After a little over a year, The Curious Expedition's multiplayer mode Rivals has left open beta. Once limited to a browser-only test version, this week Rivals launched as a free update to the main downloadable game. Developers Maschinen-Mensch are offering a tantalising prize for dropping in, too - find a particular golden pyramid within its expanse, and earn early entry to the closed alpha for Curious Expedition 2.
]]>German studio Maschinen-Mensch have announced Curious Expedition 2, a follow-up to the 19th century explore 'em up we declared our favourite roguelike(like) of 2016. The Explorer Clubs will once again be heading out into uncharted (by us) lands to uncover unknown (to us) civilisations and maybe meet a dinosaur or two along the way, inspired by Verne and Doyle and other such vintage sci-fi writers. Due to enter early access later this year, the sequel will bring a new art style and a refresh of the technoguts that generate stories and relationships.
]]>"If Spelunky were a slow-paced top-down exploration game, it’d be The Curious Expedition." Adam (sob) said that back when we declared it the best Roguelike of 2016, and I can see where he's coming from: they're both games about weaving stories from procedurally generated calamities.
In the beta for Curious Expedition: Rivals, other players can wriggle their way into those stories. I've been exploring new worlds in my browser though, and so far their contribution has just been 'nuh nuh, we got to that shrine before you'.
]]>Say, have you played The Curious Expedition, the turn-based colonial-era exploration game which we declared our favourite roguelikelike of 2016? You can't all have, as otherwise developers Maschinen-Mensch wouldn't have released a demo today. It contains two expeditions. So whoever you missing-outers are, go on, get in, give it a go. You needn't even download anything special to play, as the demo runs in your browser.
]]>Ace adventure 'em up The Curious Expedition [official site] has added the Arctic in a big free update, full of new places to explore, new mysteries to uncover, new treasures to find, and more awful ways to die. Developers Maschinen-Mensch released the Arctic Expanse update on Friday with a bucket of tweaks too, which is grand considering The Curious Expedition was already our favourite roguelike of 2016.
]]>By 2020, it's entirely possible that we'll have an entire calendar devoted to roguelikes, but this year, what was our favourite in the ever-expanding genre? The RPS Advent Calendar highlights our favourite games of the year, daily, and behind today’s door is...
Pack your bags - it's The Curious Expedition!
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
Select an explorer, form a team, and go on an adventure in a distant, procedurally generated land in search of treasure. Make it back alive and achieve fame and glory, or die alone in some hostile wasteland. Either way, The Curious Expedition will give you a story to tell.
]]>As December approaches like a runaway sled and we prepare to say our goodbyes to 2016, it's natural to reflect on the year as a whole. Those reflections could easily take the form of laments but we're keeping our focus firmly on the world of PC games, where we've identified ten trends that may not have defined 2016, but have certainly helped to shape it. We delve into Sorcery and synthwave, DOOM and Danganronpa, and much more besides.
]]>The Curious Expedition [official site] is a turn-based game of exploration and exploitation in which you control one of several historical characters, wandering the world in search of fame and fortune. After a long trek through the wildlands of Early Access, it has emerged as a complete game today. But does it belong in a museum or should it have been left to rot in the ground? Here's wot I think.
]]>We're almost half-way through the year, and it's not been a bad one. The finale of The Witcher 3. Dark Souls III, for those players who consider it an RPG. A couple of late-arrivals, like Dragon's Dogma. But as the nights again start to draw darker, what's up next? Here's some of the big quests still promised for 2016. As ever, don't be too surprised to see a few more jump from A to B.
]]>In the six months since I wrote about The Curious Expedition [official site], a great deal has changed. The shiny new trailer below shows some of those changes, including dicey combat, a world map, yawning great chasms that swallow expeditions whole, and a victory screen. It's possible that the victory screen was in the build I played last year but I certainly never saw it. I was too busy pondering the strange appeal of cannibalism and befriending a donkey.
The latest version is now available via Steam Early Access as well as direct from the devs.
]]>Curious Expedition [official site] is a wonderful thing. Taking on the role of a famous explorer/thinker, you'll lead a team of adventurers across randomised plots of land, packed with wonders to discover, dangers to overcome and volcanoes to tinker with. You will watch in horror as your allies resort to cannibalism and you'll celebrate as you discover salvation when supplies and sanity are running low. You'll also weep as you eat a donkey.
]]>The Curious Expedition is a breezy, bright and endearing game about small groups of explorers who head into the unknown to seek golden pyramids and other wonders, natural and man-made. There have been comparisons to FTL, which are understandable but not entirely appropriate. While many of the same elements are included - a journey, a 'crew', permadeath, limited resources, randomisation, emergent narrative from minimalist components - but the machine for which those elements are fuel is quite different. Happily, one area in which a direct comparison can be made is quality.
I've been playing the alpha and having a splendid time.
]]>My first few moments with The Curious Expedition were almost misleadingly delightful. Set in the 19th century, I was told to pick from a selection of charming pixel renderings of historical figures and dropped into the world, with the only stated goal of exploring the strange new randomly generated land I had found myself in. It was welcoming, colourful, and hiding a whole host of things that wanted to kill me.
After almost two years of development, The Curious Expedition is entering paid alpha on November 27th at $12 (£7.50). Developers Maschinen-Mensch gave me a little early look, so I'm going to tell you how I felt about my first trek through the jungle as Marie Curie.
]]>One of my favourite books is Atlas of Remote Islands, Judith Schalansky's study of "fifty islands I have not visited and never will." Each spread has a clean hand-drawn map on one page and a story about the island opposite. Some of the stories tell local myths, some are factual, but all are treated with the same significance. The result is a book filled with beautiful, often haunting stories of mutinies and shipwrecks, Soviet listening stations, unknown diseases, and dangerous expeditions to the edges of the world.
The Curious Expedition seems considerably lighter in tone, less filled with sehnsucht for lives not lived, but it does spark in this brief trailer below some similar sense of adventure, of visiting far away lands, of probably unintentionally destroying those far away lands. I am looking forward to this videogame - a "roguelike expedition simulation set in the 19th century."
]]>Patch notes
DevLog Watch v0.0.09 - Fixed recurring bank holiday Monday freeze bug. - Added games from places other than the TIGSource forum. - Added game from the TIGSource forum. - Double-checked games for juvenile hate speech. - Temporarily cut 'archive' section. - BUG: Intro text gimmicks still need work.
Spaceships! Procedural butterflies! And have you heard about the Firewatch sasquatch?
]]>The problem with turning this into a regular column is that I have to write it regularly. I have clearly failed this week, but that shouldn't stop you enjoying day-late development blogs and GIFs from around the web.
Includes: dinosaurs, Nikola Tesla, flight sandboxes, conference tables, 'game jams'.
]]>The Curious Expedition has all the marks of a particularly fine undertaking. It's a procedurally generated sort of thing, with overland exploration of varied biomes, and battles against mystical creatures, dinosaurs, cannibals and other such unpleasantries. Inspired by the works of Verne, Darwin and Livingstone, the game is set in the 19th Century and is a 'roguelike-strategy-puzzler'. No word on a precise release date but builds are doing the rounds at indie meet-ups and the team have been toiling away for over a year, in between working full time at their day jobs. You should almost certainly watch the videos in this link. They are in the form of animated gifs and yet they do not contain cats.
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