$19.99Project Afterfall Folklore Meets the Wasteland
Rebuild a colony on Thea, lead a party through branching tales and settle fights with a deck of cards.
Is Project Afterfall worth it?
Project Afterfall is worth it if…
- you like dark worlds where folklore and post-apocalypse share a street
- you want a strategy RPG where talking, crafting and fighting all run through one deck
- you enjoy runs that end and start over, each one shaped differently by your choices
- you would rather bargain with Baba Yaga than fight her, at least the first time
- you have a friend who also wants to argue over card placements
Screenshots
A wasteland of folklore and neon
Thea has changed. A thousand years after the first Thea games, the world has grown into a grim, urban age: retro-futuristic ruins, mystical sites, and old Slavic spirits wearing new shapes. You wake with no memory in a world bent on destroying your colony, and the story unfolds from there. Quests, points of interest and branching narratives carry the plot, and every choice shapes your survival and the fate of humanity.
Skill checks, dice and dirty deals
Not every problem wants a sword. Out in the wastelands, encounters resolve through your party's skills: engineering, scouting, medicine, intimidation, ritual, athleticism, charisma, blessing. Pick the approach that fits your people, add support from three randomly chosen companions, and a d100 roll decides whether you succeed. Win and you gain rewards; fail and you may pick up a debuff, lose a chance at extra loot, or end up forced into a rougher solution. It pays to know who in your party is good at what, and to send the right person to talk to the cunning Slavic demons.
Card battles on a small, sharp grid
Combat is turn-based and card-driven on a compact board: place your units, play cards from your hand, and your party attacks when the turn ends. Units strike the two squares in front of them, so positioning decides who eats the hit and who reaches the enemy leader directly. Your deck resolves combat and non-combat encounters alike, and building it well matters as much as playing it well. Energy is the twist: the same resource that fuels support cards in battle also powers your party's actions in the field, so spending it on one fight can leave you short somewhere worse.
A colony to rebuild, a council to survive
Your base, Project, runs on energy shards, a scarce resource you gather out in the wastelands. Bring them home to maintain and upgrade the settlement, level by level, while recruiting new NPCs for your party and expanding what you have built. There is politics too: the town council has its own currents, and navigating them is part of keeping the place alive. Growth competes with survival for the same resources, and balancing the two is how you revive civilisation in the ruins of humanity.
A deck that grows with every run
Deckbuilding runs through everything. You customise your hero's appearance, class, gender and abilities, then build your party's decks through character progression, drafting and upgrading cards to match the threats ahead. Gear you craft feeds into it as well, strengthening skills or adding passive effects. Shorter runs than the earlier Thea games, roughly 4 to 10 hours each, mean one more attempt is always a reasonable decision.
Is this game for you?
Do you need to know the earlier Thea games?
No. Project Afterfall is a spin-off set a thousand years after Thea: The Awakening and Thea 2: The Shattering, in a very different urban age, and its story stands on its own. Knowing the earlier games adds flavour, not requirements. If you enjoy lore-rich worlds, there is simply more history layered underneath.
Can you play it solo?
Yes, the full game works as a single-player experience: you lead your hero, manage the party, the colony and the story alone. Co-op is an extra mode for two players, not the default way to play. Solo, expect runs of roughly 4 to 10 hours, around 80 to 180 turns each.
How hard is it, and what happens when you lose?
The wastelands are genuinely dangerous: night raids, harsh skill checks and punishing combat are all part of the design, and the game is built as a roguelite. Losing a run is expected rather than a failure state, because progression carries between runs, so each attempt leaves you better prepared for the next one. If you prefer a gentler start, a craftsman-style hero with strong skills makes the early game smoother.
What is the game's current state?
It is in early access, and it shows in places: the balance and the amount of content are still moving, and updates can shake things up. The core loop of exploring, skill checks, card combat and colony building is in place and playable, and development is ongoing. If you like watching a game take shape, that is part of the deal; if you want a finished product, it may be worth waiting.
