Nowhere Prophet

This game plays a bit like FTL, Hearthstone, but in much better-realised setting and with more advanced mechanics. There is no question that it is difficult and sometimes random events or particular enemy compositions will waylay your caravan's progress, but that's the beauty of having asymmetrical factions. And speaking of beauty, the art in the game is gorgeous, as is the soundtrack. Given that it was made by a single dev over the course of 5 years, it's clearly a labour of love and the dev continues to support it with updates and balance tweaks. In this game your cards are "followers" on their way to "nowhere" with you as their prophet. And they can die meaning the card is destroyed and is removed from your deck for the rest of the journey. Of course, there are ways to obtain new followers, but still, it's a neat way to make you care about your deck a bit more and maybe not rush your decisions as much. Personally, I love this feature and how it fits in with the rest of the game world - some followers are disposable drifters, others - the backbone of the caravan. It's great.

Game Play: This is a game about doing the best you can with what you have, and it is fun because of it. You will rarely have that perfect combination and when you get it you will lose it. You may well go into battles with a mediocre hand because you have to save your best cards for the harder battles. You will sacrifice good cards and lose them for the play through. Healing is rare and randomly applied. Flavor text: I don’t read flavor text in games, but I found my self enjoying the flavor text and looking forward to finding more of the story. Choices: The choices are real in the game and impact play through in real ways. You have three philosophies which you receive points for based on your actions. Each opens up new choices and bonus options that will benefit you within the game. RNG You will lose, you will be outmatched, and then you start over and try again and the next experience will be totally different.

So the visuals and the music are pretty cool in this game but the battles are not proper. You can't just put a follower down on the table (from a limited hand) and just be killed next round. There is no consistency in the battles - they are shallow and have a very weird flow. Perhaps its by design but as a turn based games addict.. i do not like them in this title. Also the price is pretty high. I got the game on a summer sale but would not pay 20 euros for this. Plenty of cheaper better alternatives.

The game tries to combine Slay the Spire and Trials of Fire, two of my favourite games, but sadly, does not succeed. I dont like the artwork and atmosphere, the AI is garbage, there is too much randomness, i dont like the hunger system, and i really, really dislike the "permanent death" feature, which basically means, that your creature cards can die (if they are beaten twice without being cured between), and be permanently removed from your deck. Which makes it unnecessary difficult and annoying, to try to build a decent deck with a theme, as your key cards will be disappearing all the time (speaking of "hard difficulty", the only difficulty i play these kinds of games on). The game does still show some quality, it just isnt nearly as good as the game it is built on, and therefore, i cannot recommend it...

I want to thank the developer for the experience of a leader in a post-apolyptic setting. Thank you for letting me manage the whole journey as a combination of Magic the Gathering and Slay the Spire. I loved it.