Expedition

Frame · Adventure and travel thematic

Setting out into the unknown, systematic exploration – a team with a goal but no guarantee of return.

Design question – Imagine your game is about an expedition. What is the goal, how far is the way – and what happens when supplies run out?

Associations

• Typical Activities – Exploring, Planning, Navigating, Surviving
• Typical roles – expedition team (roles), dependence, trust under pressure
• Typical spaces – undeveloped terrain, base camp, route
• Typical conflicts – planning, decision under uncertainty, discovery, crisis

Atmosphere

excitement, tension, curiosity, exhaustion

Coherence

Implied Activities: Exploring, Planning, Navigating, Surviving. Mechanisms: Exploration (revealing the map), Resource Management (supplies), Push Your Luck (press on or turn back?), Legacy (irreversible consequences). Ludic Organisational Structures: spatial order (route), developmental order (progress).

Compatible with

• Uncanny (AT-14)
• Awe (AT-21)
• Pursuit (SI-03)
• Uprising (SI-05)
• Epidemic (SI-09)
• Alliance (SO-01)
• Neutrality (SO-04)
• Desert (SP-04)
• Workshop (SP-19)
• Outer Space (SP-20)
• After the Catastrophe (TM-10)

Tension with

• Bazaar (TH-06) – The expedition leads not through the wilderness but through an endless bazaar. Instead of terrain, a labyrinth of stalls, alleys and back rooms is explored. Every trader holds a puzzle piece.