Project Nomads is an adventure game, taking place on a ruined steampunk planet. The world itself has fractured into smaller pieces. The laws of physics are in a strange place, as the remaining world is comprised of floating chunks of the planet, with the "the sea of flames" at the very lowest level. The player takes control of 1 of three Nomads, searching for treasure. The game begins with the player character left for dead after their plane crashes on a remote island in enemy territory. However, the crash frees a "Master Builder" from his prison, who rewards the PC by turning the island into a makeshift warship. And the game goes from there.
The gameplay mainly consists of search new areas for artifacts, which can be used to further strengthen the island, and fighting off aggressors with said ship. The three choosable characters differ mainly in the type of weapons they use. John has gatling towers which fire a stream of weak bullets, Goliath has massive cannons firing oversized shells, Suzie falls somewhere in between.
Tropes present in this work include:
- Action Bomb: Skrits are this on the ground.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Happens a few times, actually. You get to turn it around a couple times as well!
- Arbitrary Gun Power: Honestly, gatling guns should be more effective than they're portrayed here. However, it's the only thing keeping them from being overpowered.
- Big Bad: The Skrit Queen.
- Big Bad Wannabe: The Master Builder, Basaltface.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Artifacts come in two colors, blue and red. Blue artifacts possess infinite charges and can be rebuilt as often as the player wants. Red artifacts, however, only possess a single charge - if the building is destroyed, it's gone forever.
- Cool Plane: The game has an assorted amount of airplanes, several of which can be regularly controlled:
- The player characters each have a personal airplane based on their combat philosophy. It's also possible to acquire a World War II style bomber plane, which can also take a bit more punishment. In the last level, hidden under an enemy turret is a hangar artifact to build a Stuka plane.
- Enemy forces usually consist of the aforementioned bomber, a lighter bomber and rustbucket fighters called "Sharks". A Palette Swap Shark is used during one mission. A World War I style fighter is used during another.
- Not exactly airplanes but still cool are the two coal collector units, a zeppelin and a helicopter-like floater. Collecting coal gives a massive boost to power, but getting the proper artifacts is somewhat difficult.
- Death from Above: Bombers, of course. A single strafing run will often reduce an island to a defenseless patch of ground that will be destroyed on the next pass. Also used to kill the final boss.
- Disc-One Final Boss: The Master Builder. He is killed by the Skrit Queen when the latter gets accidentally released from her prison.
- Disney Death: Happens to the player character at the very start of the game, when he/she is left for dead while his/her friends are captured. And, at the very end of the game, the player character can't believe his or her friends are dead after falling into "the sea of flames".
- Escort Mission: Only one, but it's quite frustrating. You have to protect a moving target much larger than your island, and it's impossible for you to be protecting all sides at once. Also, your escort target, not you, dictates the speed of the transit. So it will forge ahead into areas you haven't cleared out yet. It does have its own defenses, but it doesn't help.
- Evil All Along: The Master Builder.
- Evil Mentor: The Master Builder.
- Gatling Good: All John's turrets and fighters pack gatling guns. The Sentinels have their own version.
- Hold the Line: A couple instances in the late-game.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: As the player visits a vendor for an upgrade, the base is attacked by Sentinels, and the bridge back to the player ship is destroyed by a bombing run. Bombers will proceed to strafe the island until its defenses are destroyed, then the island will be hauled away. If you manage to repeatedly destroy the heavy bombers, the game will spawn smaller, faster bombers to force a defeat.
- Instant-Win Condition: Destroying the Vortex Rotor normally takes several passes with your commandeered Shark fighter, which may be very close to dead by the time you can actually attack it. However, ramming the Vortex Rotor WITH the shark can win the level, as the game checks for the destruction of the rotor before the destruction of the shark.
- Mighty Glacier: Bombers and heavy cannons. Both are impervious to many types of attacks and can cripple or destroy a hostile in a single attack themselves. Goliath's weapons are also made with this philosophy, as his cannons are exceptionally powerful but fire very slowly.
- More Dakka: Most of the guns in this game are the "fire many weak bullets" variety.
- Nice Job Breakingit Hero: Good lord, where do we begin? That master builder you freed? He was imprisoned for a very good reason!
- Not the Intended Use: Ramming enemy bombers with your smaller fighter aircraft is probably not meant to be the intended solution, seeing as you obtain a heavy cannon before the mission they appear in. That said, it's much more practical, as the heavy cannon requires several direct hits, and the heavy cannon can be destroyed, rendering the mission unwinnable otherwise.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Several! After being shot down and losing their friends, the player builds up their island and destroys the Citadel of the Sentinels. After being freed from his prison and regaining control of the Skrit Queen, Basaltface proceeds to pay back those who wronged him.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The Master Builder Basaltface and the Skrit Queen. Both are released over the course of the game.
- Sequel Hook: At the end of the game, the player character resolves to go to the Sea of Flames to search for his friends.
- Shattered World
- The Voiceless: Subverted. The player character speaks a few lines after the final boss is beaten.
- We Cannot Go On Without You: Non-character example. If an island's Lighthouse is destroyed, the island breaks apart. This applies to both the players' and opponents' islands. This is weaponized in the battle against The Skrit Queen.
