Nowhere Prophet

I initially rated this game a "no recommendation," but changed my mind after I played it some more. It is very difficult, and luck plays a tremendous role in whether you will win or lose (and that still leaves me a little lukewarm).....
.....but it is clear a lot of thought has gone into this game. Its challenges will keep you coming back. The art is fantastic and the background world is part of the charm of the game.
In short, I'd like to hate it, but I have to give it grudging respect. Just be prepared to invest a little effort before you begin to appreciate this game.

This tickles something in my brain and is the card game I return to most frequently. Reminds me of magic but with card position as an important factor. I also love the permadeath--I know some people don't think it works out but I think it's still possible to build the type of deck you want to play while accepting that some of your favorite cards are going to die. Also, just an incredible atmosphere. All of the pieces fit together really nicely.

Nowhere Prophet dared to ask the question that no one else would ask: What if we made Hearthstone fun?
The game is set on the post-apocalyptic world of Soma, a planet that was once home to a highly technological civilization but an event only called "the Crash" has rendered most technology unusable. This led to a collapse of society and now the different factions fight over what little resources and usable technology the planet has left.
You play as a technopath, someone who can communicate with machines. Your ability allows you to locate a fallen satellite which gives you the location of an old bunker that supposedly contains a vast amount of resources but more importantely, old technology that is still working fine.
Together with a convoy of followers you start the dangerous journey to that location as the new prophet.
The gameplay of Nowhere Prophet is a mix between survival management and a roguelike-deckbuilder. You lead your convoy through different regions, each having their own map with various paths, locations and dangers. On the map you have to decide which paths to navigate, selecting a node to move to. Moving on the map consumes food and hope, if you lack either of those you start to lose followers. Nodes can contain fights, resources or markets. Some nodes, especially markets, are revealed during the start of a region but others stay obscured so you don't know what you will find there. As long as you have rations you can move around the map as you like, there is no strict "only go up" like in other deckbuilders. This is useful if you see a node with important resources that you want go back to.
In markets you can buy new followers, equipment for your prophet or luxury items that can be shared with your convoy to increase hope and provide a temporary buff for your next battle.
The currency for buying things are batteries which are useful since they can power up old machines and gadgets. You get those from battles but also when you sell trade goods that you often find during your travels.
I mentioned followers and battles but haven't addressed the combat yet. Combat in Nowhere Prophet is a card game with positioning. Each leader has a field with multiple rows and columns and you can place followers on the field to fight for you. Followers have health and attack power and can attack either enemy followers or the enemy leader directly unless they have a follower with taunt which has to be attacked first. What is interesting here is that both leaders have actually two decks, the follower deck for your units and the leader deck for your spells. This is one of the best parts of the game. Because you have two seperate decks from which you draw cards each turn, you always have a unit and a spell on your hand. The hand limit is also seperate for the two decks, so being full on followers does not mean you cannot draw spells anymore.
Both of these decks can be managed individually between combat, the follower deck can be filled with any follower from your convoy and you can freely exchange cards between combat. The leader deck contains cards that your leader learns once he levels up, each level up allows you to put a new card in your deck but unlike your follower deck you cannot simply remove cards, instead you have to spend points that you get when you level up. This means you have to be more careful what you put in your leader deck because you might not be able to remove it later.
Followers that get destroyed during battle get something called " a wound". That follower now has permanently -1 health but also costs one energy less to play. Losing a wounded follower in battle will kill them which removes them permanently from your convoy. This is best avoided or you will eventually run out of followers for your deck. This means you will have a more fluid deck in which you move followers in and out of the deck depending on who is wounded and who is healthy. If a follower manages to finish off the enemy leader and win you the battle they gain a blessing instead. This increases their attack damage by 1 and will also remove the wound if they had one.
Wounded followers and any damage your prophet has sustained during basttles can be healed in camp sites, usually at markets but some camp sites can be found on the map. This costs food however and you onmly have a limited amount of usages for healing, so management is key again.
Some battles will drop equipment or alternatively you can buy it from markets. Your prophet can equip weapons and various other goods. Weapons unlock an attack action for your prophet that he can use once per battle while other goods provide passive bonuses like armor or special effects. Higher levels of your prophet allow you to equip more and the right equipment can turn a battle in your favour. Alternatively you can dismantle equipment which gives you a new leader card for your leader deck.
In some occassions you will have events, either on the map or inside markets. These events have random chances to have a positive outcome. In some events a follower can be used to increase the chances in your favour but you take the risk that you could wound or even lose the follower. In other cases you may instead use one of the different convoy stats to get a positive result. Your convoy can gain various stats depending on their actions. Altruism is rewarded if you help other people even in desperate times and high altruism will inspire others to help you. Scholar means your convoy seeks knowledge and helps you to discover secrets and other stuff. Believer signifies a more spiritual convoy that can be used to persuade other religious people.
There can be other traits and stats achieved for your convoy depending on various secret actions like the cannibal trait which gives you food when followers die. I won't spoil how you get this trait.
The game has a variety of different convoys and prophets to choose from. The Outcastes, your starting convoy, is a mix of different followers with allrounders that are useful through the entire game and very flexible to play. The Firebrand, one of the playable prophets, focuses on buffs and dealing damage. You can freely combine any convoy with any prophet. Unlocking new convoys and prophets takes however a lot of effort. Each convoy also has four passive powers that need to be unlocked first by grinding various tasks. These passive bonuses are meant to gfive you an easier time in various situations, for example the outcastes will start with 10 altruism which allows them to get more favourable outcomes in some events.
One thing I want to mention is how well designed the game world and lore is. The world of Soma houses various factions which you will meet during your travels. The Blue Devils for example are a group of infected people that work as mercenaries. They are more resilent thanks to their infection but will eventually die to it.
The aesthetic of the game world is inspired by indian culture, something that is very rare in the gaming world and a welcome change to the usual depiction of western culture.
That being said, while I love this game, I have to say that it's extremely hard. Because you can permanently lose cards from your deck by just doing battles, you can brick yourself and lose a run. A single battle could be devastating because you lost too many followers. The concept promotes a playstyle in which you would play carefully and save your followers but in reality the best strategy is to play aggressive and finish fights as fast as possible and just replace followers that died.
Because this isn't clear to the player, they will most likely try to keep their units allive and dance around the enemy but then lose more because they get overwhelmed.
That being said, give this game a try if you want to play a deckbuilder that forces you to take risks and does not hold your hand.

