This trailer shows the desktop version of the game. The Ship Card deck is shuffled, resulting in a different derelict layout each time. Your four Nostos Agents have to locate 3 Datacards, scavenge munitions, and get to the evac point before they succumb to the horrors that lurk in the decaying hulk.

Here's a closer look at the gameplay and card art. Nostos is a fast-playing dungeon crawler a la 'Escape the Dark Castle' with a futuristic deep-space salvage setting. It's designed to be short and replayable, perfect for breaks. There are also legacy game elements to unlock over time.

If this just happened, place a stunned NPC nearby still reeling. If it happened a while ago, the characters decided to preserve evidence of the miraculous escape and turn it into a monument to their own indomitable spirit and/or a deity's endorsement of their cause.

When the player's investigating someone who's feared missing, a pet left unfed and unwalked at home can be a useful indicator of how much time has passed since they last returned home.

Looks like someone never made the flight.

Give me this kind of collectable note over a conveniently placed safe combination every time.

Petty, escalating revenge narratives can work well in environmental storytelling. (I also love the fact that the driver here seemingly couldn't fit their car into just one of these spaces - they needed both.)

The real reason they drive so slowly.

Even when they're not outlandish, most adults subconsciously draw from cars conclusions about a person's lifestyle, character, self image, financial situation, priorities, awareness of environmental issues, family situation, attention to detail, taste, ostentatiousness, appetite for risk, etc.

You can picture the owner of the car. You know who wrote the message. You know what he did. And you know he can't afford the repaint right now, so he had to drive it to the store anyway. All that narrative information was delivered to you in a few seconds.

If in doubt, 'how did that get there' is always a fun little story to uncover.

It was believed this unlucky man survived the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, only to be crushed by a slab of falling masonry. He wasn't. He actually died of asphyxiation from the gas of the pyroclastic flow. Centuries later, in 1800-1900, a looter tunnel caved in, causing the block to settle here.

RIP phone. And bike.

An attempt was made. I like the idea of starting with this, then adding more and more objects every time there's a change in the world state.

Act 1: The tyre tracks. Act 2: The hole in the ice. Act 3: The footsteps leaving the scene.

Pretty good if the smited household is the focus. Potentially more interesting if the recent storm/disaster/event pealed up part of the street and created an entrance to a new playable area.

"The snow's melted. Let's go for a drive." A nice idea when nothing's going right for the chronically comically unlucky character.

For memorable locations and navigation landmarks in video games and TTRPGs, scale is powerful. You can emphasize it with an unexpected context. This is the 17-foot 3-inch copper face of the Statue of Liberty after it was uncrated on Bedloe's Island (now Liberty Island) in 1885.

This is an ad related to the poster on the wall, but it's worth thinking about the layers of your in-game city. What did the subway's creators have to avoid while building? What is directly above and below a station? And how would those strata interact if structural integrity was compromised?

Did a character just arrive? If so, how much can you tell us about their journey without a word of dialogue?

If this is an environmental storytelling interactible, it's fun. If you're playing as Batman and this was left for you by the Joker, it becomes amazing.

I'm a huge fan of the environmental story that refuses to be pinned down - aka 'slippery stories'. They can leave the player staring in bewilderment and amusement for far longer than a story that resolves easily.

I always thought this one would be great to use in an evacuated/depopulated location where the dog is an NPC and the player can interact to give it a treat. A tiny interaction that communicates the abandonment, but softens it with a little moment of connection and kindness. #SaveTheCat

'Monolithic corporate chain vs local community's inimitable brand of pure insanity' is a struggle that always fascinates me - especially when it results in poster bearing a corporate logo alongside the words: "HAUNT YOUR OWN HOUSE".

Typical. Truck drivers are, as always, considering efficiency and the environment while 'management' insist on being spoilsports.

I love this for so many reasons: 1. Unexpected architectural phenomena are a thread of their own 2. The message itself walks a fine line between snark and genuine decency 3. I love the idea of an environmental clue, answering the question, "... yes, but how could x have possibly known about y?"

What I wouldn't give to learn more about "recent events".

Environments full of jerry rigged solutions tell the player about a community's economic state, about its needs, and about which supplies are abundant and which scarce. Are the people resourceful? Do their solutions make you smile? Or is the space an assault course of delapidated death traps?

Things embedded in/sticking out of buildings are pretty common in games: - they tell a story about the location - they're great for setting the tone - they provide a memorable landmark to help players navigate - they add interest by reconfiguring the layout, making navigation feel less railroaded

"Do you know how high you were driving, sir?"