Curious Expedition | a Review
originally published on 27/08/2024;
Hello everyone, I am the indisputably supreme archaeologist, G.E.M.Simov, a being so well versed in the ancient arts of digging and tomb robbing that I can not be matched by anyone. Thus, like every good archaeologist, now that my bones hurt from moving, I have come to present lectures on things - starting with “Curious Expedition”.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
Curious Expedition is half a text-based adventure game and half an exploration sandbox. It would be more proper to say that it is a somewhat text-based adventure game with rogue-lite elements, due to the fact that it involves losing some progress to progress, and it makes use of everything that makes a text-based adventure game a text-based adventure game, but I can not stop myself from wanting to tack on the “exploration sandbox” onto it.
It is such, because it provides the Player with two modes of play - there is the MAP mode and the Zone mode. In the MAP mode the Player travels through an uncharted world in search of a specific location, avoiding or encountering beasts, discovering ancient ruins and native villages (just a few examples), whilst also managing their Party, its encumbrance and its sanity.
Let me pull back a bit and explain how things work. The Player picks a Character out of a decently large selection. At the very beginning, many of them are locked and unavailable, but almost half of them are free to choose. Each Character has a specific trait - be it that they get to heal those in their Party, or that they have an easier time recruiting others - whilst also having a set of starting supplies and a starting party.
The Player Character (PC) is then tasked with going on six expeditions - essentially exploring six worlds - and getting more fame than the other 4 Characters (explorers) in the game. The Player is given the option to pick a difficulty - with Easy, Normal and Hard being on offer - and is then sent to a map of the world with a few locations highlighted. Those are possible destinations for the Player’s expedition AND the other explorers’ expeditions.
The Player gets some information about their prospective expedition and makes a choice on which one to go. Afterwards, they get an event that puts them in the Zone mode of play, giving them a fancy backdrop and a wall of text to read through, coupled with a decision to make, the outcome of which could be beneficial or detrimental.
Following that, the expedition begins in earnest and the Player is faced with the MAP mode, which is a large map, made out of hexagons, many of which are blank, and some of which feature terrain. The Player is presented with the option to interact with the ship, in a Zone mode encounter - TEXT and a few potential decisions that could be beneficial or detrimental - and then has to set off to explore this new world.
Exploring works by clicking on a specific hexagon, typically one the Player would like to travel to, and then clicking the big “travel" button. While traveling, the Player's party(called a trek by the game, but I'll stick to party) will lose sanity based on the distance and terrain covered. Sanity is restored by using the right mouse button to click on items in the Party's inventory, which items restore sanity. Those tend to be food items, or rather supplies, so they are quite useful to stock up on prior to an expedition. Why? Because without them, the Player can get a game-over screen.
So, the Player wanders about in MAP mode, managing their sanity. What might they encounter? As previously stated, animals or straight up monsters can show up and attack the party, which brings up the combat system. Each character has a set of dice, which dice have certain things on their faces. There are red, green, blue and weird, yellowishly brown dice. Blue and green are based on utility, with green being more defensive, while red are based on combat and fighting.
The way the fight goes is that the party goes first, throwing a bunch of dice, and then tries to make a combo out of the options they've gotten. That could give them a shield to negate incoming damage or an attack do some damage. After the party is done, they hand the turn over to the enemy, who rolls and attacks. The fight goes on until either the PC the Player chose at the start of the game OR the enemy dies. Alternatively, the party can opt to do nothing and just flee.
Killing an enemy allows the party to loot it. The party can also loot shrines and other funky locations they encounter on their trip, which is all done through the Zone mode of play, meaning that there's a decent amount of text involved. Looting shrines is generally a bad call, because it has a very heavy drawback, but the objects found in those shrines are very valuable and helpful in the long run.
Those objects can be of three varieties, or maybe four - they can be consumable, like food(supplies) or bandages; they can be treasures, which have a use after an expedition aside from during it; they can be merchandise, or stuff with value and no other use to the Player; and they can be items that provide bonuses, such as a wider range of vision or the ability to spot question marks from further away.
Items are generally good to have, but there is an issue. Overencumbrance. See, overencumbrance is a bit esoteric, but overall it is based on how much the party is carrying and how many people are in the party. The lower the number, the easier it is to get overencumbered, and that makes the party use up a lot more sanity while traveling, meaning that more supplies are used up, and that's a problem.
