Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Cthulhu]

Some of you might remember a thread on a silly roguelike expedition game with some vague promises of a playable version some time soon.  That playable version is finally out after more than a year and it's reasonably cool for twelve bucks.  Much of the gameplay feels placeholder right now and I'll talk more about that in my impressions but what's there is pretty fun.

The gist of the game is a mix of Oregon Trail, Indiana Jones, that Ultima Ratio Regum game on here, etc.  You choose one of ten or twelve famous characters ranging from Charles Darwin to Nikola Tesla to Amelia Earhart to Aleister Crowley, with various special bonuses.  Currently the bonuses are placeholders and there's a lot of overlapping.  Instead of substantial abilities like Tesla's lightning gun they just have passive bonuses like a reduced sanity cost for movement or faster compass growth (more on that later).  You pick your character, gather a party of generic characters ranging from packmules to cooks to soldiers to priests to translators, and buy items.  The items have a lot of uses but the characters are mostly just vehicles for passive bonuses unless you start roleplaying them.  They have a couple traits (like racism which leads to negative events with natives) but this is another placeholder element it would seem.  Then you travel to a randomly generated foreign wilderness and try to survive the harrowing dangers of a hostile country.

The goal of each expedition is to find a golden pyramid.  When you find it you earn fame depending on your achievements and speed of completion.  Then you can start a new expedition in a harder region, spending your fame on more equipment and choosing new characters to replace any that died.  Completing a single expedition is pretty easy as far as roguelikes go, but they get successively more difficult and completing a good streak of expeditions is pretty hard.


As far as the actual gameplay and state of the game go, like I said, there's a lot of placeholder elements.  The main concern is Sanity.  Sanity is a general representation of hunger, morale, faith in the expedition, etc.  When it hits zero bad things start happening, people start fighting or developing negative traits or eating each other.  Every move has a base sanity cost plus terrain penalties and such; it's generally a good idea to move as far as you can with each movement to minimize the base cost (Two tiles might cost 2 san each but moving one at a time will also cost you the base cost twice.)  Most of the character bonuses are based around sanity.

Combat right now is a placeholder, the combat system you saw if you paid attention the last time the game came up isn't implemented yet, it's just "spend bullets to beat this monster or suffer a penalty."  Native interactions are also pretty limited, when you interact with them you lose some standing which is a flat number that determines whether or not they'll help you.  Stealing from them or otherwise causing them problems will lower your stamina also.  There aren't many of the fantastic elements we saw; I haven't seen any dinosaurs or giant lobsters or anything.

Overall though I like what they've done with it so far.  The placeholders mean the game's very playable even if limited, there aren't many bugs and the mechanics still in the game work just fine.  The paid alpha is 12 bucks right now and I'd say I got my money's worth so far.  Has anybody else played it and want to share their thoughts?  Discuss gear choices and party selection?

Right now I think the packmule is essential.  Scottish Soldier gives bonus sanity for drinking whisky  which you will be doing a lot, so I take him  every time too.  The cook I don't think actually works right now, so don't pick him.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

PTW, so hard

[miauw62]

These graphics look amazing.

[nenjin]

Serious necro but the game is all about turning over the remains of the past, wot?

Addictive little game. Didn't expect I'd be playing it this long. I can't even make it past the 4th expedition, my greed love of antiquity dooming us all. Navigating is so satisfyingly tactical yet is what makes this game so random in difficulty. I keep having to remind myself I only need to finish the expedition and sometimes you gotta push the boundaries to win but...well, that's for the "When did you last die" thread.

The dice rolling combat, although a little unclear to start with, makes for a fun little system too, if a little limited.

This is a real gem of a game that doesn't take long to play but keeps you coming back.

[Cthulhu]

It's improved a lot since the early alpha.

[nenjin]

Finally finished Expedition 6 last night. Got 3rd place overall.

Would have taken first but for Expedition 4:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Steal an idol from a shrine in the middle of a rift valley with chasms all around. Trigger an infinitely expanding pool of darkness which changes all terrain to the deep void of space. Proceed to race around the edges of the map trying to find a path to the Golden Temple before the void swallows us up. Find the temple as the darkness literally reaches the edge of it. Enter temple....discover I need two moonstones to open it. FUCK. There's no hope of escape now, the void has swallowed up most of the map. I decide to evac by hot air balloon. I have to leave behind a gajillion supplies, loot and one recently hired and totally redundant translator. Good luck in the darkness of space buddy!

Failing to find the Golden Temple set me back enough fame that I probably couldn't recover from it.

Expedition 6 was no less fraught with peril:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Basically a sprint across the entire map while constantly fleeing packs of raptors, giant vicious birds, giant crabs and worse. Truly the only thing that got us through that expedition was the stack of whiskey I was carrying and the racist Scottish soldier's hard drinking habits.

This was exploring only jungles. I can't imagine what the game is like exploring wastelands and deserts.

