The Curious Expedition
Maschinen-Mensch Developer
Maschinen-Mensch Publisher
2016-09-02 Release
Game News Posts:
71
🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse
Very Positive
(3700 reviews)
The Game includes VR Support
Public Linux Depots:
- Expedition (Linux) [242.8 M]
- Expedition (Linux32) [255.76 M]
Available DLCs:
- The Curious Expedition OST and Artbook
You can now buy Mother Machine!
[ 2025-03-28 18:22:05 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello Gremlins, We are beyond excited! Embrace your inner chaos gremlin and dive into the Ashen Spores biome. With procedurally generated levels and five story acts, your adventure is limitless: unravel the mystery behind our beloved Mother! On top of the base game, we are also launching a DLC expansion: the Misty Grove biome, with more mutations and creatures to encounter. The DLC is free until April 9th 2025, and once youve claimed it, its yours to keep forever! Why don't you give it a try today? https://store.steampowered.com/app/1555980/Mother_Machine/ [previewyoutube=BGThKQi5RtU;full][/previewyoutube]
[ 2025-03-28 18:22:05 CET ] [ Original post ]
Mother Machine is part of Future Games Show!
After working for 10 years on games that rely heavily on procedural generation, we are about to release our latest game, Mother Machine, on March 26th. Unlike our previous games, which were tile-based strategy games, Mother Machine is a 2.5D multiplayer platformer with a strong emphasis on exploration. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1555980/Mother_Machine/ Hello Explorers! More wonderful news coming your way!
It is a great opportunity for you to try our demo with your friends and make sure that you get notified on the release day. If you want to check out FGS live, tune in this Thursday at 1:00pm PT on YouTube (or your favorite streaming platform, as it will be live on Twitch, X, Facebook, TikTok, GamesRadar, Steam, Epic Game Store, PC Gamer, IGN, GameSpot, BiliBili and more). [previewyoutube=JsFTvIsRYbw;full][/previewyoutube] For more gremlin news, don't forget to follow our socials and join our discord!
[ 2025-03-20 14:59:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
About Mother Machine
After working for 10 years on games that rely heavily on procedural generation, we are about to release our latest game, Mother Machine, on March 26th. Unlike our previous games, which were tile-based strategy games, Mother Machine is a 2.5D multiplayer platformer with a strong emphasis on exploration. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1555980/Mother_Machine/ Hello Explorers! More wonderful news coming your way!
We're super excited to be part of the Future Games Show!
It is a great opportunity for you to try our demo with your friends and make sure that you get notified on the release day. If you want to check out FGS live, tune in this Thursday at 1:00pm PT on YouTube (or your favorite streaming platform, as it will be live on Twitch, X, Facebook, TikTok, GamesRadar, Steam, Epic Game Store, PC Gamer, IGN, GameSpot, BiliBili and more). [previewyoutube=JsFTvIsRYbw;full][/previewyoutube] For more gremlin news, don't forget to follow our socials and join our discord!
[ 2025-03-20 14:59:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Art of Chaos
After working for 10 years on games that rely heavily on procedural generation, we are about to release our latest game, Mother Machine, on March 26th. Unlike our previous games, which were tile-based strategy games, Mother Machine is a 2.5D multiplayer platformer with a strong emphasis on exploration. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1555980/Mother_Machine/ Its pretty wild when you think about the shift in genre, but I was eager to apply our knowledge of procedural generation to the more immediate, physical gameplay that platformers offer. At its core, Mother Machine still shares a lot with the Curious Expedition games we've made before. You explore a procedurally generated world filled with obstacles, dangers, and rewards to overcome. We also wanted to keep the gameplay loop short and engaging, structuring it around runs that provide a satisfying experience within 15 to 30 minutes. From the very beginning, we knew we would once again rely heavily on a sophisticated procedural world generation system to create an extremely replayable game structure. However, this time, players will use the roguelite repetition to master their platforming abilities and experiment with mutations, special active abilities that let them personalize their movement and define their role in a multiplayer group.
With this article, I'm trying to give a not-too-technical overview of how our procedural generation is set up. Bear in mind that I'm not a programmermy role in procedural generation has always been to focus on conceptual design and then tune and balance the systems. Theres a huge part of the coding side missing from this, but it would take my partner in procedural crime, Isaac Ashdown, the technical director of Mother Machine, to write that part. I would like to give a shoutout to Derek Yus Spelunky and Darius Kazemis Spelunky Generator Lessons, which were, of course, very influential in shaping the initial starting points of our procedural design.
Since our game revolves around exploring the caves of an alien planet, we refer to our levels as "caves." A cave typically has a starting and ending point and follows a mostly sequential structure. However, we incorporate branching paths and loops that can reconnect different routes. The structure of a cave also varies depending on its goal type. There are six different goal types in the shipping version of the game. For now, I'll keep things simple, as these aspects are not essential to explaining the procedural setup. The basic building blocks of our caves are called "chunks." A chunk is a hand-designed piece, similar to a puzzle piece, that contains a set number of what we call "anchors." These anchors allow chunks to connect seamlessly to other chunks with matching anchors.
Chunks are created by drawing simple splines in the Unreal Editor. This approach allows us to achieve organic shapes, long slopes, rounded corners, and other features that would be difficult to create using pre-made building blocks. Another advantage of using splines to define the shape is the ability to iterate quickly on the geometry. Adjusting the 2D spline and hitting play instantly updates the level, making it easy to test how the shape interacts with gameplay mechanics and how it feels spatially, an aspect I care a lot about.
Another advantage of using splines is that they allow us to generate any type of geometry. This means that all designed chunks can be used in any biome of the game. As a result, creating additional chunks benefits all biomes, regardless of when they are released. The process of generating 3D geometry from a 2D spline is a complex topic that could easily warrant its own in-depth article. In short, we use Houdini, a powerful node-based 3D tool by SideFX, to handle this process. Specifically, we integrate it as an Unreal plugin, the Houdini Engine, where we feed in the 2D spline along with anchors and some additional meta-information. Houdini then runs in the background, without the level designer ever needing to open the tool, calculating the 3D geometry and updating it in the engine almost instantly. The instant part refers to the simple greybox geometry, while the more complex biome-specific geometry requires significantly more computational power and is processed offline on a dedicated server. Additionally, we use Unreal's PCG system to place foliage on the generated geometry, but diving deeper into that would go beyond the scope of this article. Heres an example of how a chunk spline is used to generate three different types of geometry:
Okay, back to chunks and how they are stitched together! Even though I follow a minimum grid of 50 Unreal Units (UU) when designing splines, it isn't strictly necessary for the internal shape of a chunk. However, I still adhere to it for easier debugging, maintaining repeatable patterns, and simplifying distance measurements for jumps and other gameplay elements. What does need to align with a grid is the position of the anchors and the outer shell of a chunk. Specifically, these elements must follow a 1000UU grid to ensure that chunks connect seamlessly without clipping into each other. This 1000UU grid is what we refer to as our "base grid."
Each anchor must always be placed precisely in the center of the base grid's outline and must maintain a distance of 300UU from the surrounding geometry on each side. This ensures that passages between chunks are standardized, consistently measuring 6 meters, and function seamlessly across all chunk designs. There are actually two types of anchors: normal and wide. The wide variant allows for larger openings between chunks. However, for the sake of simplicity in this article, I will focus only on normal anchors. Here's a small selection of different chunks. As you can see, they come in various shapes, sizes, and anchor positions. However, the outer shells and the placement of the anchors always conform to the base grid.
There are various sizes of chunks, each with a different number of anchors. They are categorized by usage types, such as "connector" (which usually has only a few anchors), "hall" (which typically has wider openings and higher ceilings), "mini" (the smallest possible chunks, measuring 1000UU x 1000UU, or 10 meters x 10 meters, the base grid size), and "deadend" (which have only one anchor). However, these names do not influence how the procedural system uses the chunks, they simply help me keep an overview. In total, we will be shipping the game with 496 different chunks.
When a cave is generated, the system aims to reach a specific "path length." One unit of path length corresponds to the size of our base grid. The path length is determined by the cave generation setup, which I'll discuss later. For now, heres an example of how a simple cave typically looks. At the top, you can see a simplified debug version, which we call the "cave explorer," while the bottom shows a zoomed-out view of the actual gameplay geometry. In the cave explorer, youll notice colored dots representing the positions of all chunk anchors.
This example cave is made up almost entirely of "mini" chunks and has a path length of 50. The path concludes with a large hall chunk, which serves as the standard goal area for our caves.
The exact length of a cave and the selection of chunks along its path depend on two key factors: "chunk sets" and "sections." A chunk set is a collection of different chunks that are randomly selected when the system places a chunk. A section, on the other hand, is the core of cave generation design. It defines several important parameters, including:
This is what the generation of this section looks like in practice. Note that the cave itself doesnt have a defined end section, so it simply stops. The emojis you see in the debug display indicate where enemies and other cave objects are placed (the pig icons represent basic enemies). Also, notice how this cave setup never requires players to pass through an upward anchor while following the main path. This is because the section setup forbids upward anchors. Since upward traversal is generally more difficult in gameplay, weve excluded them from this example to keep movement smoother and more accessible.
Here are a few variations of how this section can be generated. Each one maintains an exact path length of 10 and ensures that players never have to traverse an upward anchor connection.
The example section used the chunk set "small halls." Only the chunks included in this set can be placed when generating the section. Here, you can see the chunks that belong to the small halls chunk set:
For reference, this is how the section setup for the much more complex goal-type "cave trek" looks in the shipped version of the game. The branching paths represent the different supported difficulty levels: easy, normal, and hard.
Here, you can see how the generation places each chunk step by step for a normal difficulty cave.
And here are some generation results from the same setup, this time using the hard difficulty:
Now let's talk about how our gameplay actors, such as enemies, resources or other interactive things are placed inside chunks. Whenever a chunk is created or adjusted, the system will automatically place "sockets", approximately one socket every meter along the spline. For each socket, a couple of measurements are made to define different tags, such as:
All these values are stored in each socket. When defining a gameplay actor, we can specify which socket requirements the actor must meet to be placed inside a chunk. For example, our basic enemy has very few placement requirements. It only needs the "Player Path" tag, making it easy to spawn almost anywhere in a chunk.
The acid plant, which drops dangerous acid on players, has much more restrictive placement requirements. It can only be placed on the underside of a spline, as it hangs from the ceiling. Additionally, it requires a height of at least 7 meters (H7) to ensure that the acid drips from a logical height and gives players enough time to react before it reaches them.
To test the placement and requirements of actors within a chunk, we use a special tool called the "theatre." In the theatre, we can specify which chunk is generated and set up a collection of actors to be spawned inside. This is extremely useful for observing the different permutations that a set of actors can take when placed within a chunk in the generated cave.
The theatre can also be used to test an entire section setup instead of just a single chunk. In this case, it generates one permutation of a defined section, as described earlier. The following example shows multiple generations of a section called "Exploration," a general area that spawns various enemy types, resources, platforming obstacles, and more. This demonstrates how the combination of different chunks from the designated chunk set and the selected gameplay actors creates a wide variety of unique gameplay situations.
Typically, there are many different ways gameplay actors can be spawned within a single chunk. When combined with the fact that the chunk itself is randomly selected from a predefined chunk set, this results in a vast variety of possible combinations within a section.
I hope this article provides some interesting insights and a good, if basic, overview of our procedural generation setup. Having worked on many different procedural systems in the last 10+ years I can proudly say that what we have achieved with Mother Machine is definitely our procedural masterpiece. For me, it is extremely fulfilling to work on procedural generation. Observing the different outcomes of a growingly complex system is deeply satsfying. If you want to follow the development of Mother Machine, or support us in developing it please consider wishlisting the game on Steam, this helps us a lot! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1555980/Mother_Machine/ Thank you! Johannes Kristmann
[ 2025-03-16 21:18:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
About Mother Machine
After working for 10 years on games that rely heavily on procedural generation, we are about to release our latest game, Mother Machine, on March 26th. Unlike our previous games, which were tile-based strategy games, Mother Machine is a 2.5D multiplayer platformer with a strong emphasis on exploration. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1555980/Mother_Machine/ Its pretty wild when you think about the shift in genre, but I was eager to apply our knowledge of procedural generation to the more immediate, physical gameplay that platformers offer. At its core, Mother Machine still shares a lot with the Curious Expedition games we've made before. You explore a procedurally generated world filled with obstacles, dangers, and rewards to overcome. We also wanted to keep the gameplay loop short and engaging, structuring it around runs that provide a satisfying experience within 15 to 30 minutes. From the very beginning, we knew we would once again rely heavily on a sophisticated procedural world generation system to create an extremely replayable game structure. However, this time, players will use the roguelite repetition to master their platforming abilities and experiment with mutations, special active abilities that let them personalize their movement and define their role in a multiplayer group.
With this article, I'm trying to give a not-too-technical overview of how our procedural generation is set up. Bear in mind that I'm not a programmermy role in procedural generation has always been to focus on conceptual design and then tune and balance the systems. Theres a huge part of the coding side missing from this, but it would take my partner in procedural crime, Isaac Ashdown, the technical director of Mother Machine, to write that part. I would like to give a shoutout to Derek Yus Spelunky and Darius Kazemis Spelunky Generator Lessons, which were, of course, very influential in shaping the initial starting points of our procedural design.
From Splines to Chunks
Since our game revolves around exploring the caves of an alien planet, we refer to our levels as "caves." A cave typically has a starting and ending point and follows a mostly sequential structure. However, we incorporate branching paths and loops that can reconnect different routes. The structure of a cave also varies depending on its goal type. There are six different goal types in the shipping version of the game. For now, I'll keep things simple, as these aspects are not essential to explaining the procedural setup. The basic building blocks of our caves are called "chunks." A chunk is a hand-designed piece, similar to a puzzle piece, that contains a set number of what we call "anchors." These anchors allow chunks to connect seamlessly to other chunks with matching anchors.
Chunks are created by drawing simple splines in the Unreal Editor. This approach allows us to achieve organic shapes, long slopes, rounded corners, and other features that would be difficult to create using pre-made building blocks. Another advantage of using splines to define the shape is the ability to iterate quickly on the geometry. Adjusting the 2D spline and hitting play instantly updates the level, making it easy to test how the shape interacts with gameplay mechanics and how it feels spatially, an aspect I care a lot about.
