Welcome to the wonderful world of Renowned Explorers : International Society, best described as a very warm and charming take on "The Curious Expedition" but do not confuse that for "Simple or shallow", no. Nonono. This game is, underneath the big fluffy cuddly exterior, much like a house cat, and like any house cat, it has paws made up of TEENY TINY KNIVES which will dig their way in and cause much horrible pain if you're not paying attention to the various mechanics at work.

If you've never had the joy of living with a house cat, it's the most wonderful experience, and they'll slowly destroy everything you own, but you'll never be able to get upset with them, because they're made of fur, and wuv. Even when it comes to cleaning their ears and they rake nice red lines into your forearm so you look like you've been on a self harm trip.

This game is very much like a house cat, you don't own it. It owns you. Often as a matter of fact. I've played the better end of hm, fifty attempts, often getting to 4* or 5* difficulty expeditions and then it all goes horribly horribly wrong. Oh it's call cute and cuddly in the beginning with nice scottish highlands and pirates treasure out in the carribean but just you wait, wait until you're knee deep in Transylvania, hungry wolves and digging into the legends of one Mr. Dracul who turns out to be a real charmer with the speech and can WRECK a diplomatically inclined team in seconds because as it turns out, your strength just became a phenomenal weakness.


Okay, let's pull the camera back and do a breakdown of the game. It runs in three distinct "beats", first and foremost is the World Map, this serves as your transition between various adventures, it's where you kit out your explorers, spend insight and convert that into "Useful materials" for expeditions ahead, and then spend gold, status, and research on "Things that will help" such as equipment upgrades (armour helps a LOT, so do trinkets), your entourage (who acts as a force multiplier and offers special conditions in the case of the named entourage members), and unlocking areas of the research tree that yields additional supplies, and other useful benefits, again, making the ride through the game that much smoother. It's your HQ in effect, but there's a lot to do between adventures, and a lot of discrete choices to make as to how you want to "build your team", so it's not like a case of "Click click done".


Second beat comes in the form of the "local adventure" map, which once you've selected WHERE you want to go, is then a zoomed up version of the location, say, an area of land or an island, part fogged in and part visible depending on how much terrain you've covered, each map has points of interest (think FTL) and the idea is you move around the points of interest, solving challenges.

Most of these are "Roll" challenges where a % chance to succeed is based on the skills of the team, more skills mean more prizes, in some cases simply having ENOUGH skills in a specific tree will unlock whole new options, which are coloured in and take you down new routes with additional rewards. The limit on simply being able to clean the map is "Supplies", the cap is soft, you can go below zero, but each point that you do, imposes a very steep penalty on your ability to fight. You can get away with one or two points, but more than this is just -begging- for a game over.

The stories for each area are well written and the narrative is cohesive, it's good enough that you'll be able to get a feel for what goes on in each area and you'll pay some attention to the choices presented (there's usually clues in the text as to what's a good choice and what's a bad one), sometimes you'll end up with a case of "Best of the worst" options which can be a tad irritating but that's RNG for you when you don't know what you're going to draw from the story deck for a given area.


Finally, there's the turn based fighting sequence, which kicks in on an encounter. This is not just a case of move and shoot. You have three options, one agressive, one devious, one friendly, the game KINDA works like rock paper scissors, however, there's more than just the fight atmosphere to consider, because if you want the optimal rewards you may have to finish a fight in a specific manner.

In other cases you may face opponents who change their own approach when you munchkin the game mechanics (in other words, attempt to game the boss and the boss games YOU), and each of the RE:IS members have their own specific strengths and weaknesses meaning some just don't work out that well for a specific strategy in one way, but are great when used in a different approach. Using a one dimensional "Oh I am gonna stack the board with speakers" seems great in principle, but then Mr. Dracul comes along and "OH GOD I'M GOING TO GET MY FACE TORN OFF", so it's not always the greatest plan to put all the eggs in one basket.


In fact you'll probably have so much fun with the various boss encounters and the foes like the Smuggler Boss (who you can reduce to tears) and Mr. Dracul that the real goal, beating the obnoxious champion of the International Society will take the back seat as the moment to moment stories you find yourself in matter more, Riveleaux can wait, I've a vampire to convince.


So here's the big question "Curious Expedition" or "Renowned explorers" - Me? I'd say both. They're wonderful games both of them, but if I had to make a choice? I'd take the house cat over the darker sibling, and ONLY JUST. Because it's the house cat, and it's "Heartwarming" (and yes, that's something you can DO to your foes in this game).

I love my cats. I love this game so very dearly. Get it.

