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Website: https://www.noprophet.com/
Price: 24.99 USD on GOG and Steam
Blurb: “Prepare your decks and go on a pilgrimage through the wasteland! Nowhere Prophet is a unique single-player card game. Travel across randomly generated maps, and lead your followers in deep tactical combat. Discover new cards and build your deck as you explore this strange, broken world.“
“Survive the wastes and find a new home for your people. A roguelike with tactical, card-based combat.”
I am not big on card-based battle games, probably because I never invested any time in learning any of them. There is usually a complex set of rules you need to remember, and you need to find ways to stay within those rules and still win the game. One of the telegram groups I joined posted a tune, very haunting and trippy, and I had to know more. That led me to this game.
At first, the artwork put me off. It is the kind I don’t like. It is sort of similar to the Banner saga / Darkest Dungeon, but worse. Aesthetically, it may please someone, but I am not that person; if it appeals to you, great. So - I may have been a bit negative in the beginning, until I started playing…
Just so you know, this is not Pac-man, where you can just start playing. You need to read the rulebook (it is prominently in the menu), or be punished… Severely! Just like Darkest Dungeon, it is ugly, with tough gameplay, and, as Jaffar would say, “a diamond in the rough”. The game specs are pretty low, and it runs on my potato laptop at full graphics. There is a lot to like and a lot to dislike, let’s get started:
You need to navigate a map to reach your goal, to make it to the next section. There are, however, only a few branches and routes you can take. When I say this, I don’t mean that you cannot go to each point, but you should not – for the risk of running out of food and hope. There are a lot of resources to keep track of and currently I am not 100% sure if the risk / reward thing butters my buns.
Each of the points on the board leads you to an encounter – that could be positive or negative, depending on how you handle it. The game gives you multiple options here, and the choice is yours, as they say on TV. Though I understand that this is a card game first and story second, forging relationships with the characters you meet does not benefit you. This was something I did not like, as I like to be engaged in my games.
Also, how cool would it not be for the Fremen to come dashing down a dune? I also have to mention that there needs to be more cards, the graphic for the gang leader with the cigarette in the mouth, that you just killed, will be the same portrait for the beggar you just fed. The conversations seem to have a basic pattern that you can learn. Your cards are your followers, so you need to collect them from towns and encounters, but you need to tread a thin line here, as food is not in abundance. The same can be said for ability cards. You need to acquire as many as you can, but you will find that some cards just don’t do anything. That is because the buff or debuff does not work with the target, but you don’t know that until you play it. A little circle with a line through it would have sufficed. Wasting cards like this grates my gherkin (any waste actually), and is one of the reasons the game is interesting, but not fun to play. The hard-as-nails part is great, for a change, but it is a bit of a party-pooper in the end. The card combat is intricate and brutal. The downers you get from dying all the time makes you not want to have another go at it, I’d rather do something happy. So there is re-playability, but not that you would want to immediately. This is where the game resembles Darkest Dungeon even more than just the artwork. I don’t want to play that any more either.
With that, back to the music. I think this is the main attraction for me, as the graphics just feel iffy. Do yourself a favor and grab the OST with the game. The wallpapers are nothing to write home about, and the art book actually will give you some insights into the game, but also nothing to write home about. The sitar features heavily in the music and notes are drawn out creating a feeling of space and adventure, suiting this game perfectly, very much like the music in Fallout did for that game. (minus the Inkspots). Have a listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yuh4ozopEu8
I am seriously in limbo here: 50 / 50 – 50% I like and 50% I don’t. A game needs to be fun, and, at the end of the day, this is not, for multiple reasons. Challenging, yes, interesting, yes, emotional, yes, even the graphics can grow on you, but the element of fun is missing.