Hello good people! Maybe youve heard it before, maybe its the first time you hear it: Next week on the 28th of May our newest game Reus 2 will hit the Steams! Were happy to see the lessons weve learned from Renowned Explorers and Godhood put together into Reus to create a true fresh new Abbey Game! Except what you can expect from us: depth, colorfulness, and a playful heart.
Ok, but why didnt you create Renowned Explorers 2!?
I get this question so often, I feel I need to elaborate more.
Photo of Abbey Games trying to defend not working on RE:IS 2 on MonkeyCon, colorized Renowned Explorers was a creative success. We loved working on it, and we love the game. Every game we made has something special, but for me Renowned Explorers is very special. However Renowned Explorers doesnt sell well and was expensive to make. There are too many good games in the roguelite, storylike, turn based genre. Its also a very odd game: most of you had no idea what you were getting into except if you were enlightened by the eternal TotalBiscuit. Without him, Abbey Games wouldve been long gone after the release of Renowned Explorers. We got families to feed, and we got to make business choices. To add, Renowned Explorers has more words than War & Peace. It has 3 layers of gameplay that all have their own art, code and UX. Its a lot to make. We would need to seriously rethink what Renowned Explorers can be in this day and age. And it has definitely nothing to do with raccoons.
Take the next step with us
Regardless, were super excited about Reus 2! Its a big step for us, and were very happy with the result. Of course we want to share it with you who have been supporting us for all that time. Its a major step up from the original, and we think you should give it a look! We hope youll find that Abbey vibe in there! In any case, were grateful for your support in the past years. Its a privilege to have a shot at entertaining you with our silly ideas. We hope for many more years of colorful creativity! - Adriaan and the monks at the Abbey
In the previous tales, we shared stories of the start of Abbey Games. Today, we share about the exciting exploration of Renowned Explorers!
One thing was certain; The Abbey was filled with chaotic energy! All the monks, old and new, sat together and basically mashed ideas together to see what would come out. A big difference from the four that basically set the line for Reus! It's safe to say the game went in all kind of directions! It was going to be an action RPG! No, an RTS! No! A turn based game! No, a fighter!(?)
One of the early mock ups of Renowned Explorers.
Not only the game was an adventure, we even started making our own tech: AbbeyCore. It was an engine made from scratch. All these factors gave us a lot of fun, but also little to show in one year. And we only had one year left to make something! Safe to say, things were getting hot.... It was time to get serious...
Our attempt to getting serious.
The monks double downed on the events, treasures and characters, while keeping the encounters interesting and fresh. Of course, there was still room for fun. One event had the dialogue of an... adult... movie (without obscenity, think of Hildegard!) as a test case. However, it did got sent for review by our editors, who were kind of puzzled on what this whole dialogue was about! Also, have you ever tried clicking on Earl's portrait in an encounter? You should. ;)
The release of Renowned Explorers was rocky at first, but a tight community and the helping hand of a legendary reviewer helped the game to climb to the top! Would the Abbey even still be making games without that review? Maybe we would've switched to the darkside, creating AbbeyCoin or NFT's. Luckily, we don't live in that timeline!
A museum of your pieces, that sadly never made it.
We learned a lot from Renowned Explorers; The humor and character of Renowned Explorers is an important thing for our current secret project! But after two expansions and a lot of fun creating stories and characters, it was time to move to the next game. The development of Renowned Explorers already showed some cracks in the walls of the Abbey, but Godhood would really force us to define ourselves.
Tune in next Monday to see the third chapter of our tales at the news section of the Godhood page!
P.S. If you want to chat with us, feel free to join our Discord or follow the Abbey Games Developer!
- Fixed ice-cream van in Egypt. - Fixed some missing images. - Fixed a number of spelling errors. - Removed outdated Godhood announcement in main menu.
Dear Renowned Explorers!
It is time to end the much loved Community Challenges with a bang! The amazing Challenge Organizers, said to be descendants of Pinkerton himself, have one final enormous challenge ready for you! Not a random number either; it will be the 200th community challenge!
Challenge #200: The Award Ceremony
Of course, we would humbly want to thank all of the Challenge Organizers for their amazing effort. Without them, Renowned Explorers wouldn't be half this vibrant and loved. We are honored to have had such amazing fans helping us out for so long!
Now why would you participate in such a challenge? Well, not only is it the moment to show off one of your many renowned talents. No my good Explorer, it is also a way to eternalize your achievement with a unique wooden figurine that you can win by leading one of the 15 categories!
The event runs for 3 weeks. Meet your rivals! Discuss strategies, but keep your ace up your sleeve! Impress your dog/love-interest/country with astonishing discoveries. Beat that French clown, and claim your title as most Renowned Explorer!!
Hello explorers! The year is coming to an end, and thus comes the ritual of reflecting on the past. As many of you have been following us loyally, we would like to share our thoughts with you! But first; some Godhood news!
Godhood Update 1.2 Coming Soon!
Weve been working on a new update for Godhood, scheduled somewhere early 2021! Were not going to give away much here, but it will include some new community ideas to add your religion! One important feature that has often been requested is the Excommunicate action. Soon it will be much easier to remove an unwanted Disciple from your roster. Of course, sending a faithful Disciple away will impact morale a bit. But only the best get to serve you!
Reflecting on 2020
Just like most people on this planet, we had a pretty crazy year. In January, we were at the point of calling it quits. Because of the disappointing Early Access track of Godhood and general mismanagement, we were at a total low point with no viable business left. Up to that point, Godhood development had been a true ordeal. We had two separate burn-outs in the team, and the quality of the game only improved at a slow pace. By the start of 2020, we had to let go of all of our employees and friends (You can follow a few of them at Roost Games!) whom we shared so many beautiful memories with. We, Maarten, Manuel and Adriaan, were the only ones left of our original team of over 10 people. However, we thought Godhood to be in an unacceptable state. It was our duty to deliver you higher quality before we called it quits. So we set on a journey to release 1.0. After that, we would reevaluate our situation. In that period, we re-learned a lot about making games. We had some critical moments where we compared the production of Godhood with that of Renowned Explorers and Reus. In the process, we found our joy back, and the ability to increase quality at a much higher pace. We couldnt have done it without the support of the community - it was at one point literally the only thing that motivated us to move forward! Were very grateful for all your kind words, constructive criticism, and all round fun interaction! In particular, we would like to thank the good folks on the Abbey Discord. It has been a joy. Were proud of the results! Lucky for us, this increase in joy and quality also changed our fortunes on Godhood! The game welcomed a lot of new players, and were happy to see many more people having fun with it. Because of that, were now in the position to look at the future!
The Future
This newfound joy has motivated us to take a look into the future of the Abbey. Weve started with cutting down some of our ambitions to focus on bringing better quality games. In the past 5 years, Abbey Games was very busy trying to manage a democratic and safe work environment. However, it seems we went too far. Too many of us were more busy managing and doing HR work instead of bringing you quality gameplay. With the 3 of us, were going back to our times during Reus and Renowned Explorers. That means more time developing, less time managing. Were also saying goodbye to our engine AbbeyCore. It was a fun and enriching project, but we want to focus on our game quality. We hope to use more industry standards to make it easier to deliver our games faster and to more people. This means we will fully devote ourselves to deep and thematic strategy-likes. Weve received quite some requests for a sequel to Renowned Explorers and Reus. We have a lot of love for these games, and are exchanging interesting ideas about them! We are also very excited to try new themes, too! So what does the future bring? Were going to keep you guys in the dark a bit longer! But know that were working on deep and thematic strategy-likes, in the spirit of Reus and Renowned Explorers! We hope to use some of Steams new features to bring our new prototype to you as quickly as possible. We believe that together, we can make a really high quality game!
Best Wishes
Finally, we want to give you all our best wishes for your (a)religious festivities! We hope you can leave the chaos behind you for a while, and focus on the things that are truly important to you. Be it family, friends, health, or just some really good games! Thank you for reading, and we hope to see you in 2021! Best wishes, The Abbey
Hello Explorers!
