Deck building and rogue likes have become a common combination in the gaming space over the last few years and we are far from being done with them. While there have been massive hits like Slay the Spire and Darkest Dungeon, there are also many that take similar mechanics and put new spins on them. Kaya’s Prophecy is another that looks to take some of the familiar mechanics and game play loop and add its own fresh new spin. The unfortunate aspect is that even with the tribal polish, there isn’t much that this game is adding to the deck building rogue like genre.
That’s not to say that every game needs to do something new. What you would hope however, is that a game would do something exceedingly well to leave a lasting impression. Kaya’s Prophecy doesn’t quite leave you wanting more. That isn’t to say Kaya’s Prophecy isn’t a good game, it just isn’t quite all that memorable.
In Kaya’s Prophecy you are building out your village after you also ruin the safety of the village by unleashing Kalades and upsetting all the surrounding villages. Everyone else around you is under the impression that Kalades must perish and honestly, they are right. Why did we open that glowing coconut anyway? You start out as Koa who will watch his village get demolished and then needs to work to appease this evil god while also trying to rebuild the village.
General Game play Loop
After unleashing this evil god and seeing your village be ruined, it’s time for you to repair everything and banish Kalades. This is done in two areas, your tableau which represents your village and the paths you’ll travel. Throughout the game you’ll rebuild the village and store your resources on the tableau. You’ll spend quite a bit of time on the tableau so expect to navigate this area and move your cards around quite a bit. This is where you’ll get slightly more freedom in how you play as opposed to traveling the paths along the way.
Village Game play
On your tableau, you’ll get a series of tasks to complete to move the game along. Learn plans that will allow you to build new constructions, food recipes, resources, equipment and materials to progress your character. To gain these plans you’ll need visions from Kalades that can be received from feeding him at the end of each evening. Plans can also be gathered by offering him a random item he requests at any random time of day.
Kaya’s Prophecy requires you to balance out the number of cards you have in your village with the amount of food you need to appease Kalades. The more cards you have on your tableau, the more food you’ll need to not suffer his wrath. The good news is you can recycle cards you aren’t currently using in order to gain evil blood. Exchange the evil blood to gain booster packs from different totems. These booster packs will have resources, foods, and a harvest point. For example, a booster pack may included a banana tree that will allow you to harvest bananas and other resources.
Work through the balancing act to complete the tasks to get you closer to end game. A construct you’ll use over and over again is the Prayer Statue. You’ll also use the blood points to shop at the Prayer Statue. Here you can buy rituals, plans, or a travel point. The travel points will allow you to explore outside of your tableau and gather additional resources, find relics, and continue fighting with nearby villages/clans. When you go to explore these locations, you’ll be taken to a new screen which shows your exploration options.
Exploration & Combat
Each location has three options which will have their own branching paths. Along these paths you’ll find encounters, fights, a scholar, a shop, and treasures. Overall, these paths are actually fairly streamlined unlike a game such as Slay the Spire which has paths that overlap and many directions and varying maps. This leads the game to feel a bit simplistic.
When you encounter a fight, the battles are your straightforward deck building type of game play. From the deck you have built up, you’ll draw five cards and play them in the order you prefer. You’ll be limited by your energy pool and their cost. Wipe out your enemies before they can wipe you out.
Within combat there are some aspects that I quite enjoyed. The combo system is simple but can be very effective depending on the cards you’ve chosen to use in your deck. For the review, I made sure to keep swapping out cards that did not count towards a combo for those that did. Once you hit the combo threshold, your attacks would do more damage. The deck building aspect is also somewhat different as you won’t always be adding to your deck. More often than not you’ll be swapping out cards. You only add cards to your deck based on what you equipped on your villager prior to your exploration phase. At most, I had sixteen cards in my deck. This feels like a much smaller number than other games where your deck could hit double this number easily.
During combat if you aren’t sure what each symbol does, you can simply hover over them to learn. The game doesn’t hold your hand in this way as it doesn’t introduce all of these mechanics to you. As the player, you will need to review the symbols on your own to know how to combat these.
Art and Atmosphere
The art of the game is probably it’s best feature. The style is a bit different as there are times it is bright and vivid despite the desperate times our villagers are in. The art is quite cute without being too distracting and the colors really pop.
There is music in the game but the music is more about adding to the atmosphere and doesn’t feel like it’s very standout on its own. Instead the music allows the sound effects to stand out. Some of the noises from the animals and the attack sounds delight as they appear. The atmosphere at times with the music and sounds does try to seem intimidating and match the scene, but this is where I think it sometimes falls a bit short. In the calm moments though, it feels like it is the sounds of nature for your enjoyment.
Bugs, not the playing kind
Occasionally I came across some bugs, but only one ruined the game. Non-game breaking bugs were really more about the layout of the plans. At times, a new plan would unlock and the layout of the plans would oddly overlap. This wasn’t a huge issue overall unless you were trying to pin a plan to view ingredients.
The real doozy was when trying to restart a new run. After allowing a loss to see how the game ended, it was time to begin a new run. Players get the option to keep the plans learned in previous runs. Yet, as working through the quests, the game didn’t recognize a plan that was previously unlocked. Not being able to have this task be marked as complete meant the game was locked. At this point, completing the run was impossible. This meant a fresh new start with nothing previously learned. Hopefully this can be something patched out rather quickly.
Final Thoughts
The biggest problem with Kaya’s Prophecy is that it doesn’t feel like it adds anything new to the genre. While this didn’t feel like a waste of time, it isn’t something that many may be quick to return to. Some of the elements are familiar but not as well executed as games that have come before it. At times, Kaya’s Prophecy feels like a love letter to the genre, at others, it feels a bit like a student project.
For those who may just be entering their deck builder roguelite phase, this may be a great entryway. However, if you’ve been playing games like this for quite some time, there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself underwhelmed. There also aren’t as many different challenges to face throughout the game so there is not as much replay ability.
Kaya’s Prophecy is available on Steam. Gamer Social Club would like to thank developers Jérémie & Thibaut and publishers Yogscast Games for the review code.
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