[Simon]

Somehow, I've always ended up with a cannibalistic expedition member, who totally screwed things up by eating someone. Or an alcoholic nun or whatever. Once a giant scorpion killed my starved party (yup, tried a desert expedition). Never made it past the expedition in which you have to get a crystal/key/something to enter the Golden Temple. Otherwise, I just ran out of supplies and died accordingly. My memory's a little fuzzy, since the last time I played this was quite a few months ago (January or something). I guess I kept dying a lot, huh...

Is it worth checking out again?

BTW, the art style, while simplistic in its visuality, is strangely charming and fitting for a game of this caliber. Very nice.

[nenjin]

I don't know what the game was like months ago. But I'm currently in love. It should be nearing full release now, so it's complete as it's going to get.

[Neonivek]

My opinion on the game is a bit more negative... though I guess I can't fault the game itself.

I just didn't find it particularly enjoyable... But then again as I've often said I don't like "The long path to death" type games and this one REALLY punishes you until you learn the exploits.

[nenjin]

I disagree. You don't learn exploits. Just like any roguelike, you learn what the possibilities are and you plan for them and the eventualities.

It took me about 5 games before I really got how the economy truly works (since it's not terribly well explained.) My first win came from realizing that, with enough sanity healers, I could run from almost unlimited number of enemies since a) it was the last level b) my party members were all expendable at that point and c) all I needed to do was keep my sanity high enough to avoid getting cannibalized or getting left alone so I would eventually just die.

My enjoyment comes from all the parts of the game it does well. Its flavorful in presentation and being internally consistent about it (in the style of 19th century explorers.) The pixel art is effective and cute without being distracting. The navigation gameplay, exploration and CYOA parts are all enjoyable in how they weave together.

I wish it was a longer form game but keeping it to the context of a race keeps it playable. Like BoI, it keeps the player from discovering everything in one playthrough.

I thought the game was too hard at first and it was just a death march to an entertaining party wipe but after a few more games I realized how much optimization I could do to win: in navigation, party management, fighting, items, resources...that makes for an engaging game to me.

[nenjin]

They just released their first game expansion, The Arctic Expanse, free. I really have been meaning to play this some more. I was holding off because I wanted to finish my Let's Play but my motivation to do that is pretty drained. Haven't played since one of the Alpha versions so I'm really interested to see how far it's come.

[askovdk]

Raise from the dead!
This excellent game is having a free browser-based multiplayer in beta now, and it's very good.
(https://curiousio.j.layershift.co.uk/io)

edit: This seems to be the general access link: https://curious-expedition.com/io

edit2: The official manual for the original game http://curious-expedition.wikia.com/wiki/Curious_Expedition_Wiki


(The 'free to play' model seem to be that you can pay to ensure your favorite starting equipment.)

[askovdk]

Allow me to bump this again and then I will let this thread sink back in oblivion. 
But besides being a nice free game, then there are some elements that I find worth mentioning, as I don’t recall seeing them elsewhere.

Constructive competition
There is no interaction between players, but their presence is always felt as new areas gets unlocked.
So while I can envy the bastard that reached a new outpost before me (and therefore has it named after her), then that outpost will also serve my expeditions. This fits the expedition theme very well, as we fiercely compete for fame, but the access to new land is open for all.

Restarts world
Almost all this fame gets reset each time a new world is generated, which makes it easy to new players to make a mark as well.
These resets also fits the theme of exploration well, as the main goal for everyone is to be the first to find the golden pyramid. Once that happens there is no good reason for continuing expeditions on that continent, and it makes sense within the game that everyone travels to a new continent (and forget about the former).

’Unlocks’ are (one time) starter bonuses
So, is all the blood, sweat and tears in vain then? Not at all, as you play you will get ‘starter crates’ that can be used to boost your starting setup in the next game. E.g. starting with an extra positive perk, a better pack animal, better equipment, ect. While playing you can already start thinking about what combination to bring next time as some of these crates have a large impact on the style of the expedition (hunters, grave robbers, painters, …).
I really like this idea of collecting one time starting buffs as a game mechanic, as it makes each game improve your options for the next game, and at the same time forces you to shift styles. … However, you can make crates permanent for selection, and that is where the ‘free-to-play’ structure activates. As it is, then you will earn 1 gold coin in each world, and you can make a starter crate permanent for between 1-4 gold coins. An expedition can have 4-6(?) starter crates selected, so you will need to play a lot of worlds to make your favorite combo available forever, - or pony up some cash, … - or simply play the game with various styles.
Yes, I’m a collector, so I can’t get myself to spend non-duplicate crates from my collection, but after 2 worlds I’ve already many duplicates to experiment with.

Pay to be strong, but not to win.
So yes, you can spend money to lock some very strong starting buff that you can use again and again, and that will make you very efficient, so you will probably end high in the world’s ‘leaderboard’, but it doesn’t help much for the ultimate goal about finding the golden pyramid. And as I started, - a strong player unlocking new starting points is a benefit for everyone.

[nenjin]

As cool as it sounds, the pay to anything but cosmetics design is an immediate turn off.

[MCreeper]

From quick glance (aka 3 hours  ), it does look like very simplistic singleplayer game, with big payers having some "bragging rights" for their money, and not much else. Eh.