Thunderful's Curious Expedition is a very fun game. It has a lot of complicated strategic parts you have to think about in order to be successful, but all of them create a learning experience, much like Oregon Trail did for gamers back in the day, that motivates you to keep going.
When I saw the trailer for Curious Expedition, I knew something interesting was going on here. Don’t get me wrong, being a season gaming veteran of the industry, I understood firmly that, and I know you’ll find this shocking, trailers are pure marketing. Still, there was something innocent and wholesome about picking an explorer, surviving as long as you can, and doing it all over again in a pixelated adventure wrapper. It reminded me of a game I played for the first time in 1983 on a Texas Instrument computer in Memphis, Tennessee as a kid…what was it called…OH! Oregon Trail.
Now, before you Oregon Trail purist lose your shit and claim nothing is like Oregon Trail and start invading our inbox like we gave Fallout 76 an 83%, just simmer down. Walk away. Go to your front porch and social distance yourself from the computer (and your neighbor, mail person, etc.). It’s going to be okay. Comparing a more recent game to an absolute classic is one of the biggest compliments you can give to a gem-like Oregon Trail. Imagine that a developer, such is the case with Thunderful, likes you so much that he/she built a game that can compare to you. That’s a huge compliment.
Anyway, Curious Expedition is in my mind one of the biggest compliments to Oregon Trail, as well as treading on new territory how an exploration/survival game can go.
Let’s dig right into this.
The story behind Curious Expedition is that you’re a famous name in history (and literally, you play a famous explorer, such as Charles Darwin) that is trying to beat out the competition in exploring new worlds and finding people and goodies along the way. Either your person is going to win and return home an exploring God, or simply die and be forgotten. The premise of the story is JUST that simple.
The gameplay? Not as simple.
The majority of what you do in Curious Expedition is point and click, as well as text-based choices. Imagine early renditions of LucasArts point/click and you will get the idea. Once you choose an explorer, choose your crew, then you get to choose from 1-2 available spots on a world map to go adventuring.
Before your crew sets sail, the game throws you a few things to think about. You are given a certain amount of money, which relates to the equipment you’re going to purchase. Depending on where you’re going to, you will need to figure out what is best suited for your adventure. The choices can vary depending on your journey, but mainly you’re going to need food/water/weapons. There are some hiking gear options, such as rope/climbing equipment, but you won’t immediately need that in the game.
As soon as you’re set, ready to go, the game will throw in some additional task that you can either choose to accept or just outright reject. This could be finding someone’s spouse in the land you’re exploring or delivering a package/letter to a village. This is where the text-based adventuring comes in, which is very Oregon Trail with a bit of Secret of Monkey Island. Regardless of what you choose, the adventure begins.
Once your ship arrives at the exploration spot, you can choose what to take with you. The game does everything in its power to make sure you’re making the right choices, which is great for someone just starting the game. You find out that you can store or take items before you begin, which gives you a hint that when you find material, you can store it back on the ship. That’s always a good option for newbies wanting to get their feet wet with the game slowly.
Anyway, after choosing your items, you set off into the great unknown. The game switches to a top-down pixelated view, kind of like a hexagon map, where most of the map is hidden from plain sight. As you approach the edge of the hidden parts, the map slowly begins to uncover itself. As it uncovers, there will be a series of ‘?’ in certain areas. That is a simple indicator that something is in that particular part of the map. When you get close to it, the place reveals itself. This could be a village, trader, temple, waterfall or a cave.
Starting with the village, it brings about the most story elements of the location bunch. The village is a spot where you meet natives of the area. The folks will either welcome you, be suspicious of you, or immediately attack you. The game requires you to read and follow the dialogue here, which is more exciting than I just wrote. The right choice in your response to villager dialogue will bring you good spirits and fortune, while the wrong choice will most certainly make things harder. Or you’ll be attacked. For me, I enjoyed the hell out of trying to make the right cognitive choice in the game. It’s a simple process of strategic chance, one that depends on you reading and taking in the tone of the villagers. For the most part, the game worked in my favor without many repercussions for the wrong choice. This sort of deal doesn’t make or break the expedition, but it makes having a reliable pitstop somewhat difficult when you go south with responses.
