The Curious Expedition (PC) review "I think you're going to like this game"

Travel back to a time where there were plenty parts of the world that were undiscovered and groups of explorers wanted to make a name for themselves by discovering all that was unknown while at the same time gaining fame and riches. The name of the game is The Curious Expedition, developed by Maschinen-Mensch, and what I've just described to you is the foundation of this exact game.

You will get to choose one of the world famous explorers to be your leader and then it is up to you to hire the correct crew, make sure you have enough for supplies, upgrade characters and your pack mule, and of course thrust yourself into the unknown. Each adventure you go on will have a randomly generated map to navigate through, your ultimate goal is to reach the golden pyramid hidden somewhere on the map, but you will also have missions that you will need to accomplish first.

Up to this point this game probably sounds pretty easy, well let me dispel that myth right here and right now. You see that as you travel you're going to use up supplies sometimes its machetes, water, climbing gear, torches, or it might just be the groups sanity. That last one is the reason why this game becomes extraordinarily tricky. You will have to be very aware of the group's sanity, if it zeroes out there are some detrimental effects that can occur. There is one more curve ball for you too, there are times where your group members might try to commit mutiny, attack another member, become a raging alcoholic, succumb to a disease, or just run off in the dead of night. This game will throw things at you from every direction.

If you successfully navigate your way through an expedition you will get the choice what to do with the artifacts that you have discovered on your most recent journey. Do you give them to the museum and see a boost in fame, or do you sell them so that you have more capital to work with? There is one thing that I will warn you of and that is that no matter what you only have a limited inventory to work with, so you're going to have to balance your prizes with your supplies that you need to get back home.

This was a very interesting game, and it definitely took me a couple attempts to figure out how to really get into the game, but once I was in I got hooked. Sure, I had some blow up moments of getting attacked and watching everyone die, sure there were times where I took an artifact from a temple and the entire land started to change and basically doomed my expedition, and sure there were times where I thought to myself "if only I had one more inventory slot". The thing is that there's challenge in this game, every decision can definitely make or break you, or hell it might just make you fly by your competition.



The graphics are old school, they take me back to the 80s art style of PC games. Now that's not to say that that's a bad thing, I actually think that this style choice actually works really well with the game. The game was set in the past, there's something to the theme and feel of the game that really shouts that this is the correct art style.

So here's the deal, this game isn't going to be for everyone, but if you are looking for something a little different, where challenge can be high or low in a matter of seconds, where there is truly unknown lands, treasures, and dangers to every expedition, I think you're going to like this game.

Community review by alteredconfusion (March 30, 2017) Just a gaming fiend trying to find out what is best out there, and then reviewing it for AlteredConfusion.com