Expedition

What it is

In every expedition the Consorcio del Despiste steals something different, such as the Great Atlas of the World or the Original Flags, and splits it into three pieces. You cross three regions, catch the agent who runs for the airport at the end of each one, and in the last leg you face their boss, Madame Smudge. You can set off from South America, North & Central America, Europe, Africa, Asia or Oceania, and each region starts you with more or fewer lives and money, plus a perk of its own.

How to play

You move across a map of stops. Each stop has a target, for example 2 right out of 3 questions; miss it and you lose a life, then retry or go back. Before every step a witness gives you a clue about the country the villain went to (its currency, its language, a neighbour), and only one route fits. Following the trail pays money and leaves the boss with fewer hearts.

Borders can be guarded: a yellow diamond is a light check with one question, a red octagon is strict customs with two. If you fail, you choose between a fine, a bribe, an inspection or turning back. Between regions you travel by plane, ship or train, each with its own cost.

Passports

With the Tourist passport there is no clock and nothing to type: every question has options and you go at your own pace. Then come Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond, each adding one more difficulty: the clock comes back, typed answers appear, bosses get extra hearts, you lose a life slot or get one more question per stop. Winning an expedition unlocks the next passport. A regular expedition has no score and no ranking; at the end you get a postcard with your route and a notebook with the countries that gave you trouble.

The weekly challenge

It opens from the Expedition screen. It is a short expedition, the same for everyone from Monday to Sunday (UTC): three legs on three fixed continents, stops of two or three questions, the Bronze passport for all, and a rule that changes every week, such as Flag week, Glass or Golden streak. You get one expedition per week. If you run out of lives you can replay the leg from its start up to three times, and each retry costs 1,000 points.

Each right answer is worth 100 points plus up to 50 for speed, with multipliers for streaks and for rivals and bosses. Medals pay XP once a week: bronze for beating the first boss (100), silver for the second (200), gold for finishing (500, a wildcard and the week's stamp) and Legend for finishing with no retries (300 and the golden stamp). It has its own ranking for this week, last week and your friends. You can play it offline; the result is uploaded later.

Tips

For a first expedition, Europe is the friendliest region: the Schengen area has almost no customs. Africa is the hardest, with strict borders and fewer resources at the start. Read the witness's clue carefully before choosing a route, because losing the trail costs more than a hard question.

What you learn

Currencies, languages, capitals and borders, because the clues along the way depend on them. After a couple of trips you know that Mongolia pays in tugriks and that Kenya and Tanzania share a land border.