We're releasing a big update for our Early Access title Godhood! To celebrate this joyous occasion, Godhood is now on sale with a 30% discount!
[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/917150/Godhood/]
Check out the store page for more info on the update!
- Greetings from the Monks
That's right, young gods, we finally have a release date for our new game!
Two moons from now Godhood will be available for everyone to play!
On July 10th we will launch our strategy god game into Early Access here on Steam. This will be the first opportunity to play our new strategy god game. We're incredibly excited to move to this next stage of development. From July 10th onward, we'll be using community feedback to improve Godhood in our continuing monthly updates. Exciting times for sure!
To prepare for release with us, make sure you wishlist the game on the store page. This will send you a notification once the game releases, and also helps bring the game to a bigger audience! If you know anyone you think would be as into Godhood as you are, we'd really appreciate if you could share the game with them, for example by sharing our launch-date tweet:
https://twitter.com/AbbeyGamesNL/status/1134110185402884096
Follow our development updates here
https://community.abbeygames.com/threads/godhood-available-in-steam-early-access-on-july-10th.188/
~ Abbey Games
Thanks to the community's effort on social media, Kickstarter backers of our upcoming god game Godhood have unlocked a free copy of Renowned Explorers! Next to that, there's a stream of Godhood later today. Read all about it in this kickstarter update:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/abbeygames/godhood/posts/2422233
We hope you enjoyed playing Renowned Explorers as much as we enjoyed making it. We've learned a lot of lessons along the way and believe Godhood couldn't have happened without your support and enthusiasm.
As you may know, our upcoming game Godhood lets you create your own religion. But we also want to give you the chance to help create Godhood! You can do so by backing the Kickstarter campaign for the game, that just went live.
If Kickstarter is not for you, but you do want to help us out: there are other ways! We talk about it in this post over on our community forum.
Thanks for your help!
From the Abbey,
Sincerely,
-Joni
Hey there explorers!
The third and final expansion for Renowned Explorers: Quest For The Holy Grail, the Soundtrack, the Art Book and the Renowned Explorers: Definitive Edition are out... now!
The expansion contains a new expedition in which you follow in the spiritual footsteps of a certain whip-wielding archeologist in search for the ultimate treasure in the Middle-East. Meet mysterious Djinns, alluring belly dancers and even some spoiled cats! And what are those dastardly Anti-Explorers up to this time?
The best part: this new expansion will be completely free for all current and future owners of the Renowned Explorers base game! The DLC should be granted automatically after tonight's update.
Special Community Challenge
To celebrate the release of this new expansion, we will be raffling five copies of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and five copies of The Curious Expedition between the participants of this week's Community Challenge participants!
Soundtrack and Art Book
You can listen to a sample from the Soundtrack here, or just go directly to the store page! The Art Book contains concept art, sketches and fully rendered marketing art, as well as a lot of background information and short pieces of written context, provided by the developers.
Definitive Edition
Are you still missing any of the expansions or the Soundtrack and Art Book? Now is your chance to complete your collection with the Definitive Edition complete-the-set bundle, which includes everything we ever released for Renowned Explorers for an even further discounted price!
Abbey Community
In preparation for the launch of Godhood we have started opening up our new Abbey Community forums, so come over and say hi! Have fun playing! ~ the monks from Abbey Games
Hey there explorers!
As you might know from last week's announcement, tomorrow (Thursday, 7:00PM CET) we'll be launching the last Renowned Explorers expansion pack, a Soundtrack, an Art Book, and Renowned Explorers: Definitive Edition collecting all the Renowned Explorers content in one bundle!
Today we especially want to highlight what you're going to get out of the Soundtrack and Art Book. Let's have a look!
Soundtrack
For this soundtracks release, Abbey Games longtime composer Joni van der Leeuw dove back into the source material to rearrange and remaster the lions share of the dynamic music from the game into an actual album of twelve tracks. Next to music that youll probably recognise from the game, theres also music from one of the trailers for the game and even a previously unreleased track of music that was used to pitch the idea of the soundtrack within the Abbey Games development team. You can listen to a sample track of the Emerged Island expedition music here!
Art Book
Have you always wanted to take a peek behind development curtain of Renowned Explorers? Besides concept art, sketches and fully rendered marketing art, it contains a lot of background information and short pieces of written context, provided by the developers. Also, tons of unused character designs!
Quest For The Holy Grail Community Challenge
We are also preparing a special Community Challenge, where you will be guided on a classic whip-wielding adventure! Make sure to participate in this one, because we will be raffling five copies of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and five copies of The Curious Expedition between the participants! See you tomorrow! ~ the monks from Abbey Games
We have been teasing for a while now that we weren't completely done with Renowned Explorers, so we are proud to announce the third and final expansion:
Renowned Explorers: Quest For The Holy Grail DLC
This new expansion will contain a new expedition in which you follow in the spiritual footsteps of a certain whip-wielding archeologist in search for the ultimate treasure in the Middle-East. Meet mysterious Djinns, alluring belly dancers and even some spoiled cats! And what are those dastardly Anti-Explorers up to this time? The best part: this new expansion will be completely free for all current and future owners of the Renowned Explorers base game!
Soundtrack and Art Book
At the same time, we will also be releasing the two oft requested extras.
- A remastered Original Soundtrack with the best music from the game, including all expedition and overworld music
- An Art Book with a selection of concept and in-game art, including never before seen sketches for characters that didn't make the cut!
Renowned Explorers: Definitive Edition
To celebrate the last expansion for Renowned Explorers, we are launching a new bundle that collects everything Renowed Explorers in a complete bundle with a big discount. If you are still missing one or more of the expansions, or just need the Soundtrack and Art Book, this one's for you! In the meantime, we are still hard at work at our new god game, Godhood. Always wanted to create your own religion and dictate your values and beliefs to your followers? You can sign up for the alpha here! See you all on December 13th!
Today's Deal: Save 80% on Renowned Explorers: International Society!*
Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!
*Offer ends Saturday at 10AM Pacific Time
Three years ago, Renowned Explorers: International Society was first released! It's been an amazing few years with multiple pieces of DLC, tons of patches, and an amazing community that still organizes a weekly Community Challenge. And we're not done yet!
Even though we're still working hard on Godhood, there's more Renowned Explorers to come, so a small celebration is in order. If you participate in this week's Special Anniversary Community Challenge and join our Discord, you have a chance of winning a key for one of our games or DLCs! So go forth, and make Mama Rivaleux proud!
~ the monks from Abbey Games
As some of you may know, our other game Reus celebrates it’s fifth birthday this week. Before we start the festivities on that tomorrow, we thought it would be nice to patch in a little nod to the giant god game in Renowned Explorers. Can you spot it below?
But that’s not all, of course. Like many patches before it, this one contains some minor fixes and rebalances of which you can read up in the patch notes.
So, the spotlight might shine on Reus for a moment and behind the scenes we’re also working on some unannounced stuff, but we’re definitely not planning on jumping airship from Renowned Explorers for the foreseeable future. There are still some great unexplored stories out there for our crew! And although we can’t really wait to tell you about it… we will wait to tell you about it. Expect some announcements later this year! And until then:…
Happy adventuring,
~ the monks from Abbey Games
Disclaimer: April Fools!
After the release of the original Renowned Explorers in 2015 and the More to Explore and Emperor's Challenge DLC in 2016 and 2017 respectively, we're planning to release another expansion to the Renowned Explorers universe in 2018. The Renowned Explorers community has given us a lot of input about what direction they want the game to take and we figured it's about time we really listen. So without further ado, we're proud to present: Renowned Explorers - Daring Dates!
