Nowhere Prophet News

I've finally had time to step back and take a look at Steam Cloud Saves and I managed to get it to work. That's the good news.

The bad news is that it requires some changes to the save game system.

But any tweaks to the save system are dangerous business. Your progress is important and should never be lost or deleted by the game. This is - in my opinion - one of the biggest sins a game can make. That's why I tested these changes on Windows, OS X and Linux and found them to work.



However this is something I want to handle with care so I will first roll out these changes in PREVIEW. If you are playing in PREVIEW and want to be extra careful, do make a backup of your save game files before you launch the updated game.



You can find your save files here:

• Windows: %USERPROFILE%/AppData/LocalLow/Sharkbomb Studios/Nowhere Prophet/
  
• OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/Sharkbomb Studios/Nowhere Prophet/
  
• Linux: ~/.config/unity3d/Sharkbomb Studios/Nowhere Prophet/
  

Also note that this does NOT enable cloud save. It is simply the changes made in preparation for steam remote storage.

Also, if you've played in the PREVIEW branch without any strange or unusual behavior, then please do let me know, preferably via Discord! The more people tell me it works the sooner I can roll it out to everyone and enable cloud syncing!




If you're interested in the behind the scenes code stuff, here's what I had to change and why:

There's two types of Steam Cloud: Automatic and Manual. Manual cloud gives me more control but also needs to put the save files in a folder relative to Steam. That's a problem because we already have a save file elsewhere. So either we convert all files with a lot of work or we keep two sets of save games at all times which is unreasonably finicky.

Automatic cloud on the other hand works great, but it has the issue that it only downloads files to your local drive, it never deletes them, even if the game did so. So if you play, some files got deleted. It syncs to the cloud. You play on your other system, it syncs but the last version of those deleted files still exists on this machine. That causes trouble.

As it stands the game deletes the save for your current run when it's over and it checks for deleted files to see if you have an active run. That's obviously not playing well with Steam Auto Cloud.

So the change I made is that on Steam it doesn't delete the files but instead overwrites them with very simple files that only contain one letter ("X") and then not only checks for missing files but, even if there is a file it makes sure that if it contains only "X" that it's considered to be nonexistent for the purposes of the Main Menu "continue" button and other things.

This change is to the game itself. However "enabling auto cloud" is a steam-wide feature that is either disabled, enabled for developers or enabled for everyone. But before I can enable it for everyone without causing deleted-file weirdness, everyone needs to have a build with the save game changes. And that needs to be tested first. It was tested internally and is now moved to Preview testing before it rolls out to everyone.

And then finally, can I enable cloud saves.

And that's the full story.

- Martin

Oh, and by the way: If you've read this far and haven't yet written a Steam Review, I'd really appreciate it if you'd take the time to do so now! Reviews are very important to Nowhere Prophet being visible on Steam and thus to the game's sales!

I've been busy working on this update for a while. Some of you might have played around with it in the PREVIEW branch but I finally have all the artwork here and in place so it's time to roll this out to everyone!

So, what's in it?


This is the big one! Over 40 new units have been added to the game. Four for each faction (1 common, 2 rares, 1 legendary) plus two unique spawnables....

And just in time for halloween, some of these boys, girls, beasts and drones are of the creepy and spooky variety! Check out the thornhide skulker, a massive spider-like creature sporting a carapace reinforced with razor sharp quills. Or the wretched sadhu, a cultist that prowls burial grounds and wears the ashes of the cremated as decoration. And then there's the pious feeder. The devoted caretaker of his horrific master, the accumulator drone! This tentacled monstrosity consumes biomass of the living and the dead to steadily grow in strength, size and ferocity.

The goal was to add a set of units that enable and improve a number of different deck builds and playstyles. Give them a whirl and see what you can come up with!





Brawl says: If this unit enters battle in a position from which it can attack, then it will fight the first target in the opposing row.

This is a pretty useful keyword, especially if you're behind in terms of board control. It's not quite as powerful as Charge, that lets you decide who to attack. And Brawl doesn't allow you to attack the leader, but it is very useful to set up some quick trades or get in that extra blow to break the enemies hold on the battlefield.

If you check out the new units you will see that it is very present with the Hilltribes, the Beasts and the Cultists.




Our second new keyword is Stoic. It reads: If a unit with stoic is destroyed it suffers no wound.

This is great to create some more resilient units, make more judicious use of Revenge effect and to mitigate some of that damage you take in slower strategies and builds.

Note that no unit has unconditional Stoic in all cases, but there are a few units that gain (or lose) Stoic under certain conditions. And there's a few ways to bestow Stoic upon units otherwise.

Stoic can be found primarily on Union soldiers, lepers, Shiram crusaders and drones.




Another big new feature is the ability to discover and salvage the remains of your previous run. If you played a campaign game and died, then some of your followers and items can be recovered on your next campaign run.

More will remain based on how far you made it and what you were using in your deck when you met you grisly end.

Can you make it to the quest node and recover some of what you lost?




