Want to go on an Indiana Jones style adventure for treasures and glory? Come to the world of Curious Expedition 2 with an exciting 19th century world with good turn based adventuring and a procedurally generated story.
About
Curious Expedition 2 is a turn based narrative game set within a re-imagined 19th century world, that aims to create a new story each time you play. It uses procedural gameplay and story elements to create unique and compelling adventures.
A lot of elements are procedurally generated from your team to the story itself. Characters can be anything from an Australian Hunter, a war-like Nurse to a Priest. Take your party to hidden islands not seen before, carry favour with the locals, kill beasts and complete missions.
This turn based game will intrigue you with its complex story and its ability to be played again and again in unique ways.
The game starts in Paris. The grand discovery of new islands that appear and disappear from the oceans pushes new options. Expeditions begin with the three Explorer Clubs sponsoring the player to do their dirty work.
Gameplay
Once the game’s story starts off in Paris, it is off to the races. The game introduces the three Explorer Clubs and the main bar where you pick up new party members and extra perks. Making sure to upgrade at the right time and getting the right party balance is key. Each character is procedurally generated and will have key strengths and weaknesses you can see (also their combat dice, which we will come to later.).
Now, you have picked your team in Paris and picked one of the three possible expeditions, its time for the expedition to begin. Three main phases will happen in the Expedition part of the game:
- Movement Phase
- Encounter Phase
- Resource/Item Management Phase
Each of these phases are interlinked but all are fun in their own way for strategy gamers like us.
Movement Phase
The movement phase is the main map screen. To complete an expedition, you will need to find and complete objectives on this hex-based map. Each movement costs purple sanity and planning your route is key for success.
Each island holds it’s own mysteries with a fog of war covering each island (size depending on your perks). Mysteries can include Indiana Jones style Shrines and temples, predator beasts patrolling key areas and key story points along the way (often entering your vision as a “?” icon).
Make sure to plan a good route ahead, whilst keeping an eye on that purple bar in the top right.
Encounter Phase
Once you begin exploring, you will encounter battles, treasure hunts and conversation that require dice rolls. This element feels very “DnD” in a way with each character adding specific combat dice into your pool.
Battles focus on your dice rolls with green, blue, red and blank sided dice. A dice will have 6 sides and like rolling a normal dice – getting that perfect roll is often needed. It is also worth saying that Lower level characters will have more blank sides that colours, with higher levels having more coloured sides.
Time for Combat. Dice rolls lead to abilities. This Devour Soul is 34 damage but add two more blue dice for a bigger attack.
Once rolled, you activate abilities and the opposition will then do their action. Traditional turn-based action, until someone faints, KOs or dies.
Each other encounter will give you story options to then perform a roll. For example, to persuade in a conversation do a combat roll needing 3 greens or to collect treasure roll 2 greens.
Resource and Item Management
When going through the jungles and deserts, you have to manage your party. Your purple sanity bar goes down very quickly and it is important to not go to 0. Not dying at 0 sanity is possible but the possibility of losing the game is higher with Insanity events.
It is important to visit the locals and missionaries to get more supplies. Money is not a commodity to the locals and trades are the only option. We loved raiding Shrines and then moving to a local village to trade a gem for some more meat and drink.
Barter well and trade stuff you do not need for some good supplies. “Standing” is future favour for future trades.
Overall
In the several hours we played, we loved the depth of it. Exploring each island with a new different side-storyline is great. In our several expeditions, we had two of our characters fall in love, one character die in an unexpected way and several annoyed locals. It kept us compelled to play several hours in a sitting. Also wanting to play again but with a different team.
Rating 4/5 – Good game, good story.
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