History VideoGame / CuriousExpedition2

* InventoryManagementPuzzle: Since there is a variety of ways to increase the size of your inventory, it eventually can lead to situations where you are carrying gear that is currently not in use, but useful situationally. There is also abusing the fact that unlike the original game, your ship's inventory is both 100% safe ''and'' unlimited. The trick is to always juggle your inventory in such a way to not end up with encumbrance penalties.

Curious Expedition 2 is the sequel to the 2015 roguelike RPG ''VideoGame/CuriousExpedition''. While the core gameplay remains intact, this installment adds a campaign with a story mode and swaps out the Historical Doman Characters with character classes. Two character classes are available at first and six more are unlockable, each one has unique perks and gameplay which greatly effects party dynamics.

* KingOfTheDinosaurs: T Rexes are the toughest dinosaur foes and one of the toughest of any sort in the game.

* BalefulPolymorph: [[spoiler:Using a moon stone has a possibility of turning one of your companions into a were-panther.]]

* HiddenElfVillage: Most of the native settlements are depicted this way, but the Avalon DLC takes it UpToEleven and features relict populations of Picts, living cut off from the outside world. The real life Picts disappeared over 1000 years ago.

In 1886 [[LadyOfAdventure Victoria Malin]] is on an expedition with two companions on an uncharted island. They discover a portal to another dimension which Malin believes is from a lost civilization that left technology that could be used to better civilization. Malin is the director of the Paris Exposition and the story campaign has you assist her in her quest to uncover more lost technology.

* AllAsiansWearConicalStrawHats: The Black Flag Pirate may be given one upon generation in the class selection menu, however no other Asian characters are seen wearing them.

* AnimationBump: The original game had retro 8 Bit graphics, this one has lavish Tintin inspired graphics hand drawn by graphic novelist Garen Ewing
* AntiHoarding: Even more so than in the first game. ''All'' your unused equipment is being sold back in Paris after each expedition, while your funds are only for that specific expedition and come from your sponsors, rather than your own pocket. Short for weapons and few bits of gear, you can't keep anything between expeditions.

** Items that provide defense are laughably inefficient. In a game where most basic attack is going to deal 10 damage or so, a rare, expensive and fully upgraded breastplate adding mere 8 defense is completely useless.

* ArbitraryGunPower: Firearms don't have any advantage over any other weapon, in fact a fully upgraded melee weapon will be more powerful than a less upgraded gun. This is obviously done for balance issues, otherwise most fights would be awfully one sided in the player's favor.
* AutomaticCrossbows: The Chu Ko Nu is an unlockalbe weapon, modeled after one of the most famous real life examples. The Pictish crossbow is similar.

* BalefulPolymorph: [[spoiler: Using moon stone has a possibility of turning one of your companions into a were-panther]].
* BehemothBattle: If you have a Dinosaur, Jellyfish, or Giant Tortoise in your party this will happen if you battle any of the various giant beasts.
* {{BFG}}: The Elephant Gun is an unlockable rifle that is the biggest firearm by a landslide. It is so hard hitting the wilder is stunned for a turn after using it.

** The basic, opening item of the Royal Avalon Society is a walking stick that decreases sanity cost of moving in open terrain. It saves enormous amount of sanity in the long run.

** Pouch is a human equivalent of Crate, adding just as many slots and obviously you are more likely to have more humans than pack animals in your group.

* BodyHorror: [[spoiler: The Pale Faces ruler]] could give [[VideoGame/{{Fallout}} Master]] run for his money when it comes to being deformed ''something''. In fact, your expedition leader will refuse to accept this thing could be human or more likely, group of people.
* BottomlessMagazines: Gun wielding characters have an endless supply of ammunition, [[AntiFrustrationFeatures a major relief considering how the game treats inventory]].
* BritsLoveTea: The only way to get CalmingTea when gearing up for an expedition is to have sufficiently high rank in the British Royal Avalon Society and them being the sponsor of your trek.
* ChasedByAngryNatives: If your Standing on an expedition gets low enough the Islanders will pursue you in parties until you escape on your ship.