A number of elements of the game were improved and rebalanced. Chiefly among them the enemy decks:

On lower levels enemy decks are less synergistic and they increase in strength more evenly as their level increases. Also some new cards have been added to the game and to the leaders to provide interesting threats that the player can play around. Watch out for traps, mines, automated weaponry and the occasional well-aimed boulder!



Besides enemies the cost of travel was also tweaked. General costs have been increased a tad across the board, while hope gain from luxury items has been reduced a tad. To make up for that reaching a milestone now grants a sizeable hope boost.

This makes for more focused and interesting decisions when it comes to travel without making travel to the next milestone harder. Together with that the chance for fights on the road has been dramatically reduced. Both these factors also help keep the length of sessions a bit more focused.

And lastly the chances for enemy surrenders were tweaked to make it a lot more manageable to force enemies into surrender if you can control the battlefield. This should make getting some of these unlocks a lot easier.


Of course there's also a lot of smaller changes to cards and effects. See the changelog for the full list but here's some of the more interesting tweaks:

The maximum size of the convoy deck was reduced to 24 cards (from 30). This change was made because 30 cards is usually an inefficient deck. Most fights can be won with a 10-15 card deck, only on long matches against bosses will you need more. To help players build a tad more effective and consistent decks the maximum was reduced. If you continue a game where you exceed this new maximum, then you will only be able to remove cards until you are below the new maximum.

The essential charge units (Cultist and Janwar Bear) were both tweaked down a tad by having their Strength reduced by 1 (to 2/2 and 4/2 respectively). This gets them a bit more in line with the other units while still keeping them strong and useful.


And that's it for this update! If you have any thoughts and feedback on the changes, please join the Nowhere Prophet Discord and let me know!

And now: Have fun!

- Martin

Hey everyone! It's been a quiet few weeks over here as I've been hard at work at the next big update for the game! This one coming with new cards, new features and lots of other tweaks.


It not only took some time to build but was then extensively tested and refined in beta. This was only possible thanks to the help, testing and feedback of the Nowhere Prophet Discord members.

If you are interested in contributing to the further development of the game (and in playing early beta versions of updates), do join the Discord!

Specifically I'll soon be asking around for cool "entry lines" for the new legendary followers in this update. If you want to contribute, the Discord is the way to go! And even beyond this update, I'm already thinking about and discussing the next things (new class!) in there, so do join in!


Before I get started, the usual preview disclaimer: This is a PREVIEW build and it is obviously not polished. There's bound to be temporary artwork, untranslated text and other rough edges. Do be aware of that.

That said, if you're interested you can simply go to your game's properties on Steam and select the PREVIEW from the betas dropdown. It has no password so you're free to give it a try!

Now, what's the update all about?

• Making more playstyles and strategies viable/possible
• Making the difficulty curve more smooth and fun

And how are we getting there? Here's the big changes:

Check out this glorious temporary artwork!

This is the heart of it all: 40 brand new followers, for for each of the ten faction for a total of 10 commons, 20 rares and 10 legendary dudes. Some of them doing brand new things like partially healing your leader or making use of the brand new keywords!

Stoic: If a unit with stoic is destroyed it suffers no wound
Brawl: If this unit enters battle in a position from which it can attack, then it will fight the first target in the opposing row

There's also a few new leader cards to discover!

The convoy recovery event on the map

A big new feature is the fact that if your run fails you can now find the remains of your convoy in the second run. It will be a quest visible on the first map. If you make it there you can try and win back some of your old followers and items!

There's much more to the update but since the list of changes has gotten so big I'll just leave it to you to read up on the details via the in game changelog!


So, what are you waiting for? Give it a try! And let me know what you think!

And while I have you here: It'd be great if you could leave a review for the game if you haven't already. Plus if you have some time on your hands: it would be very helpful for people to find the game if you could use the Steam Store tags feature to apply the tags you think appropriate! Thanks so much!

And in the meantime I'll be busy getting this thing rounded out and polished so it can go live for everyone soon!

- Martin

I've sneakily updated the PREVIEW branch last week with the first half of this change (convoy decks only) but now, with everything done, I wanted to let you all know and hear your feedback!

So, I've spent a few days tweaking the enemy decks (both leader and convoy). My goal was to make enemies a little easier on the lower levels, making them easier overall on Chosen but without taking too much bite away on Burdened and Doomed.



To that end I built some new tools to better visualize enemy decks, and I improved the control I have over their deveopment across difficulties and levels a bit.

I've also added 5 brand new leader cards to the enemies: 3 constructs and 2 other cards. And you may find some enemy decks now playing hazards and other obstacles!

In any case:

I've just updated the PREVIEW branch on Steam that allows you to test out some changes. If you want to give it a try, simply right click on the game in your steam library, go to beta and select PREVIEW.

Please note that on the new cards and effects, the texts are only available in english and some artwork may be temporary. Also be aware that the addition of new cards may make the savegame of a run in PREVIEW incompatible with non PREVIEW versions!

Basically: Work in progress, pardon the dust :)

Hey everyone!