Another advantage of using splines is that they allow us to generate any type of geometry. This means that all designed chunks can be used in any biome of the game. As a result, creating additional chunks benefits all biomes, regardless of when they are released. The process of generating 3D geometry from a 2D spline is a complex topic that could easily warrant its own in-depth article. In short, we use Houdini, a powerful node-based 3D tool by SideFX, to handle this process. Specifically, we integrate it as an Unreal plugin, the Houdini Engine, where we feed in the 2D spline along with anchors and some additional meta-information. Houdini then runs in the background, without the level designer ever needing to open the tool, calculating the 3D geometry and updating it in the engine almost instantly. The instant part refers to the simple greybox geometry, while the more complex biome-specific geometry requires significantly more computational power and is processed offline on a dedicated server. Additionally, we use Unreal's PCG system to place foliage on the generated geometry, but diving deeper into that would go beyond the scope of this article. Heres an example of how a chunk spline is used to generate three different types of geometry:
Okay, back to chunks and how they are stitched together! Even though I follow a minimum grid of 50 Unreal Units (UU) when designing splines, it isn't strictly necessary for the internal shape of a chunk. However, I still adhere to it for easier debugging, maintaining repeatable patterns, and simplifying distance measurements for jumps and other gameplay elements. What does need to align with a grid is the position of the anchors and the outer shell of a chunk. Specifically, these elements must follow a 1000UU grid to ensure that chunks connect seamlessly without clipping into each other. This 1000UU grid is what we refer to as our "base grid."
Each anchor must always be placed precisely in the center of the base grid's outline and must maintain a distance of 300UU from the surrounding geometry on each side. This ensures that passages between chunks are standardized, consistently measuring 6 meters, and function seamlessly across all chunk designs. There are actually two types of anchors: normal and wide. The wide variant allows for larger openings between chunks. However, for the sake of simplicity in this article, I will focus only on normal anchors. Here's a small selection of different chunks. As you can see, they come in various shapes, sizes, and anchor positions. However, the outer shells and the placement of the anchors always conform to the base grid.
There are various sizes of chunks, each with a different number of anchors. They are categorized by usage types, such as "connector" (which usually has only a few anchors), "hall" (which typically has wider openings and higher ceilings), "mini" (the smallest possible chunks, measuring 1000UU x 1000UU, or 10 meters x 10 meters, the base grid size), and "deadend" (which have only one anchor). However, these names do not influence how the procedural system uses the chunks, they simply help me keep an overview. In total, we will be shipping the game with 496 different chunks.
Cave Generation
When a cave is generated, the system aims to reach a specific "path length." One unit of path length corresponds to the size of our base grid. The path length is determined by the cave generation setup, which I'll discuss later. For now, heres an example of how a simple cave typically looks. At the top, you can see a simplified debug version, which we call the "cave explorer," while the bottom shows a zoomed-out view of the actual gameplay geometry. In the cave explorer, youll notice colored dots representing the positions of all chunk anchors.
This example cave is made up almost entirely of "mini" chunks and has a path length of 50. The path concludes with a large hall chunk, which serves as the standard goal area for our caves.
The exact length of a cave and the selection of chunks along its path depend on two key factors: "chunk sets" and "sections." A chunk set is a collection of different chunks that are randomly selected when the system places a chunk. A section, on the other hand, is the core of cave generation design. It defines several important parameters, including:
- Which chunk set is used
- The path length for this section
- The types of gameplay actors that spawn
- Which anchor directions are allowed or excluded
- The mood of the section (which determines color and lighting settings)
This is what the generation of this section looks like in practice. Note that the cave itself doesnt have a defined end section, so it simply stops. The emojis you see in the debug display indicate where enemies and other cave objects are placed (the pig icons represent basic enemies). Also, notice how this cave setup never requires players to pass through an upward anchor while following the main path. This is because the section setup forbids upward anchors. Since upward traversal is generally more difficult in gameplay, weve excluded them from this example to keep movement smoother and more accessible.
Here are a few variations of how this section can be generated. Each one maintains an exact path length of 10 and ensures that players never have to traverse an upward anchor connection.
The example section used the chunk set "small halls." Only the chunks included in this set can be placed when generating the section. Here, you can see the chunks that belong to the small halls chunk set:
For reference, this is how the section setup for the much more complex goal-type "cave trek" looks in the shipped version of the game. The branching paths represent the different supported difficulty levels: easy, normal, and hard.
Here, you can see how the generation places each chunk step by step for a normal difficulty cave.
And here are some generation results from the same setup, this time using the hard difficulty:
Gameplay Actor Placement
Now let's talk about how our gameplay actors, such as enemies, resources or other interactive things are placed inside chunks. Whenever a chunk is created or adjusted, the system will automatically place "sockets", approximately one socket every meter along the spline. For each socket, a couple of measurements are made to define different tags, such as:
- Is the socket on the top of a spline, the side or the underside?
- When shooting a ray away from the surface the socket is located on, how long will it travel before it hits another spline? This defines the height of the socket
- What are the neighbor sockets?
- Which "ribbon" is the socket located on? There are 3 ribbons in our game which define in which depth an object exists:
- Player Path is the pink ribbon on which the player will move
- FrontPath is in front of the player. Typically we spawn only smaller objects here
- BackPath is behind the player. Here we can spawn larger objects.
All these values are stored in each socket. When defining a gameplay actor, we can specify which socket requirements the actor must meet to be placed inside a chunk. For example, our basic enemy has very few placement requirements. It only needs the "Player Path" tag, making it easy to spawn almost anywhere in a chunk.
The acid plant, which drops dangerous acid on players, has much more restrictive placement requirements. It can only be placed on the underside of a spline, as it hangs from the ceiling. Additionally, it requires a height of at least 7 meters (H7) to ensure that the acid drips from a logical height and gives players enough time to react before it reaches them.
To test the placement and requirements of actors within a chunk, we use a special tool called the "theatre." In the theatre, we can specify which chunk is generated and set up a collection of actors to be spawned inside. This is extremely useful for observing the different permutations that a set of actors can take when placed within a chunk in the generated cave.
The theatre can also be used to test an entire section setup instead of just a single chunk. In this case, it generates one permutation of a defined section, as described earlier. The following example shows multiple generations of a section called "Exploration," a general area that spawns various enemy types, resources, platforming obstacles, and more. This demonstrates how the combination of different chunks from the designated chunk set and the selected gameplay actors creates a wide variety of unique gameplay situations.
Typically, there are many different ways gameplay actors can be spawned within a single chunk. When combined with the fact that the chunk itself is randomly selected from a predefined chunk set, this results in a vast variety of possible combinations within a section.
Conclusion
I hope this article provides some interesting insights and a good, if basic, overview of our procedural generation setup. Having worked on many different procedural systems in the last 10+ years I can proudly say that what we have achieved with Mother Machine is definitely our procedural masterpiece. For me, it is extremely fulfilling to work on procedural generation. Observing the different outcomes of a growingly complex system is deeply satsfying. If you want to follow the development of Mother Machine, or support us in developing it please consider wishlisting the game on Steam, this helps us a lot! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1555980/Mother_Machine/ Thank you! Johannes Kristmann
[ 2025-03-16 21:18:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
Mother Machine is part of Steam Next Fest!
We made a ton of changes to the game and we're continuing to make improvements to the graphics, the stability, the story, and more! Come try out the first chapter of Mother Machine's story with up to 3 gremlin friends all over the world. Cause chaos, complete Mother's missions, mutate, and do it all over again! Don't forget to wishlist and follow our social channels for additional juicy updates throughout the week... we have very exciting news to share!
In other news, we've also been streaming gameplay and gamedev insights regularly on our Twitch channel - including our first look at the splitscreen version of Mother Machine last week! Curious to see more? Then give us a follow and don't miss the next stream! Finally, you can always chat with us about Mother Machine, other Maschinen-Mensch games, gamedev stuff and more on our Discord server! Come join the chaos. See you in the caves - Mother welcomes her children once again.
[ 2025-02-24 20:11:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello Gremlins! The time has come...
Steam Next Fest is here! Grab your friends and jump into our Mother Machine online multiplayer demo right now!
We made a ton of changes to the game and we're continuing to make improvements to the graphics, the stability, the story, and more! Come try out the first chapter of Mother Machine's story with up to 3 gremlin friends all over the world. Cause chaos, complete Mother's missions, mutate, and do it all over again! Don't forget to wishlist and follow our social channels for additional juicy updates throughout the week... we have very exciting news to share!
In other news, we've also been streaming gameplay and gamedev insights regularly on our Twitch channel - including our first look at the splitscreen version of Mother Machine last week! Curious to see more? Then give us a follow and don't miss the next stream! Finally, you can always chat with us about Mother Machine, other Maschinen-Mensch games, gamedev stuff and more on our Discord server! Come join the chaos. See you in the caves - Mother welcomes her children once again.
[ 2025-02-24 20:11:21 CET ] [ Original post ]
Our Mother Machine Playtest is LIVE!
[ 2024-12-14 17:35:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello adventurers,
We are super thrilled to announce that we are running another playtest for our latest game, Mother Machine!
From now until the 16th of December, you can hop in the game and be your most chaotic gremlin self!
Venture into the depths of the alien cave network, complete missions, and come back to evolve and change your playstyle (or keep the same mutations, I'm not the boss of you!)
Got some questions? Check out our FAQ.
Feedback? Head on down to our Discord to chat to our devs or write in our steam discussions!
Anyone can join in and we can't wait to hear your feedback on this new version!
Go on and sign up to the playtest now - it will please Mother...
[ 2024-12-14 17:35:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
New game Mother Machine announced!
[ 2024-08-13 15:49:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
We're super excited to announce our new game Mother Machine! A 1-4 player co-op action-rpg where you and your friends explore alien caves as chaos-loving gremlins!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1555980/Mother_Machine/
Highlights
- Use your ability to seamlessly climb on walls and roofs and reimagine 2.5D platformer gameplay.
- Extend your active abilities with mutations and creatively overcome challenges.
- Join games at any time with easy drop-in multiplayer.
- Play with anyone, independent from their experience level or how long they have been playing the game.
- Equip your creature with a fart that heals, or protect your group with the powerful mega belch ability.
- Experience unique & personal moments created by physical, emergent gameplay.
- Endlessly replayable generative levels.
- Experience unique gameplay moments with your friends in a ~20 minutes run structure.
[ 2024-08-13 15:49:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Giant Crab plushie
We teamed up with Makeship to produce a limited edition plushie of the Giant Crab, one of the most beloved creatures in Curious Expedition 1 & 2. This is how it works: You have 3 weeks of time to place your order The plushie will only be produced if the minimum funding goal is reached If the campaign does not achieve its funding goal all orders will be refunded A random selection of people among those who buy the plushie will be gifted a Steam key bundle containing Curious Expedition 1, Curious Expedition 2 and all the DLCS We received a sample of the plushie, it's really well made and incredibly soft
[ 2022-10-17 15:21:48 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dear Explorers, The Curious Expedition Giant Crab plushie is now available to order!
We teamed up with Makeship to produce a limited edition plushie of the Giant Crab, one of the most beloved creatures in Curious Expedition 1 & 2. This is how it works: You have 3 weeks of time to place your order The plushie will only be produced if the minimum funding goal is reached If the campaign does not achieve its funding goal all orders will be refunded A random selection of people among those who buy the plushie will be gifted a Steam key bundle containing Curious Expedition 1, Curious Expedition 2 and all the DLCS We received a sample of the plushie, it's really well made and incredibly soft
Get your crab at https://www.makeship.com/products/giant-crab-plush
[ 2022-10-17 15:21:48 CET ] [ Original post ]
New Curious Expedition 2 DLC out now
[ 2022-09-15 15:52:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dear Explorers, We just released Robots of Lux, a new DLC for Curious Expedition 2: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1751921/Curious_Expedition_2__Robots_of_Lux/ This one is quite special, as it features a crossover with a game we love made by another developer: SteamWorld Heist by Image & Form Games! Watch the launch trailer to get a feeling of what to expect: [previewyoutube=ja0US6p6cd0;full][/previewyoutube] To celebrate the occasion we have some massive discounts on the entire catalogue and we introduced a bunch of cool bundles on Steam. If you haven't checked out Curious Expedition 2 yet this is the perfect and most convenient opportunity to do it! https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/28001/ https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/28002/ https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/27899/ Adventure awaits!
[ 2022-09-15 15:52:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
FREE DLC for Curious Expedition 2 out now
You can also get both games on Steam or complete your collection for an additional 10% discount. There's never been a better and more convenient time to check out our games for real! What are you waiting for? Adventure awaits!
[ 2021-05-27 13:53:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dear Explorers,
As you might have heard, last week we released a huge FREE DLC for Curious Expedition 2 titled The New Director.
This update features a ton of new content and a new game mode (Director Mode) which is less focused on the story compared to the existing Campaign Mode, providing more replayability and shorter game sessions. If you enjoyed the original Curious Expedition we're sure you will like it.
To celebrate the launch we discounted all of our releases:
You can also get both games on Steam or complete your collection for an additional 10% discount. There's never been a better and more convenient time to check out our games for real! What are you waiting for? Adventure awaits!
[ 2021-05-27 13:53:56 CET ] [ Original post ]
Curious Expedition 2 version 1.0 is out now
[ 2021-01-28 17:22:37 CET ] [ Original post ]
[previewyoutube=YENKrEWgfD0;full][/previewyoutube]
Dear Explorers,
We made it! Curious Expedition 2 is leaving Early Access today. We'd like to thank once again all the players who supported us during the past few months and shared their feedback with us: you really helped us create a much better game.
To celebrate the launch, we've put the game on 10% discount for a week, so if you haven't joined the adventure yet, this is an excellent time to do it. Make sure to check out the Curious Expedition 1 & 2 Collection Bundle for an additional discount.
As we said before, please remember that this version 1.0 is not the "final" version of the game: we're already working on content updates to be released in the upcoming months.
Adventure awaits!
[ 2021-01-28 17:22:37 CET ] [ Original post ]
Curious Expedition 2 is leaving Early Access on January 28!
[ 2021-01-14 15:04:59 CET ] [ Original post ]
Dear Explorers, We're excited to announce that we are going to leave Early Access and release Curious Expedition 2 version 1.0 on Thursday, January 28th! This version will include lots of polish improvements, balance adjustments and bug fixes. It will also feature Steam Achievements and Steam Community Items (Trading Cards, Badges, etc.) We want to thank everyone who played the game during Early Access (and the closed alpha period before that), your feedback and support was indispensable and truly helped us make a better game. Please note that version 1.0 won't be the "final" version of the game: we're already working on content updates to be released in the upcoming months! Make sure to participate to the Club Challenge running on January 19th-28th, the reward will be an exclusive hat for Early Access players only, it will never be available again in the future! If you already own the original Curious Expedition on Steam, or if you'd like to buy both games at once, don't miss the Curious Expedition 1 & 2 Collection bundle to receive a 10% discount! Finally, here's a brand-new release trailer: [previewyoutube=YENKrEWgfD0;full][/previewyoutube] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1040230/Curious_Expedition_2/
[ 2021-01-14 15:04:59 CET ] [ Original post ]
AMA session with the team on Discord
[ 2020-08-27 14:54:48 CET ] [ Original post ]
Indie Arena Booth Online is taking place this week, part of gamescom 2020. Curious Expedition 2 is being showcased there (make sure to check out our new demo!), and for the occasion the Maschinen-Mensch team will be hanging around the Discord server to answer all of your questions.