Verdict : Essential

[H1]For the first ten minutes you're thinking "Oh this seems a bit humdrum" ... and then you are insulted (or complimented) by a sheep, and everything goes a bit strange after that.[/H1] Welcome to the wonderful world of Renowned Explorers : International Society, best described as a very warm and charming take on "The Curious Expedition" but do not confuse that for "Simple or shallow", no. Nonono. This game is, underneath the big fluffy cuddly exterior, much like a house cat, and like any house cat, it has paws made up of TEENY TINY KNIVES which will dig their way in and cause much horrible pain if you're not paying attention to the various mechanics at work. If you've never had the joy of living with a house cat, it's the most wonderful experience, and they'll slowly destroy everything you own, but you'll never be able to get upset with them, because they're made of fur, and wuv. Even when it comes to cleaning their ears and they rake nice red lines into your forearm so you look like you've been on a self harm trip. This game is very much like a house cat, you don't own it. It owns you. Often as a matter of fact. I've played the better end of hm, fifty attempts, often getting to 4* or 5* difficulty expeditions and then it all goes horribly horribly wrong. Oh it's call cute and cuddly in the beginning with nice scottish highlands and pirates treasure out in the carribean but just you wait, wait until you're knee deep in Transylvania, hungry wolves and digging into the legends of one Mr. Dracul who turns out to be a real charmer with the speech and can WRECK a diplomatically inclined team in seconds because as it turns out, your strength just became a phenomenal weakness. [H1]*AHEM* Back on topic Senor Hobbes?[/H1] Okay, let's pull the camera back and do a breakdown of the game. It runs in three distinct "beats", first and foremost is the World Map, this serves as your transition between various adventures, it's where you kit out your explorers, spend insight and convert that into "Useful materials" for expeditions ahead, and then spend gold, status, and research on "Things that will help" such as equipment upgrades (armour helps a LOT, so do trinkets), your entourage (who acts as a force multiplier and offers special conditions in the case of the named entourage members), and unlocking areas of the research tree that yields additional supplies, and other useful benefits, again, making the ride through the game that much smoother. It's your HQ in effect, but there's a lot to do between adventures, and a lot of discrete choices to make as to how you want to "build your team", so it's not like a case of "Click click done". [H1]Doing the FTL dance in a very focussed way, and with more Sheep[/H1] Second beat comes in the form of the "local adventure" map, which once you've selected WHERE you want to go, is then a zoomed up version of the location, say, an area of land or an island, part fogged in and part visible depending on how much terrain you've covered, each map has points of interest (think FTL) and the idea is you move around the points of interest, solving challenges. Most of these are "Roll" challenges where a % chance to succeed is based on the skills of the team, more skills mean more prizes, in some cases simply having ENOUGH skills in a specific tree will unlock whole new options, which are coloured in and take you down new routes with additional rewards. The limit on simply being able to clean the map is "Supplies", the cap is soft, you can go below zero, but each point that you do, imposes a very steep penalty on your ability to fight. You can get away with one or two points, but more than this is just -begging- for a game over. The stories for each area are well written and the narrative is cohesive, it's good enough that you'll be able to get a feel for what goes on in each area and you'll pay some attention to the choices presented (there's usually clues in the text as to what's a good choice and what's a bad one), sometimes you'll end up with a case of "Best of the worst" options which can be a tad irritating but that's RNG for you when you don't know what you're going to draw from the story deck for a given area. [H1]And then I got into a shouting match with a nun...[/H1] Finally, there's the turn based fighting sequence, which kicks in on an encounter. This is not just a case of move and shoot. You have three options, one agressive, one devious, one friendly, the game KINDA works like rock paper scissors, however, there's more than just the fight atmosphere to consider, because if you want the optimal rewards you may have to finish a fight in a specific manner. In other cases you may face opponents who change their own approach when you munchkin the game mechanics (in other words, attempt to game the boss and the boss games YOU), and each of the RE:IS members have their own specific strengths and weaknesses meaning some just don't work out that well for a specific strategy in one way, but are great when used in a different approach. Using a one dimensional "Oh I am gonna stack the board with speakers" seems great in principle, but then Mr. Dracul comes along and "OH GOD I'M GOING TO GET MY FACE TORN OFF", so it's not always the greatest plan to put all the eggs in one basket. [H1]A wonderful cast of heroes and villains[/H1] In fact you'll probably have so much fun with the various boss encounters and the foes like the Smuggler Boss (who you can reduce to tears) and Mr. Dracul that the real goal, beating the obnoxious champion of the International Society will take the back seat as the moment to moment stories you find yourself in matter more, Riveleaux can wait, I've a vampire to convince. [H1]Closing thoughts[/H1] So here's the big question "Curious Expedition" or "Renowned explorers" - Me? I'd say both. They're wonderful games both of them, but if I had to make a choice? I'd take the house cat over the darker sibling, and ONLY JUST. Because it's the house cat, and it's "Heartwarming" (and yes, that's something you can DO to your foes in this game). I love my cats. I love this game so very dearly. Get it. Verdict : [b]Essential[/b]