So, to solve that problem, the Player can visit settlements and recruit native people from them, or they can recruit folks before they start their expedition. The way recruitment works in settlements is simple - if the party has good enough standing with the natives, there are going to be people who would be willing to join the party. Only one person per expedition session, though!
Other things that the party can do at a settlement are: rest, which recovers sanity but takes away 2 standing. Trade, which can increase standing in the Player just gives away items instead of asking for something in return; and other things that can happen while resting, such as getting the opportunity to steal an object.
With all that said, it might appear as though things are clear. Well, they somewhat are, but not quite. The game features an impressive complexity - mainly in regards to sanity management, due to the fact that crossing rivers, forests, deserts, snow fields, hills, swamps - anything that is not flat land - incurs a pretty big sanity penalty, so the more space the Player sees, the easier it is for them to chart routes that consume the lowest amount of sanity.
The balancing act is quite fine, because everything might seem fine at one point and then everything starts going down the drain at a rapid pace.
All of that is further exacerbated by the goal - to find a golden pyramid - which is somewhere that the Player can neither ask nor receive clues to. The only way to find it is by following a compass arrow (which is wildly inaccurate at the beginning of an expedition) or stumbling upon it by blind luck. This is also where difficulties come in - on the Easy difficulty, getting to the pyramid ends the expedition with a success for the Player. However, on the Hard difficulty, that is not the case - the Player needs to guide the party back to the ship that an expedition's MAP mode starts at.
Then there are a plethora of other issues that can wind up befalling the Player's Characters - detrimental traits showing up and compromising a run, the best of which have to be funky diseases that turn a party member into an abomination, which abomination then just murders someone, or the arson trait, which sets fire to the hexagon currently occupied by the party and one party member just dies… The best thing is that many of those happen out of nowhere, just after resting and restoring sanity, so there is no certainty or safety to be had.
Regardless, when an expedition is successfully completed, the PC is awarded a perk - that's a beneficial effect selected by the Player, out of three possible options. It could be increased sanity regeneration in certain situations, less sanity consumed by certain terrain, better starting standing with the natives, or other near bonuses. Afterwards, the scores are tallied - being the first to discover the pyramid nets the explorer to do it a nice bonus in their Fame, but the main source of Fame are treasures and their donation to the museum.
The Player's treasures are presented and the Player is given the choice to donate them to the museum for fame, to keep them for future use in the next expedition or to sell them at auction for funds. The Player ultimately wins by having more Fame than everyone else, but by having more Funds the Player can take more risks and do more things that net them treasures that produce Fame. Again, a balancing act and risk versus reward.
In addition to all of that, there is a multiplayer mode. Well, it is somewhat multiplayer, somewhat not. It’s regarded as “Curious Expedition: Rivals” and it is, essentially, one massive expedition - a very massive one, in a very BIG world, which has countless regions and only one pyramid in it. It’s a bit of a competition, though it’s still generally just the main game’s gameplay… Yet it is lessened, due to the fact that some mechanics just don’t work the same way and are inferior to what the Single Player option presents.
Ultimately, this game is not actually an exploration sandbox or a text based adventure game, it is actually a survival game with roguelike characteristics, through and through. And as a result of that it is pretty great… Even though I've neglected to mention a large number of things about it. The sheer truth of the matter is that I suppose the reader can figure out what kind of game this is, and then can go on to discover it without being spoiled by a far too detailed explanation of what it is, due to the fact that I do think, gameplay wise, it is fantastic! 3/3
Presentation
The first thing the Player might notice is that this game is UNBELIEVABLY LOUD. It’s as if it is screaming at the top of its lungs at the Player and doing its best to deafen them indefinitely. Lowering the volume to the lowest possible amount still renders it louder than most other games out there. That is an issue, regardless of how nice the music may be.
And that’s the second thing - the music in Curious Expedition is not bad. It is this low fidelity, relatively simple sounding stuff that goes so well with pixel art, and due to the fact that this game makes use of pixel art, it jives well. The musical tracks themselves are not bad, and some are even good, though the overwhelming loudness does take away from the enjoyment. There is a great oddity in place here - some tracks are very subdued and ambient, allowing for the Player’s focus on what matters here - the text and the gameplay - but then there are other tracks that are intrusively loud and bombastic, so much so that it becomes ridiculously hard to focus on the game properly, or at least takes away the opportunity for a calm and relaxed approach.
