Warriors of the Nile is a roguelite game by Stove Studio, released in August 2020. It's set in a version of Ancient Egypt with fantasy elements- most notably the evil serpent Apophis, who has stolen the sun. A band of three heroes- the tough Sun Warrior, the swift Dune Hunter, and the powerful Mystic- set out to defeat his minions and liberate the kingdom.
In August 2022, a much-expanded sequel with different characters was released.
Note: Potential powerups change or do away with a lot of gameplay mechanics, so all tropes pertaining to those must be taken with a grain of salt.
This series includes the following tropes:
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Series tropes
- Excuse Plot: No dialogue, no explicit characterization, barely two sentences of lore.
- No-Sell: Tougher characters have "armor soak" which attackers must deplete to get at their actual health bar. Soak is fully replenished on every turn the character has, and several abilities affect it.
Tropes from the first game
- Cat Girl: Mystic has oversized cat ears the same brown color as her hair. This may have something to do with her being the only team member who can use magic.
- Eternal Recurrence: Apophis will come back eventually, and the heroes will defeat him again. It's what they do.
- Fake Difficulty:
- Healing tablets are character-specific, only appear sometimes note , and the amount of health points they provide is completely random. Your Hunter, say, can be at death's door, and the Random Number God will offer your barely-scratched Warrior a full health restore.
- Rewards in general have no relevance to the player's current situation. Is your Mystic dead? Here, have a sceptre that only she can use.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: The protagonists slot neatly into these archetypes. There's no stealing mechanic, so the "Thief"/Hunter is objectively less useful than his comrades, but the game is hard enough that the mediocre amount of damage he deals is still useful.
- Flunky Boss: All bosses can summon minions, sometimes six or more. However, this ability either has finite uses or generates successively weaker minions each time. The usual Decapitated Army rule applies.
- Foul Fox: The "Grave Robber" enemy is a fox making a very human expression of malice.
- Glass Cannon: Mystic deals the most damage of anyone, but if her armor "soak" is depleted, her death will not be far behind. What's worse is that she can't move and attack on the same turn, forcing her more agile teammates to protect her while she gets into position.
- Hunter may upgrade to this; any soak he has must come from items or powerups, but in exchange he gets things like extra attacks and weapons that let him shoot across half the map.
- Guide Dang It!: The game never tells you that right-clicking after making a move will undo the move. Notably, the sequel includes an obvious 'undo' button.
- Loot Boxes: Level-up "orbs" can be spent to add powerful gear and abilities into the pool of possible rewards. The loot itself is not randomized, but your chance of obtaining it during actual gameplay very much is.
- Metal Slime: Golden Scarabs drop 30 gold (most enemies only drop 3), but they don't appear on most levels and will flee the battlefield after their fourth turn.
- One Riot, One Ranger: On all but the earliest levels, the three heroes will be outnumbered by and stronger than the enemies they're facing. (Bosses are an exception to this rule.) God only knows what the rest of the Egyptian army is doing.
- Religion is Magic: Mystic's title and feline motif strongly imply that she's a priestess of Bastet, who...gives her the power to explode enemies? (Bastet is a war goddess in her oldest depictions.) Most NPCs with ranged magic also have titles like "Acolyte".
- Sweat Drop: Mystic has one at the end of any turn she's been moved. This is sensible, because she cannot attack after moving and is essentially a sitting duck for whatever foe gets close enough.
- Team Pet: Mystic has a tiny black cat that follows her into battle. It can be seen at her gameplay avatar's feet and curled around her neck in the title screen art.
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Most of Hunter's powerups do not make him stronger, but provide obtuse criteria that gives him bonuses as long as he meets that criteria. For example, he might get increased attack power whenever he's next to cover, or all attacks he makes that deal a certain amount of damage will be amplified to deal even more damage. A mid-to-lategame Hunter has the potential to One-Hit Kill enemies, but he will only ever be as good as the mind of his player.
Tropes from the second game
- Call to Adventure: The introductory cutscene shows Halo Hunter weeping amongst ruins before she has a vision of her god and enters Halo Form for the first time.
- Grim Up North: The third map, which is correspondingly difficult, has snowbound levels filled with ghosts and armoured bears.
- Healing Spring: "Fountain" levels, in which the characters can buy healing, show up every few levels.
- Lunacy: Halo Hunter serves Khonsu, the Egyptian god of the moon, who can increase her strength and attack range under the right circumstances. This is visually demonstrated by a sash of yellow light appearing around her.
- Magic Wand: Star Acolyte's quills function this way.
- Mystical White Hair: Followers of the moon god who have white hair.
- The Power of Friendship: The "Matrix Bladeaxe" weapon provides bonuses if its wielder is adjacent to both his/her teammates.
- Puzzle Boss: The final bosses are impossible to defeat unless you exploit game mechanics.
- As few as possible of Neptune's mooks must be hurt. He can summon an infinite number of them, and on dying they're replaced with Waveborn Statues that can heal Neptune's health, so the best plan is to just take the mooks' attacks (which aren't strong enough to do much damage to properly trained characters) and focus your team's fire on Neptune.
- Pluto summons a lot of very weak mooks and a few incredibly strong ones that can One-Hit Kill your characters. The idea is to use the former to block the latter from reaching your team. Pluto himself cannot be pursued (his zombies' attacks will soon immobilize the characters), but he will periodically teleport next to a hero to attack them, at which point he can be attacked in return. Rinse and repeat until victory.
- Sinister Scythe: The Scythe Wielder is a good guy, but he is a priest of Set and correspondingly good at violence.
- Squishy Wizard: Star Acolyte can never use any accessories, including shields. Buying gear slots for him only means he can carry more quills.
