Cultist Simulator

This is not a 5 star game but it is nearly perfect for me. Frustrating at times but well worth exploring. I have had a lot of fun learning how to survive and win the game. As there are different ways to do that I am quite happy to start afresh and play again. When I first started playing I died, went mad or was imprisoned a lot but I kept coming back wanting to see more of the world that Weatherfactory has created. You need to love reading and experimenting; learn methods to survive; delve deeper into the Mansus; deal with multiple menaces ... all against the clock. Fortunately there is a pause button so you can stop, read and consider what to do next. Some steps are not obvious and I admit to finding guides on how to do certain things but other people worked these things out so it is not impossible to learn without help. I recommend manually removing cards from the verbs as otherwise they can mess up your table. There is meant to be an autostack but it isn't perfect, depleted cards tend to go back to your neat stack of health, passion or reason. I think they return to the slot they occupied before you used them and the game doesn't remember where things were if you return to a saved game. So there are flaws but it has been worth the time I have spent playing.

Clever game, its fantastic and you really cannot imagine what the play really is until you've tried it

For those who don't know: The game is a card puzzle. with lore, its mechanics are the game. It has a really good storytelling through the mechanics as well, discovering pieces and figuring how the game works, playing with emotions, people like pieces of cards(pun intended). You are a cult leader, it has the aspect of the delusional and slow pace at the beginning, you're not in control of everything, and you're not sure what will happen nor if you can summon god-like creatures. The game has some issues: It's not for everyone, the flavor texts are wonderful to read, but you don't know if it's a new piece of text or not, and when you play like a constant managing in a stress situation that doesn't fit well with the text as we want to move fast in the game. Cultist Simulator has RNG but isn't that big of an issue when you have the knowledge of some mechanics to counter effect those problems. The real issue is dying in this game, a part of the joy is figuring out what to do but when you're replaying the game this doesn't have an effect, you'll only grind to the part you ended.

The game is sometimes a struggle. Let me get that out of the way first. The RNG can be brutal, and it can be really grindy to get even one ascension ending. However, the unique aspects of the game push it towards a glowingly positive review for me. Contrary to what "five stars" implies, I don't think the game is perfect. In fact, in many ways it's extremely frustrating. However, what the game does with it's lore, worldbuilding, writing, and systems driven unveiling of the ticking of it's internal machinery is washes away my sensible criticisms of the games very real failings. I'm happy to have played this, even if I did have to play an extra 3 hours to beat the endgame because I didn't have a mirror. Play the game you square.

Honestly, this game feels like a Lovecraftian remake of FTL with more emphasis on writing. A semi realtime resource management game(seems like you should be either paused or in fastforward, no middle ground). Admittedly the actual goal of the game is far more obscure, and you don't have an obvious constant direction of progression. Still, much like FTL you have to play a few runs before the actual strategy becomes clear. Even more so in fact, as entire parts of the game are hidden if you make assumptions. You have to be willing to accept a run ending due to stupid RNG(later you might realize a way around it). Success becomes sweeter knowing failure is all around. I do honestly wish the devs had added a save system, as a late game loss feels more like artificial game lengthening. Losing a 1-2 hour FTL run to RNG feel bad, but cultist simulator runs going into the tens of hours makes ends soul crushing. The text boxes don't change much between runs, so more runs don't feel like I am finding much more... and it doesn't seem like much unlocks for wining. I will admit to only achieving minor victories so far, perhaps a proper win unlocks something exciting.