How to Play

Before you set out

Expedition is a treasure hunt played on foot in the real world. The game only does anything when you are somewhere, so the first requirement is a pair of shoes. The rest of the kit:

• An iPhone or iPad running iOS 18 or later.
• A connection. The expedition office keeps the ledger; without a signal the app shows a calm little Off the grid notice and waits with you.
• Your location, while the app is open. Expedition needs to know where you are before it can tell you what is buried there. It never reads your location in the background; there is no reason to.

There is no account to create. No email, no password, no sign-in with anything. Your expedition lives under a key the app makes for itself on first launch. More on that at the end.

Your first find

The game opens by asking one question: What shall we call you? Every expedition keeps a record of who found what, so pick a name for yourself; something silly is entirely in keeping. It appears on your plaques in The Museum, and you can change it later in Settings.

The ground makes sure a new explorer's very first search turns up an artifact. When it does, the game explains how the rest works. Nobody knows what it is yet, including you. When you are ready, you send The Professor your photographs and notes, and he works out what it is. If it is worth keeping, you send it in to The Museum, and your name is credited as its finder forever. Abandon it before The Professor can positively identify it, and someone else might get all the glory.

Exploring

The home screen is a map of where you are standing, drawn like an old chart under glass. Under it sits one leather button: Explore. Tap it and the ground answers.

The movement rule

You get a few looks around any one spot, and then the game asks you to walk on. Civilian GPS cannot reliably tell ten feet from standing still, so Expedition does not pretend otherwise. The game simply prevents you from picking over the same patch of ground forever. Walking a proper distance lets you search again, and traveling farther improves your odds.

Good hunting grounds

The map marks real points of interest near you, such as parks, gardens, monuments, museums, fountains, viewpoints, and markets. The Professor's maps have a mark by places like these, and hunting improves within sight of one.

What you can find

Four things come out of the dirt, in roughly this order of likelihood:

• Gold. Most searches turn up a handful of coins. Gold is the working currency you can use to get gear at The Outfitter's Shop.
• Artifacts. Now and then you find a real piece, which remains unnamed and undescribed (except for what your own eyes can tell you). Artifacts are the heart of the game; you send them to The Professor.
• Crystals. Once in a long while a crystal turns up loose in the dirt. It goes straight in your pocket. Spend it hurrying The Professor along, sponsoring a wing of The Museum, or on a handful of other favors.
• Precious gems. These are the rarest things in the game, by a wide margin. A gem goes off to The Gemologist and comes back with a name and a color all its own. See Gems and crystals.

The Explore button rests for a moment after every search, and after a find it recharges before your eyes, so you always know when it is ready.

The Professor

A new artifact has no name, only a description, until The Professor has studied it. Sending him your photographs and notes is up to you; the postage is a few coins, and the post takes a few days to reach him. How long his review takes depends on the piece.

While he works, the artifact's page follows the review stage by stage, with the time left, a leather bar creeping along, and a note on how the work is going. Partway through: “The Professor has delivered your documentation to Robertson, who is searching the archives for details.”

When the review is done, The Registrar writes to say so, and the piece takes its true name. If The Museum wants it, send it in; The Museum pays the freight, and the crossing takes a few days. When the crate lands, The Curator hangs the piece in its wing, on a marble plaque that reads Discovered by and your name.

If you cannot stand the wait, one crystal buys you some time. It works as often as you like, on as many pieces as you like. The Professor pockets the crystal and picks up the pace.

Gems and crystals are not the same thing

Precious gems are treasure. A gem arrives under a lot number and goes to The Gemologist, who works at his own pace; there is no paying to speed this up, not for any price. It comes back named and every stone's name is unique across the entire game, forever. Nobody will ever find another gemstone called that. A named stone takes no room in your pack and is not for sale at any price. It goes into The Vault of Exquisite Gems, the one room in The Museum every explorer can see.

Crystals are money. They hurry The Professor and the post, put your name on a plaque in The Museum, and buy a favor or two besides. They turn up loose in the dirt while exploring, and The Outfitter keeps a few in his back pocket.

The Museum

Every artifact you send to The Museum is cataloged for good, sorted into themed wings, and placed with your name on its plaque. The Museum remembers everything you have ever sent it.

The Museum keeps its rooms dark until you earn the light. A wing appears for you once The Professor has named one of its pieces for you. When the first crate from a new wing arrives, The Curator writes to say the room is in development. Now and then, for a crystal, The Curator will light a dark wing at random.

Each wing shows how many of its pieces are on display and the wing bonus its patrons will reward when you complete it, which grows with every piece the wing holds.

