Nowhere Prophet

Defeat in Nowhere Prophet can be creeping, as your resources drain away, or sudden, as you fall victim to an unexpected combination of cards. Either way, it feels like playing against an opponent who overturns the table when they win, leaving you to gather up the spilled cards. It'll be another couple of hours before you have a deck that feels unique, before you escape the mire of enemies and text events you've seen a dozen times. It's enough to make you a sore loser.

Nowhere Prophet combines two very different genres: TCG and roguelike, to create a hybrid experience that surprises in how organic it feels. The card-based combat has depth and weight, and adds to the game a sense or permanent loss that feels great.

I love the music, the electro-Indian soundtrack is so wonderfully unique and gives the journey such a magnificent texturing. The various factions with their distinctive styles, like the Blue Devils that voluntarily allow themselves to become infected and die young in order to become more powerful. Sharkbomb Studios have done fantastically to create a gameworld that feels unique to the point that I, even more than usual, want more games based on cultures outside the usual UK, US, Japan influence. And while I have harked on the gameplay, I actually really enjoy it up until the inevitable unfair fight that brings me to my old friend, the Game Over screen. It’s much like FTL. Yay, yay, yay, ooh close one, yay, no, what, stop it, bugger off, f*** this game, repeat.