Signs of the Sojourner is a narrative card game developed and published by Echodog Games. It showcases a unique way of building relationships and storytelling through the use of cards.
In Signs of the Sojourner, you play as yourself. You are tasked with taking over your mother’s shop after her death. You have 5 days to travel to many locations and connect with various people, learning their stories and their connection to your mother while also acquiring goods to sell at your shop.
I think the game is really interesting in that your cards are your only way of communication. You use your deck of cards to forge positive conversations with characters (by matching the symbols up like in the picture) or negative ones (mismatching symbols). As you interact more with the characters, you learn new card skills and gain new cards that can help you have more positive interactions. Positive exchanges may cause the characters to give you items but it’s up to you how you want to interact or really how your deck plays out. Towards the end, I kept getting negative exchanges because my cards never matched – I had too many fatigue cards.
I appreciate the freedom in Signs of the Sojourner. It’s up to you to decide who you want to connect with, where you want to go, and which events you want to attend. It really is your story.
Signs of the Sojourner lets you decide what you want to do and goes from there. You can choose to follow the caravan route or explore the different places on your own. Some of the characters will try to persuade you down one route but ultimately it is still up to you.
I like how realistic the game is. As you travel to different places, you may gain fatigue card(s) which will quickly cause a conversation to turn sour/negative if used. This reminded me of long road trips in real life. During long road trips, if I’m not well-rested, it is hard for me to engage in positive exchanges just because of how tired I am. It’s also realistic in the sense that Signs of the Sojourner shows that not all exchanges will be positive but having negative exchanges is not the end of the world. Throughout the game, I tried my best to hold positive conversations with each character but many times my deck of cards just didn’t work out. Yes, it was frustrating when that happened but it represents real-life conversations well. You can’t expect to hold good conversations every single time with every single person. There’s bound to be arguments and that’s OK (the characters haven’t gone hostile on me yet).
All the people that I’ve met so far are great. They each have their unique personality. Tomas is a gem. I’m sad that I keep having negative conversations with him because I keep getting cards that don’t match with his. Also, Thunder is such an adorable dog. I love how meeting with Thunder always gets rid of one of your fatigue cards. You can throw any card and you’ll still have a positive exchange with Thunder.
I like the fact that you learn about new places from your mother’s stories and new routes as you connect with more people because that’s exactly how it is in real life. The more you talk with various people, the more knowledge you obtain. For me, Signs of the Sojourner motivates my passion to explore and to connect.
For my rating, I would give Signs of the Sojourner a 9/10. I enjoyed playing the game. I’ve never played anything like it before. I’m not usually a fan of card games but this game has such a unique take that I found it pretty interesting. The game design and the music were all great as well. I wish there was a free exploration mode where you can visit all the available places or a gallery with the profiles of the people that you’ve met and places that you’ve visited (after you finish the story because all the profiles erase when you start a new story). I like how you gain new cards after each interaction with a character but I wish there was an option to forget to gain a new card because sometimes I like how my old deck is but I’m forced to replace a good card from the past.
Check Out the Signs of the Sojourner Launch Trailer:
Signs of the Sojourner launches for Windows PC and Mac via Steam tomorrow, May 14, 2020. You can wishlist the game right now.
For more information, please visit: https://www.echodoggames.com
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Steam Review
I'm a sophomore studying Computer Science at the University of Michigan. I'm really interested in how technology can impact lives through game development. One of the things that I really like about gaming is that, not only is it fun and relaxing, but there are so many ideas you can incorporate into games and their storylines such as meaningful lessons/messages.
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