The Vault of Exquisite Gems

One room is open to every explorer at once: “Every stone The Gemologist has identified, under glass.” Your own stones sit on a shelf of their own, and every stone discovered anywhere else in the world is on display beside them, newest first, each in its own color and cut.

Setting things down

Almost anything you carry can be set down, and the game always asks before letting you. What happens next is the interesting part:

• Dropped things stay exactly where you set them down. Another explorer standing on that spot can find and take them.
• A find you leave where it lies waits for you for a few hours, and only for you. After that it belongs to whoever comes along.
• Every artifact carries its history. A piece's card draws its provenance as a red line on an old chart: where it first surfaced, every place it was set down and found again. If a previous holder has left the expedition entirely, the record notes their fate; the archive mentions at least one explorer swallowed by quicksand.
• A piece is safe once it is on its way to The Museum. Credit is written the day you send it in, and from then on it is out of your hands. Set it down before then, named or not, and it is gone.

The Professor's List

The Professor sends his list by air mail, addressed to you by name, and it waits for you in The Mailroom. Open it and a typed index card settles onto the home screen: a few light errands, such as Travel one kilometre between searches or Visit The Museum. A list lasts a day from the moment you open it, and a fresh one follows a couple of hours after you finish.

The list is observed, not performed. You never have to do anything special; just play, and The Professor notices, ticking items off with a quiet note under your search results. Each errand pays a little gold. Finish the whole list and the day counts toward a streak, and every seventh day in a row brings a crystal by letter.

My Travels

Your searching is kept in expeditions, one at a time, and every expedition keeps a map of its own. Open your office from the home screen, choose the Current Expedition or one from the Expedition Log, and tap how far you traveled. Every place you searched on that expedition is drawn as a red route across an aged chart, animated with a camera that dives to your first dig and pulls back at the end to show the entire journey. The pacing follows real geography; short hops stay visible, and long hauls glide.

The map takes its title from the expedition's name, and it is yours to keep:

• Share. A trading card of the journey, ready to send.
• Video. The same show rendered as a short film, saved to the Files app under On My iPhone, ready for wherever short films go.

The stats capsule keeps honest count, 39 searches · 26.3 miles, in miles or kilometers, whichever you prefer.

The Outfitter's Shop

Nobody knows his name. He was here before The Museum was, and he will be here after, and every expedition that has ever set out has done so carrying something he sold them.

He deals mostly in room. Rucksacks, trunks, and a great deal of rope all add spots to your pack instead of filling them. A few pieces of kit behind the counter work on your luck instead. Whatever you buy aids you in your adventures, which is the only reason anyone ever comes back a second time. Prices are in gold; the coins come out of the ground, the gear goes on your back, and the game's whole economy walks on its own two feet.

He also keeps a few crystals in his back pocket, if you are willing to pay his price. There are no subscriptions, no ads, and nothing on sale that plays the game for you. Crystals buy patience, a little vanity, and the occasional favor, and The Outfitter would be the first to tell you that none of it is required.

Your expedition and your key

There is no account. Your device holds a key, and that key is your expedition's log: every artifact, gem, crystal, and coin, your place in The Museum, and your history.

The key travels on your iCloud Keychain, so any device signed into your Apple Account shares one expedition: play on the iPhone at lunch and the iPad at night, and The Museum looks the same on both. With iCloud Keychain switched off, the key stays on one device only; playing on a new device would start you over, and there is no way for anyone to give the old expedition back. If that worries you, check Settings → your name → iCloud → Passwords on your device.

The pleasant side of this arrangement: there is nothing personal to lose, leak, or be asked to delete. No email, no password, no profile. See the privacy page for the whole story; it is short, because there is not much to tell.

Field manners & tips from the trail

• Play where you already walk. The dog's route, the walk to work, the lunch loop.
• Head for the marks on the chart. Parks, monuments, and places with a past genuinely pay better, and a find near one names the place, so you know when you are standing in the good stuff.
• Buy the rucksack. Early gold goes furthest at The Outfitter's. A bigger pack means never leaving a find behind while The Professor is mid-thought.
• Finish what you carry. A piece set down before it is sent in is gone for good. If the wait chafes, that is what crystals are for.
• Check the mail. The Professor's List pays for things you were probably going to do anyway, and the streak crystal is the steadiest one in the game.
• Watch other museums and famous landmarks. Other explorers drop things where people actually walk, so a busy plaza is worth a look on principle.
• Do not worry about your battery. Expedition reads your location only while it is open on screen. There is no background tracking, and no reason for it.

That is everything in the manual. The rest is in the ground.