In this DLC, instead of taking a crew of three explorers on an epic adventure of tales and treasure, you can take one crew member... on a date! That might sound easier than it is, though. Renowned Explorers' band of characters is made up of seasoned explorers, and they are hard to impress! Where to go on your first date, for example? The Museum? Paris? Or straight to the exotic hideaways of the Emerged Island in the Caribbean?
And that's just picking the location... How about picking the right outfit?! A date is essentially a lot like an expedition: you have to prepare for it. Bring the wrong gear or start an encounter with an aggressive attitude and you might kill the mood in just one turn.
If all goes well, though, and you play your cards right as a 19th-century globetrotting Casanova, you might even get the chance to go on a date with the most Renowned of all the Explorers: Mathieu Rivaleux!
Renowned Explorers: Daring Dates is still in development and it's too soon to pinpoint an exact release date. But if you want to stay posted and maybe even try your chances in a closed beta encounter with Anna or Victor, for example, be sure to sign up for the Abbey Games newsletter or stay in touch through the Renowned Explorers community hub. We hope to see you on some adventurous dates sometime in 2018!
~ the monks from Abbey Games
Disclaimer: April Fools!
After the release of the original Renowned Explorers in 2015 and the More to Explore and Emperor's Challenge DLC in 2016 and 2017 respectively, we're planning to release another expansion to the Renowned Explorers universe in 2018. The Renowned Explorers community has given us a lot of input about what direction they want the game to take and we figured it's about time we really listen. So without further ado, we're proud to present: Renowned Explorers - Daring Dates!
In this DLC, instead of taking a crew of three explorers on an epic adventure of tales and treasure, you can take one crew member... on a date! That might sound easier than it is, though. Renowned Explorers' band of characters is made up of seasoned explorers, and they are hard to impress! Where to go on your first date, for example? The Museum? Paris? Or straight to the exotic hideaways of the Emerged Island in the Caribbean?
And that's just picking the location... How about picking the right outfit?! A date is essentially a lot like an expedition: you have to prepare for it. Bring the wrong gear or start an encounter with an aggressive attitude and you might kill the mood in just one turn.
If all goes well, though, and you play your cards right as a 19th-century globetrotting Casanova, you might even get the chance to go on a date with the most Renowned of all the Explorers: Mathieu Rivaleux!
Renowned Explorers: Daring Dates is still in development and it's too soon to pinpoint an exact release date. But if you want to stay posted and maybe even try your chances in a closed beta encounter with Anna or Victor, for example, be sure to sign up for the Abbey Games newsletter or stay in touch through the Renowned Explorers community hub. We hope to see you on some adventurous dates sometime in 2018!
~ the monks from Abbey Games
The community just kicked-off Challenge #100!
"A hundred challenges, A million resources".
Join this week's cooperative challenge, win prizes and get your name in the game!
Veteran and new explorers alike have been creating, joining and winning weekly community challenges for a hundred weeks now. As developers we're super happy and eternally grateful to see creative use of the game week after week, especially by such a wonderful community! A special hats off to the 'Challenge PI' group, organizing the challenges since number #45. You're the best!
To celebrate Challenge #100, we're promising rewards to those participating in this weekly challenge. #100 is a special one, as it's cooperative instead of competitive. This means that there's a shared goal, and if you as a community reach it, we promise to immortalize the weekly challenge and all its players in-game, as well as raffle copies of our games and DLC among all participants.
The goal? Find the challenge here
Renowned Explorers Legacy on Developer Twitch Stream
One-hundred challenges is a true milestone, and it's a good moment to look back on all the changes Renowned Explorers went through. What better way is there than to launch version 1.0? (dating September 2nd, 2015) During a live-stream we'll play around with the legacy build and cringe at all the old stuff that has been improved with your help since. Join us at: https://www.twitch.tv/abbeygames Tomorrow, November 30th, 19:00 CET / 10:00 PT Good luck with the challenge, and see you tomorrow! ~ the monks from Abbey Games
The community just kicked-off Challenge #100!
"A hundred challenges, A million resources".
Join this week's cooperative challenge, win prizes and get your name in the game!
Veteran and new explorers alike have been creating, joining and winning weekly community challenges for a hundred weeks now. As developers we're super happy and eternally grateful to see creative use of the game week after week, especially by such a wonderful community! A special hats off to the 'Challenge PI' group, organizing the challenges since number #45. You're the best!
To celebrate Challenge #100, we're promising rewards to those participating in this weekly challenge. #100 is a special one, as it's cooperative instead of competitive. This means that there's a shared goal, and if you as a community reach it, we promise to immortalize the weekly challenge and all its players in-game, as well as raffle copies of our games and DLC among all participants.
The goal? Find the challenge here
Renowned Explorers Legacy on Developer Twitch Stream
One-hundred challenges is a true milestone, and it's a good moment to look back on all the changes Renowned Explorers went through. What better way is there than to launch version 1.0? (dating September 2nd, 2015) During a live-stream we'll play around with the legacy build and cringe at all the old stuff that has been improved with your help since. Join us at: https://www.twitch.tv/abbeygames Tomorrow, November 30th, 19:00 CET / 10:00 PT Good luck with the challenge, and see you tomorrow! ~ the monks from Abbey Games
It's time to face the truth. Renowned Explorers is not the only expedition game on the market. You will all have noticed the copycats from The Curious Expedition ALSO have an expedition management game out on Steam. SUSPICIOUS, right? Therefore, it only makes sense that people ask us ALL THE TIME how this game is different from "that other game about 19th century explorers?" Well, for one, Renowned Explorers is the better game of course! We even have 8 times as many pixels in our game!
To settle this once and for all were running a discount to make it easy for you to pick the right game. Theres a very deep discount of 67% on Renowned Explorers in Steams Daily Deal today, running for 48 hours.
Not convinced? Want to compare both games for yourself? Well, like the gentlemen we are, we quite literally bundled forces with the folks from Maschinen-Mensch to make that a lot easier for you as well! Or cheaper, at least These games are hard!
For your investigative convenience, the Curious Expedition vs Renowned Explorers bundle has just appeared in the Steam store! At a unique discount of 65% you can pick up both games at once. And if you already own either one of them, you can also complete the set at a stacking discount, which means owners of the Curious Expedition can now obtain Renowned Explorers at a 75% discount!
If youre interested in seeing us go through the hardship of actually playing that inferior product of a game called the Curious Expedition, you can visit this special website Theres also some footage of the Maschine-Mensch people in total awe after playing through a bit of Renowned Explorers for the first time. Great stuff.
Furthermore, we just released patch #25: Family Matters which adds some surprises next to a lot of fixes and rebalancing. So, lets boot up one or more of these expedition management games and have some
Happy adventuring,
~ the monks from Abbey Games
It's time to face the truth. Renowned Explorers is not the only expedition game on the market. You will all have noticed the copycats from The Curious Expedition ALSO have an expedition management game out on Steam. SUSPICIOUS, right? Therefore, it only makes sense that people ask us ALL THE TIME how this game is different from "that other game about 19th century explorers?" Well, for one, Renowned Explorers is the better game of course! We even have 8 times as many pixels in our game!
To settle this once and for all we’re running a discount to make it easy for you to pick the right game. There’s a very deep discount of 67% on Renowned Explorers in Steam’s Daily Deal today, running for 48 hours.
Not convinced? Want to compare both games for yourself? Well, like the gentlemen we are, we quite literally bundled forces with the folks from Maschinen-Mensch to make that a lot easier for you as well! Or cheaper, at least… These games are hard!
For your investigative convenience, the Curious Expedition vs Renowned Explorers bundle has just appeared in the Steam store! At a unique discount of 65% you can pick up both games at once. And if you already own either one of them, you can also complete the set at a stacking discount, which means owners of the Curious Expedition can now obtain Renowned Explorers at a 75% discount!
If you’re interested in seeing us go through the hardship of actually playing that inferior product of a game called the Curious Expedition, you can visit special website this special website There’s also some footage of the Maschine-Mensch people in total awe after playing through a bit of Renowned Explorers for the first time. Great stuff.