Just click on the banner to join:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1040230/Curious_Expedition_2/
[ 2020-08-27 14:54:48 CET ] [ Original post ]
Curious Expedition 2 is out now on Steam Early Access
[ 2020-06-17 14:22:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
Curious Expedition 2 just launched on Early Access: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1040230/Curious_Expedition_2/ If you already own the original Curious Expedition on Steam, or if you'd like to buy both games at once, don't miss the Curious Expedition 1 & 2 Collection bundle to receive a 10% discount,! Also check out the new release trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC43-xmjl9w If you enjoyed the first game, we think you'll probably like this one too Adventure awaits, once again!
[ 2020-06-17 14:22:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
Curious Expedition 2 is coming to Early Access on June 17!
[ 2020-06-10 13:05:03 CET ] [ Original post ]
The time has come! After running the Closed Alpha phase for the past 6 months, we're excited to announce that Curious Expedition 2 is coming to Steam Early Access on Wednesday, June 17th.
Instead of writing a long message we have prepared a video update for you, where we introduce the team, show some preview footage from the game and provide information on what to expect from the Early Access:
https://youtu.be/JMEPTV4OXFk
If you haven't done it already, make sure to add the game to your wishlist to receive a notification the moment it becomes available, and join our Discord server.
Adventure awaits, again!
[ 2020-06-10 13:05:03 CET ] [ Original post ]
Curious Expedition 2 demo available now!
[ 2020-03-19 12:27:09 CET ] [ Original post ]
We're incredibly thrilled to be part of the Steam Game Festival Spring Edition with a demo for Curious Expedition 2 it will be available only UNTIL THE END OF THE WEEK, so don't wait! This is the first time we're making the game accessible to a wider audience outside of the closed alpha we've launched last November, and we can't wait to hear your impressions. Before playing the demo, please make sure to wishlist the game, it really helps us by making it discoverable to more players: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1040230/Curious_Expedition_2/ Some important notes:
- This demo was originally created to present the game at festivals and conventions, such as GDC (before it got cancelled). Normally you'd play this with someone from our team next to you, explaining things if needed. We've included a small tutorial, but if certain aspects are still not clear (which might be the case, if you haven't played the original Curious Expedition), please be understanding!
- Each playthrough lasts around 10-20 minutes, but since the map is procedurally generated, we recommend playing more than once to experience different locations, events and items.
- Since the game is still in development (currently in closed alpha), certain features are not final yet, in particular regarding the user interface.
[ 2020-03-19 12:27:09 CET ] [ Original post ]
Patch 1.4.1: RIVALS fixes
And of course, you can also sign up for a chance at CE2 Alpha access here.
[ 2019-12-20 13:47:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
We've been updating the game quite a lot since launching RIVALS - thanks for your patience! We had a huge number of players in the first few weeks, and our server was a bit overloaded. But now we've fixed most of the connection and stability issues people were having, and today's patch rolls in some gameplay tweaks and fixes too. Here are the full patch notes: 1.4.1 (December 20th 2019)
- Fix for being able to promote while travelling
- Fixed some localisation / pronoun issues
- Flare Usage perk doesn't stack
- Fix for losing a mummy when two mummies come alive from your inventory (you now fight two mummies)
- RIVALS
- Improved server connection issues
- Hubs are now generally further away from each other
- Hub names now just take the full player name
- Removed Renounced status
- Reduced range of Weather Balloons
- Reduced speed of world Timeline animation
- Whisky Lover 2 crate only has 15 Whisky (so it's not better than Best of Both Worlds)
- When sorting Crates by Rarity, Held crates are sorted first
- Fix for Cultist takeover Missions not allowing Recruit even though party wasn't full with Authoritative Leader
- Fixed issues when Holding crates failed
- Fix for Province banners being shown when they shouldn't
- Fix for global highscores showing missing users
- Fix for some animal loot not being tradable with Taxidermy Badge Servant
- Fix for T-Rex tooth not being deliverable as Treasure
- Fix for some party members not getting their proper initial statuses
- Fix for account issues when switching Steam user
- Fix for easy accidental perk selection when promoting Explorer
And of course, you can also sign up for a chance at CE2 Alpha access here.
[ 2019-12-20 13:47:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
New content update: RIVALS
You can also sign up for Closed Alpha access here - we'll invite people who sign up in the coming weeks. And don't forget to wishlist Curious Expedition 2! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1040230/Curious_Expedition_2/ What are you waiting for? Adventure awaits, once again!
[ 2019-11-27 09:00:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Have you ever wondered what Curious Expedition would be like as a massively multiplayer game? Make sure to play the new RIVALS mode we launched today to find out! Here are some of the things you can expect from RIVALS:
- Explore worlds that are up to 10,000 times larger than in the original game.
- Discover new regions and have your name and portrait remembered for all other players to see.
- Acquire prestigious badges with every golden pyramid you discover.
- Equip your trek with over 140 Expedition Crates to customize your playstyle and experiment with different strategies.
You can also sign up for Closed Alpha access here - we'll invite people who sign up in the coming weeks. And don't forget to wishlist Curious Expedition 2! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1040230/Curious_Expedition_2/ What are you waiting for? Adventure awaits, once again!
[ 2019-11-27 09:00:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Japanese and Turkish now available!
Don't forget to join us on Discord to get regular updates, exclusive previews of Curious Expedition 2, to suggest features and more!
[ 2019-10-07 12:18:33 CET ] [ Original post ]
You can now go exploring in Japanese and Turkish! The latest update also includes a few additional fixes:
- Returning empty-handed from idol harbor quest no longer shows text implying that you kept the idol
- Fix for loading very old savegames
- Fixed some cases where the wrong gender would be displayed
- Fix for being able to perform attacks or click the roll button during the enemy turn
- Updated translations and fixed some typos
- Fix for sprawl events happening while resting
- Fix for red mushrooms usage event saying nobody requires treatment when they do
Don't forget to join us on Discord to get regular updates, exclusive previews of Curious Expedition 2, to suggest features and more!
[ 2019-10-07 12:18:33 CET ] [ Original post ]
Curious Expedition 2 first previews!
[ 2019-07-17 13:15:42 CET ] [ Original post ]
The time has come we're finally ready to start sharing with you some Curious Expedition 2 previews!
Here's the mission, a location you might be familiar with from the first Curious Expedition:
The cultists also got a new look:
We've been working a lot on dynamic mood variations, these are some example applied to the chieftain hut:
Last but not least, a sneak peek of the map, which is mixing 3D and 2D elements (still a work in progress, but we like where this is going):
Let us know your thoughts, and please add Curious Expedition 2 to your wishlist if you haven't done it already:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1040230/Curious_Expedition_2/
Next month we'll be showing a demo to reporters during gamescom in Cologne: get in touch if you'd like to arrange a meeting you can find our email address on the press kit page http://maschinen-mensch.com/press/sheet.php?p=curious_expedition_2. Please note that at this stage we're not providing preview builds of the game to anyone, the only way to see the game is to meet us in person!
One more thing: were looking for a Chinese Market and Culture Advisor, to help Curious Expedition 2 reach the Chinese audience in the most effective way. If you're interested, or know someone who might be a good fit, here's more details about the position: http://maschinen-mensch.com/news/chinese-advisor.html
That's all for now!
[ 2019-07-17 13:15:42 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.3.14.0: Brazilian Portuguese, Ukrainian, bug fixes
[ 2019-05-08 09:36:42 CET ] [ Original post ]
The whole team is busy working on Curious Expedition 2 (and the Curious Expedition 1 console port), but this doesn't mean we forgot about you! Indeed, this update adds support for two new languages: Brazilian Portuguese and Ukrainian. And we fixed some bugs as well.
Here's the full list of changes:
- Added Brazilian Portuguese & Ukrainian languages
- New Main Menu background: Remastered London Skyline
- Renamed 'Bipolar' to 'Mercurial'
- Fixed some English and German text
- Fix for damage particles being in wrong location when hitting mounted character
- Mounted characters that have zero health are dismounted when entering combat
- Fix for Expedition not being marked as aborted when using balloon
- Fix for portals being placed always on grasslands
- Minor Barter UI improvements
- Fixed some missing status Notifications
- Fixed bad Scottish names
- Fixed various scripting/event errors
- Updated Credits
[ 2019-05-08 09:36:42 CET ] [ Original post ]
Curious Expedition 2 announced! Curious Expedition 1 coming to consoles!
[ 2019-03-01 17:26:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
We've just announced Curious Expedition 2! The sequel will feature a brand-new art style and enhanced gameplay, along with vastly expanded content over its predecessor. Prepare yourself to join the legendary Explorer Clubs and venture on unprecedented expeditions to regions that have never been explored. You can wishlist Curious Expedition 2 on Steam now: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1040230/Curious_Expedition_2/ Oh, and the original Curious Expedition is coming to consoles in 2019! Both projects are made in collaboration with our new publisher Thunderful.
[ 2019-03-01 17:26:18 CET ] [ Original post ]
Daily Deal - The Curious Expedition, 50% Off
[ 2018-12-18 18:04:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today's Deal: Save 50% on The Curious Expedition!*
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
[ 2018-12-18 18:04:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
New explorer: Rasputin - plus Russian language
[ 2018-11-26 12:32:26 CET ] [ Original post ]
Curious Expedition is now available in Russian! To celebrate this new language we have added the legendary Grigori Rasputin as a new explorer.
A mysterious and pursuasive Preacher, he can always recruit at villages, no matter what standing he has with the natives.
Here is the full list of changes to Curious Expedition with version 1.3.13:
- Added Russian translation
- Added new Explorer character Rasputin
- Tuning Changes
- Tuned Slaver trading
- Reduced the chance of starting a fire after resting
- Modding
- Fix for item 'addStatus' keyword not working
- Fix for 'sprawlEvents' keyword not working
- Barter and Loot events can now specify a 'invName' that will be used to determine which inventory in the location is used to contain the items
- Bug Fixes
- Fixed maps sometimes having blocking mountains that prevent exploration
- Fixed Pack Ice sinking when it shouldn't have
- Fixed some English and German language issues
- Fixed Chinese language wrapping issues
- Playing the tutorial no longer removes your savegame
- Fix for tiles not correctly animating when replaced
- Fixed cave giant spider event not triggering correct event after combat
- Fixed unwanted camera panning when interacting with items
- Fixed issue where cultist mission takeover would conflict with stash inventory
- Haggle skill is now correctly evaluated when entering barter screen
- Fixed victory screen chat position
- Fixed combat dice shaking sometimes not behaving correctly
- Fixed action buttons not always being visible
- Fix for diary image going back when it's changed
- Fix for game closing when quitting credits
- Fixed corrupted sound issues on some machines
- Fixed missing effect when uploading mods
- Fixed graphical issues on Ranking screen when scaling mode is 3
- Fixed party members not chatting
- Party members now animate when chatting
- Fixed wrong world start position
[ 2018-11-26 12:32:26 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.3.12
[ 2018-10-08 11:37:06 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello Explorers! As you may have heard, we've recently been working on a new, experimental, free-to-play, multiplayer spin-off, called Curious Expedition RIVALS. In today's patch we're updating The Curious Expedition with some of the improvements and fixes we've made while developing RIVALS.
UI Changes
- Added smooth zooming
- Improvements to infection/death system
- Infobox now shows the death chance for infected characters
- A diary alert is shown before opening the diary when somebody is dieing
- Tin can items will only be shown as usable when they can actually be used (sanity less than 30)
- Added quick scroll to credits; added new entries for fan edition
Tuning changes
- Increased chance of catastrophic outcoume when sending claustrophobic person into cave without torch
- Waiting now costs the base trip cost in sanity
- Only one item per item category is now cooled down per turn, instead of all of them
- Changed jungle rot sickness to be potentially deadly
- Tweaked how often some events could appear on one expedition
Bugfixes
- Toughness can't be reduced below zero when contracting a disease
- The shop-specific item value bonuses are only displayed when at the shop screen
- Indicator for item usage in combat now matches the reality
- Various German typos fixed
Modding
- Added support for Character flags +noMirror, +noHealth and +noLoyalty
- Party buttons are refreshed when stats change
- Vehicles can't get infected
[ 2018-10-08 11:37:06 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.3.11: Spanish and Sounds!
[ 2018-07-16 12:09:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greetings Explorers! Today's update adds a spanish translation, improves the audio experience, and has some additional performance improvements. ¡La aventura te aguarda!
Added Spanish translation
Changes
- Added discord button to main menu
Modding
- Added support for +vehicle character flag that disables health and loyalty for that character
- Added support for canDismiss character property that prevents a character from being dismissed by the player when false
- Added support for 'compactAndStack' event keyword that ensures the given items are optimally stacked
Bugfixes
- Fixed sound effects not looping seamlessly
- Fixed performance in main menu
- Improved expedition generation times
- Fixed highscore text not being localised in hall of fame
- Locations can only be revealed if their tile is visible
- Statuses that block health regeneration or character promotion are now properly displayed as such
- Fixed explorer portrait displays in highscores screen
- Native characters now display smaller icons where appropriate
- When natives show up during an event, they are now displayed in the image
- Fixed being difficult to click on the 'Roll' button in combat at higher scaling settings
- Fixed the tutorial hint circle being in the wrong position at higher scaling settings
[ 2018-07-16 12:09:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.3.10: Polish and Performance
[ 2018-06-14 08:02:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
Greeting Explorers! Today's update adds a Polish language translation to the game, and improves performance, especially on older computers! Przygoda czeka!
We've also enabled Achievements with mods enabled! They are now only disabled if you have the debug bar turned on. There are some other small modding improvements, including the ability to include spritesheets in your mods: see the wiki for more info.
Added Polish translation
Performance and Rendering
- Added Low Graphics setting that reduced particles
- If the game detects that it has no GPU, Low Graphics will default to on
- Added support for 4K UHD Resolution (3840 x 2160): 1:6 pixel ratio
- Can now toggle Stretching setting independently of Scaling
- Improved rendering performance
- Improved loading times
Modding
- Achievements are now given when mods are enabled (but the debug bar must be disabled)
- Mods now support spritesheets
- Range syntax is now supported for replaceTile and removeZones; Radius is deprecated
- replaceLocations range property supports bonus syntax
- Runtime Mod event errors are correctly tagged with the mod
- Localisation Mod errors are correctly tagged with the mod
- Missing sound files are now correctly detected
Bugfixes
- Fixed issues with mod language loading and improved logging
- Fix for Forsaken shrine aftermaths not removing angry natives
- Fixed village funeral event not allowing extra options when you have a missionary in the party
- Fix for mousewheel not working on mac
- Fix for treasure maps not being rendered correctly after loading a savegame
- Left-clicking on an item while an item is currently being moved no longer attempts to use the clicked-on item, but will instead drop the currently held item if possible
- When switching an item with one in a different slot while overburdened, the empty spot will no longer be removed
- Ghost Quest and Giant Spider caves don't become other cave types when interacted with
- Item and Character achievements work correctly
- Explosion Expert perk removes locations in all effected tiles
- Fixed villages always saying you were welcome even when you had a low standing
- Fixed some unlocalised gameover texts
- Reset Profile correctly resets Highscores and Achievements
- Fixed seeing multiple notifications for the same achievement
- Fixed character unlock notifications not being displayed when the character is actually unlocked
- Fixed Trippy Trip achievement
- Fixed Special Visit achievement
- Fixed stats not being correctly incremented after switching difficulty levels
- Fixed ranking display in Italian
- Fixed some rest events not actually including a rest
[ 2018-06-14 08:02:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.3.9
Content
[ 2018-05-25 07:28:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today's update is again focussed on modding and fixing bugs.