* TheCorruption: Whatever the source, the portal world is twisted by it inside and out, and it can even affect your expedition. The items from that place will almost always be "Corrupted" instead of regular version.

* DistinguishedGentlemansPipe: Malin often smokes a calabash pipe in cut scenes, suiting for a renowned explorer and director of the World's Fair. Additionally a pipe may be seen in an ash try on a table at the Royal Avalon Society clubhouse.

* DualWielding: The Butterfly Swords are an unlockable two handed weapon.
* ElephantGraveyard: These appear on any map with elephants, it is possible to roll dice to loot ivory from them but there is a risk of all elephants turning aggressive if the dice fail.

* GunsVsSwords: Battles against pirates and rival explorers will often result in this. The advanatage is always given to the better leveled party.
* EiffelTowerEffect: The game takes place in the years leading up to the Paris Exposition which the Eiffel Tower was built for, at the start of the game there is no Eiffel Tower and it is more complete with each act.

** [[spoiler: The ruler of Pale Faces]] is a massive boil of tumorous tissue, looking like a pile of bodies fused together. Unless you really need it to [[spoiler: revert a Pace Face into human]], do ''not'' take its mask off.
* EldritchLocation: The portal realm is completely surreal this time around. Rather than relatively tame prehistoric land from the first game, you get meat trees, [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Pale Faces]], everything being in sick or just bizarre colours and you have to find in this mess your way back to reality, for the portal you've got there was a one-way trip. If this wasn't enough, you can end up with one of your party members being [[TheCorruption corrupted by the fog]], which has lasting consequences even if you manage to heal them out of it.
* ElvesVsDwarves: The Salamanders and Mole People are bitter rivals, the former are one with nature and live in the jungle while the latter are high tech and live in underground cities.
* EverythingTryingToKillYou: Once you unlock prehistoric islands, the game is actively trying to wipe out your party with combination of damaging or impassable terrain, powerful predators and random events like volcanic eruption and resulting fire.
* EverythingsLouderWithBagpipes: Bagpipes are an equipable weapon found on Avalon maps, they boost morale for allies and cause weakness in enemies.
* EveryoneIsBi: The player character and a companion or two companions may fall in love, regardless of gender. Of course gender is purely aesthetic in the game anyway.

* FiveTokenBand: With how diverse the classes are it's highly likely your party will end one of these.
* FlareGun: The player may purchase flares or find them on the map, they reveal a section of unvisited land. Sailors come with free flares that can be used every 30 days (and fewer days as they're leveled up).
* FogOfDoom: The outskirts of the maps are covered in the OminousFog, which slowly, but surely expands toward the center of each map. If you end up travelling through it, it costs you huge amount of sanity and can also cause a [[TheCorruption fog infection]] to your companions if you cross too many tiles covered by it. The fog can't be in any way dispersed or removed (except for a very rare spell with very small radius), thus effectively it works like the black hole from the first game - it will never stop spreading and eventually consume the whole map.
* ForcedTutorial: When starting a new game for the first time, you are not only forced to play the campaign first, but the first mission of it is a pure, rail-roaded tutorial - useful when you're a newcomer, but absolutely terrible when you've played the original or are replaying the game for the n-th time.

** The Royal Avalon Society is the most conventional of the three, their items are the most well rounded. They are presumably British and their clubhouse is decorated with artifacts from all over the world. Unique companions they offer are the Sikh Warrior, Corgi Treasure Hunter, and Grail Knight.
** Lux Labs is a steampunk themed club that offers a variety of high tech gadgets. Thomas Edison is their founder and their clubhouse features robotics and American decor. Unique companions they offer are the Engineer and Kinetographer.

