Soma was jagged and dangerous world, even before The Crash. Many years after it, this wasteland is ruled by petty warlords and berserk machines. Your convoy believes that you can take them to the safety of the mysterious Crypt. Their hope rests in your leadership. This is Nowhere Prophet.
You might have heard this one before, but video games are a highly iterative medium. That means that many of today’s video games stand with clear influence from games in the past. It’s clear by some big Nowhere Prophet design choices that folks at developer Sharkbomb Games have played some very good games these past couple of years.
Your pilgrimage to the Crypt is heavily narrated with rich writing that adds flavor to your quest and deeps the setting your in dramatically. It’s hard not to draw parallels to The Banner Saga when reading some of it. Great moments of triumph and failure are spelled out in sometimes brutal detail. Seemingly ancillary NPCs get little story moments to shine (or die) pretty often. It really the story being told fell that much more dynamic.
Of course, the actual playing of the pilgrimage is its own tense struggle. You’ll travel an overworld map with nodes representing places of interest. Each path requires resources – food and hope – to reach. Some paths are more treacherous than others, and will require more than the normal amount to get there. It’s possible to encounter dangerous threats, friendly merchant caravans, and everything in between on these roads. The nodes themselves are often more elaborate versions of these road encounters. They are usually settlements for trade, or fortified bases for raiders.
There can be many ways to navigate and resolve these encounters, but maybe the most common way will be fighting. When a battle goes down, Nowhere Prophet starts to look a little like Slay the Spire or Magic the Gathering. Each of your convoy members is also a creature in your Convoy deck. They have stats, an energy cost to play, and often a special ability of some sort. You play them on a 3 x 4 grid, where position matters and can determine whether a unit is target-able by certain foes, or if they can swing at the opponents leader. You win when said leader is destroyed. A secondary Leader deck is also drawn from, and can help modify your individual heroes, or have game changing effects directly.
See more pilgrimage plundering here:
Nowhere Prophet launches today on Steam. If you need assistance getting the most out of the wastes, come to our Nowhere Prophet Wiki!