Modding Highlights
- Added a warning and error report to mods you've authored (so you can look at the log and try and fix them before uploading your mod)
- Items can now add statuses which the player's explorer will have while the item is in the inventory
- Map sounds (sounds that play when the player is near a sprawl or location) can now be modded
- Added "wait" keyword that works like the rest keyword but doesn't provide sanity and can display custom text
- Combat music can be modded
- The MaxStack of items can use the bonus syntax
- Can now enable "Show Flags Info" in developer settings to get more info about flags
Full notes
Content
- Dendrophobia now adds a "Fear" status when walking in wood or jungle tiles without machetes. Affected characters lose -1 loyalty if staying inside for too long.
- Added new Game Over tips
- Items can now add statuses to the explorer party when in the inventory with the "addStatus" keyword
- Added 'Show Flags Info' to Modding Dev Tools, which displays all flags on tiles and characters when enabled
- Added error/warning report for mods you've created
- MapSounds (for Sprawls, etc) are now specified in config rather than hardcoded (so they can be modded)
- When mods get reloaded, the loading bar is now shown
- Added "wait" keyword that allows for arbitrary waiting to happen (similar to rest but without sanity gain & with support for custom waiting text)
- Added "combatMusic" property to zones and combat events that specifies music to use instead of the default combat music
- Can now use mousewheel to scroll list of mods
- Mods now support localised descriptions
- Mods can specify sound files without needing an additional / at the beginning
- Sound files specified by mods are now checked to see if they exist
- If mods are disabled, clicking a mod's checkbox will enable mods and the clicked mod
- Images are correctly restored and reloaded when mods are enabled/disabled
- The MaxStack property of Items can now be a bonus
- When selecting an entity in the debug bar, that entity's JSON structure is printed to the log
- Mangoes now don't survive the trip back to London
- Fixed issue where geysirs could get removed by river tiles
- Statuses that get removed by dayEvents don't get updated on the day they're removed
- Character perks that have no description will display their bonuses instead in the gallery
- Items tagged with autoremove aren't removed before very first expedition
- Pack animals don't display crates and saddle together
- Enemy attacks work correctly for patterns that contain bonuses
- Fix for "Leave" button not being immediately responsive after using teleport cave (now shows the time spent exploring).
- Can't use items while character info box is being shown (as they can overlap but the status box will be on top)
- Can no longer lose items marked with losable:false
- Fix for tile outlines flickering or not rendering between regions
- Fix for map containing black areas when playing a small vertical map
- Fix for status bonus descriptions not line-wrapping correctly
- Fix for abomination feeding intervals becoming ever more frequent after the first feeding
- Added some missing aftermath sounds
- Fixed villages spawning NPCs even if they are abandoned
- Fixed abominations always facing to the left in combat
- Improved loading times of web version
- Fixed news display having extra spaces in some languages
- Fixed startup freeze that happens on linux sometimes
- Fixed chinese-language sprites not being used
- Fix for sounds always playing at full volume on safari
- Can now lock custom explorers again by entering their code in the settings menu once more
- Inuit village sprites are now centered correctly on their tile
- Corrupted river tiles have +river flag set (so the ship lands properly)
- Fixed issue where locations would use incorrect sprite after reloading savegame in some biomes
[ 2018-05-25 07:28:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
Curious Expedition Web-Demo
[ 2018-05-15 14:09:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
Curious Expedition now has a Web-Demo. Play the first 2 Expeditions in your browser right away here: demo.curious-expedition.com If you already own the game but want to support us please share the link.
[ 2018-05-15 14:09:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.3.8: Mac Achievements and Mods!
[ 2018-04-19 09:41:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today's update is mostly focused on improving mod support and some bug fixes, including Achievements and Workshop support on Mac! For modding, we've added support for multiple pages of characters so it's now possible to have lots of mods that add new explorers enabled. You can now have more than one Secret Explorer unlocked at once, and they'll show up as Rivals too! Those creating mods - we're loving your work! We've made a few improvements to the mod workflow, including much better logging for mod errors, as well as the ability for images to be properly reloaded when you click the Reload Mods button. Join the Discord community to chat with other modders and us devs about your mods - we'll be adding more features to the modding system with the next patch from your requests.
Content
- Forsaken villages spawn Abominations
- Adjusted cultist coca stash
- Adjusted Jungle Rot icon
- The New Game gallery now can have multiple pages of explorers if more than 20 are unlocked
- Can now have multiple custom explorers unlocked at once
- The random character option is now the first one
Modding
- Tile Border Sprites can now be modded, just add a borderSprites section to your tile (full documentation coming soon)
- Improved warnings that are printed to the log when mod content contains errors
- Fixed issues with the replace operator not always working
- Game now longer creates a mods/mods folder
- Fixed issues with mod localisation files
- Loading mod data when starting a new game only happens if necessary, so there's not a large hitch by default
- The small portrait image id will only have a file extension appended if necessary
Debug Bar
- Expedition maps are now generated using a seed.
- While hovering over the "Test Game" button in the debug bar with your mouse, type to enter the string that will be used to generate the Test Game
- A map generated with the same seed and parameters (Pocket, Difficulty, Expedition number etc) will always generate the same map layout
- When starting a game, the seed will be printed to the log. This can help with reporting bugs.
- Added a "God" toggle to fights: when active, your party cannot be harmed
- Added a "Win" button to fights: when clicked, you kill all enemies
- When spawning a tile, if that can't be spawned at the player location it will be spawned one tile north (instead of nothing happening)
- Reloading mods now properly reloads images
- Can now start a Test Game using a pocket that doesn't contain a goal (a goal will be spawned)
Bugfixes
- Steam Achievements and Workshop integration now works correctly on Mac (the overlay doesn't display though)
- Fix for game not respecting the OS scaling setting
- Fixed scaling changes not taking effect immediately
- Fixed debug bar not rendering correctly at some scaling settings
- Fixed issue where small white dots would sometimes appear on the landscape
- Fixed issues with tiles missing borders along the region borders
- Fixed issues with tile borders still rendering even when tiles have been consumed by the void
- Fixed Bug where forsaken Villages sometimes fire non-forsaken events
- Fixed superstitious animals
- Mission now checks if trek is full before offering to recruit cultist after cultist takeover
- Fixed crash when entering item screen with mods that add items enabled
- Fix for being stuck in a location if a mod has set the leave event to be invalid
- Fix for the game not loading if an image is referenced by multiple sprites
- Fix for compass not displaying correctly after loading a saved expedition
- Compass is no longer 100% in the first expedition (unless playing on Easy)
[ 2018-04-19 09:41:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 1.3.7
[ 2018-04-09 11:53:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
We have a new update! This is our first update with contributions by our new programmer Isaac. Expect more regular updates for the coming weeks.
- Content
- Added 3 new tome pages
- Added triceratops
- Bugfixes
- Fixed issues with uploading new mods
- Fixed cloud sync between different OS
- Moved Linux save game path from ~/* to ~/.config/*
- Fixed some dice showing wrong number of faces
- Fixed some typos
[ 2018-04-09 11:53:10 CET ] [ Original post ]
Updates! Updates! Updates!
[ 2018-02-06 16:58:01 CET ] [ Original post ]
Here are some things that we've been working on during the last couple of weeks. Mostly focusing on stabilty and making it easier to create mods...
1.3.5 (February 6th, 2018)
- Changed Lovecraft unlock condition to using Necronomicon instead of just finding it
- On the world map extra worlds and unvisited worlds were shown in gold color. Now only extra worlds are shown in gold color. Unvisited worlds are marked with the fame badge, making it easier to distinguish between the two.
- Bugfixes
- Fixed golden pyramid not spawning in some special biomes
- Fixed not being able to explore golden pyramid in some special biomes
- Fixed broken names of special worlds on world map
- Fixed Linux crash on startup
- Modding
- Added support for fallback entries in build lists
1.3.4 (January 30th, 2018)
- Fixed green mushroom not giving sanity boost for shamans
- Fixed stuck in celebration screen when no medals left
- Removed report button as we are reworking them
- Fixed some achievements not triggering if they were accomplished before the achievement update
- Fixed performance issues on some machines
- Mod Tools
- Fixed not being able to update steam mods due to bad cache
- Fixed game not loading when missing images, instead a proper error message will be printed
- After refreshing all mods should be enabled again
- Remember debug choices in main menu debug bar
- Improved colors in the debug bar
- Added clear button to log viewer
- Removed some debug flags and set them to always be automatically enabled
- Added "Event Checks" check box to log viewer, allowing to see very detailed event computation in the log and understand why exactly a event is failing or not
- Print log output to tce-log.txt file as well
1.3.3 (January 11th, 2018)
- Modding Features
- Added "reload mods" to in-game debug bar, allowing to adapt script and play the change without having to restart the game
- Added support for reqXP and reqMapScore
- Added support for specifying custom loyalty for characters
- Modding recognized as disabled when all mods have been disabled manually
- Added debug button N for enabling/disabling tile borders for debugging
- Made parsing of mods more robust
- Bugfixes
- Fixed overriding image slots in mods
- Fixed support for mods on OSX
- Fixed stunned dice in combat were never reset
- Fixed debug text showing up in game
- Steam: Fixed unsubbing mod did not remove it from game
- Steam: Fixed redownloading previously subscribed mods
- Steam: Fixed mods being stored in wrong folder
[ 2018-02-06 16:58:01 CET ] [ Original post ]
1.3.2 is out! (WE LOVE MODS)
[ 2018-01-04 19:36:45 CET ] [ Original post ]
You have blown us away with all the cool mods being uploaded! If you haven't checked them out yet, head over to the workshop right now! We're very busy updating and improving the mod dev tools further and doing stability improvements. Here are the changes for this week: # 1.3.2
- Made reset profile less likely to be hit accidentely
- Bugfixes
- Fixed altar broke when sacrificing certain items
- Fixed window not covering whole game area
- Fixed showing item count on actions with required items
- Fixed unlocking characters
- Fixed issues with steam achievement syncing
- Reduced target count for explorer-collect achievement
- Modding
- Added refresh button to modding screen which allows to reload mods without leaving screen
- Remember entity history for in-game debug bar
- Add bonus syntax support for XP, compass score, karma
- Print syntax parsing errors for mods in debug console
- Added a warnings/error counter to the show-log button in the debug bar (gets reset on every mod refresh)
- Fixed upload button
- Fixed corrupted game state after deleting mods
[ 2018-01-04 19:36:45 CET ] [ Original post ]
Modding and Achievements are here!
[ 2017-12-20 18:33:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
We've been looking forward to this moment for a looong time! We're happy to finally share our big modding and achievements update with you! :)
- Modding!
- We have a new modding menu where you can select any amount of mods you want to run in your game
- Steam Workshop support. You can subscribe to mods on steam and they will get automatically downloaded into your game. You can also upload new mods directly from the game and see the current mod ratings. Steam is not required for mods though
- No coding required! We have a simple text format which allows to add any new content. These are the same tools that we used during development. Add items, characters, enemies, dice, statuses, events, worlds and much more. We went through all our scripts and made sure that they have nice entry points for being moddable.
- We made all of our text and image content open source. You can see it at https://github.com/Maschinen-Mensch/curiousexpedition and use it as inspiration for your own mods or games
- Access lots of ingame debugging tools which allow you to spawn any entity or run any event on the fly. We actually improved the dev tools so much beyond of what we used during development that we are bit jealous of you now (it's fine though)
- We're shipping the game with multiple example mods (including the t-rex, scientific assistant and yakul mods)
- We've prepared extensive wiki documentation and tutorials for you to check out at http://curious-expedition.wikia.com/wiki/Modding:Home. If you have more questions also please join our discord server https://discord.gg/maschinen-mensch and chat with us and other modders directly
- We created a free extension for the free Visual Studio Code text editor. Go to https://code.visualstudio.com/ to download the editor and enter TCE Script in the extension settings to download our plugin. It will give you proper syntax highlighting and search functionality making working with the script files much more convenient.
- This is just the start of our modding tools. We're looking forward to your feedback and will add more functionality to support your ideas.
- Achievements!
- We added over 60 new cool achievements to the game (some of them are secret)
- There is a new section in the hall of fame allowing you to see all the achievements and your progress
- These achievements are synched to steam achievements, which you can show off on your steam profile. Steam is not required for achievements though
- Almost all our achievements track their progress separately for each difficulty level, so once you've mastered easy or medium difficulty, you can try your luck again on a harder difficulty
- For now achievements are disabled when mods are enabled
- Main Menu
- New background graphics
- Added a news section allowing you to read about development news from within the game
- Nicer UI elements (checkboxes and exit buttons)
- Added animated campfire to several event screens
- Added new secret explorers
- Added new sound effects for some aftermath events
- English text will be shown as fallback if no localized string is available
- Tuning
- Lone survivor perk fills up full sanity bar when triggered
- Made climbing gear slightly stronger and climber perk slightly weaker
- Increased ship water refill to 20 units
- Angry native zones can never become unaggroed now (unless they are sleeping)
- Restricted most quests to appear before final expedition
- Missionary quest is now automatically resolved when entering the village
- Remove local curses when stepping through portals
- Corruption sprawls will no longer kill enemies
- Tesla gun now benefits from gun expert perk
- No random fires can happen when packing a camp up anymore. (Pyromaniacs still can lay a fire though)
- Bugfixes
- Fixed multiple bugs potentially causing being stuck in tutorial
- Fixed flood curse following you beyond expedition end
- Fixed ship getting destroyed
- Fixed rare crash when having a empty slot in inventory
- Konrad quest can now be completed even after leaving the village when first encountering him.
