Signs of The Sojourner

Signs of the Sojourner was reviewed on a PS4

Packing your bags and moving away from the town you’ve lived in your whole life is a scary thing to do. We’ve all been there, stuck between two choices; Leaving and moving on, accepting the hardships it brings with it, or staying safe in our little comfort zone and never taking any risks whatsoever. Signs of the Sojourner is a game that explores these two options, and the repercussions of each of them.

Unraveling the connections you build in Signs of The Sojourner is an addictive experience. Most of your time in this shattered world is spent talking to the other characters by playing the wonderfully simple yet masterfully designed card game.

You hold all the cards

Signs of The Sojourner is a deck-building card game that focuses on relationships and human emotions. Every card that you collect in the game has two signs, one on the left and one on the right. With each of the signs representing a certain emotional state. Panic, distress and grief are a pink spiral while diplomacy, logic and cooperation are represented by a green triangle, and so forth.

Your goal is to match your card’s signs with that of your opponent’s. I use the word opponents loosely here since the gameplay revolves around keeping the conversation going and actually reaching concordance with the other speaker.

Each time you succeed at matching the signs, you’ll be “winning” the conversation. Mismatching the cards will result in failure and the person you’re talking to will get frustrated with you and they’ll end the conversation.

By reaching an agreement, you’ll be able to influence the other person’s decisions, their thoughts and eventually, your own life path. The game contains multiple endings — Making any subsequent playthroughs as fun as your first one.

There’s no voice acting though, and you’ll have to spend your time reading the dialogue texts. The playable character doesn’t have any lines of dialogue neither, so most conversations feel a bit one-sided.

Following the sudden death of your mother, you’ll step in her shoes and travel as part of her caravan. The caravan’s leader, Nadine, is a character that you’ll grow to admire and loathe at the same time. She’s considering dropping your hometown off the caravan’s route, and you can’t help but feel a certain disdain towards her because of that.

However, upon multiple encounters with her, you’ll understand her position and you’ll begin to warm up to her. That’s the beauty of the characters in the game. There’s always a hidden layer of complexity to them, but it’s only revealed when you succeed in talking to them.

You’ll come across a variety of peculiar characters during your travels, all with their own dreams and ambitions. By talking to them, you’ll get to learn more about their ambitions, their feelings, their hopes and their dreams.

Most of them are traders and shop owners, and they’ll give you some of their produce if they warm up to you. These items can be used to stock up your shop back home. However, this mechanic felt more like an afterthought rather than a meaningful addition to the game.

Lost in the shuffle

Finishing the game requires you to spend five trips with the caravan, trying to scrounge up as many items for your shop as possible. When you spend more days on the road though, you’ll get fatigue cards. These cards are aptly named, since they’ll frustrate both you and the nameless-silent protagonist.

Fatigue cards are cards that don’t match with any sign. Using them will result in an immediate discordance. Other characters will sometimes let you know about shortcuts that you can use during your traveling. Learning these new routes and strategically traveling across the map will allow you to limit the number of fatigue cards that pop up.

You can collect cards with several active powers. Each of them serves a different purpose in your encounters, from switching all of the cards on hand, drawing a card from your deck and even replicating the signs of the previous cards. Knowing when to use these cards is the best tactic to matching the signs.

Matching two cards with the same signs will grant you an accord, which lets you mismatch once without losing the round. Knowing when to lose a round will also factor in your strategy, as the next round picks up where the previous one ended. Another layer of strategy of the game is that you have to take into consideration your opponent’s deck of cards as well as yours.

Managing your deck and having the appropriate signs will allow you to complete as much conversations as possible. There’s no pleasing everyone though, and you’ll disappoint many people in your playthroughs.

You’d barely scratch the surface even after reaching the credits three or four times. There’s always so much more to learn about the world and its inhabitants. Strategically changing up your decks in each playthrough will be the key to visiting new locations and talking to characters that you previously failed to get through.

The Soft ambient music, the wonderful riffs of reverbed guitar and the percussive drums made the game a very soothing experience. The ambient track coupled with the simplistic art direction, with its use of bright colors and the delightfully drawn character designs, left the game oozing with charm.

Overall,

Signs of The Sojourner is a pleasant experience that’s filled to the brim with charm. The gameplay is more than challenging and offers plenty of opportunities to strategize your next move. The characters you meet are all realistic and relatable, and you can’t help but feel a certain familiarity towards them.

It all ties up wonderfully well in its limitless replayability and its various endings, and the fact that the Signs of The Sojourner is polished and well-designed made it an enjoyable experience. It’s hard not to recommend this game if you’re a fan of card games, deck building or even personal experiences that tell a touching story.

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Special thanks go to Digerati Games for providing us with a review code.

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You should play Signs of The Sojourner if you

• Enjoy an emotionally touching experience
• Enjoy card and deck building games
• Would love the charming art direction
• Would love replaying the game multiple times
• Don’t mind failing A LOT

Sign of The Sojourner’s Score

8.5/10