Furthermore, we just released patch #25: Family Matters which adds some surprises next to a lot of fixes and rebalancing. So, let’s boot up one or more of these expedition management games and have some…
Happy adventuring,
~ the monks from Abbey Games
Today's Deal: Save 67% on Renowned Explorers: International Society!*
Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!
*Offer ends Thursday at 10AM Pacific Time
Its been a while, but we have a new patch for Renowned Explorers in store for you. This patch focusses on families, introducing events around relatives of Pedrinho, Charles, Dolores and Rivaleux! Next to that were trying to surf on the hype of PUBG and Fortnite's Battle Royale with a new storyline on the Lost Island expedition.
Furthermore, this patch fixes a lot of small things and adds tiny pieces of surprise content, but it mainly focusses on rebalancing. You can see all the details in the patch notes.
We also have a nice surprise coming up later today, especially for very fanatic explorers who think that one exploration game set in the 19th century is just not enough
Stay tuned.
Happy adventuring,
~ the monks from Abbey Games
It’s been a while, but we have a new patch for Renowned Explorers in store for you. This patch focusses on families, introducing events around relatives of Pedrinho, Charles, Dolores and… Rivaleux! Next to that we’re trying to surf on the hype of PUBG and Fortnite's Battle Royale with a new storyline on the Lost Island expedition.
Furthermore, this patch fixes a lot of small things and adds tiny pieces of surprise content, but it mainly focusses on rebalancing. You can see all the details in the patch notes.
We also have a nice surprise coming up later today, especially for very fanatic explorers who think that one exploration game set in the 19th century is just not enough…
Stay tuned.
Happy adventuring,
~ the monks from Abbey Games
Today's Deal: Save 50% on Renowned Explorers: International Society!*
Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!
*Offer ends Tuesday at 10AM Pacific Time
During the 80 hours after release of The Emperor's Challenge DLC hundreds of players cooperated in the 'Around the World in 80 Hours' community content challenge. In their devoted effort they collected 2911 treasures across all expeditions and unlocked the Bronze, Silver and Gold tier rewards of the challenge. Part of the deal was that each tier would force Abbey Games to create free extra content. A deal is a deal, so today's patch introduces the following changes:
Secret Shop with Epic Items (Bronze Tier reward)
By writing enough papers in the Engineering research tree you can unlock a new Secret Shop that contains a special new category of items. Discover new crew builds with these powerful epic items!
New stories in the Mali Mystery and the Hungarian Fort (Silver Tier reward)
Two 2-star expeditions were enriched with some new stories. Travel to The Hungarian Fort and The Mali Mystery to discover some new things...
Stockholm Split - a new Entourage Shop (Gold Tier reward)
It got so busy in Stockholm that many of the Entourage Specialists decided to travel south and set up their own place in Madrid. You now have many more extra entourage options after the first expedition. Don't forget that The Emperor's Challenge DLC is out since May 10th, which was accompanied with a free content addition to Transylvania. Happy adventuring, ~ the monks from Abbey Games
If you're reading this post, you could already be playing the new Renowned Explorers expansion, so let's keep it short! This expansion pack for Renowned Explorers takes you all the way to the Far East. It’s packed with new content and also provides an entirely new way to play the game! If you want to learn more about the new expansion, or simply want to find a buy button, you can go to:
The Emperor's Challenge Store Page.
News from Transylvania! - Free Base Game Update
Do you dare to face... her? This patch is a free update to Transylvania for everyone who owns the base game Renowned Explorers. It also includes a small update to the Hungarian Fort expedition. We hope you'll enjoy, let us know!
Around the world in 80 hours - Community Content Challenge
Play the game to force us to create even more content! Work together with your fellow explorers in this 80-hour long challenge, starting.... now! Read more here.
Enjoy the expansion and let us know what you think! ~ the monks from Abbey Games
Get your blimps ready! The new expansion for Renowned Explorers is releasing in less than 24 hours:
The Emperor's Challenge will be available for sale at 10:00 PDT / 19:00 CEST or your local equivalent. You can wishlist it here right now to get a notification at release.
Now, there are a few special announcements for tomorrow:
Bonus - Free Content Update for the base game
This one might be a bit confusing. Not only will we release a full-sized expansion pack tomorrow, we also took some time to add new content to the base game. So even if you don't jump into the expansion right away (who are we kidding really, who doesn't want a fireworks inventor in their crew), you'll discover some new adventures in Renowned Explorers. What might be this new stuff? That will be revealed tomorrow at launch, but we can already say it's something much requested...
Around the world in 80 hours - Community Content Challenge
In our eyes this game only ever deserves more content. If you share this opinion you might want to join the special community content challenge:
- The challenge starts tomorrow at release and will last only 80 hours
- This challenge can only be beaten if the community works together.
- Each reward tiers unlocks extra content that we'll then create in the coming weeks.
- More details tomorrow.
Celebration Twitch Stream
Just as hyped about tomorrow's release as we are? Then join us during the release celebration stream. It will start 1 hour before launch, counting down to release. There might be cake.
- Join us here: https://www.twitch.tv/abbeygames
- Tomorrow, May 10th, 18:00 CEST / 9:00 PT (1 hour before release)
- Count down with the monks.
- Sneak preview of the first Daily Emperor's Challenge ever!
New characters in The Emperor's Challenge
Renowned Explorers offers new adventures on each and every playthrough, but once in a while there's an extra special occasion. Like on May 10th, in 2 weeks, when we release The Emperor's Challenge! A full-sized new expansion pack.
We júst released a trailer and a store page, both full of new information regarding the expansion. In short:
- 4 new characters
- a new 4-star expedition
- a whole new game mode: The Emperor's Challenge
Hey explorer, good chance you're just coming in from this amazing Humble deal. In that case: Welcome aboard Renowned Explorers! There's a few things you might want to know before your first game...
Or actually, no. Just start playing your first game. You'll be fine. But perhaps read this introduction to Renowned Explorers' wonderful community right after.
Emilia discovers a pirate with a budding interest in botany!
So since you're here, it's worth knowing that Renowned Explorers' community is as vibrant as it is skilled and knowledgeable. Here are some pointers if you want to hop in, or simply want to learn more about the game:
- Player-made guides
- A fan-made wiki
- This week's Weekly Community Challenge (Open to all levels, but recommended after you've finished at least 1 playthrough)
- Dozens of fan-fiction stories about Renowned Explorers
- Discussions, get all your answers here. Like we said the community, the community is very knowledgeable, and friendly too! Plus, us devs we'll be reading everything there!
- If you have any technical issues, we'll be here, at your service.
The full size comic can be found on our website. You can also subscribe for our newsletter there so you don't miss the expansion release and other important news.
We're currently running a closed beta for this expansion. If you want to join, please fill out this form. After the closed beta is over, it will just be a few weeks until release!
- Abbey Games
Beta - The Emperor's Challenge expansion
Finally! Renowned Explorer's second full-sized expansion is ready for beta-testing. With previous new content we had good experiences testing it in a closed environment with a selected few. To repeat this, we're looking for players of all kinds who want to sign up for this closed beta program. So if you're willing to help us and want a sneak-peek at all the new expansion content, don't hesitate and sign up! We're looking for players of all kinds: new, experienced, hardcore, casual, friendly, devious, rivaleux-supporters, maria-fans, sheep-killers and whatnot. Read more, and sign up here!
Livestream
You haven't seen much of the monks lately, so it's about time for another livestream. Let's do one upcoming Thursday evening and kick off the beta properly :)
- Join us here: https://www.twitch.tv/abbeygames
- Thursday evening (April 6th) 19:00 CEST / 10:00 PT
- Be the first to see the theme reveal special...
- Closed beta kick-off for a selected few (don't forget to sign up!)