- Freeing slots in the hot air balloon should now work more intuitively
- Fixed exploit that allowed to return more items than normally allowed with the hot air balloon
- Fixed issues with path finding in dog sledge
- Improved camera behavior when panning to locations
- Removed ability to dismiss character while a pending diary event is already waiting
- Mount button is now greyed out when already mounted
- Fixed mounted status not stored in savegames
- Fixed issues with native visit event
- Fixed event flow after fighting with giant spiders
- Fixed shaman perk not working on all mushrooms
- Fixed combat cursor picks new enemy when old target died
- Fixed family amulet event line
- Fixed wrong button help text on scale 3 setting
- Fixed unlocalized texts in game over screen
- Fixed being able to stop village spawn via mini puppets
- Fixed failed idol quest was not handled correctly
- Fixed vulture night event showing up even though player had no ammo
- Fixed musician quest not always resolving properly
- Fixed special friend event flow
- Fixed Olivia not having a crystall ball at game start
- Fixed same piece of meat being cooked by multiple cooks at the same time
- Always show diary alert first before interrupting player action during travel
- Fixed enemies killed by a debuff now don't supply dice in the next round anymore
- Fixed window size issues
- Fixed unusable items having infoboxes explaining how to use them
- Fixed large inventories overlapping Flee or Roll button during combat
- Fixed double epilogue caused by obsidian mirror
- Fixed mini maps sometimes going blank or regenerating or crashing the game
- Fixed some places being unreachable after world generation
- Fixed parts of golden pyramids being missing sometimes
- Fixed crash bug caused by (de)buffed characters entering combat
- Fixed crash bug in tutorial caused by no place to spawn the ship being found
- Fixed charismatic perk only working once
- Fixed weird duplicated actions in queen conflict event
- Fixed problem where two events could trigger at once
[ 2017-12-20 18:33:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
Modding beta!
[ 2017-11-06 13:04:31 CET ] [ Original post ]
We're currently working on enabling modding support for our game! We've just finished our internal milestone and are now looking for modders interested in testing our modding features. You'll have access to information about our whole scripting language, access to all the game content scripts to check out how we did things, you'll able to change all aspects of the game (including creating items, characters, enemies, events, maps, dice..), you'll be able to use extensive debugging functionality and of course to load up your mod and play it. If you would like to join please send us an email to support@curious-expedition.com and we'll invite you to our discord channel. We also have a new forum board for you to discuss ideas or post questions: http://steamcommunity.com/app/358130/discussions/3/ PS: We've also added 49 achievements to the game, which we are currently play-testing. We hope to release both features in the same update.
[ 2017-11-06 13:04:31 CET ] [ Original post ]
New update! (1.2.6)
[ 2017-10-23 13:55:41 CET ] [ Original post ]
We are busy working on modding and achievements, but we wanted to also improve some stability and tuning issues in the mean time and add the Korean translation. Here's a list of recent changes:
- Translations
- Supporting new crowdin.com format for languages
- Added Korean translation
- Improved Italian translation
- Improved French translation
- All enemies reachable within 2 tiles can now consistently be attacked (before that number would be between 1 and 3)
- Highlight map location you are interacting with. Helps with knowing which of two enemies you are attacking for example
- Added new treasure type (Golden Beauty)
- Going to windowed mode with different scales now sets appropriate minimum window sizes
- Savegames are saved in two steps now, making sure they don't get corrupted if something goes wrong during the save process (e.g. game is force quit via OS)
- Add option to increase ranking screen animation by clicking
- Tuning
- Shaman hut charges less for healing infections and injuries
- Hallucination status generates hallucinations more aggressively now
- Healer perk is only usable by Feilong
- Bugfixes
- Fixed sometime travel via double clicking stopped working
- Fixed loyalty was not properly restored from savegame
- Fixed missing help text for barter bar
- Fixed hallucinations status should disappear after expeditions
- Fixed Geysir water never being replaced by shallow water
- Fixed animals becoming paranoid when consuming red mushrooms
- Fixed being stuck in sledge when there is no path
- Fixed hovering over treasure maps crashing game
- Fixed savegame not properly deleted on game
- Fixed Allison Otting not being able to paint
[ 2017-10-23 13:55:41 CET ] [ Original post ]
Curious Expedition VS Renowned Explorers BUNDLE
[ 2017-10-10 18:02:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
I remember it like it was yesterday. In 2015 we happily walked over the Gamescom show floor, proudly wearing our The Curious Expedition t-shirts for the incredibly orginal game that we had been working on in our spare time since 2012. All of the sudden we stumbled onto this booth by this SUSPICOUSLY similar looking game called Renowned Explorers. For a brief moment we questioned our own sanity and wondered if we had actually forgotten that we had rented and setup a booth at this convention. It turned out that we had no money to do that and that it was actually an entirely different game by the folks from Abbey Games.
Years have passed since then, but the question remained: Who succeeded in making the only true expedition game on the market? (Spoiler: It's The Curious Expedition obviously). For some reason the answer does not seem obvious to everybody, judging from the countless people having confused us with Renowned Explorers over the years.
To settle this once and for all we’re running a discount to make it easy for you to pick the right game. It is even the biggest discount that we've done so far! 35% on The Curious Expedition in Steam’s Daily Deal today, running for 48 hours.
Not convinced? Want to compare both games for yourself? Since we believe in our game, we bundled forces with Abbey Games 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! If you already own either one of them, you can also complete the set at a stacking discount!
If you’re interested in seeing us go through the hardship of actually playing that inferior product of a game called Renowned Explorers, you can visit this special website ( http://curiousvsrenowned.com ). There’s also some footage of the Abbey Games people in total awe after playing through a bit of Curious Expedition for the first time. Great stuff.
Adventure awaits!
[ 2017-10-10 18:02:11 CET ] [ Original post ]
1.2.5 Bugfixes!
This week we mostly have bugfixes for you!
- Certain disasters now scale up depending on expedition number
- Expedition is auto-saved every couple of minutes and when shutting down game
- Bugfixes
- Using portal tome page on top of ship should not replace ship anymore
- Entering portals does not reset golden pyramid discovery state anymore
- Entering portals does not reset compass progress anymore
- Forsaken villages don't spawn angry villagers anymore
- Snarfrattle was not attackable sometimes
- Location hints are not drawn on top of water or chasms anymore
- Fixed wrong page title when sharing report to twitter
- Fixed crash when pressing keys during loading bar
- Fixed graphical glitches when entering portal world
- Don't show tree climb event in arctic worlds
- Fixed forsaken disaster showing wrong text in shrine
- Fixed harbor hunter becoming party member and crashing game
- Fixed wrong "decreased loyalty" notification on max loyalty
- Fixed rare crash when switching world
- Fixed rare crash on game over after visiting portal world
- Fixed rare bug that closed combats early
- Fixed being able to use item during diary alert
- Fixed being able to use camp site during build-up
- Fixed multiple events happening at same time
[ 2017-05-15 17:43:46 CET ] [ Original post ]
Vous voulez jouer? (French and 25% off)
[ 2017-04-21 22:20:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
We have another update ready for you! The next couple of patches will focus completely on bug fixing before we get to our next big todo items: achievements and modding!
1.2.4
- French!
- We now added the first version of the French fan translation (thanks Julien & Co!)
- Bugfixes
- Fixed crash when hovering over wife NPC character
- Fixed crash when starting new game after exiting previous game via "save&exit" while an event alert was shown
[ 2017-04-21 22:20:25 CET ] [ Original post ]
Tiger Crane Fist! (and 25% off)
[ 2017-04-17 17:52:55 CET ] [ Original post ]
We have a new update adding Huang Feihong as a playable explorer! He brings some unique combat combos to the game. Also the whole game is now playable in Traditional and Simplified Chinese! (Thanks to the amazing Project Gutenberg).
To celebrate we're off 25% through the whole week!
1.2.2
- Chinese update!
- Added new explorer Huang Feihong with special attacks
- Added Traditional and Simplified Chinese language translation (Thanks so much to Project Gutenberg)
- Tuning
- Increased health bonus for regeneration blessing
- Increased level health bonus for Marie Curie
- Bugfixes
- Fixed overlong text in epilogue screen
- Removed pink pixel on Amundsen statue
- Signature rifle was not using the proper die
- Don't draw travel path when hovering mouse over action bar
- Added some missing lines to German translation
[ 2017-04-17 17:52:55 CET ] [ Original post ]
Changelist time!
[ 2017-03-30 15:26:08 CET ] [ Original post ]
Today we're releasing a bugfix update for the Arctic Expanse. Since we're still owing you a full changelist of all the changes in the last update, we're also including it in this post. We're now moving our focus towards the next huge update which will be the modding update.
1.2.1 (March 30th, 2017)
- Bugfixes
- Fixed ship arrival in arctic regions was not always shown
- Better support for legacy savegame files
- Added missing strings to language tables
- More characters are revivable through altars now
- Fixed desert events having wrong background image
1.2.0 (March 6th, 2017) "Arctic Expanse"
- Arctic
- New biomes and fieldtypes
- Packice
- Deepsnow
- Frozen plains
- Crystal forest
- Plateau
- Pack ice (will be destroyed after your trek has moved over them)
- New Locations
- The polar station. Buy tickets to rest or travel with a dog sledge to nearby stations. This should be your prefered long-range transportation in artic regions.
- Arctic stock pile
- Arctic versions of existing locations
- New enemies
- Sabertooth tiger
- Polar Bear
- Arctic wolfs
- Giant Walrus
- New party members
- Arctic natives
- Mountain trooper
- Huskies
- Mountable polar bear
- Very rare encounter with a secret special new trek member
- New music tracks
- New arctic quest: Arctic claim
- It may randomly snow in arctic locations
- New biomes and fieldtypes
- New world map
- New map showing the arctic regions
- The site selection will now generate locations that you haven't been at
- Extra points for going to new biomes (new world bonus)
- Offer 2 options right from the start
- Offer all regular biome types already from expedition 2 onwards
- Corrupted lands: a whole new secret and unique region
- 50+ new events:
- New insanity events
- New village events
- New friendship events
- New biome specific events
- New ailments / sicknesses
- Hallucinations
- Rabies
- Sprained ankle
- Hearing loss
- Viewing loss
- Scurvy
- New disasters / aftermaths from looting shrines:
- Poison gas
- Spreading Ice
- Forsaken world
- New items
- Beauty treasure
- Obsidian mirror
- Telescope
- Arctic Food Muktuk
- Sextant
- Signature pistol/shotgun/rifle
- Yellow mushroom
- Snowshoe travel item
- Tomepage: Portal
- Tomepage: Eagle scout
- Blood crown
- Wadjet eye
- New perks
- Tactical Mastery
- Gun expert
- Increased readability of game / UI improvements
- Added Loyalty Bar
- Instead of showing symptoms, sicknesses are shown directly now
- Show bar on buffs representing days or legs
- Added lots of bonus info to popups
- Show health regen rate/info
- Show infection chance (changed to trip based)
- Added status for zero slot units
- Show insanity event risk chance on mouse
- Increased contrast of travel path for better readability
- Added explicit perks for standing bonus
- Being followed by natives is now visibly shown as a status
- New sounds
- Added item sounds
- Added travel item sounds
- Added looping, location based sounds for disasters
- World generation
- Support more orientations (vertical worlds)
- More reliable tuning of locations, more variety
- Added more visual clues what kind of location to find
- Special markers for special regions on worldmap
- Enemy zones improvements
- Allow multiple enemy zones to overlap each other
- Animate enemy zone movement
- Misc
- Add water items to most settlements
- Improved particles all over the place
- Recruited characters may now randomy have improved start loyalty
- Altars now revive characters. Removed old item exchange system. Re-added karma bar
- Show wildlife danger already before looting
- Improved hill and plateu movement cost calculation. Moving ontop a hill or plateau will cost a lot of sanity. Once on top of it, movement costs will be low. Initial investement to move upwards.
- Unlock huizinga by default (support different starting play style)
- Each teleported world has their own standing bar now
- Surprise combats might be triggered from events
- Support custom health increase per explorer
- Infections now appear on leg basis instead of day basis so that they dont interrupt moves anymore
- Added taunt combat skill
- Added several new custom explorers
- Mini sprites will now animate on top of hills
- Villages can no longer be blown up with dyanmite
- Languages:
- Improved text support for non-latin languages
- Automatically update credits
- Bugfixes
- Fixed tutorial issues
- Fixed lots of typos
- Added missing strings to language table
[ 2017-03-30 15:26:08 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update video "Arctic Expanse"
[ 2017-03-08 15:49:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
Finally we have finished our update video for the FREE DLC "Arctic Expanse". We talk you through our 10 favorite additions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZLJyjo4Co0
[ 2017-03-08 15:49:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
"Arctic Expanse" update is out now!
It's hard to describe how excited we are to release this first major update after releasing the 1.0 version of The Curious Expedition. We have still so many ideas to extend the game, which is why we spent the last couple of months on this update. Arctic Expanse not only introduces a whole new region, the arctic, but also many improvements and additions to the previously existing areas of the game. This is a full fledged DLC update, and it's free - because we love working on this game and are thankful for your support. We have fine-tuned the balancing, added many UI and Interface improvements, added new treasures and godly curses and items and perks, sound effects, events, ailments, quests ... it's too much to list. We'll provide you with a detailed changelog of all the new things and improvements in the coming days. Until then, have fun exploring the new content and get yourself lost in new adventures. We're looking forward to your feedback! Adventure awaits!
[ 2017-03-03 22:32:01 CET ] [ Original post ]
New adventures await! We have released our first major update, which introduces:
- Arctic regions
- More characters
- Valuable Items
- Deadly Enemies
- Useful Perks
- New things that will very likely cause your expedition trek to die a gruesome death
- and many, many more things!
It's hard to describe how excited we are to release this first major update after releasing the 1.0 version of The Curious Expedition. We have still so many ideas to extend the game, which is why we spent the last couple of months on this update. Arctic Expanse not only introduces a whole new region, the arctic, but also many improvements and additions to the previously existing areas of the game. This is a full fledged DLC update, and it's free - because we love working on this game and are thankful for your support. We have fine-tuned the balancing, added many UI and Interface improvements, added new treasures and godly curses and items and perks, sound effects, events, ailments, quests ... it's too much to list. We'll provide you with a detailed changelog of all the new things and improvements in the coming days. Until then, have fun exploring the new content and get yourself lost in new adventures. We're looking forward to your feedback! Adventure awaits!
[ 2017-03-03 22:32:01 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Arctic Expanse coming March 3rd!
[ 2017-03-01 01:21:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
The last couple of months we've been hard at work on our first huge update for The Curious Expedition. You'll finally be able to explore the north pole and all the dangers it brings. We're also brand-new new events, enemies, items, disasters, characters, explorers, perks and more for all the expedition, so even if you hate the cold, you'll still find plenty to like.
We don't want to spoil all the surprises, so you'll have to wait until release date for more information.. or just jump into the game and experience the new content yourself. The update is coming March 3rd and will be completely FREE (because we are insane).
[ 2017-03-01 01:21:00 CET ] [ Original post ]
Das Abenteuer wartet! Multi-language support!