* GoingNative: [[spoiler: In the end of the campaign mode, Victoria Malin decides to join the locals of the final island and learn as much as possible from them, that is if you choose not to kill her]]. The WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue directly invokes this trope.
* GoofyFeatheredDinosaur: The raptors are featured with full plumage in line with the current consensus in paleontology, in contrast to the original game where they resembled the scaled ones popularized by Jurassic Park. They are tameable and can become a beloved member of your party and bond with other companions.
* TheGreatRepair: Third campaign mission ends up with [[spoiler: rebuilding a wreck of [[SchizoTech an old pirate ship using the super-science engine of the precursors and jury-rigging a propeller]]]]. You get to keep it then for the rest of the game.
* HeadbuttingPachy: It's possible to have one in your party or fight them in the wild, most of their dice involve head butts.
* HandicappedBadass: Sailor recruits routinely have a peg leg - and it doesn't hinder them in the slightest.

* HotGypsyWoman: The more sensitively named Roma Traders, they wear the stereotypical attire but are an unusual aversion because they are merchants rather than dancers or fortune tellers.
* HumungousMech: Lux Labs has a giant horse robot on display, sadly it doesn't do anyting.

* ImproperlyPlacedFirearms: Islander villages occasionally will have guns available to trade, why they would trade guns to outsiders instead of keeping them for their warriors is never explained. This can even happen with pacifist tribes.

* InstantWinCondition: ZigZagged. If given expedition requires you to find something or do cartographic measurements, then fulfilling that objective is an instant win. However, if your task is to find a specimen of animal or orchid, you have to backtrack to your ship.

* InventoryManagementPuzzle: Since there is a variety of ways to increase the size of your inventory, it eventually can lead to situation where you are carrying gear currently not in use, but useful situationally. There is also abusing the fact that unlike the original game, your ship's inventory is both 100% safe ''and'' unlimited. The trick is to always juggle your inventory in such a way to not end up with encumbrance penalties.
* IslandOfMystery: Rather than visiting locations all across the globe, your expeditions are going to those, or at least start on their surface. They are implied to be [[TravelingLandmass mobile]] or even appearing out of thin air.

** Gear can have an "Improved" prefix, and as a result, having better combat results or offering stronger passive bonus. It is purely up to chance if, when or for what item this prefix will load.
** If you are very lucky, a wishing well, a portal world or maybe even a random trader will have some equipment or gear that's otherwise only accessible at very high rank in a given explorer's club.

* LizardFolk: Well amphibian folk, the Salamanders. They share all the traits of the trope regardless of taxonomy.

** Gear and companions can be upgraded and the higher level they have, the more faces their die has. A level 1 revolver will have 2/6 chance to roll anything at all, while dealing pitiful damage, but the same revolver, once maxed out, is a respectable weapon with its entire die having faces, instead of blanks.
** Taxonomist starts as the weakest class of expedition leaders. However, once fully upgraded he has a powerful attack and passive ability that turns otherwise ShopFodder that are animal trophies into decent source of fame. He also starts with a donkey (and thus large inventory) and a cook, meaning all the hunted down animals can be turned into quality meals (once ''the cook'' levels up, that is). Same goes with his starting weapon, ornate revolver, which at max level is one of the better weapons in the whole game.
* MasochistsMeal: Certain sanity items can't be eaten unless you almost completely depleted the meter. This includes canned food, snails, moss and few similar meals that at best, are awfully bland, and at worst, are barely edible in the first place.

* MedievalPrehistory: Mayincatec themed Islanders are often founded on Prehistoric maps, they have the most sophisticated buildings of any Islander type.
* MoleMen: Found on subterranean maps. Played very straight, they are the more technologically advanced than other Islanders and are heavily involved with mining.
* MushroomSamba: Hallucinogenic Toad restores a whooping 40 sanity, but also results with you seeing things that aren't there for the rest of the expedition.
* NationalGeographicNudity: Female Islanders often go topless but their nipples are always covered by strategically placed necklaces, unlike in the original game were nipples were often shown.
* NonHumanSidekick: Compared with the original, the new ones include humanoid salamanders, MoleMen, Kobolds and [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Pale Faces]].

