Ranking of Roguelikes #6: Nowhere Prophet

Today's installment is one I've heard almost no one else talk about. It's a shame, because it does some extremely cool things with multiple genres. It deserves a lot more attention than it got, because it's something special. It is:

Nowhere Prophet

Time Spent: about 15 hours

Completed a run? No

Played on: Switch, Switch 2

Chintya was one of the first followers of the prophet Cook. He was there when the falling star gave her its holy message and devoted himself to following her to the promised land. He was a Devoted Guard, and a good one. Time and again he was the difference between victory and defeat against the myriad dangers of the wasteland. He would occasionally be wounded and ordered to rest by Cook, but he was always eager to get back into battle.

Every land they passed through took its toll. Cook did her best to keep her followers alive, but the wasteland is a harsh and unforgiving place. After several brutal encounters in the desert, the wounded outnumbered the healthy. Chintya could not stay in camp while others were risking everything. Cook knew it was risky but let him do what he had always done: protect the rest of her followers.

Chintya died doing just that. The rest of the followers mourned him and buried him, taking some small hope with them from his selfless example.

Nowhere Prophet does something remarkable: it makes me care about the cards I’m playing. I desperately want to keep them all alive even as I know it’s impossible. The journey is dangerous. Some won’t make it. They’ll make the way safe for those who can.

You play as the titular Prophet, chosen by a crashed satellite of some sort to lead your people through an apocalyptic landscape to a fabled promised land. You choose a prophet and your followers before you begin. Each Prophet has unique strengths and leader cards. Each group of followers represents some faction in the world. Every follower is a card you can play. You’ll need to use all of them cleverly to make your way to the place shown to you in your vision.

Battles play out similarly to Magic: The Gathering, but on a grid: one for your units, and one for the enemies. The grids come in a variety of sizes and usually have obstacles placed randomly. Placement is key to your tactics: normally, only the frontmost unit in any row can attack or be attacked. Obstacles are cover, protecting your followers until they're needed. You can attack with or move each follower to a different space on the grid every turn. You have to put careful thought into not only what you're going to do, but where you're going to do it.

The goal is to kill the enemy leader while keeping your own safe. Your convoy deck has all of your followers in it and play much like your standard Magic deck. Your Prophet deck has their special skills: direct damage and support abilities that can turn the tide when used properly. Both decks draw from the same energy pool to play, so you’re constantly having to make consequential decisions about what to play each turn.

Anyone who’s played a game like Magic knows that you’re going to lose cards in battle. They’re put in the graveyard and out for the rest of the game. Nowhere Prophet does something else: defeated cards aren’t gone forever, they’re just wounded. Wounded cards can’t be used again during the current battle. They cost 1 less energy to play in subsequent fights but if they’re defeated again they die.

I’m in genuine awe of how elegant it is at merging storytelling with mechanics. It’s what makes Chintya’s story, and so many more like it, possible.

You can heal your wounded followers at various points on the map, but some cards are much more useful when wounded. 1 less cost may not seem like a lot, but being able to play a follower one turn earlier can make all the difference.

There’s so much more here than just the battles. It’s almost too much. You need to manage food and hope. Get too low on either and your journey will come to an early end. Traveling to each node on the map takes a little bit of each. If you’re lucky you’ll be able to trade some batteries for food or gifts you can share with your followers. Gifts raise hope. You’ll also find them as spoils from the many battles you’ll fight in the wasteland.

There are dozens of random encounters you’ll find along the way, and you’ll often have multiple ways to resolve them without battle. You have stats in Altruism, Belief, and Scholarship. Certain actions you take will raise or lower them, and certain actions can only be taken with a high enough level. In addition, some actions are restricted to certain followers. There’s tremendous variety in how you tackle each problem. The rewards for each solution are fixed, so you have some control over what you’ll get once you’re familiar with the encounter.

The maps and routes are randomized but each one ends in a fixed node with set encounters. These include markets to buy and sell things, places to recruit new followers, and important side quests. Once you’re familiar with them and their rewards, you’re better able to plan for what you want to do. There are layers of strategy that I’m only just now uncovering after nearly a dozen hours in.

The writing in the encounters is superb. There’s not a great deal of text but what it does make each faction in the world seem fully realized. It shows you, in stark and spare prose, this broken world and the people just trying to survive in it however they can. I’m fascinated by the world they’ve created and the stories they left untold.

It’s gorgeous. I’m sure there’s a name for this particular art style but I don’t know it. It’s vibrant and painterly, a striking contrast to the bleak world it exists in.

I love Nowhere Prophets, but it’s not without its flaws. Like any card game, you’re at the mercy of the draw. A well-built deck with a solid strategy doesn’t matter if the cards don’t come out when you want them to. You can mitigate this somewhat by keeping the deck lean, but that’s not going to help you win the boss fights. Those are exercises in control and attrition that can rapidly fall out of your control if you don’t get the right cards.

There’s also SO MUCH to learn. It does a good job explaining the basics and the tooltips are great at the details. There’s just…a lot. The learning curve is steep and unforgiving, and that’s going to turn many people away from it before they have a chance to see what it is.

I also have mixed feelings about the fixed nature of the encounters and their resolutions. It’s great that your choices have consistent rewards and that you can plan for that. It’s great that some choices aren’t 100% certain to succeed. That makes for some tension and surprise in an otherwise rote encounter. However, once you’ve seen what can happen then then the mystery of that particular encounter is gone. You’re going to get the same choices, the same dialogue, the same rewards every time. I’m having a hard time articulating exactly why this bothers me. It’s good to have some predictability in what’s otherwise a deeply random genre.

The game is also fiendishly difficult even on the lowest difficulty. The computer will take full advantage of all of its tools. It plays ruthlessly and will capitalize on the smallest mistake you make. I'm sure it's easier for veteran CCG players but I'm mediocre at best. I've yet to finish a run but I'm going to keep trying.

Where does it rank?

It's very, very good. It's better than Has-Been Heroes but doesn't quite reach the sublime heights of Shiren the Wanderer: the Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate. It's our new #2!

The previous entry in the series can be found here

The current list is here