Abbey Games is working hard on the upcoming expansion. We're at the point that all the new content and gameplay is coming together. We'll just take a little while longer to complete the entire experience. For those who can't wait to hear news there's already a small hint available somewhere. Just start up the game :)
In the meanwhile we're always looking for new explorers that want to join the Society. With the new expansion coming up it is a good time to discount Renowned Explorers to under $5 for the very first time! We hope to welcome lots of new adventures, storytellers and strategists to Renowned Explorers' wonderful community. If you're a new player, don't forget to check out the forums, guides, wiki and weekly challenges. They're full of handy info and fun!
Finishing the new expansion is our main priority. But for the occassion we decided to work on and release another patch so that the game is fresh and fixed for adventurers old and new alike! Patch #22 has some fixes and balance changes, but most importantly it adds an Insight Limit which we felt was needed for a while now. For details, you can read the patch notes here. If you have an unfinished campaign you want to finish without the Insight Limit, please play with the fallback branch enabled.
- Abbey Games
Today's Deal: Save 75% on Renowned Explorers: International Society!*
Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!
*Offer ends Tuesday at 10AM Pacific Time
A quick update from the Abbey; the community of explorers has blazed through Challenge #50! The highest possible outcome was unlocked when the community finally reached the Platinum medal!. As promised, 4 new items are added to Sydney's shop! Go there and see how useful a boomerang can really be!
Besides that, some issues where fixed and we tried to add +2 fun to the game through some small changes. You can read the full patch notes here! We hope you'll enjoy exploring Renowned Explorers many secrets!
- Abbey Games
Every week for almost a year now there's a unique Weekly Challenge that lets you experience Renowned Explorers in a fresh new way. This week marks the 50th of these challenges! It's a testament to the spirit of this community. To celebrate this occasion challenge #50 is a very special one...
See the challenge right away.
For starters Challenge 50 is a cooperative challenge in which the community has a shared goal of achieving 100,000 to 500,000 Renown! On top of that this challenge has a special set of rewards, of which the most exciting one is that the monks here at the Abbey will actually create unique new content if certain Renown thresholds are achieved. That's right, if you play a nice round of Renowned Explorers we'll squeeze in extra hours to get you new content for the upcoming patch. Of course the next DLC will be our main priority still. Find the full list of rewards below!
Rewards
The challenge rewards depend on the total sum of Renown the community achieves: * BRONZE (100,000 Renown)
- Raffle 2 REIS Steam keys among participants (to keep or give to friends)
- Raffle 2 REIS Steam keys
- Raffle 2 More To Explore Steam keys
- We'll create and add the CORK HAT item to the game in the next patch.
- Raffle 3 REIS Steam keys
- Raffle 3 More To Explore Steam keys
- Raffle 3 Reus Steam keys
- We'll create and add the CORK HAT item to the game in the next patch.
- We'll create and add the HISTORY BOOK item to the game in the next patch.
- Raffle 5 REIS Steam keys
- Raffle 5 More To Explore Steam keys
- Raffle 5 Reus Steam keys
- We'll create and add the CORK HAT item to the game in the next patch.
- We'll create and add the HISTORY BOOK item to the game in the next patch.
- We'll create and add the BISCUIT BOX item to the game in the next patch.
- BONUS: During the stream we'll drop a hint towards the upcoming second DLC for Renowned Explorers.
Livestream
The result of this challenge, including the rewards, will be announced and celebrated in a Twitch livestream next week. If you don't want to miss it, subscribe to our channel. Livestream date: Wednesday November 16 19:00 CET / 10:00 PST Link to the challenge A third reason this challenge is very special is that its the 5th challenge that is set-up by the community itself (even though we stepped in to provide rewards). Originally we ran it ourselves, but when we decided to focus more on development instead, some members in the community stepped up to continue the tradition. We're grateful every week.
New DLC
Don't forget, Abbey Games is working on a new paid DLC for next year which will be different from More To Explore in ways that yet need to be revealed. Make sure you're subscribed to the Game Group to be made aware when it comes out! We hope you'll participate in the challenge and show us what this community can do! Have fun and see you next Wednesday, Abbey Games
Dear Explorers, today we look back upon a year rich of history and progress for Renowned Explorers. All of it is certainly worth celebrating and we will do so in many ways! Please do read on or switch to our livestream right away.
Patch #19
First of all, we just released Patch #19, the last of a series of patches meant to improve and stabilize the game. This one contains quite a bit of fresh content to make the Emerged Island that much more exciting. Patch Notes here.
Discounts
Secondly Renowned Explorers is running a 60% discount until 48 hours from now. This is the deepest discount ever and a good time to convince your friend to start their own adventures. The More To Explore DLC is on discount as well for those of you still looking to expand their explorations. Click for the Store Page
Livestream Celebration
For the party itself, we're hosting a live stream RIGHT NOW on our Twitch channel. It will last for about 1,5 to 2 hours. The program consists of a look back on the past year, the release of Patch #19, playing the 1-year old launch build, contests, interviews and a glimpse in Renowned Explorers' future. Read more here. After the livestream we'll add any news from it to this announcement. Check back in this announcement later to find some exciting news...
Save 60% on Renowned Explorers: International Society during this week's Midweek Madness*!
Renowned Explorers: International Society is a strategy adventure game set in a fictitious 19th century world. It introduces a unique attitude-based gameplay that challenges both your tactical and storytelling skills.
“It's genuinely great, it's one of my favorite games this year so far. It's got so much going for it, so much depth, so much character, so much replayability, great systems, unique concepts in combat, awesome presentation...”
TotalBiscuit, The Cynical Brit
*Offer ends Friday at 10AM Pacific Time
Following renewed interest in the game, we're continuing work on Renowned Explorers through at least August. For now, that means a fresh patch #18, with juicy content and a ton of balance and fixes!
Let's go through some of the highlights. If you rather read the full patch notes, check here.
Shangri-La
With the More To Explore expedition we released the Lost Island, a 5-star alternative to Shangri-La. It has proven very popular and many players like it better than the Tibetan expedition both in terms of fun and game value. To help Shangri-La back up to its legendary status, we created new content and did some balance changes and fixes in both expeditions. Visit Shangri-La for a new treasure and some new events!
Captain Hatice
Hatice has a new captain perk! Many people don't know that the silent Hatice is a brilliant investor. It explains, feeds and expresser her greed. In Patch #18 we've made this into a new captain perk for her: Investor: +10 Collect at the start of each expedition. Gain 2 insight if you end an expedition with 50 Collect or more. Can you achieve a proper Return of Investment?
No-one escapes destiny
Over time Renowned Explorers has developed a dedicated community of Weekly Challengers. We never expected this competitive part of the game to become a community focus, but now that it is, we felt the need to work on some randomness issues to disincentivize constant reloading. Roll-games and encounter arenas are now pre-determined at island generation, so that when you fail a challenge, you won't be able to succeed in it by reloading the game. There are also some miscellaneous fixes for exploits.
More adventuring
On top of the above, Adriaan worked on a lot of balance to make the game more fun, based on community feedback. There are changes in cards, entourage, treasures, events and encounters. Check the full patch notes to find out more, or just start-up the game already ;) Have fun on your adventures!
The More To Explore release is just two weeks ago but it's already time for new content. Patch #17 adds the content that was unlocked in the 48-hour Community Content Challenge in which a whopping 190 explorers joined forces to unlock all tiers of content. So, what's new?
New Cities (Tier 3)
The sheriff of San Francisco and the king of Muscat are very impressed with the spirit of the Renowned Explorers. To attract more renown to their own cities, they've opened up new facilities for explorers! San Francisco will open up a modest new Entourage shop, while Muscat will offer exotic trinkets in its humble bazaar. Naturally, Sydney and New Orleans will respond accordingly to this new competition on the market...
New Andean Quest (Tier 2)
Expansion owners may discover a new treasure in the Andean Adventure, but not before overcoming one of the hardest challenges among level 3 expeditions. Go explore, before this dark force consumes the Andes.