[ 2016-10-28 16:49:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
Wir freuen uns darauf euch endlich die deutsche Version von The Curious Expedition präsentieren zu dürfen! We're happy to finally present to you the German version of The Curious Expedition! We've also made it so that adding new translations should be relatively easy, so we're excited to see what translations the community will come up with! We also have some exciting news to share regarding our plans for The Curious Expedition in the following months, but more on that soon. Let's just say: we still have plenty of ideas for new content! Here's list of the changes in this update:
1.1.0.1 (October 28th, 2016)
- Support for translations
- Added full German translation of the game
- You can add more translations by following the intructions in the langs folder
- You may use http://forums.maschinen-mensch.com/viewforum.php?f=9 to announce new translations
- Performance
- There should be considerably less frame drops while traveling over the map now.
- Also better performance in general.
- Added various new custom explorers
- Tuning
- Polyglot perk removes standing cost for resting in villages, but it does not give sanity bonus anymore
- Increased chance of negative loyalty impact when ignoring joke night event
- Tome page of random teleportation now only teleports to reachable areas
- Bugfixes
- Volcano shrine aftermath effect would most often not trigger properly
- Fixed everybody becoming angry during sexist night event
- Fixed being able to trigger invalid tutorial actions using keyboard shortcuts
- Added proper icon for purple mushrooms
- Fixed gun kill night event was triggered even when player had no gun in inventory
- Fixed villages only having male inhabitants
- Simplified savegame creation, will not try to use the SavedGames folder in windows anymore and simply prefer the Documents folder instead
- Fixed exploit of being able to get negative travel costs
- Player progress was only stored when starting a new map, but not when finishing a map, resulting in potential progress loss of found item stats
- Triumph music volume is now controlled by music volume slider instead of sound volume slider
- Fixed various typos
[ 2016-10-28 16:49:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
The Curious Expedition 1.0 is here!
[ 2016-09-02 22:48:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
After over 15 months and 20 major feature updates it's finally time to leave Early Access! Since our first day on Steam you've welcomed us amazingly. Your wishes and invaluable feedback have let us craft a game that we're truly proud of and more importantly that would have never been possible without your guidance. Thank you so much! We will slow down the update loops compared to the Early Access phase, but don't worry: we still have lots of ideas for this game and can't wait to show them to you. Top priority items right now on our todo list are translations, modding and achievements. But for now enjoy the game and tell your friends if you like it! That would help us out tremendously. Adventure awaits! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hrxaVdN-AU
[ 2016-09-02 22:48:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Reddit AMA
[ 2016-08-30 14:26:51 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hey, we're doing a Ask-Me-Anything over on reddit. Would be great to see some of you over there! https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/50ax32/we_left_aaa_to_make_indie_games_we_were/
[ 2016-08-30 14:26:51 CET ] [ Original post ]
Alpha 30.2
[ 2016-08-26 15:09:45 CET ] [ Original post ]
Whoa! We have another update for you. Thanks so much for all the feedback! We're still focusing on bugfixing and tuning at the moment. Just making sure to align all our cool content in the best possible way for the 1.0 update. You can expect at least one more update before 1.0, that will feature the amazing writing of our new English author that is improving all our game texts right now.
- Items
- Removed fame from some items. Treasures, trophies and some special items like mummies keep their fame value. Tome pages, mushrooms and other otherwise useful items are not fame items anymore.
- Show item value and fame/funds in info box for items
- Also show special local prices variations in info box
- Removed resell factor penalty for most items for now
- Added the option to collect water at various places
- Added a travel icon for water
- Villages now always have jewels to offer when bartering
- Increased duration of horn flute effect
- Pendulums will not cosume weight anymore
- Weatherballoon still gives +1 map score, but also reveals the closest location now
- Set butterfly collection to unlosable
- Added purple mushrooms
- World variation
- Retuned all worlds to offer more biome variety
- All the expeditions still have one main biome, but you might now also encounter single regions of different biomes (e.g. desert next to jungle)
- Retuned the spawning of settlements and natural camp sites. There basically is now always one per region.
- In grassland worlds there was always a village near the ship arrival location. That village is usually not there anymore.
- There is now also more variation in the biomes surrounding the world. In addition to the mountains and river biome, there is now also a jungle and pit biome variation. Entering these will now write the message "Impassable region" and change the background color of the map in that region.
- Improved ship landing location
- To get a preview about the number of locations in a region, the region has to have been entered once
- Show when next rival will arrive in info box for race bar
- Increased delay after a zero sanity event before the next one can hit
- Disabled cartographer perk for now (will come back soon)
- Enemies only spawn on reachable terrain now
- The hall of fame will highlight the last points addition
- Increased fade out time for music when leaving events
- Worlds that lay behind portals now already have all their tiles revealed immediately (not the locations though)
- Stone circle has been changed from randomly offering actions to always offering the same four powerful reveal actions
- Bugfixes
- Fixed various tutorial issues
- Fixed general problems with overlapping music
- Fixed references to missing text
- Fixed travel reports showing undefined text
- Fixed average distance was not correct in post-game stats
- Fixed crash when hovering over anthropolgical studies
- Fixed village tile hints drawn over the wrong background tile
[ 2016-08-26 15:09:45 CET ] [ Original post ]
Announcing Release 1.0
[ 2016-08-24 21:47:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
We have exciting news! After over 1 year in Early Access and 30 major feature updates the time has come for our 1.0 release. The Curious Expedition will leave Early Access on September 2nd. It's hard to put in words how excited we are about this event. We'd like to thank you all for your support so far and want to let you know that this is by no means the end of our expedition. While we see release 1.0 as a major milestone in the development of The Curious Expedition, we still have a lot of ideas for updates, additional content and features in the coming weeks and months. It's going to be an exciting time, and we're absolutely thankful to have you with us. If you would help us spread the word about our upcoming release. You can do so by: Support our Thunderclap Share it on Twitter Like us on Facebook In case you are interested, you can find the official press release here.
[ 2016-08-24 21:47:13 CET ] [ Original post ]
Alpha 30.1
[ 2016-08-22 19:12:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hey there! Our 1.0 release is getting closer and as announced we're mostly focusing on bugfixing and tuning right now. Some small feature updates still made it into the game though. Looking forward to your feedback. Here's the list of the most important changes:
- Loyalty
- Increased default loyalty
- Added visual notification for changes to loyalty
- Added loyalty bonus after each expedition for all remaining trek members
- Native trek members that want to leave the trek at the end of an expedition, can now be convinced to stay by passing a mind die challenge
- Combat and Enemies
- Added surprise attacks. When an attack is not initiated by the player, the enemies get to strike first in combat
- Enemies may now also use shield attacks now
- Improved placing of used dice in combat
- Increased aggro delay for enemy zones to 2 turns
- Enemy zones that are still in aggro delay should not attack player
- Added smarter path finding for enemies
- Reduced shield effect of spear shield attack from 3 to 2
- Loot
- Hidden treasures (found via treasure maps) will now always contain a magical item
- Shamans will now always offer tome pages
- Removed horn flutes and mini puppets from magic loot table. They are normal items now.
- Increased loot gained from raiding tombs
- Reduced item cost of some utility items like coston flare, fireworks, horn flute
- Misc
- Luis now is a free unit and will not count towards the unit count limit
- Reduced chance for alcoholism
- Added different compass thressholds depending on difficulty level
- Added visual icon for weightless items (similar to how fame items are presented)
- Improved placing of initial ship landing position to not be directly next to important locations
- Caves become passable after exploring
- Bedouins might now be appear in harbor too
- Reduced capacity cost for mounting enemies
- Volcanoes now regenerate some of the terrain around them
- Disabled cam shake from Geysirs
- Made more tiles burnable
- Removed spiritual solidarity from explorer perk list
- Healing springs location will now heal more ailments
- Desert: increased chance for oasis spawning
- Desert: increased range of Desert Expert skill
- Desert: Treasure maps should now point to more recoginazable spots
- Added visual info box feedback for how many locations are yet to be explorerd in the current region (small questionmarks)
- Removed altar bar from altar inventory screen for now
- Improved placing of characters in event images
- Hide charge count for items in ranking screen
- Added help text to animal handlers about their skill not stacking
- Changed polyglot to only remove standing cost from resting in village
- Changed translator to only increase sanity boost gained from resting in village
- Increased quest rewards from 50 to 70 funds
- Many quest items can't be randomly lost anymore
- Stylized UI of barter screen a bit more
- Improved image for water village event
- Tweaked fire animation / flickering
- Going through portals removes flood curse
- Bugfixes
- Fixed crash in epilogue screen when having lizard people in trek
- Fixed ship was drawn too big when zooming out at start of expedition
- Fixed keyboard shortcuts for zooming not working during ship arrival
- Fixed animals appearing twice in event image when mounted
- Fixed stuttery animation on enemies that have multiple dice
- Fixed capacity indicator for animals being drawn outside of info box
- Fixed small visual glitch when hidden treasures are generated
- Fixed missing icon for anthropological studies
- Fixed missing negative outcome when not suceeding black hyena quest
- Fixed NPC offering black hyena quest changing name after expedition
- Fixed weightless items should counting towards balloon limit
- Fixed stunned combat dice still taken into consideration for patterns hints
- Fixed clicking on a item slot will remove items from that specific slot and not just from any stack containing the same item type
- Fixed action bar, item bar and party side bar responding while scrolling
- Fixed farming of positive night events by removing ability to end resting early
- Fixed post-expedition stats for games that were restored from save game
- Fixed chasm/flood events not properly interrupting resting
- Fixed pure mind blessing not removing ailments immediately
- Fixed character info drawn below barter interface
- Fixed negative sanity events interrupting search events
- Fixed moving weightless item adding an empty item slot that caused player to be flagged as overburdened
- Fixed wrong overburden status after losing items through event
- Fixed native trek members changing their appearance after restoring save game
- Fixed chat bubbles in event images drawing text outside of screen
- Fixed angry lizard villages spawning angy native warriors instead of angry lizard people
- Fixed random flickering at side of the screen
- Fixed clicking on travel button could lead party to unwanted position
- Fixed various typos
[ 2016-08-22 19:12:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
Preview branch!
[ 2016-08-19 13:47:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
Just a reminder that we have a preview program. As we're going into 1.0 (and beyond it) we'll be making more use of it. To access it open the The Curious Expedition properties inside of steam. Go to the BETAS tab and select the "preview" beta. Doing that you will not only get access to new content earlier, but also help us ironing out issues before they hit all the players. On that branch you can now already play the alpha 0.30.1.2 which contains a boat load of changes. Right now we aim for a delay of about a day between preview and main build, but it can also be considerably longer at times, when we do some more experimental stuff in the preview branch. -Riad
[ 2016-08-19 13:47:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
Alpha 30 "Welcome Home" (last big update before FINAL RELEASE)
[ 2016-07-14 17:28:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
It is here! This is our final big alpha update before our 1.0 release. For this update we focussed on adding more variety and wrapping up unfinished features and UI elements. From here to the 1.0 release we'll continuously release bugfixes and tuning updates as we get to them. Stay tuned for our announcement for the big 1.0 release date! As this update is very important to us we have prepared a special update video to celebrate our final update video during early access: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYuPDGmbdzw&list=PL8d3Y-qeqBR9RKc9Vsu4thOZQkUo8diAv
- Exploration points
- You will no longer receive a region point only when discovering all locations within a region. Instead, you will receive an exploration point (same function, just different name) for every three uncovered locations, independend from in which region you have found them.
- We removed the preview of the locations that can be found in your current region, as we didn't find a visual representation that we were happy with and that justified the visual clutter and redundancy. The info box of the region now states the number of locations in the region.
- The 'Geography' perk is now exclusive to scouts (can't be chosen as medal for the explorer) and was reworked to 'far' reveal all available locations when entering a region.
- Sanity events
- Added lots of new zero-sanity events, resting events and phobias.
- Tuned probablity of all already existing events, evening out their appearance out a bit.
- Anger events are not triggered as part of regular resting events anymore, but run on their own timer now and can interrupt your regular traveling.
- The sanity bar info box now shows additional info about what kind resting events to expect.
- The sanity bar starts to blink when on zero sanity
- When hitting zero sanity there is a random amount of days that the player can still move before being interrupted by a catastropic event. That delay was in the range of 5-10 days. It has been reduced to 0-5 days. Events after the first catastropic will still trigger 5-10 days later.
- Epilogue
- We've finally added the long awaited image of the statue that shows the best explorer in the world.
- Instead of showing all of the epilogue texts at once, you can now click through them in sequence. You can go back to previous entries by clicking on the small rectangles.
- Altar
- You will now be able to trade certain items at the mysterious altars
- In order to receive special items, you will have to find the patterns of objects that need to be sacrificed
- We plan to extend the altar even further after the 1.0 release.
- Camp Site
- It is now possible to pack up a camp again, which will remove the camp from the map and add the item back into your inventory
- It is no longer possible to stash items in a camp
- The value of the camp item has been increased
- Art
- Improved event image of shrine interior
- Improved event image of elephant graveyard
- Improved image of giant scorpion enemy
- Added new image for fire sprawl death
- Animated gentleman background scene with a flickering fire effect
- UI
- You can now switch off the custom mouse cursors in the main menu in case your recording software is having trouble displaying it
- Item usage of machete, rope and climbing gear is now shown directly on your travel path
- In case that there are too many characters in your trek to fit on the screen, a tab switch button appears that allows to change between visible characters.
- General
- Added icon for family amulet item
- Tomepages can now be used without a range limitation
- Made infections deadlier and less random in duration
- Added final steps to tutorial - it should explain all the basic things now to get going if you have never played the game before
- You can now tell the current difficulty level from looking at the HUD background elements. Also it is now stated in the info box of the day counter.
- Added a few new secret explorers
- Hard mode: Added a sanity boost when reaching the pyramid
- Increased the minumum travel speed for party
- Added support for funds to the notification system
- The missing wife that can be found in the first expedition does not use up unit slots anymore
- Bugfixes
- Fixed a problem in the slaver event chain when not looting after combat
- Fixed certain volcano aftermath was not always triggered
- Fixed missing combat slots in cave event image
- Fixed chasm borders from overlapping on map background
- Fixed treasure map tiles not having proper tile borders
- Fixed diary jumping into screen immediately instead of popping up on left screen border first
- Fixed being able to have more than standing 10 by bartering
- Fixed info box for dice challenges now says 'No fitting dice' instead of showing an empty info box
- Fixed item notification should not use the fame mini marker
- Fixed missing background image on beaches
- Fixed club music did not stop when exiting from game via settings screen
- Fixed creation of savegames that could not be continued
[ 2016-07-14 17:28:14 CET ] [ Original post ]
Alpha 29.1
[ 2016-06-16 17:04:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
We have a small bugfix release today to fix some issues in yesterdays release. Thanks so much for all the help ironing these out! Enjoy the update! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGCkp0EPCJ8
Bugfixes
- Fixed crash under certain circumstances when adding characters to party
- Fixed diary closing after resting in village
- Fixed save games becoming corrupt when saving on game over screen
- Fixed no zero sanity event appearing
[ 2016-06-16 17:04:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Alpha 29 "The End is Nigh"
[ 2016-06-15 17:34:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGCkp0EPCJ8 We're getting closer to our big 1.0 release. Therefore we're spending a lot of time bugfixing the game and generally wrapping up existing features or improving their readability. Its crazy to think that it has been over one year on Early Access now. Alpha 30 will be our last alpha update. After that we'll announce the release date for the 1.0 version. There will be more updates after hitting 1.0 of course, but we want to make sure that that version is as bugfree, stable and tuned as humanly possible.