** There are no more spells to summon resting places, reveal map, freely move or teleport to desired location.

** All companions get eventually a fully-upgraded die and the dice system have been reworked to simply require right colour rather than a specific face to overcome a challenge. This ''significantly'' decreases the difficulty when compared with the original game and rescues certain companions from the scrappy heap.

* {{Precursors}}: The original creators of Being Engine, along with all the related technology. The few tribes you meet in the campaign are descendants of their servants and explicitly not the same group as the precursors themselves.
* {{Prehistoria}}: The aptly named Prehistoric islands, where dinosaurs are found

* RareRandomDrop: Items that have "Improved" prefix. There is no real or reliable way of securing them and they are almost always random loot.

* TheRival: At the start of a campaign, you will get assigned a rival in form of some famous individual.
** [[spoiler: The final map of the campaign starts with RivalsTeamUp, to stop your boss from accidentaly blowing up the world]].
* RobotBuddy: The Grail Knights are mechanical companions that may be recruited from the Royal Avalon Society or the tavern, occasionally one will offer to accomodate you for an expedition and won't take up a party slot.

* SpaceFillingPath: The game automatically calculates your path to avoid various dangers and keep the sanity cost at lowest possible value. This means you can end up on a two-week long trek around two tiles of desert, which you could cross for 1 point of sanity more than the roundabout detour. The only way to avoid such situation is to manually plot the entire path through the "bad" tiles.
* {{Steampunk}}: The game laregely drops the general JungleOpera trappings of the original for direct steampunk vibes especially in the Paris hub.
* StockNessMonster: These appear in Avalon maps, some will attack the player on sight but others are friendly and will give the player treasure in exchange for tribute.

* StylisticSuck: The first game was a {{Roguelike}} done in pixel art. The sequel is evoking the style of a [[UsefulNotes/AdobeFlash Flash game]], with garish colours, limited animation and very detailed, but cartoony backgrounds.
* SwordAndFist: Most classes have fist attacks by default, when equipped with a sword there is the option of a character using attacks with both depending on what dice are rolled.

* TooAwesomeToUse: Subverted by the game design. Since there are extensive AntiHoarding mechanics in place, you should ''always'' make use of items in your cargo. Once the expedition is over, you won't be allowed to keep them anyway - they will be automatically sold back for fame, which, unlike the first game, is virtually useless.
* TooDesperateToBePicky: Certain foodstuff require from your expedition to have already a very low sanity to use them at all - and they only work as immediate emergency, being usually capped at 30 (or sometimes even 10) sanity, on the scale of 0-100.

** Getting any weapon or companion with a die that offers multiple target attack. Once you have it and upgrade it a bit, it will carry you through all combat encounters, because multiple target attacks are so much better and more efficient. Combine such attack with a companion with proper specialty (like Sailor using a pirate cutlass or British Soldier armed with a shotgun, both getting +50% more damage) and a single attack can wipe-out entire group of enemies.
** Getting a Street Rat companion, due to unique ability to steal things from various locations. While the outcome is randomised, even if you won't get anything useful, you can then barter it away for what you need or want. And since that ability has a special, all-sided green die, it makes various green challenges (like searching for extra treasure in a shrine or entering a cave without a torch) easier or even automatic pass, too.
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler: Pale Faces and by implication, their ruler]]. It is possible for one of your companions to get [[TheCorruption turned into one of them]], and reverting the process might be impossible if you are particularly unlucky.

* BFG: The Elephant Gun is an unlockable rifle that is the biggest firearm by a landslide. It is so hard hitting the wilder is stunned for a turn after using it.

* BottomlessMagazines: Gun wielding characters have an endless supply of ammunition, [[AntiFrusterationFeatures a major relief considering how the game treats inventory]].

** The Butterfly Swords from the Taishi Academy, which gives decent damage and stun abilities at the cost of replacing the equipped character's inate dice. Put them on someone like the Travelling Quack (which has dice that are situational at best or downright useless at worst) or Sikh Warrior (who gets bonus damage with melee weapons) and the majority of your combats will be ''much'' easier. Plus they're literally the first unlock you get at that club, meaning you can get them fairly early on.