Welcome back to Soma! I've been pretty busy and a few things have been changed, improved and added for Version 1.02! I'm excited to talk about the big changes:


This brand new game mode (and the six new modifiers) will allow you to play the game the way you want to. Want to start with more resources? Change the rules of attacking? Stop your followers from taking wounds? Or maybe you just want them to die instantly.

Simply select up to four modifiers to change your game! Note that some modifiers are mutually exclusive and can not be active at the same time.



And this game mode is available to all players for free. All you need to do is to unlock it. And how? Simply complete three games - you don't even need to win. If you've already completed that many games, just completing one more will trigger the unlock.

Modifiers
So, if you have the game mode unlocked, what are the new modifiers?

• Diamond
  Followers destroyed in combat do not take wounds. Followers are more expensive and less common to compensate.
  
• Chased
  You can not travel towards nodes that lay behind you.
  
• Affluent
  Your journey starts with +200 batteries.
  
• Cornucopia
  Your journey starts with +200 food.
  
• Unwavering
  Your journey starts with +200 hope.
  
• Cramped
  You always bring all followers in your convoy into combat. (You can still put some in your deck for priority healing and protection from the wilderness)
  
• Sloth
  In combat your prophet acts second by default.
  

They follow the ideals of the Union, no longer its leaders. Solidarity, equality and liberty lead them on their search for a new home.



They have three unlockable perks, which you can see above, and one unique always-on fourth perk (similar to the Hermit):

Battlefield Engineering
Each side of the battlefield has at least one row filled with obstacles.

These obstacles are appropriate to the environment and make the battlefield tighter for both parties. This means that decks that work with a lot of cheap cards to try and flood the board have a bit of a problem. This also ensures that there's always obstacles to destroy if you have any synergistic effects...

So how can you get the Pioneers? When you're in Pit Nine, don't simply follow the instructions of the Agents mindlessly, maybe try to listen to the rebel cell and support their cause...


And lastly the new leader cards. These have been added to help round out some items and as a start to strengthen comeback mechanics and slower tactics, something I'm thinking about a lot.

Anyway, without further ado, here are the cards:

• Decoy Phalanx
  Fill a row on your side with Decoy constructs (0/2) with Taunt.
  
• Blistering Blow
  Push target unit. It suffers -3/-0.
  
• Blinding Beam
  Stun all followers
  
• Surprise Attack
  Each friendly unit with Stealth deals its attack damage to the first target in the opposing row and loses Stealth.
  
• Black Hole Trap
  When an enemy follower with active card text enters battle: That unit suffers blackout. (Construct)
  
• Gear Up
  Increase the cost of target friendly convoy card by 1. It gains +2/+2.
  

And that's the big stuff. There's still a bunch of smaller changes. Check out the changelog below for more details.

Originally posted by changelog

Custom Game mode added

• Finish three games to unlock the game mode
  
• Select up to four game modifiers before you start your game
  
• Six new modifiers added: Diamond, Chased, Affluent, Cornucopia, Unwavering, Cramped and Sloth!
  

Six new leader cards

• Added Decoy Phalanx, Blistering Blow, Blinding Beam, Surprise Attack, Black Hole Trap and Gear Up
  
• Added Blinding Beam and Decoy Phalanx to Banshee (replacing Crippling Mudra and Sabotage)
  
• Leader cards added to items
  

New pioneers convoy

• Added a new convoy focused on Obstacles and Armor
  
• To unlock them you need to assist the rebel cell in Pit Nine
  

Balancing

• Warden changed to 3-cost 3/6 (was 2-cost 3/4)
  
• Added Warden to Traders convoy
  
• Bandit Executioner buff change: Now only triggers if you have no Energy left
  
• Signalbearer is now Rare and triggers for +1/+1 at the end of each turn
  
• Ordnance Runner is now Common and 2-cost 1/1 with Stealth, Blast (instead of 3/4)
  
• Union Sapper is now 3-cost 2/4 (was 2-cost 2/2)
  
• Expert Slinger is now 4/4 Sniper, Blast (was 4/2 First Strike, Blast)
  
• Zealot changed to 5/2 that destroys a random follower on Fury
  
• Demolitions expert changed to 1/4 that sets the health of all other followers to 1
  
• Deplete cost is now 2 (was 3)
  
• Janwar Bear changed to 4/2 (was 5/2)
  
• Cultist changed to 2/2 (was 3/2)
  
• Reduced cost of Arc Overload power to 1
  

Interface

• Fixed text on Scratch cards to refer to enemy "targets" in the frontline (not "units")
  
• Added new "thrown Bomb" visual effect
  
• Added new logo intro animation
  

Bugfixes

• Hand card sorting issue fixed
  
• Strain Chain & Buried Knowledge no longer waste triggers
  
• Strain Chain only triggers once each turn
  
• Fixed some faction-based fights using the right faction
  
• Rage no longer triggers on non-killing Robust units
  
• Disabled all hotkeys while using convoy cards text filter
  
• Coordinated Swarm status effect can properly target enemy leader again
  

And that's it!

Thank you for reading and thank you for playing. Do join me in the Nowhere Prophet discord and please leave a Steam review if you enjoy the game!

And as always: Stay hydrated!

- Martin