Charming narrative card game Signs of the Sojourner on Nintendo Switch is about connecting with people. Check our Signs of the Sojourner review!
Signs of the Sojourner from Digerati and Echodog Games is a narrative card game on Nintendo Switch that is all about connecting with people by using the cards on your deck to communicate. You’ll have a solid back and forth with the characters you meet since you won’t be competing to “win” a card match. Instead, you’ll be collaborating as you have a back and forth, cooperating to find a good flow for the overall conversation in its different phases.
You will get to learn all of the basics for Signs of the Sojourner so that you get how the game works when playing through the first story segment. For this, you will be having a conversation with Elias when you were both young. You’ll move around your deck with the left analog stick or the D-Pad, selecting the next card to play by pressing the A button. Each card will have a set of symbols, and the way they’re set on the playing area will dictate what type of message you are sending.
When you link a sequence, you will get a white mark. If you don’t match cards properly, you will get a black mark. When all white or black marks for a conversation have been earned, then the conversation will be over. You can review previous dialogue by selecting the speech bubbles. An accord can be reached when you and the other person in the conversation each play one card, and when both cards are connected, four of the same symbols are presented in a row. Reaching an accord will protect your progress in case a mismatch is made.
After the initial story segment that serves as the game’s tutorial, time jumps by 15 years… and tragedy has struck. Your mom has, unfortunately, passed away, and you find yourself back at her old store for the first time after the funeral. She used to travel a lot, always on the road, always finding new stuff to bring back home. While Elias will stay and take care of the shop, you will go out on the road in the caravan, just like your mom used to do for so many years, bringing joy to Bartow.
But before you go, you will get a chance to pick a card from your experience to add to your deck… while forgetting a card from your past. Just like your character, your deck will evolve as you progress through the game’s story, setting up the potential conversations you can have in the future. You’ll put this to good use right away when you meet Nadine, who leads the caravan. While she’s sorry for your loss, she makes something very clear: unless you can keep the store properly stocked and in business, she will have to drop your store – and Bartow – from the caravan’s route.
Your first objective after interacting with Nadine will be to find three items to make the store’s reopening a success. As you do this, you will get to meet some new people – who will be added to the Profiles tab with some information on the type of cards they play and, therefore, their personality. You will also get a chance to look at the cards you have on your deck, the abilities you’ve discovered – which you can click on to get a tutorial refresher video -, as well as the objects you have found, which will be added to the Items tab. You can also check the Calendar to see how many trips remain and what can be done for each day of your journey.
You can start to gather new items by visiting Pachenco, the first stop in the caravan’s route. Pachenco is a thriving arts community on the high plateau, and it’s where Isabella, your mom’s oldest friend, currently lives. She’s a very talented confectioner, so there’s definitely the opportunity of adding some sweets to your bag if you play things right. The smell from Isabella’s sweets can be experienced from a distance since she keeps the door to her shop propped open… which, when you think about it, is a great way to advertise her products! Who knows, you might walk out of her store with some of your mom’s favorite candy!
As you travel from location to location, you might find yourself with some fatigue cards. You will know these have been added to your deck because they have no symbols on either side, which means they can’t be matched with any other card. To get rid of fatigue, you must return home and unpack the items you’ve collected, which means you won’t be getting rid of them until your trip is over. Will you decide to cut your trip short so that you can go back home, unpack the items you’ve collected, and get some much-needed rest, or do you risk going onward to try and get one more item for your store?
Paying attention not only to the symbols on cards but also to the abilities that each one of them might have will be a must. Having a card with, say, the Chatter ability will allow you to immediately play another card right away, which might help you to better communicate with some people in case you don’t have cards with one of the new symbols they’re going to end up using during your exchange. There will be more abilities to unlock as you progress through your journey with Signs of the Sojourner, which will keep things interesting.
Signs of the Sojourner is a very interesting and charming narrative card game that certainly stands out on Nintendo Switch. As your deck of cards evolves and changes, so will your character and its relationships with those that surround it. You can’t communicate with everyone you meet right away since you won’t have cards with symbols that match the ones they use to talk, so you’ll need to switch around your cards as you add new abilities and cards with new symbols, which could mean you will no longer be able to properly convey your feelings to some characters as you favor others based on the routes you’ll take. Signs of the Sojourner is out on Nintendo Switch with a $19.99 price.
Disclaimer
This Signs of the Sojourner review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Digerati.
