A big-game hunter's final adventure.
I've been "stuck" in two roguelikes for awhile—Slay the Spire and Curious Expedition. As I've said here, Spire's latest character is the hardest one to use so far.
But after 25 hours of trekking, fleeing, and battling insanities, I've at least beat CE on medium, which is the default difficulty.
Shoot Shoot, Bang Bang
Frederick Courtney Selous was my winning horse. A big-game hunter, his unique ability is to perform an extra reroll in combat. Selous grants a late-game advantage (and he's a great early-game character too) in terms of combat survival. No longer are those aggro-ing hordes terrifying; they're only pesky.
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| Honorary statue of Frederick Selous. You only beat the game by surviving six expeditions with more fame points than rival explorers. |
Thanks to my cook Isabelle surviving all the way from Day 1, my party turned enemies into a never-ending supply of BBQ and didn't have to rely heavily on the Tent for restoring sanity points.
Mid-game, I bought an extra rifle and wiped the screen with those zombie pygmies. I always aimed to roll a dice combo of Rifle + Eye + Mind, which dealt a powerful blow of 10 damage (or 8 damage without the Gun Expert ability). I didn't realize this until later but the game's most powerful attack can be executed with Rifle + Eye + Eye, which deals a base of 12 damage.
My success with this last playthrough was also thanks to Gerard Hugo, an artist I acquired early at the docks. His paintings can be stacked, which is more efficient in terms of inventory space than collecting golden treasures.
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| Poor Gerard. Survived extreme dangers abroad, only to meet his end at home. |
Not that I lacked space terribly, as I had a baggage chasmosaurus (acquired at a prehistoric village) who came with six inventory slots, which could be further expanded! Indeed, in this game, you can have a dinosaur as your porter.
Before sailing off on each expedition, I loaded up on med kits. I didn't need to buy bullets after gaining the Bullet Hoarder perk, which gives you free bullets every few days. I saved up animal teeth to trade for spears, which were incredibly helpful in combat. The dice combo of Sword + Spear does 4 damage, which is no small thing.
So there you have it—all my secrets to success with Selous. But I suspect you'll never win without a dose of good luck too.
Goodbye and Goodnight
On my sixth and final expedition, I actually had to backtrack to my ship instead of ending the expedition via Golden Pyramid. I could very well have lost the game, had my ship not been waiting at a manageable distance, only two regions away.
You see, I mistakenly thought I was looking for a buried pyramid, not a locked pyramid. (It's mistakes like these which can throw you off a winning horse.) Locked or unlocked, I was lucky enough to find a pyramid, given that I had triggered a curse earlier. The curse caused icy mountains to erupt from the ground, permanently blocking access to huge swaths of the map.
When I realized the pyramid required two Moon Stones to unlock—and remembered I had tossed all my Moon Stones away—it was a head-smacking moment.
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| I'm more famous than H.P. Lovecraft, Charles Darwin, Mary Kingsley, and Aleister Crowley. My life must count for something now. |
Back to the ship, then, with one horde of spiders ambushing me and another horde distracted by my horn. My party made it home with nobody expiring of infected wounds, though Gerard almost died.
Of course all my rival explorers had reached London already. But to my surprise, I was still 2nd place in the Fame game—and then 1st place after donating all artifacts to the British Museum, including stacks and stacks of hunting trophies.
So the hunter strategy worked for me. But
it was crucial to have won a good ranking in the pyramid races on the first few expeditions. Otherwise, I wouldn't have garnered enough fame points to one-up Aleister Crowley.
Now they've built my statue. I'm the best in the Explorers Club. Think I'll retire for good and sip tea while twirling my moustache.