Game is tough as ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nails, but wow it never seizes to be fun. Every run feels different, the stakes are high, each choice counts. Unpredictable and unfair, but the better you get to know the game, the more resilient you become against the (potential) ♥♥♥♥ it throws at you.
For me personally this keeps the game very engaging, for you never know exactly what is going to be thrown your way and how you will use your limited resources to survive. And when you get yourself out of yet another seemingly impossible situation, you feel incredibly accomplished. Admittedly, I've never reached the end of the campaign on normal difficulty. But I keep getting very close, and I'll be damned if I won't keep trying. Thrilling experience for anyone who likes to wrestle themselves out of very deep waters.

Nowhere Prophet is one of my favorite games. It bothers me that it has so many lukewarm and frustrated reviews, many of which seem to have been written before the game was finished being balanced. I will agree that it takes a significant investment of time and practice to understand the game's complex, opaque, and unforgiving mechanics. It is worth it, though. This is a unique experience that is designed to challenge and thrill the player through intense combat where each choice has consequences.
There was a lot of thought and care that went into the world of the game, which is unlike anything else. The closest comparisons are maybe Caves of Qud or Road Warden. The latter game is actually a good comparison. They both have text-heavy event nodes where you have to decide how to navigate local politics, economies, and inter-faction warfare. Here you're also working on building your army and supplying your caravan so that you can survive the gauntlet of enemy encounters on the way to your destination.
The combat in the game is as good as it gets. You have to manage your army carefully because a unit that dies in combat will be wounded. If you choose to bring them into battle again and they die, they are gone forever*. This is going to be difficult for a lot of people. You will lose your favorite units, but you will get plenty of new ones. The wound system means that your army is in constant flux. You need to be using every unit you have, even if you don't love their powers, and figure out synergies on the fly to keep up with your enemy.
The variety of player units in the game is wide. The strategy is deep. There are some core themes but the dev had a lot of fun exploring different permutations and synergies of unit abilities. Units have more flair and personality than your average game, but not even individually you want to hold a funeral for them when they inevitably die. There are also buffs you get from resources, an equipment system that gives you special cards, and a second deck of leader cards (like spells) that you craft over the course of the game.
The systems overlap in complex and novel ways. The challenge is real, but it's not unfair. I never felt compelled to push myself super hard into the upper difficulty zones. I don't think it has the balance sensibility of a Slay the Spire. It's a bit more like Caves of Qud, a little swingy and spiky with often-insurmountable obstacles. There's so much going on that when things go sideways you can see the mistakes that led you to your death but there can be an element of unpredictable chaos that seems not unfair exactly, but unavoidable.
Even after beating the Nowhere Prophet many times, I still find the leader/faction choices overwhelming. There are multiple overlapping pressures placed on you from scarce resources starting immediately after you set out on your journey. I found it hard to parse visually when I first started. I'm used to the stylized graphics now but I wouldn't say they're beautiful. The longer I've played, the more everything makes sense and the more I love it.
Not to gatekeep, but this is an intermediate-to-expert-level deckbuilder. It's complicated, harsh, and punishing. The more experience you have with roguelite deckbuilders and strategy games, the more you will get out of this game. If you are willing to put in the time and get into the spirit of the game, it is deeply satisfying and fun. The dev's new game Crownbreakers just released a demo, which I'm enjoying while I also dip back into Nowhere Prophet for a taste of that sweet chaos

Probably the best game I suck at. If you like card games and roguelikes, this'll be right up your creek.

Great Game, awesome world building and game mechanic. Thanks for that.