Beyond villagers, the game also features temples and caves to explore. Inside these places, you will more than not find relics. Some of the relics are ridiculous and fun, while others have a significant impact over the land should they be removed (Shadow of the Tomb Raider-esque). The latter of the bunch means that sometimes removing an artifact equals out to devastating consequences for the surrounding land. For example, in a dry desert area, I removed an artifact that started a chain reaction to the land. Earthquakes happened everywhere in one instance, which caused land collapses and lakes to appear. That’s a bad thing because it was more difficult to explore, as I had to find ways around the lakes. One item I removed caused endless brush fires wherever I walked. It was horribly alarming and it hurt my party. While obtaining an item will ultimately give you fame and money by the end of the exploration period, the pain it causes the adventure may not be worth it. You have to judge that as you go, which is part of the fun.
Outside of temples and villages, the game also features creatures that will attack you, hunt you, or simply leave you be. The former of the three is brutal. Creatures, which can be panthers, large birds, or dinosaurs (large birds?) cover a certain amount of hexagons and should you traverse into a hexagon cluster they cover, you will most likely get attacked or relentlessly hunted. The creatures move around too, which means those hexagon borders change. Ultimately, it’s a game of cat/mouse, which more than likely equals out to sacrificing a member of your team. Sometimes they’re expendable.
Now, if you want to fight the creature, the game will shift into a Final Fantasy turn-based action scene. This is where the game confused me for the most part, but I got it by the end. At the beginning of your adventure, you not only get to choose which weapons to bring with you but also which crew members. Some crew are born to explore, while others are born to fight. Each member has a dice attribute that reflects whether they can fight or not. If they can fight, then their dice icon will be a weapon. The more people who have weapons for dice, the better chance you roll and take down an enemy, such as a panther. It’s very simple, though not immediately obvious in the game. Does this mean you should load up your crew with weapon experts? Lord, no. You load up your crew with a variety of people, as your dice portion of the adventure will equal out to more than just fighting. For example, there will be moments where you have to roll to escape a location, climb a location, or to achieve minor goals to progress your exploration. The game actually does a good job with instituting dice rolling into the mix, as it does make sense when it comes up in certain instances. I just wish it were a bit clearer about its functions.
Moving along, the biggest crux of the adventure in Curious Expedition is simply surviving the journey. As your characters walk around, a certain amount of resources are used. The life meter at the top of the main window gives you an indication of exhaustion and hunger for the group. If the meter gets too low, there is a chance someone will get sick, injured, or end up dead. When all the explorers die, the exploration is over (duh). You will spend a large amount of time trying to keep that meter up. The only way to do this is to eat/drink/DRINK, heal people, and rest. Eating/drinking/DRINKING just means that you have to keep enough food available, as well as water and/or alcohol. Healing people means that you have to bring medkits with you to make sure idiots don’t hurt themselves. Finally, resting means that you have to find places to camp, which are certain locations along the expedition, including villages, though villagers will hate you for prolonged stays. Knowing that you are going to lose someone is something you will have to accept in the game. Surviving is your main focus, even if it means cooking up a donkey and/or coming home alone.
Sounds great, right?
Food and drink are obtainable from villages, churches, or traders. You will have to be prepared to give goods up for these things, if necessary. Keeping the adventure going is your main goal in Curious Expedition, so don’t lose focus of that, even if it costs you rare items. It’s all strategy and part of the ultimate adventure.
With all of the above said, what is the goal of each adventure? Good question. Your goal in each exploring instance is to find a giant golden temple, which marks the end of your exploration for that particular expedition. When you find this temple, the current expedition ends and you are sent back home for glory/riches/rest. A few things happen while you’re at home. First, you get rewarded for your journey with medals. Each medal, you have to choose between a variety, offers up a certain upgrade to your adventure for the next time out. This means you can upgrade your abilities and potentially survive longer. This is a nice reward for you and helps motivate you to keep going.
The second part of being home is selling your goods or giving them away to the museum. Selling helps to purchase new material, but giving to the museum is a nice option. To tell you the honest truth, I think I donated my goods to the museum once during my six-hours of playing this game. I needed more money to help prep for the next trip (and upgrade my donkey).
Lastly, being home means that you can see where you stand among other explorers. This part is particularly useful because it creates motivation for the player to do better. It also gives you a gauge of how hard you need to work on the next expedition. You go on expeditions until the game is over or until you die, so you will experience this quite often if you’re good.
Overall, Thunderful’s Curious Expedition is a very fun game. It has a lot of complicated strategic parts you have to think about in order to be successful, but all of them create a learning experience, much like Oregon Trail did for gamers back in the day, that motivates you to keep going.
