It may be easy to dismiss the art of fortune telling as a lot of baloney, but there’s a genuine art to it, not to mention the various cultures and mythologies behind each method that can help provide a rich history lesson. And in some cases, art and iconography can be important aspects of fortune telling, especially with the likes of tarot readings. But have you ever looked at a set of tarot cards, with the traditional Major Arcana figures, and thought “I can do better?” Well, then Deconstructeam’s latest narrative adventure game, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, is for you…just so long as you’re willing to accept the fact that there’s more beyond each card than just a pretty picture.
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood casts you as Fortuna, a witch currently on year two hundred of a thousand-year exile. Specifically, Fortuna’s skills in divination led her to read the eventual demise of her coven in the cards, and once things got chaotic, coven leader Aedana had Foruna exiled to live all alone on an asteroid in outer space. After centuries of solitude, Fortuna decides to use forbidden magic, summoning a Behemoth named Ábramar in order to strike a deal. Ábramar will teach them how to craft their own tarot deck with its own unique cards, hopefully gaining her gain back some skills needed to seek freedom, but at a massive cost. Luckily, the coven has now also begun to allow visitors for Fortuna, providing people for them to give readings to, and also just in time for major political events that could alter the future of the coven as Fortuna and all other witches as they know it…
Fortuna’s tarot cards provide the main gameplay hook in The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, allowing players to craft their own cards in order to create a deck and perform readings with it. Each card consists of a Sphere, which acts as the background, an Arcana, which provides a central figure, and Symbols, which are somewhat self-explanatory and add extra pizzazz. Each part costs a certain amount of one or more energies, be it Air, Water, Earth or Fire, which are imbued in the card. Using a set of tools to place, rearrange, rotate and rescale each part, you craft the tarot cards of your dreams, and upon creation, your card receives a name, descriptive legend, and set of meanings, all based on your choices (though choose wisely, as you can’t use the same elements for multiple cards).
The tarot card creation alone is enough reason to likely recommend the game. Despite a few hiccups with the interface, like difficulty in trying to create smaller objects through scaling or in selecting more thin/smaller objects, there’s something amazingly satisfying about crafting your own little bit of mythology, as discussed back in our initial preview for the game. Not to mention from an artistic standpoint, there’s also the satisfaction in nailing an eye-catching composition with just the right blend of elements, and the “paper doll” setup allows for a nice ease of access, while a wide variety of different imagery plucked from all reaches of the cosmos, ranging from towns built under massive skeletons to ethereal weaponry, interstellar beings and even cameos from a few other video games all provide more than enough variety to ensure that every possible combo of Spheres, Arcana and Symbols can lead to something satisfying.
As mentioned, though, you need energy to craft tarot cards, and that’s where the readings in The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood come into play. As the various witches that visit you ask for readings about their various desires, futures and whatnot, you draw random cards from your deck and assign them to each request. What exactly will be their futures? Well, that depends entirely on the energies of the card you assigned and what part of the reading you assigned it to, which can alter the choices available to Fortuna. Depending on the choice, you’ll receive a certain amount of energy back with each card’s reading. There are a couple of other ways to gain extra energy, like a few side options with characters or indulging in Fortuna’s “interactive fiction” collection, but this is the main method for gathering resources.
What makes this particular feature interesting is when it becomes combined with the narrative. The four energies correspond to different moods and actions, and can thus alter the fortunes provided. For example, Water energy tends to lead to more peaceful choices, while Fire energy choices tend to leans into more destruction-oriented approaches. And as Fortuna is seemingly such an expert in divination that they can perform flawless readings, so that means you will indeed be affecting character outcomes, and what you want for each character might conflict with any energy you might need, creating a moral dilemma forcing you to choose between your creative urge and your emotions.
To provide an example, at one point a particular witch was tasked with providing resources in order to craft weaponry for Aedana to use on mortals, and they wanted to know what to do. One choice provided was to interpret the reading as saying that they should just simply lie to Aedana about the weapon’s progress, stalling for time, which would provide me with value Water and Air energy that I needed for future cards. Option two, however, is to interpret the reading as saying that they should stand up to Aedana, which story-wise, was the choice I wanted, even if it provided me with nothing but Earth energy, which I had an abundance of. In a sense, the challenge is between juggling the possible stories you can make into tarot cards, and the stories you essentially tell by using them, fueling other stories in a unique and impressive cycle.
Speaking of the story, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood shows that Deconstructeam still haven’t lost their touch when it comes to impressive storytelling and world-building. Particularly impressive here, as Fortuna can’t actually leave their cozy asteroid prison, and so outside of a few flashbacks giving us a look at past events that defined Fortuna, we tend to stay with the same isometric view for a while, lovely as it is (the pixel art being a particular highlight in general). Instead, a lot of the story and plot is revealed through the various witches that visit Fortuna, which include her friends Dahlia and Jasmine, important Coven figures and witches who need help in general.
As it turns out, when you have whole covens of witches stretching across centuries/millennia and the entirety of the universe, you tend to get a lot of unique visitors. And every witch you meet in the game is a delight, showcasing a wide variety of colorful personalities and designs (including spider witches and deerfolk), all having some amazing chemistry with Fortuna that leads to great dialogue. Through them, you also learn about each of their histories, relations to Fortuna, and the ins and outs of this world. Not just the coven, but the current state of Earth in general (Fortuna being a relatively modern witch). Even Ábramar proves to be quite the charmer, underneath his massive Behemoth exterior. Between the massive amount of world-building, each unique character and the fates you can read for them, a lot of work went into crafting an intricate story with many branches, and the care shows.
But does The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood have any flaws? Aside from the occasional hiccups in the card-building interface mentioned earlier, there is the fact that this is technically a deckbuilder (in a particularly literal sense), and as such, you’re kind of at the mercy of Lady Luck when it comes to the cards you draw during readings. Despite getting a deck of twenty cards by the end (with energy running out before I could complete a full twenty-two card arcana and get an achievement), there were instances of the same two or three cards popping up, like the “White Russian” or “The Heartbreaker” cards that I had made. This didn’t even harm gameplay much, but it did get annoying when you pour a lot of work into a card only to see it rarely get drawn.
But even with those issues, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood still had me hooked for a while (lasting about six to ten hours, depending on how much you fool around with it) thanks to its engaging plot, cool characters and its chilled-out soundtrack that perfectly nails the cosmic fantasy vibes. But in the end, the tarot card creation is still the feature that seals the deal, clearly being the main draw, to the point of even being able to save pictures of your cards and their grimoire entries to share with friends later, in a particularly nice touch. Needless to say, fortune truly smiles upon Deconstructeam here.
Closing Comments:
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is an amazing narrative journey exploring fate, politics, isolation, friendship and more, filled with a stellar cast and great writing and music, but the tarot card creation is what will easily have players addicted for hours, and the way it ties into the main story is done superbly. It makes for a truly unique adventure game that’s not to be missed out on, especially for those looking to get creative, go nuts and craft the motorcycle wolf card of their dreams.