- Notifications system
- Shows changes to sanity and standing
- Show added and removed characters
- Show lost items
- Show added and dropped statuses
- Redone slaver
- New event flow. Can now be attacked by the player
- Added new event image
- Added new weapon: the whip
- Explorer Edition
- Custom explorers as bought through our explorer special edition are now supported in the game.
- We're currently working through our list of explorer edition buyers so your character might not be in the game yet, but we'll get to it before version 1.0 if you already bought the game. You will receive an email with your secret code as soon as your character is ready
- Only one custom explorer might be unlocked at a time
- Unlocked explorer might also appear as your rival
- Also see http://curious-expedition.com/editions
- Highscores
- Your final game points are now shown on any game ending screen
- Final points are scaled by the difficulty level
- Tuning / Game Content
- Beast master extended to support additional animals. Tuned dice.
- Added status 'spiritual solidarity' as visual representation of the fact that missionaries can rest for free in missions.
- Increased amount of trader barter items by one.
- Changed world regeneration tome page completely. It now acts as a sprawl effect which will restore the land to its original terrain.
- Multiple natives might now stay behind at the end of an expedition.
- Changed animal eating event to reduce loyalty instead of hard triggering a character leaving party
- Stone circles now allow to select from different styles of map reveals.
- Reworked alcoholic status to work with loyalty.
- Tuned starting equipment of Darwin and Burton
- Ships now allow to rest and to refill water. Water may now also refilled in non-desert expeditions.
- Tunnel caves now explicitly handle the case that the other exit might have been destroyed.
- Reduced resell value of treasure maps
- Fixed rivals starting in golden locations
- Binoculars might now be found earlier in the game
- Added some new secret item usage
- UI & Visuals
- Show item cost in info box while in harbor
- When hovering over a dice you will see the relevant dice that you own.
- Added gender icons to character info box.
- Moved standing icon next to sanity bar.
- Fixed certain locations (usually village or stone circle) already using used-up marker at start of game
- Fixed buttons drawn on top of cloud entrance scene when restoring from save game
- Added new font for game over screen.
- Added support for character info box portraits for enemies
- Impoved spacing between action buttons that have associated items or dice.
- Improved mouse box handling for info boxs of mounted explorers
- Made reset-profile button in settings only activate when held down for some time (should make it really hard to accidently reset your progress). Also added text feedback when profile has been reset.
- Added animated fire to night event images.
- New graphic for the question mark icon
- Reworked voids graphical representation which should make rendering a lot smoother. This should especially remove any performance problems on portal worlds.
- Accelerate cloud movement during traveling
- Added random explorer selection button to explorer selection screen.
- Updated credits, added special thanks
- Bugfixes
- Fixed dead enemies still doing damage
- Fixed jerky animations of characters during combat
- Fixed secret sites that were unlocked during an expedition were not correctly restored from save game
- Fixed that in hard mode Some events where already triggered when arriving the pyramid instead of at the ship
- Fixed changing pixel ratio during run-time broke chat layout
- Fixed attack button being shown for butterfly zone
- Fixed followed-by-natives event could happen in portal worlds
- Fixed fire should not destroy buried treasures anymore
- Fixed machete stopping fire
- Fixed after combat all zones within one tile distance were removed. Now only the actual zone will be removed
- Fixed last machete in player inventory did not remove jungle tile properly
- Fixed animal and explorer not being drawn properly after animal went down in combat
- Fixed waiting in portal worlds would never teleport the party back to the real world
- Fixed buying multiple treasure maps at the same time caused them to point to the same location
- Fixed last expedition still offering perk selection
- Fixed old combat particles still appearing when entering new combat
- Fixed action buttons not updated after teleporting
- Fixed potentially losing items when cancelling a balloon escape
- Fixed harbor music still playing when going from harbor into main menu
- Fixed character health bars not centered during combat
- Fixed white tigers not being spawned
- Fixed player always starting in special region when going into unlocked site
- Fixed changing zoom factor reseting particles
- Fixed explorers riding on animals should still use explorer image slot in event graphics
- Fixed dead people chatting in event image
- Fixed item fade out effect being used while bartering
- Fixed single punctuation appearing on a new diary line
- Fixed map pins being drawn too big on map stats screen
- Fixed region points being farmable by saving/loading save game endlessly
- Fixed impossible blank dice faces appearing in dice challenges if the player was in a combat before
- Fixed pressing ESC in highscore screen
- Fixed volcano aftermath not always being spawned. Generally relaxed the reachability rule on a per-location base
- Fixed treasure map preview image is now restored more exactly from save game (before the random offset could change when restoring savegame)
- Fixed gender changing randomly during event flow of village-love event
- Fixed a lot of typos
[ 2016-06-15 17:34:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
Alpha 28 "A Wonderful World"
[ 2016-05-11 22:21:32 CET ] [ Original post ]
# Alpha 28 (May 11th, 2016) "A Wonderful World" For this release we're mostly focussing on replacing the remaining art placeholders. Thank you for all your support! Enjoy Alpha 28! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EWN97M2mEU&index=1&list=PL8d3Y-qeqBR9RKc9Vsu4thOZQkUo8diAv [EDIT] Added update video!
- New Art
- New stone forest art
- New desert art
- New desert cactus art
- New desert pyramid art
- New scorched earth art
- New cave hole art
- New cave mummy art
- New cave corpses art
- New cave paintings art
- New tomb art
- New stone statues art
- New portraits for hyena and raptor
- Tuning
- Tweaked starting trek setup for Kingsley and Huizinga
- Restricted pacifists from using more weapon dice
- Bugfixes
- Fixed pyramid staying buried (thanks to Charles Watkins for the help)
- Fixed flickering character info box for mounted characters. Also rider and mount have separate hit boxes for their individual character info boxes now.
- Fixed shields in combat being covered by large inventory
- Fixed treasure map being covered by large inventory
- Fixed info box for character unlocks and site unlocks not appearing
- Fixed overlong text in harbor
- Moon stones were not correctly removed from inventory after entering pyramid
- Increased performance
- Fixed various typos
[ 2016-05-11 22:21:32 CET ] [ Original post ]
Alpha 27.2.1
[ 2016-05-04 20:07:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
We've added a hotfix that should fix the progress corruption bug. In case you've lost your progress in the game please email us at info@curious-expedition.com so that we can try to restore your progress.
[ 2016-05-04 20:07:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
Alpha 27.2
[ 2016-05-02 21:44:23 CET ] [ Original post ]
This is a small bugfix release that should help players that had to deal with multiple Darwins in their trek (or any other character cloning actually). It was caused by the game trying to access the "Saved Games" folder, which does not exist in all windows versions. It also adds improved error tracking which should help us in tracking down further bugs.
[ 2016-05-02 21:44:23 CET ] [ Original post ]
Alpha 27 "Hard Mode"
[ 2016-04-14 18:50:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
After introducing the "easy" mode in the last update it's time for the "hard" mode. With this addition we're wrapping up our endeavor to support different challenge requirements. As usual we're looking for your feedback about the tuning. As usual, we've got a few bugfixed and smaller features in as well. We hope you enjoy the new version! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPLEG5O8y9w
- Steam Trading Cards!
- Hard Mode
- Zero starting funds
- Zero starting fame
- Return to your ship after finding the golden pyramid. If your ship is destroyed there is nothing you can do but use the balloon, so be careful!
- Unlock platinum frames for beating hard mode
- Improved scrolling with cursor keys
- Performance improvements
- Butterfly perk now yields more sanity
- Added more epilogue entries
- Bugfixes
- Not successfully completing the Konrad quest will no longer skip all further events in the harbor
- Large enemies now have a proper portrait in their infobox
- Fixed travel reports.
- Fixed being stuck in ranking screen on certain occasions.
[ 2016-04-14 18:50:34 CET ] [ Original post ]
Vote on Emoticons
[ 2016-04-07 10:00:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
We're currently preparing our Trading Cards (yay). Since we're only allowed to have 5 Emoticons we are having a super hard time to decide. Our selection is down to either Status or Character icons. Please help us decide by voting on this twitter poll: https://twitter.com/CuriousExped/status/718013572387725312
[ 2016-04-07 10:00:07 CET ] [ Original post ]
Alpha 26 "Easy Mode"
[ 2016-03-17 22:26:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
As our first step in supporting difficulty settings we are introducing the "easy" mode. One might think we do this to make the game easier, but honestly this is just our excuse to introduce the dreaded "hard" mode in the next update. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIrKTLb30OM
- Easy Mode
- Increased starting funds
- Increased loot in many occasions
- No standing loss when killing animals or blowing up mountains
- Starting compass accuracy is always 100%
- More places to rest and regain sanity across all landscapes
- No seal or moonstone pyramids - just find the pyramid and you're golden (heh) on all expeditions
- Less enemies will appear in combat
- Mummies will never attack you when you are carrying them in your inventory
- No spider encounters when exploring caves in darkness
- No void will be triggered from looting a shrine
- Resting in missions is cheaper
- No portals or altars will be spawned
- General
- Improved feedback when using the Necronomicon
- H.P. Lovecraft now needs to be unlocked
- World generation tuning improvements
- Tome pages now are also weightless items
- Added a dice check when trying to steal an idol from a village
- Added a new treasure item: The Golden Slokra (Treasure Edition Item)
- Improved inventory - when inventory slots exceed a certain amount, multiple rows will be displayed. Added a proper icon for discarding objects. Added a frame around the inventory slots.
- Reduced price of native trinket
- Lower value treasure items will now stack up to 10 times
- Bugfixes
- Blue Mushrooms and weather baloons are now improving your range of vision upon usage again
- Fixed multiple music tracks playing at the same time
- Fixed promotion stars not placed properly
- Fixed missing particles in combat
- Fixed offset zone icon positions
- Fixed drawing of shield icon in combat
- Improved position of health bars
- Fixed bongos did not reset enemy-attention counter always
- Improved info box for statuses that change travel base cost
[ 2016-03-17 22:26:27 CET ] [ Original post ]
Alpha 25.2 (Important update)
[ 2016-03-03 20:13:08 CET ] [ Original post ]
We have some more bug fixes/improvements for Alpha 25 ready! Most importantly the performance should be considerably improved. Unfortunately this required a change to the backend which kills your player progress unless you've played Alpha 25 before. There is workaround though: go into the game folder and run the nw.exe (windows) or run_app.sh (osx/linux) in the transfer folder of your game directory. This will transfer your player progress from the older alphas and when you run the regular version of the game, you should still have your progress as usual.
Alpha 25.2 (Mar 3rd, 2016)
- Bugfixes
- Fixed performance issues on resolution mode 3
- Fixed position of chat bubbles
- Fixed important statuses are shown next to party bar
- Fixed travel reports. They now also have a nicer URL
Alpha 25.1 (Mar 1st, 2016)
- Bugfixes
- Fixed treasure map not scaled properly
- Check unlock conditions after ranking screen instead of before
- Fixed random crash when having abomination in party
- Fixed scaling issues after changing resolution during a running game
[ 2016-03-03 20:13:08 CET ] [ Original post ]
Alpha 25 "Dicey Actions"
[ 2016-02-25 21:25:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
With our 25th update (that's a quarter hundred!) we're going full circle and are finally using dice not only for combat, but also for regular diary events. Also the game has never looked this good before! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=latyqOYlDmY
Alpha 25
- Dice actions
- Some diary actions now depend on dice rolls!
- These actions will portray the required dice face required on the action button. All dice of your party are rolled excactly once.
- If you get all required faces a positive outcome is triggered. If not a negative outcome is triggered.
- This makes its easier for you to understand what the odds are for certain actions to succeed depending on your trek setup.
- We've updated various old events to use this new mechanic. More events will be added in the coming updates.
- Resolutions
- So far the game had two resolution modes. Stretched and native. If you played on higher resolutions (i.e. 1080p) both of these modes had disadvantages: Stretched mode made the pixel art appear blurry, while native mode was hard coded to a 1:2 pixel ratio, making the HUD elements and event images appear relatively small to your display size.
- The new version now supports 4 modes and allows to set custom pixel ratios, resulting in pixel perfect art, big event images, proper HUD element sizes and sharp text.
- When you play on 1080p the game has literaly never looked as good as it does with this new version. Hundreds of changes where necessary to make this work, so please excuse any hickups that might still have made it through our testing. Let us know if you're missing any more options.
- Also the size of the info box now adapts properly to the resolution.
- Persistence
- The player data and save game data is now stored inside a TheCuriousExpedition folder inside your user data folder. In case you want to move your profile to another computer simply copy that folder. Also this should make it easier to create backups of your data.
- Steam Cloud support for savegames and player data will also be enabled within the next couple of days.
- Phobias
- When ignoring phobias of party members, they will reduce their individual loyalty instead of reducing the overall party sanity. This should make phobias more readable and relevant.
- We added a new phobia Dendrophobia, which is the fear of trees.
- New content
- New item: voodoo dolls curse your rivals
- New item: tin cans are nutrious, but pretty bland in flavor
- New quest: a gentleman may ask you to escort a native to London
- New blessing: your trek member might grow some animal claws
- New perk: ruffian, adds a attack die
- New perk: protector, adds a defense die
- New perk: adept, adds a support die
- Tuning
- Buffed native enemies, they have spears now!
- If overburden, mounted animals don't yield extra dice. This counters the exploit of mounting the animals while overburden and then unmounting them after combat.
- Rivals don't all start at the same time, spacing them out more on the race track bar
- Misc
- There is a screen prompt warning you about stashes that were destroyed in the world containing items of yours
- Reworked the gentleman scene at the start of a new game
- Bug fixes
- Fixed musician quest could not be completed correctly in some situations
- Certain disasters like voids were spreading way to fast and have been reduced to their original growth speed.
