...or how I discovered my exploration fetish.
Had you somehow managed to talk to me a year ago and told me that this rather inconspicuous title would once become one of my favourite games of 2015, I would have probably told you to get back on your imaginary airplane and fly over the rainbow back to the imaginationland you came from. And oooh boy, would I be - and that does NOT happen often, mind you - wrong. This little gem that, at first glance, looks like a mobile game for kids, now keeps surprising me with its depth, great writing, the obvious love that has been put into it and its challenging, punishing but still incredibly rewarding gameplay.
Well, without any further ado, let me explain why I've lost more than a week of my life so far to Renowned Explorers.
Well, without any further ado, let me explain why I've lost more than a week of my life so far to Renowned Explorers.
A dashing scout, a diplomatic warrior with colonial past and a charming rogue - actually a really good party setup.
First of all, I must say that I'm biased. I have always loved the exploration theme - from Indiana Jones movies and gamebooks putting you in the shoes of brave explorers or pirates sailing unknown waters to PC games with exploratory elements such as Faster Than Light. It just does the trick for me and I find it thrilling and incredibly enjoyable to visit strange places and countries, meet different cultures, search for unknown places, artifacts and situations, all while someone yells at me in an incomprehensible language, probably trying to sell me a handmade bracelet. So both in real life (ah-ha, not a mid-life crisis yet, you punks!) and as a gamer, I actively search for this theme.
So last Saturday, I watched this video from one of my favourite youtubers, Jesse Cox (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WApO8sYYMcY - give the guy a Like, will ya?), where he plays Renowned Explorers for about an hour, and when his ragtag group of explorers ventured into a Hungarian forest in search for a lost alchemy lab, I just went, bought it for like 10 EUR and never looked back. In fact, I was so excited about this game that I had to force myself to wait in order to tone it down a bit and explore all the game's hidden layers.
Renowned Explorers presents itself as a rogue-like exploration strategy game. To give you an actual idea what it is about - you select a three-member crew out of about 20 unique characters of various classes (Scientist, Fighter, Scout or Speaker), each with their own weaknesses, skills and abilities, and take them on several expeditions to gather gold, reputation and scientific findings. All this raises your total Renown and if you manage to achieve a certain high amount of it in 5 expeditions, you will become the most famous explorer in the world and win the game.
Seriously, look at this exploration-themed picture and tell me you don´t want to abandon all you know and sail to exotic distant shores on a steamboat. I dare ya.
On every expedition, you´ll face a number of challenges, encounters and both positive and negative random events that you will need to solve and survive using your characters´ skills and a limited amount of Supplies - which is a limited resource consumed by visiting various places on the expedition map. Once you run out of Supplies, your crew will get hungry and receive various crippling penalties. Let´s face it, if we were ever on an expedition and ran out of food, you´d get some penalties too after I´d chew off your legs.
Expedition maps are randomly generated, except for the final encounters, and it will take you many playthroughs to see all their variants and possible encounters and to gather all the loot that can be found in the game. At the end of every expedition, you will have to solve the final encounter, usually a boss fight of sorts, that can get really, really ugly but yield the best rewards.
Between these expeditions (there are currently nine available expeditions with more being added by the game's authors, Abbey Games - there already is an expansion out which I haven´t tested yet), you can spend gathered resources on research, buying new equipment and increasing the number of people in your entourage, giving you various passive bonuses.
Expedition maps are randomly generated, except for the final encounters, and it will take you many playthroughs to see all their variants and possible encounters and to gather all the loot that can be found in the game. At the end of every expedition, you will have to solve the final encounter, usually a boss fight of sorts, that can get really, really ugly but yield the best rewards.
Between these expeditions (there are currently nine available expeditions with more being added by the game's authors, Abbey Games - there already is an expansion out which I haven´t tested yet), you can spend gathered resources on research, buying new equipment and increasing the number of people in your entourage, giving you various passive bonuses.
This is how an expedition begins - a goal somewhere in the distance, a limited amount of supplies and a challenging journey ahead of you.
What makes this game sort of unique in terms of game mechanics is its combat system. Every now and then, you will encounter a group of enemies - an elderly Druid and his wolves, guarding a Celtic holy site somewhere in Ireland, a cackle of hyenas harrassing innocent villagers in Africa, fuckin´ undead pirates getting ready to summon their daemonic captain or even the goddamn King Kong on a remote tropical island - and you need to fight them.
Instead of spraying them with bullets and pissing on their still warm corpses, you select your attacks from one of three behavioural areas - you can be either aggressive (which might mean you just intimidate them or... well... spray them with bullets in order to piss on their still warm corpses), devious (when you´ll generally mock them, trick them and hurt their feelings) or friendly (when you encourage them, befriend them and basically just try to become their best buddy). The attacks themselves can take a variety of area-of-effect and other properties and their effectiveness is based on the rock-paper-scissors behavioural system where Aggression beats Friendliness, Friendliness beats Deviousness and Deviousness beats Agression. The "mood" of the encounter changes based on the approach you take and depending on the way you win the fight, the outcome can vary as well.
For example, if you use friendly "attacks" on the village elder and manage to beat him, you befriend him and he gives you extra loot - on the other hand, being decisively aggressive (spraying, pissing, you know the drill) towards a group of cheeky monkey can mean they´ll leave you alone for the rest of your journey through their island. This entire mechanic is intricately woven in the whole system of bonuses. penalties, character development and story branching and adds SO MUCH to the depth of the game, greatly increasing its replay value. Especially given that the characters you can choose from have a variety of attacks as well as "attacks", unique traits and specializations, making them better suited for certain approaches.
Instead of spraying them with bullets and pissing on their still warm corpses, you select your attacks from one of three behavioural areas - you can be either aggressive (which might mean you just intimidate them or... well... spray them with bullets in order to piss on their still warm corpses), devious (when you´ll generally mock them, trick them and hurt their feelings) or friendly (when you encourage them, befriend them and basically just try to become their best buddy). The attacks themselves can take a variety of area-of-effect and other properties and their effectiveness is based on the rock-paper-scissors behavioural system where Aggression beats Friendliness, Friendliness beats Deviousness and Deviousness beats Agression. The "mood" of the encounter changes based on the approach you take and depending on the way you win the fight, the outcome can vary as well.
For example, if you use friendly "attacks" on the village elder and manage to beat him, you befriend him and he gives you extra loot - on the other hand, being decisively aggressive (spraying, pissing, you know the drill) towards a group of cheeky monkey can mean they´ll leave you alone for the rest of your journey through their island. This entire mechanic is intricately woven in the whole system of bonuses. penalties, character development and story branching and adds SO MUCH to the depth of the game, greatly increasing its replay value. Especially given that the characters you can choose from have a variety of attacks as well as "attacks", unique traits and specializations, making them better suited for certain approaches.
So this is what the combat looks like - a bunch of playfully colourful characters screaming insults at nuns. Yep, pretty much.
There is just so much to this little gem that I could go on an on about it but since I´m a lazy bastard, let me just summarize it: Don´t think less of it just because of its colourful nature and mobile-game-like graphics. Buy it. This is a polished, unique and challenging game that has been made with so much love and passion that you can really feel it. Give it a chance and you´ll love it and keep returning to it like I do. And it might make you buy a plane ticket to Borneo to subsequently get lost in the jungle like I did. Fun times.