Renowned Explorers is an attitude-driven turn-based strategy exploration game. This strategy-with-a-twist title from Abbey Games is bewildering at times, but endearing and addictive.
At its heart, the game is pretty simple; recruit a crew and go on a fabulous adventure spanning multiple expeditions across the globe, with the intent of becoming the ‘most renowned explorer’, beating your popular rival, Rivelaux. The expeditions are procedurally generated with multiple paths to take, each play through will be slightly different, various events along the way.
Graphics & Sound
The art of the game features a bright “Cartoony” flavor. The characters seem to come to life well, there are many and they’re both interesting and distinct. You can tell they spent a lot of time on the look and art of the game, and this shows well.
The music is whimsical and fun as well, it blends with the art style, I do have one minor quibble here, I wish there was voice acting, I know it’s not that big of a deal, but there is pretty much no voice in the game at all, other then some grunts and “Sim” like gibberish talk. Would have been nice to have your characters have a voice.
Game play
The game play mechanics in Renowned Explorers are really quite complex and challenging to start off with. However, there’s a nice choice of difficulty settings, don’t let “easy” fool you, it’s a very challenging game!
To become the most renowned explorer, logically you must garner the most renown. To get renown, you collect treasure, gold, status and research. In addition, gold will buy you better equipment, status will let you buy helpers for your entourage and research will allow you to unlock new bonuses. To get these resources, you find tokens along your journey, which earn you renown and can be spent between expeditions.
In each expedition, you will have a simple goal which involves traversing a map with your crew. A lot can happen along the way, including encounters with the locals.
The encounter battles are where the game shines, it’s your choice as to whether you use violence or not. Whether it’s aggressive thwacking, friendly speeches or devious behavior, ‘attitude’ is critical and provides a number of ways to get you out of these tricky situations.
The three-different attitude work much like rock, paper, scissors; friendly has an advantage over devious, which has the upper hand on aggressive, which in turn can be effectively used to beat friendly. The attitude you’re displaying most is combined with the enemies’ attitude to create the current ‘mood’ of the battle; different moods have different buffs and debuffs. Losing a crewman in an encounter means you lose resolve – and if you run out of resolve, it’s game over.
Other events you get to choose which crew member you want to try to do the event, let’s say you might find an ancient site, that you will need to use some archaeological study on it, you will need to pick the crew member with the best skill to give you the best chance and succeeding. You have to keep and eye on your supplies as well, as you can only move so far on the map until you out, but you can find more along the way, which adds to the challenge
Final Thoughts
Be ready to die, and try again, this game is tough, but it a good way, there are multiple ways that you can go about a battle, or a challenge.
All in all, if strategy, tactics and exploration are your thing, Renowned Explorers does deliver.
If you enjoy a challenge, and the thrill of exploration, then check out Renowned Explorers there is plenty here to explore for sure. Now if your will excuse me, I have a score to settle with a werewolf.
This review was based on Renowned Explorers: International Society + The Expansion “More to Explore” + The Emperor’s Challenge DLC
For more information head over to the official web page, or you can buy it on steam
Abbey Games provided the game for this review, and this had no impact on the review at all
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