New Stories (Tier 1)
Wherever you go after this patch, you might meet some of the Entourage specialists during their travels. A few events scattered everywhere.
Quality of Life
While working on new content, we've also worked to improve several features in the game. Most notably you can now swap items in the item shop by dragging a new item onto an equipped one... like in any RPG :) You can also dampen the pulsing Resolve and Research icons through the options and read more crewmember details in the Advanced Selection screen. For more improvements and fixes, please read the extended patch notes. Join the Renowned Explorers group to stay up to date with new patches. For now, enjoy the new content! And let us know what you think.
Invite your crew around the campfire to hear their stories, visit entirely new places full of secrets and challenges and redefine your strategies! With this new expansion pack for Renowned Explorers you'll be able to go on countless new adventures with more personality, more treasures and more control.
Learn more about the expansion on the store page or watch the trailer on YouTube below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6Sjf7ANUAQ
Launch Discounts
There's a special launch discount, which means you can get More To Explore for 10% off during the first week. You'll also find a bundle to buy both the base game and the expansion.
48-hour Community Challenge
We promise to keep updating and supporting the game and expansion until at least August. And there is now a special challenge to get even more content in the expansion. If you participate in the next 48 hours, you'll force us to create more content for the expansion :) Read more here.
Patch #16
This expansion coincides with Patch #16 for the base game. Read the change notes for that here.
Dear Explorers, at the moment of this writing we're less than 24 hours away from releasing the first paid expansion pack for Renowned Explorers: More To Explore. This is a very exciting moment for us monks at the Abbey, as it will determine the future of our labor of love.
Harry, Earl and Hildegard camping outside the store, waiting for release. We hope Earl makes it.
We've been actively patching Renowned Explorers after release, and with this new step for the game, we'll continue this effort. We promise to extend this post-release work until the end of August. At a later time we'll decide what happens after that. For now at least we're focusing on Renowned Explorers!
Content Challenge
Tomorrow at 10:00am PDT, 19:00 CEST, the expansion pack will be available for sale. At that same moment we will announce a special 48-hour challenge, along the lines of our Weekly Challenges. We'll be making this announcement live in a Twitch stream as well, starting an hour before release. While the contents of this challenge will not be revealed until then, we can already tell you what you can win: The more medals you as a community achieve, the more content we'll release in the first post-release patch for the expansion. (Note that this will not influence the content released in the DLC itself in any way).
- Tier 1 (50 Medal Points): You're not the only traveler...
- Tier 2 (100 Medal Points): A dark force terrorizes the Andes...
- Tier 3 (150 Medal Points): Muscat & San Francisco
Good day, explorers! Today we can finally reveal the upcoming expansion pack for Renowned Explorers. In less than a week, on May 31st, you will find Renowned Explorers: More To Explore, a paid content and gameplay expansion, for sale.
It's a project which we've worked on for several months to make sure we're adding true value to the base game. More To Explore contains new expeditions, but most importantly it introduces new gameplay features which vastly increase strategic options and roleplaying, allowing for even further replayability.
If you're curious what's in the expansion, then go discover the store page we put online today. If you find yourself interested, please consider wishlisting the DLC.
If you want to read more about how the expansion came to be, Joni, our composer and producer, wrote a blog post on exactly that last week. Read it here.
Continued Support
Following the expansion launch we'll also continue supporting and updating the game. To kick this off, we'll start launch day with a special 48-hour challenge, much like the Weekly Challenge, but shorter and with rewards that will influence further content... If you don't want to miss launch day, consider subscribing for our mailing list. We use it very sparsely to inform Abbey Games fans of new games and major updates.
While Manuel is in Malmö, Sweden for the Nordic Game Conference, our Abbey is buzzing with work on the expansion for Renowned Explorers. We'll release info on that real soon. All I can say right now is that it's closer than you might think :)
In between the expansion work Adriaan and me found the time to create a small but interesting patch that adds a new entourage member, balances certain gameplay and fixes a number of reported issues. You can read the full patch notes here, but let's focus on a few things right here:
Rio Reworked
Rio de Janeiro is a bustling town, always seeing people come and go. In this patch, we introduce Flavia, a new entourage member you can recruit by using Status. This also means that Rio now has 4 levels of entourage, allowing you to recruit 4 specialists.
Ivan's Captain Perk
Ivan's captain perk has always been... polarized. With the new balance you get more of that juicy Supply Capacity out of it. Of course you still have to deal with the -1 Resolve, stemming from Ivan's questionable leadership.
Other changes
You'll also find some small changes in the research tree, and with the so called off-resource entourage members in Istanbul (Rami, Zafira and Amon). Read the patch notes for more changes, and the assorted gameplay fixes! For now that's it, but check back soon to learn more about Renowned Explorers first expansion.
Are you looking for more Renowned Explorers, both expeditions and features? Do you want to help us out? Sign up for the closed beta and join us in testing the upcoming expansion! We're also looking for entirely new players. Read about sign-ups on the bottom.
Expansion
If you've been following development of Renowned Explorers, you already know that for the past few months we've been working on an expansion, alongside releasing patches. Our goal is to release more expeditions so that there are even more secrets and locations to explore. We're also improving and adding features so that the strategy, roleplaying and replayability of the game is improved!
Why a Closed Beta?
By now we've completed most of the work, which means we can move into the closed beta phase. In this phase we want to test with a couple of dozen players in secrecy to find out whether new features and content work as intended. Does everything work as expected on the technical side? Any bugs? And are they fun for everyone's playing style? Participating in the beta means playing the game in secrecy, and talking directly with the devs and other testers about your findings.
Testing with new players
Some mechanics are important immediately from the first playthrough (but can be enjoyed just as well if you're a long-time player). To test these we're looking in particular for players that have played very little or not at all. If you've just installed Renowned Explorers, please consider to sign up and already get the expansion experience, which we think is a big improvement over the base game. We also have slots for more experienced and veteran players.
Signing up!
To sign up for the Closed Beta, simply send an e-mail to info at abbeygames dot com. Make sure to add the following info:
[olist]
In the last two weeks Renowned Explorers welcomed a lot of new players. The road to becoming the Most Renowned Explorer is a long one, so the community racked up quite a lot of new playtime. This strengthens our belief that Renowned Explorers has a long future. A good reason to keep devoting support to it every week. And if you didn't know yet, we're working on an expansion with new features and expeditions!
For Patch #14 we changed Ivan's captain perk, added two small events, did a bunch of balance changes and fixed new and old issues that came up during all the new playtime. Check the patch notes to find exactly what things changed.
We're also doing a simple gameplay stream tonight on Twitch. It starts in about 45 minutes from posting this, at our Twitch channel. AbbeyAdriaan and I will host it and we'd love for you to tune in, so that we can get to know you a little better. We'll be discussing Patch #14, but it's mostly playing the game and answering questions.
Have fun with Patch #14!
Twitch details
April 14th (today)
17h GMT; 19h CEST; 10h PDT
https://www.twitch.tv/abbeygames
Today marks an important day for the community of Renowned Explorers, as we're about to welcome a lot of new players. That means new people to compare highscores to, more strategy discussion, more adventure stories and more of whatever nice things communities bring! We've been working together with Humble to make Renowned Explorers available for the subscribers of the Humble Monthly program. This means that not only will we see an influx of players from there, Renowned Explorers will also be in the spotlights as one of the top games of the bundle. Unfortunately you can't buy the bundle anymore, so to give people who missed out an extra reason to join our International Society, we're running a 33% discount for the coming week. Let's hope that a lot of new players join in!
Chairman Pinkerton will not get a lot of sleep these days, but he's always fond of new recruits!