- Fixed some overlong description texts in world map screen
- Fixed lots of typos
- Fixed overburden status was not properly updated after putting items into stash
- Fixed character unlocks were not checked when using hot air balloon during final expedition
- Fixed sometimes unreachable villages were spawned in tutorial
- Fixed additional trek members not shown in side bar when trek was already at regular maximum size
Update 25.1
- Bugfixes
- Fixed treasure map not scaled properly
- Check unlock conditions after ranking screen instead of before
- Fixed random crash when having abomination in party
- Fixed scaling issues after changing resolution during a running game
[ 2016-02-25 21:25:35 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 24 "The Chasm and The Pendulum"
Finally! With a delay of one week (sorry again) we have launched our latest update. We've been busy with creating an improved, more detailed and failsafe tutorial. However, we've not managed to finish it completely, there are some more steps we'd like to add to towards the next update. Other than that we've improved several aspects, including more special attacks and a general improvement of the combat tuning. Oh, and there are pendulums in the game now which are new special items that will help you to find specific locations, even 'hidden' ones more easily.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnwoZ0OuTwE&feature=youtu.be As usual, thanks a lot for your support and have fun with our latest version!
Alpha 24
- Added a new tutorial
- Completely reworked the old tutorial
- The new tutorial now is more fail-safe and guided
- The tutorial now includes a basic combat description
- We'll extend the tutorial further in the next update
- Harbor improvements
- You can re-enter the harbor shop now
- Fame/funds are shown at all times in harbor
- Failed quests give negative fame
- UI updates
- The maximum/current party count is shown when recruiting units
- The party side bar is hidden during events now, allowing to see more of the event image
- You can inspect character boxes in events directly now
- Trimmed character boxes size and don't show description text anymore
- New events
- New resting events
- New mysterious dowsing item
- New totem stick item
- New sickness
- New secret locations
- World
- Added new preview images to the world map
- Tuned neigbhors of locations to make patterns more recognizable
- Tuned biomes
- Combat
- Enemies now have different length for how long they seek the player
- Added small delay between aggroing enemy and their first movement
- Added new buff effects to various attacks
- Retuned enemy dice with aim to nerf head butt attack a bit
- Misc
- Dice are not auto-rolled again when they were pinned before
- Doing the initial missionary quest now also gives +2 standing
- Automatically stop traveling when traveling into deadly terrain
- Bug fixes
- Fixed stuck when dismissing units during travel
- Fixed aborting resting before spending one day
- Fixed empty diary with infected units
- Fixed crash when restoring save game
- Fixed collection items were not saved properly when stored in ship
- Fixed fire works item not working correctly
- Fixed some typos
Update 0.24.0.5
- Bug fixes
- Fixed savegames sometimes not working in Expedition 6
- Instrument quest not working properly
- Fixed one missing icon for new item
Update 0.24.0.7
- Bug fixes
- Dramatic performance boost on Mac (Alas, updating will also remove your progress so far in the game)
[ 2016-02-03 22:09:17 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 24 delayed to Feb 3rd
[ 2016-01-25 10:56:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
Hello all! We will have to delay our upcoming update (24) by one week to the 3rd of February. The delay is mostly caused by a large-scale improvement of the tutorial, which is taking more time than anticipated. We're sorry about this delay and thank you for your support and patience.
[ 2016-01-25 10:56:36 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 23 "Collector's Edition"
[ 2016-01-05 21:28:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
Happy new year! We're excited to be back and giving you a new alpha. A favorite change of ours is the new collection item mechanic which finally buffs up painters and allows for a better non-aggressive game play. We didn't get to do our usual video today, but we'll update this post as soon as we have the video. Alpha 23 (Jan 1st, 2016) "Collector's Edition"
- New final swamp and sulfur swamp art backgrounds
- Collection items
- Painter now creates a single stack of paintings
- Butterflies are now also collected in item
- Anthropological studies now show the portrait of a tribe member
- Collection item's worth depends on the collected items
- Fame/Fund tuning remained the same as before
- Combat
- Auto advance if all enemies are dead
- New health bar graphics
- Increased health of all player characters
- Show full character info box when hovering over player character
- Dice that were pinned, are auto rolled when unpinned
- New particles
- Added new stun effect to headbutt attack (more special effects to come)
- Loyalty
- Removed chance for internal loyalty boost when promoting characters
- Added new perk 'careerist' which always add loyalty boost when promoting
- Events
- New events for Tim/Luis
- Added new nature resting events
- New secret alternative game ending
- Added wiki button to main menu
- Cleaned up font usage in the game, reducing visual clutter (ongoing)
- Added new blessing "leather skin"
- Bugfixes
- Bongos should not stack
- Removed binoculars from Earhart starting equipment
- Fixed NaN output when doing events in warp worlds
- Clear chat queue when entering combat
- Fixed enemy head shown in combat instead of body
[ 2016-01-05 21:28:49 CET ] [ Original post ]
German Developer Awards: "Best Indie Game"
[ 2015-12-23 09:45:05 CET ] [ Original post ]
We are very happy to let you know that we won an award for being the best german indie-game at the Deutscher Entwicklerpreis (German Developer Awards) last week in Cologne. You can view our award page here. We have prepared a short video, with the ceremony and a few words from our side: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5mr0CZu9Ow We owe this price to a lot of hard work on our side, but also to your ongoing support. Thank you very much! We wish you a merry christmas and a good start into 2016! We can't wait to tell you what we are going to work on in the new year. Riad & Johannes
[ 2015-12-23 09:45:05 CET ] [ Original post ]
Alpha Update #22.2
[ 2015-12-10 22:14:08 CET ] [ Original post ]
We're having some bugfixes for you. Thanks to everybody for playing and reporting issues! Alpha 22.2
- Bugfixes
- Dynamite now correctly injures party members when used in combat
- Store location inventory correctly in savegames
- Fixed buffalo sprite appearing cut off
- Fixed vulture event not working with marked ammo
- Fixed Garvey being able to have more party members during harbor event
- Fixed rare crash when using portal
- Fixed celebration chat line about buffalo
- Fixed disappearance of initial ship storage
- Bugfixes
- Fixed loading old save games for maps without water access
- Fixed correct overburden status after mounting/dismounting and using items
- Fixed endless world gen loop
- Fixed pointless attack button for mosquitoes and desert storms
- Fixed celebration audience speaking gibberish
- Fixed treasure map location correctly restored from save game
- Fixed missing title for Konrad NPC
- Improved region score calculation by tracking it per location
[ 2015-12-10 22:14:08 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 22: Ship Ajoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDfaKX-c9Sw&list=PL8d3Y-qeqBR9RKc9Vsu4thOZQkUo8diAv Alpha 22 (Ship Ahoy!)
- Ship
- Instead of spawning in the middle of nowhere, each expedition now starts with a ship arrival sequence that stops at the shore line.
- You can accelerate the sequence by clicking or pressing space
- You can also use the ship as means to escape from a running expedition
- You can access the ship storage at any time
- Content
- Added new loot type: jewels
- New events, new chat lines, new text variations, new epilogue texts
- New title box for the loading screen
- Tuning
- Reduced value of animal teeth
- Tweaked chasm shrine entry text to be more memorable and fitting to what kind of disaster it triggers.
- Final art quality for various images
- Cenote location
- Shallow river location
- Cave entrance
- Some cave interiors (not all done yet)
- Blessing temple interior
- Hill location
- NPC info box now also shows capacity for recruits
- Bugfixes
- Fixed endless loading (hopefully)
- Shaman cleanse was applied to all characters instead of just one
- Fixed music and sound effects playing with the correct volume setting
- Harbor shop can't be accessed multiple times anymore
- Fixed Konrad quest not cleaning up correctly
- Play explorer jingle at start of expedition
- Bugfixes
- Fixed loading old save games for maps without water access
- Fixed overburden not updating correctly
- Fixed endless world gen loop
- Fixed pointless attack button for mosquitoes and desert storms
- Fixed celebration audience speaking gibberish
- Fixed treasure map location correctly restored from save game
- Fixed missing title for Konrad NPC
- Improved region score calculation by tracking it per location
[ 2015-12-09 10:42:22 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 21 "Friendship"
[ 2015-11-19 19:37:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
After our Halloween special we took some time to work on smaller improvements all over the place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x13SDPPDURo&list=PL8d3Y-qeqBR9RKc9Vsu4thOZQkUo8diAv&index=1
- Gameplay
- It is now possible to rest in villages even without having a translator or the polyglot perk. However, the basic resting will restore only 30 sanity and cost 2 standing points
- The Polyglot perk will remove the standing costs from resting in villages and add a small bonus to sanity when resting in villages (+20)
- Added the option to visit a pack saddle artisan at the harbor. Here you can increase the capacity of your pack animals by up to three additional crates. However, this will cost you a significant amount of funds
- When being visited by natives in rest events you will be able to do both, trade and recruit. Also, inviting them to the camp does not require a translator or polyglot perk anymore
- Improved handling of mission storage. You will now be able to access the mission storage even after killing the missionary or if the mission was taken over by cultists
- New location: The shipwreck. Explore it to find valuable equipment
- Items
- Added new item: The native trinket. This can be gifted to a unit to improve loyalty
- Dynamite is now usable in combat
- Units
- A translator will remove the standing costs from resting in villages. Also, the gained sanity when resting in a village will be increased greatly by the level of the translator
- Added more visual variations to lizard people
- Improved the dice of all lizard people
- Added lizard shaman
- Improved the dice of abominations and added a special tentacle attack
- Perks
- Improved effectiveness of native warrior stealth perk
- The Bullet Hoarder perk will now generate "marked" bullets instead of normal ones. Marked bullets are weightless and will be obtained up to a maximum amount of 5
- Portals
- Added new, beneficial world variations when entering a portal
- In addition to the automatic return to the normal world when entering a portal, another portal will appear at your starting position in the teleported world. Enter this portal to manually return to the normal world
- It is no longer possible to balloon out of teleported worlds
- Content
- Added many new chat lines to specific events
- Added new, unique sound effects to many attacks
- Replaced jungle placeholder background with final art
- Bugfixes
- Fixed issue where entering a village would result in leaving it immediately without being able to access the village options
[ 2015-11-19 19:37:58 CET ] [ Original post ]
Bugfixing Update!
[ 2015-11-17 19:44:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
We've released a new update that fixes some more issues! Thanks so much for all your support and for your feedback. As we're coming closer to the 1.0 release of the game, we'll put a bigger focus on making sure that it is as bug free as possible. Alpha 20.2 (Nov 17th, 2015)
- Fixed sometimes stuck in loading before Expedition-6
- Fixed recruiting Scottish soldier in harbor
- Fixed endless tortoise spawning
- Fixed multiple Sterling appearing at harbor
- Fixed missing icons for some perks
- Fixed occult vision perk not working correctly
- Fixed barter values for missions
- Fixed missing icon for infected status and charismatic perk
- Fixed combats sometimes having wrong background image
[ 2015-11-17 19:44:02 CET ] [ Original post ]
Update 20 "Halloween Special"
[ 2015-10-29 13:47:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Halloween is coming! We've finally added a character that we've been looking forward to for quite some time. And time it was. Have fun leading expeditions into the unknown being lead by the masterfull describer of the unknown himself. We've also added lots of other new contents and events. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVbYP6kWVVo&list=PL8d3Y-qeqBR9RKc9Vsu4thOZQkUo8diAv Here are some highlights..
- New Explorer: H.P. Lovecraft
- Lovecraft is unlocked by default for this version.
- Has necronomicon as starting equipment
- His perk "Cosmic Indefferentism" gives him custom events when using the necronomicon
- Has reduced maximum sanity
- New Location: Altar
- You can sacrifice items on the altar
- We don't want to spoil exactly what this influences in the game
- Content
- Added new mummy enemy/event
- Added giant spider enemy/event
- Added new tome page for waterfall creation
- Added new tome page healing springs creation
- Added some new night camp event
- Added new loot item: spider leg
- Added new item: pumpkin lantern
- Tuning
- Reduced gain for British soldier from perk
- Weapon dice are now associated with different dice colors
- Actions in warp worlds don't result in standing changes anymore
- Animal trophies can be sold for funds or given away for fame again, although at a lower value than before
- Etc
- Updated abomination/canibal status description to better reflect what they do
- Added missing status icons
- Bugfixes
- Fixed entering golden pyramids with moonstones sometimes didn't work
- Unlocked destinations should be shown in gold color again
- Animals don't generate post-game narration anymore
- Sprite crate glitch on water buffalos
- Wrong background image when recruiting characters in river villages
- Stone circle behaving weird with superstitious characters
- Fixed world creation tome
[ 2015-10-29 13:47:53 CET ] [ Original post ]
Alpha Update #19.2
[ 2015-10-27 22:04:55 CET ] [ Original post ]
Sorry, it seems we got a bit over excited and shipped some more bugs than usual with our most recent update. We've now fixed most of the issues (most importantly the dreaded empty worldmap bug). We'll do a better job with our next update, which will be the super awesome Halloween update by the way. We're already looking forward to it very much. In the meantime enjoy the improved alpha update 19!
Alpha 19.2 (Oct 27th, 2015)
- Fixed losing quests when entering warp worlds
- Fixed overburden status not removed when consuming items
- Fixed crash on ranking/world map screen
Alpha 19.1 (Oct 26th, 2015)
- Fixed bartering issues
- Fixed names not generated properly
- Fixed crash when explorer dies
- Fixed golden seals missing icon
- Fixed regeneration trait not working
- Fixed abomination tome page not doing anything sometimes
- Fixed being able to continue after dying with explorer
- Fixed wrong background image when recuriting
[ 2015-10-27 22:04:55 CET ] [ Original post ]
Curious Expedition is a roguelike expedition simulation set in the late 19th century. Together with famous personalities you will venture on unprecedented expeditions to regions never explored before for fame, science and treasures. Put on your pith helmet and khakis and make your way through a lush, procedurally generated world full of wonder and mystery. Now go explore, adventure awaits!
Gameplay overview
- Experience your very own adventure through a procedural story which makes every game unique.
- Explore procedurally generated worlds, each with its own distinctive set of challenges for the ambitious explorer.
- Plan and equip your trek. A good explorer is prepared for any eventuality.
- Manage your resources to keep your trek alive and sanity high. Balance your needs with the desire to carry all that precious treasure back home.
- Visit and interact with the land’s natives. Enter villages, trade and communicate with local tribes and civilizations that are unknown to mankind.
- Loot mysterious temple ruins to gain fame and treasures, but watch out for deadly traps and curses that will compromise your trek and the world around you.
- Equip and utilize miraculous treasures to gain advantages, but be wary of unforeseeable side effects.
- Fight and defend your trek against a wide range of wild animals, mystical creatures and even dinosaurs.
MINIMAL SETUP
- OS: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. fully updated
- Processor: 2 GHzMemory: 1 GB RAM
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: 1280x720 minimum resolution. OpenGL 2.0 Support
- Storage: 150 MB available space
GAMEBILLET
[ 6076 ]
GAMERSGATE
[ 1321 ]
MacGamestore
[ 4049 ]
FANATICAL BUNDLES
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