Some of the greatest memories I had as a child was when I was about 9 or 10 years old, and my older brother introduced me to a fantastic game called Dungeons and Dragons, I remember the old plastic milk crate he had filled to the top with wondrous book, with titles like Monster Manual, Dungeon Master Guide, and the Players Handbook. I still remember to this day seeing the demi-gorgon on the cover, with a nimble thief trying to pry out one of its ruby eyes.
I spent a good portion of my youth and early adulthood, playing with friends and random groups around the world. And alas as I get older, I don't have as much time to play.. well to be honest I have no time, to spend the hours and hours needed to fully enjoy the game. That crate full of wondrous books is now mine, and currently sits in a corner of my closet collecting dust just waiting to see the light of a table full of friends, dice and drinks.
I was on Facebook about a month or so ago when I saw an ad pop up for the card game called Expedition, it intrigued me and I went to the website to learn more. Their idea was simple. Take all the good parts of the role playing game experience, friends, stories and loot, and get away from some of the more tedious aspects such as tombs of rules, rolling characters, hours of dedicated time, and of course the crate of books. They say they were able to capture the entire RPG experience into a single deck of cards, a twenty sided dice and a phone or tablet all for the low price of $30, and between 20 minutes to 1 hour to play.
I did not believe them and poured over their webpage, looking for the catch, the hidden cost and what I found was that they want you to try their product, they really do. So much in fact that they are willing to give it away from free, yup completely free. They have a link to download a PDF copy of the cards, to print and cut out. I did ($7.98 at Office Depot) I purchased a paper trimmer ($5 Walmart) downloaded the app (Google play store) and of course like any self respecting gamer I had a a few D20 laying around (twenty sided dice) and set to play the intro quest.
Choose how many players you want to play, for my first game it was just me. The Tablet or phone that you use contains the app that works as the Dungeon Master, similar to a choose your own adventure you come across options such as "Deal with the rowdy fairy folk" or help "clean up the aftermath" I chose in true warrior style to take on the fairy folk and the app tells me to drawn my two opponents a "Little Wisp" and a "Musky Magical Mushroom".
Each card tells you the name, damage, abilities and life points of the creature. You draw a few ability cards and have approximately 10 seconds to make a decision, on what your ability to use, and place your finger on the tablet before you take additional damage. Once chosen you roll a d20, If you roll higher than the number needed you hit, and your ability activates. If you roll a critical a 20 on the dice you do additional damage or additional ability, and if you do a critical error rolling a 1 something negative happens "oops just shot myself in the knee with an arrow" combat continues until you either are defeated, or you have defeated your opponents, at which time you can draw a loot card to be used in a future battle. During battles there is also a chance that the enemy is going to Surge and a special action is played as detailed on the card, definitely adds some craziness to the action, as zombies just slain return to battle, or the wounded cleric begins to heal himself.
After playing through the tutorial, I looked to find out how many more adventures were available to play. I was sure it would only be a handful and then you would have to pay for more. I opened the app and was able to find about 40 adventures at the time of this writing. As I was toiling away I also was able to find that they have a Quest Creator (currently can only be used on a computer) which opens up a side by side screen, on the left side you can write your quests backstory, dialog, puzzles and enemies while on the right side it shows what it will look like in the app. When your adventure is completed you can upload it and others from around the world can play it. Which means there is an endless amounts of quests and worlds to explore with friends or even alone. The Expedition Team also made it so you could create your own creature cards, to flesh out your gaming experience.
After I was familiar with playing the game, I invited some friends over and we spent about 30 minutes running a quest through the sewers, we were frantic, nearly dieing, before I remembered I had a loot card to use, that allowed us to service till the next round where we were able to defeat our foe. We had a most excellent time and have vowed that on our little gaming night that Expedition will always be within arms reach.
I wanted the full Expedition experience and decided that I was going to buy it, so I reached out to them through their webpage and asked of I could purchase the game using Bitcoin, they replied back, that I was the first person to ever ask them that, and they sent me a Bitcoin Address and I sent off payment and a week later I had my Expedition box in hand.
Now full disclosure here: I am in no way affiliated with Expedition: or Fabricate.io and was not paid to write this review, I simply had a need, found a product, tried it out and had great fun. And I would like for you to also give the game a go. Expedition has also just successfully Kickstarted their first expansion "The Horror"which includes, new mechanics, and enemies which are all Cthulhu inspired.
If you want to give it ago and print out your own copy, get it here https://expeditiongame.com/print-and-play/
And if you want to just buy it (highly recommended)you can get it here. https://expeditiongame.com/store/expedition
Or just want more information check out the Expedition webpage: https://expeditiongame.com
I've even found a quick video explaining the game for you.
Hopefully you found this review, informational and fun and if you did please upvote and share, if you have any questions or comments please reply and let me know.