Some history
Renowned Explorers has been released 7 months ago and the veteran explorers among you know that it has already been a long adventure since. During initial release in September we received a lot of warm reception from the first players (93% positive!), but we weren't even close to recouping development costs. While the game itself was, and is a huge achievement for us, we want to keep doing what we do! Fortunately there were still a lot of people we could reach with this game (and there still are). So we decided to keep working on the game a little longer and in October we released the Mali expedition to all players for free. Right after its release we were in for a surprise: a renowned Youtuber humbled us with a strong recommendation to buy Renowned Explorers, and perhaps even better: he compared us to FTL. With renewed confidence we started our 2015 bi-weekly Patch program. While we planned to only do gameplay updates and fixes, we couldn't keep monks Adriaan and Marlies to create some extra content now and then. In December we had a great Winter sale and also started doing Weekly Challenges on the forums. It's basically a highscore competition, but it's also meant as inspiration for the story writers in the community. At that time we felt confident enough to start working on an actual full-size paid expansion.
Future
This new expansion will contain both new expeditions and gameplay features. We'll tell you more about it as we go. It is always a risk for game studios to continue working on a released game, but we made that choice with confidence, as we see people play many hours, and requesting even more content. It's very rewarding to work for the veteran and rookie players, and we get to improve something that we hold dear. We hope this new surge of players will make Renowned Explorers and its community better, and we count on your help with that, be it by playing, posting, or just being friendly! Make sure your explorer-wannabe friends know about the discount, and hope to see you in the forums!
Have great adventures,
- Abbey Games
Today's Deal: Save 33% on Renowned Explorers: International Society!*
Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!
*Offer ends Sunday at 10AM Pacific Time
The new main menu (left) and with community and news feeds minimized (right)
Patch #13 is online for Windows, Mac and Linux. Our content team is working on the expansion, so in the meanwhile the programmers have been working on a New Main Menu and on decreasing memory usage.
Renowned Explorers attracts more players every day, and a part of those players play for dozens or even hundreds of hours. By now it's clear to us that Renowned Explorers' future is going to be a long one. This is the main reason Abbey Games is devoting most of its time to creating an expansion pack with new expedition content and a Campfire feature that will greatly extend replayability with more metagame progression. This paid expansion will still be in development for a while, so in the meantime we've worked on a few things that will make the game and the community more accessible to new and existing players. In short we've updated the Main Menu, decreased Memory Usage and did some gameplay tweaks and fixes. For the full details on this patch, please read the Patch Notes.
Reworked Main Menu
The main menu was getting a little crowded as we were adding in new features and content. Now that we're also adding in News and Community windows, we needed a new design with some more polish. We hope you'll like it. We'll use it to keep you up to date about important developments in Renowned Explorers.
Decreased Memory Usage
To lower the memory requirements, and make longer play sessions feel more smooth, the programmers worked hard to cut in half the initial memory usage. To further help new players with start-up issues, we've also added in compatibility warnings which will pop up at the start of the game if it detects that a new player's system potentially doesn't meet the minimum specs.
To read about the gameplay tweaks and fixes, please read the Patch Notes.
In the coming weeks we're working hard to finish the expansion. In the meanwhile, we hope to see you around here. Have lots of fun with the game!
With Patch #11 shipped in 2015, we came to the end of our Patch Promise to launch biweekly patches. Right now we're focusing most our resources on bringing you the announced expansion as soon as possible. However Renowned Explorers is still being played by lots of explorers every day, so we're learning more and more about its design. We decided to release another patch today to address some bugs, and to do many balance changes that make more strategies viable, fun and rewarding. I invite you to read the list of detailed changes here.
In the process however we couldn't keep ourselves from making more content, which is why the Highlands expedition is now a bit bigger and contains new stories to explore. Make sure to visit it on your next expedition!
We'll host a Twitch stream starting soon (18:00 GMT / 10:00 PST) to discuss the new patch, and inform you about the progress we've been making on the expansion. We're running a small contest as well. Hope to see you all there!
Abbey's Twitch Channel
Today's Deal: Save 48% on Reus + REIS!*
Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!
*Offer ends Monday at 10AM Pacific Time
After months of updates we present you with the last update of our patch program in 2015. For those that want to keep discovering things in the new year, we have just announced great news on our Twitch channel:
We're busy working on an expansion for Renowned Explorers!
Its release is still far away and we can't give many details yet. We can say that we will be focusing on content by working on 2 exotic new expeditions. We also want to look into a feature that puts a lot more focus on relationships inside your crew, but this is not guaranteed yet. Make sure to keep an eye on our channels to stay informed! For example, sign up for our newsletter. Since playing the expansion will change the game, we will start an Alpha program at some point, so that we can work with you to keep all current value intact. Since we'll be focusing our efforts on the expansion, we will stop the bi-weekly update. We'll keep supporting, so expect 1 or 2 more patches until the expansion, but it won't be every two weeks! And now, the contents of Patch #11. We focused on two frequent requests you had for the game. Read the detailed patch notes here or just the highlights below!
Freeplay after 5th Expedition
Renowned Explorers is about gaining as much Renown as possible before the Exploration Year is over. To this end you have come up with many creative, smart and powerful strategies. Since you are judged for your score after 5 expeditions (which is important for the game design) you sometimes don't get to enjoy your full power when your strategy's end game kicked in. With this Patch we introduced the option to continue playing after your 5th expedition. This allows you to buy that one extra item, or finish the research tree, reach max level or test out your crew in Shangri-La without losing the game. It's important to note that you won't get another chance at beating Rivaleux' score: you are judged after 5 expeditions and any new expeditions are purely for your own fun, as the challenge of time pressure is gone. But still, you get to explore the entire world with your crew!
Encounter movement
Renowned Explorers is a Turn-based Strategy game. This makes it about making interesting choices, rather than hand eye coordination. Sometimes you (and we as well) had the problem of misclicking a tile during movement. In a dangerous situation this could end your entire adventure. To relieve this we introduced the Undo Move button which allows you to redo your very last movement (not action!). Together with the ability to spend movement in multiple clicks, this will definitely ease your encounter play.
A few months ago we promised to update Renowned Explorers every two weeks in 2015. Even in these last few weeks, we have 2 more big Patches planned for you! One for today, and one for later in December. These patches greatly increase the replayability of Renowned Explorers so that you can have many more fresh adventures next year. And while our patch program will not continue in 2016, we will be announcing exciting news for Renowned Explorers's future. It will be even better than bi-weekly patches so keep an eye out the coming weeks!
But for now, let's introduce this patch's major changes. Read the full notes here, including many small balance changes and fixes.
Completely new Tech Trees
While the previous tech trees offered lots of different strategies already, we believed they focused too much on specific character classes. This means that your Research strategy was largely determined by your crew choice. To increase the number of available strategies we created entirely new Research Trees. These new trees focus on very different aspects and allow you more control over your Supplies capacity. We've already found a lot of new strategies, and trust that you will find even more. Start up the game now to test it out. And let us know what you think!
Pedrinho's new Captain Perk
If you've been playing Renowned Explorers these past few weeks, you'll have noticed that we're gradually improving Captain Perks for several characters. This Patch it's Pedrinho's turn. His new Captain Perk 'FUNraiser' focuses on his qualities as a party host to gain funds during Campaign jobs across the world.
Supplies
The new Research trees grant you much more control over the amount of Supplies you bring on expeditions. Supplies are a powerful tool for increasing your expedition length. To keep the game fun we balanced a lot of the supply costs and gains for traveling and rewards. So don't be surprised if your expeditions from now on seem harder or different. Just make sure you prepare well with the new Research tree!
Twitch Stream
Tomorrow at 18:00 GMT / 10:00 PST we will be hosting a Live Stream in which we discover legendary Patch #10 strategies. Make sure to join in and tell us about your strategies or tell us how to play better. You're all welcome on our Twitch channel. We will also be introducing the next weekly challenge.
Fan Fiction Directory
Inspired by a wide range of personalities in Renowned Explorers, some creative community members have started writing stories such as 'Anna's Smile' and 'The Mysterious Missing Mr. Pinkerton'. Find them in the Fan Fiction Directory. Or write your own and have it added!