Fortunately, these tracks are not a constant occurrence, and they can be dealt with via a quick visit to the menus and lowering the volume of the music. Now, when it comes to sound effects (SFX) and ambience, Curious Expedition handles those incredibly well. Not only because of the quality of the SFX themselves, but also because of the way it manages to meld its visuals with the audio.
I suppose it is proper to talk about the appearance of the game, instead of skirting around it. As was mentioned, it is a very pixelated experience, as Curious Expedition utilizes pixel art for all of its visuals. Fortunately for the game, it does this well - the art is, simply put, spectacular, and the fantastic sights it unveils before the Player are truly something to behold. Not only that, but the way it works is such that it really likes presenting wondrous backdrops that are static, which, in turn, allows for a lot more detail to be put into them.
This game looks stunningly beautiful, and it does not end there. I said something about focusing on text - and that’s exactly what shall be done now. Curious Expedition is half a text-based RPG/Adventure, meaning that a lot of what is happening is conveyed through text, and the way things are conveyed through text, the way the text is written - that’s one very well. The vocabulary of the writers was of a satisfying level and thus provides some very pleasant sentences to sample, whilst also conveying more than enough information for the progression of the Player.
This combines with the way the tutorial is handled - it is optional, but it is situated in such a location that it would be hard to not notice its presence. Regardless, the way the game works is relatively intuitive and the way information is presented is clear enough for the Player to be able to figure out how to play the game without the Tutorial’s help. The quality of the writing helps with introducing the Player to the game, through the use of a relatively scripted “game session” in which the basic mechanics are introduced.
The game does one thing very well, and that is conveying to the Player that it is not necessary to do things as they are done in the tutorial, emphasizing that Player choice is important. Still, it does have a few failings in how it conveys information - and that is outside of the tutorial - but the issues are minor enough to be overlooked. Thus? 3/3
Story
This game does not have a very coherent story, as unfortunate as that is. It features loads of funky lore that might inform the Player of the world’s history, but it does not actually have a story that develops as things go on.
In short, the Player’s Character is an explorer in the explorer’s society of the British museum and is in a competition with 4 other explorers to accrue the most fame out of them and have a statue dedicated to the winner (which should, ultimately, be the PC)... And that’s all there is to it.
Upon winning the game (succeeding in having the most fame, or just making it through Expedition 6) a few lines of text will be presented about the PC and about the other members in their party, but aside from that everything is left up to interpretation, or rather up to the Player. That’s the key here - there is great potential for emergent storytelling in this game, because it lays down the groundwork for a story to be developed as the Player progresses, but it is not as fleshed out as it could be.
For starters, there is great ambiguity to many things - even special items just have a single line of text associated with them, and that’s about it. There are some things that happen, inexplicably, but they are so esoteric and obscure that they just occur. There is room for the development of a story in the Player’s head, and the basic world is fleshed out enough for that to happen and work out, but there is very little else.
As a result of that, I feel conflicted on whether I should or I should not grade Curious Expedition in this department. It is clear that there is very little, almost nothing, and there is no story being told. In addition to that, what story there is, although told through good means of expression, is very unresponsive to the Player’s actions… 1/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? Does this adventure, reminiscent of those funky adventure movies taking place during the scramble for Africa, or a bit later, or in other words so evocative of Indana Jones and Lara Croft, get the Legendary Point?
Oh, I want to say it does. If it lacked that one teeny, tiny detail, it would not have gotten the point, but it has that thing. It has modding support! Allowing the Player to set the rules of the game they are playing is the most immaculate thing one can do when making a game, as a result of which Curious Expedition, which already has a great foundation and gameplay loop, and looks wonderful on top of that, gets to be, by default, one of the best games ever made - because it is easily susceptible to modding.
YES, this game gets the Legendary Point! 1/1
Conclusion
8/10. An amazing experience that might threaten to lightly veer off being fun due to the challenge it presents, but nevertheless a roguelite fan should definitely give it a go, and the same can be said for those who enjoy survival games and adventure games. Fans of the time period and the aesthetic are also advised to check it out!
I tuck it under my belt, another shining achievement that I proudly display… What a gem!