19th century exploration rogue-like Curious Expedition gets free multiplayer

Curious Expedition

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.

Developer Maschinen-Mensch enormously enjoyable rogue-like exploration adventure, Curious Expedition, might be getting on a bit (it released back in 2016), but it's just received a free multiplayer mode, previously available in browser-based beta, in its latest update.

The gist of Curious Expedition, if you're unfamiliar, is that it's the 19th century and players, cast as daring adventurers, must embark on a race across inhospitable climes to find (ie. steal) exotic treasures in order to secure fame, fortune, and a footnote in the history books.

What that equates to in practice is a compelling blend of board-game-like exploration across a procedurally generated hex-based map, and a text-based choose-your-own-adventure-style yarn. The ultimate goal each game is to score highest against the AI across a set number of expeditions, and to do that you'll need to purchase supplies and prepare a party - whose useful individual perks are usually offset by negative traits such as paranoia, misogyny, or racism, eventually making them something of a liability as things start to go wrong.

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