Going on dangerous and exciting expeditions around the world puts your crew through a lot of stories and emotions. That´s one of the reasons Renowned Explorers focuses so much on the characters. To flesh them out a bit more, and increase the number of stories that can emerge in the encounters, we added a bunch of new speech icons. There´s about 30 new ones, spread over the whole cast. We focused on those personalities with much to gain.
If you´ve played Renowned Explorers during the past few days, you already saw some new speech icons that put the encounters in the mood of Thanksgiving. This patch removes those and replaces them with about 30 new ones. Read the patch notes for the whole of Patch #9 here.
Remember that Renowned Explorers is on a 40% discount during Steam's current Exploration sale. There's two more days to act on that, so spread the word :)
In our bi-weekly update schedule for this year, we're introducing Patch #9. It brings a lot of balance changes to treasures and other strategic elements in dominant highscore builds. Some other items/treasures got boosts. And if you go on an expedition in the coming 24 hours, you will notice a nice little nod to Thanksgiving that brings new fun to your encounters. Read the full patch notes here. Since many expedition leaders participated in the previous story and highscore challenge, we've decided to introduce a weekly challenge. If you're looking for a new challenge in Renowned Explorers, or want some roleplaying constraints, then definitely take a look at Diplomacy for Dummies. It runs through the weekend, so submit your highscores and stories in time. Steam just started the Exploration sale. Obviously a near-perfect fit for Renowned Explorers, so we decided to do a big discount to welcome new fans. Our continued work on the game is made possible by you and the other fans that bought at full price. But to make Renowned Explorers and its community grow for the future, the game is currently on sale with a 40% discount. Be sure to tap your hesitating friend on their shoulder or perhaps even buy them a Thanksgiving gift ;) As always we're continuously improving the game. We have a nice little addition that we'll give to you in the weekend. For now, go give some Thanks in Transylvania, Mali or the Caribbean. Have fun, adventurers!
In our promise to update Renowned Explorers every two weeks in 2015, we bring you Patch 8. It gives Molly, Kwame and Bia more powerful and fun captain perks. We also changed quite some treasures, events and balance. Head to the patch notes to see the details.
For those wondering about the new captain perks, we're posing a challenge. In what scientists call 'a dumb challenge' you are required to bring a crew with only non-scientists, led by one of the reworked captains. We're looking for highscores and stories. Go here for more info.
Renowned Explorers has a long life. With the community growing and more updates on the way it might be hard to keep track. To stay up to date about larger updates, sign up for the Abbey Games newsletter or check the website.
Now, don't wait any longer. Go test the new captains and treasures. Rivaleux is already on his way!
Use Bia to gain fame and power for defeating legendary foes.
Group Molly with more rogues and become filthy rich.
Make friends all over the world with Kwame as captain.
This weekend is Halloween and we found it to be an appropriate theme for our latest update. We’re still full of ideas for Renowned Explorers so we’re trying different approaches for each update. This one is all about the mysterious and spooky legends around Halloween. For that reason we won’t tell you exactly what we changed. Instead it’s up to you to find out where we introduced new free stuff and what it leads to.
In fact, it might very well be that The Gargoyle Code, as we dubbed this mystery, is not solvable by you alone within reasonable time. So if you're looking for clues, make sure to share what you've found here on the Community Hub. Of course you can still unravel the mystery entirely alone as well. And we might add.. solving it will change your game forever.
The Halloween update is part of our promise to update Renowned Explorers every two weeks in 2015. Don't expect content updates every time. We focus on balance and fixes, but we'll try to sprinkle fun new events and other things here and there as well.
Happy Halloween!
Since our release in September we have had a very positive response by a community full of Renowned Explorers. For us developers it's great to be in the forums when people are so appreciative of the game we've been working on so hard. And many of you are helpful in making the community a nice place. This response inspired us to expand upon the game with a new expedition, available now as a one-time free DLC, which is automatically downloaded.
You'll find the Mali Mystery is a level 2 expedition. This means it's available as a choice right after completing your random starter expedition.
Except for this large content boost, we'll be updating the game with smaller updates every two weeks for the rest of 2015. These will focus on balance, but might contain new secrets and adventures too :)
You'll meet new characters and discover fresh adventures and treasures in a set of new environments in Mali.
On top of this we've added Leaderboards. You'll find them in the main menu. They'll show a list of all your own campaigns, both successful and failed ones. But what is more interesting to aspiring World Famous Explorers is that you can now also compare your best scores with the best scores of your Steam friends. Time to start thinking about your optimal strategy with Ivan!
Now, it's time to start discovering all the new mysteries in Mali. We hope you'll enjoy it! If so, please consider writing a positive review and leaving a comment in the Community Hub. That always helps and shows us we should do this more often ;)
Go find yourself some treasures, explorer!
Renowned Explorers: International Society
Abbey Games
Abbey Games
2015-09-02
Indie Strategy RPG Singleplayer
Game News Posts 58
🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse
Very Positive
(2231 reviews)
http://www.renownedexplorers.com
https://store.steampowered.com/app/296970
The Game includes VR Support
Content [888.28 M]Renowned Explorers: More To Explore [47.12 M]Renowned Explorers: The Emperor's Challenge [21.39 M]
Renowned Explorers: More To Explore
Renowned Explorers: The Emperor's Challenge
Renowned Explorers - Art Book
Key Features
- Endless New Adventures - Explore the far corners of fictitious 19th century world in procedurally generated expeditions to Egypt, the Caribbean and much more.
- Compose your Crew - Choose 3 experts out of 20. Fighters are Aggressive but Speakers can solve tactical conflicts with Speech actions.
- Personality = Gameplay - Each conflict can be solved in different ways, depending on your crew's personality and strategy. 'Mood' is one of the most important gameplay elements.
Fight them with Melee, Ranged and Area of Effect attacks,
win them over using Cheers, Charms and Compliments,
or scare them away by Insults, Taunts and Humiliation
- Optimize your Economy - Collect Insight, Research, Gold and Status on your expeditions. Use them to build economy and support for your next expedition.
- Vivid Stories - Find more than a hundred treasures in hundreds of visual events that adapt to the characters and have multiple outcomes.
- Build a reputation - Become a Diplomat, Aggressor or Manipulator. Go for Science, Wealth or Status. Fame is your goal, but the way there is entirely up to you.
- Permadeath? - In Adventure mode you cannot load after failure. Discovery mode lets you reload. Choose difficulties from Easy through Impossible to customize the challenge.
- OS: Ubuntu 14.04. Mint 17
- Processor: AMD Dual-Core running at 2.6 GHz / Intel Dual-Core processor running at ~1.9 GHz (AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ and Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 or newer series are the oldest CPU architectures recommended).Memory: 4096 MB RAM
- Memory: 4096 MB RAM
- Graphics: AMD/NVIDIA dedicated/integrated or mobile graphic card. with at least 512MB of dedicated VRAM ATI/AMD Radeon HD 5000 series. NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT and above are minimum required graphic cards. With vendor-supported graphics drivers. For open source drivers you have to use Mesa 10.3 driver or newer (it applies to Intel cards. Intel HD Sandy Bridge is a minimum).
- Storage: 1 GB available space
- OS: Ubuntu 14.04. Mint 17
- Processor: AMD Triple-Core / Intel Dual-Core 3.2 GHz (AMD Athlon II X3 450 or Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 or newer architectures are recommended).Memory: 4096 MB RAM
- Memory: 4096 MB RAM
- Graphics: AMD/NVIDIA dedicated with at least 1024MB of dedicated VRAM. ATI/AMD Radeon HD 5000 series. NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 and above are recommended graphic cards. With vendor-supported graphics drivers. For open source drivers you have to use Mesa 10.3 driver or newer (it applies to Intel cards. Intel HD4400 or newer is recommended).
- Storage: 1 GB available space
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