia might be seen as a mite disappointing by fantasy gamers with moderately sophisticated tastes.

"[79] PC Gamer UK described it an "average generic fare" as "the graphics are pretty" but the game "lacks atmosphere and feels too much like a succession of annoyingly vague puzzles rather than an adventure story.

[91][92] Reception was also strong in Poland, where Curse of Enchantia was positively reviewed in C&A (95%) and Secret Service (77%),[93][94] and featured among "the best adventure games" of 1992 (alongside Alone in the Dark, Indiana Jones IV and The Legend of Kyrandia) by Computer Studio.

[96] A 1996 feature by France's PC Soluces gave it three stars out of five, stating that the game's interesting characters, surrealist feel and varied graphics were dragged down by "a bit weak" plot and an interface that was not intuitive enough.

"[101] However, Gry-Online included the lack of even partial descriptions of objects among the reasons why Curse of Enchantia failed to become an outstanding game, along with a too many user interface icons and "useless" features.

[102] An advertisement for Curse of Enchantia was featured in GamesRadar's humor article about "what game ads looked like when the SNES was alive".

Sharp-witted readers will spot the similarities between this and Core's previous adventure Curse of Enchantia, in which the hero Brad is mysteriously transported from a quiet English town to a parallel universe in the past which is ruled by a tyrannical coven of witches.

Responding to some of the criticism directed at Curse of Enchantia, Core Design described Universe as being "a lot" more logical and less linear than their first adventure game.

They also acknowledged that Curse of Enchantia has "suffered considerably" due to inclusion of action sequences, something that "adventure gamers don't want in their games.