Cultist Simulator

Like many indie "interesting looking" games when it game out it received lots of attention and hype from youtubers but once you get into the game you realize it was all that: youtuber hype. At first the game interface looks cool like a Collectible Card Game but soon all the flaws show up. Mainly that it is not turn based so you have to repeatedly press a key to control the game's pacing. The cards have a lot of lore but it's a pain having to pause the game to go check every new card that pops up. I'd recommend using a guide even if the game tells you not to do so. Otherwise you'll spend hours and hours stuck in the same loop not knowing you really cannot reach certain endings unless you follow some exact steps right from the start of a game.

I ended up getting a free copy on another service, and I'm glad it was free because I'd have gone for a refund otherwise. The concept seemed interesting and I did have it on my wishlist for a while. Gameplay, however, proved extremely annoying to manage. The cards don't last too long. Base resources like cash and even health are a pain to keep. Figuring out where best to place the cards was frustrating. I found no redeeming qualities to this game.

Out of all the Alexis Kennedy games (Fallen London, Sunless Sea), I feel this one has best married gameplay to artistic vision. Gameplay is focused on a card table (evoking tarot). You start with one card. You'll end with many. There is no tutorial. Part of the game is to discover the rules, the possibilities, the endings. Approach it as a puzzle, indulge in some roleplay, drink the atmosphere, and you should enjoy it. ================== All that said, I lost and started again (permadeath) 15-20 times before I "won". I probably got 15-25 hours of gameplay. I enjoyed the beginning and middle the most. For my last playthrough, I did end up looking at a forum because I was stuck (I had uncovered the last mechanic but had missed it/glanced over the flavor text). The enjoyment really did come from losing and subsequently discovering new mechanics. Some of the discovery was relevatory. Immerse yourself, carefully read the flavor text, look out for cause/effect. You'll stop enjoying the game once you start relying on forums- it really is designed around the discovery experience. The gameplay doesn't hold up on its own once you've uncovered all the mechanics. It is a finished title from a very small indie team, so the $20 (that's less than what I spent on the booze I drank while playing it- Absinthe anyone?) is reasonable. The game is highly polished. End-game DLC could be mind-blowing (especially if it brought in adversaries from the Mansus).

This is a strange, twisted, management game. Although, considering the name of the game, and the creator involved, that should be expected going in. BUT! It is rather rewarding, once you as a player become accustomed to the gameplay loops. Prepare to die — a lot — and sometimes unfairly. It rarely seemed unwarranted though, because the actual gameplay is quite solid, if occasionally janky. Mastery is rewarded, expect to fail in the process of enlightenment.

Cultist simulator offers an interesting eldrich world, the way it combines mechanics with lore, hiding snippets of the world in every bit of flavour, dialogue, and action out come makes reading everything at least once rewarding. The lore is carried by fairly straight forward systems that hide depth and reward exploration, and the inexorable march of the timers is made engaging despite itself. It's a fun experience for the price, but it suffers from UI hick ups (nothing's outright broken, but certain things are fairly unintuitive) and the lack of tutorial can make it hard to even figure out how to win, however the game has already recieved substantial polish and UI improvements since launch and even at a loss the world is interesting to explore the first few times around, and there will be new scraps of lore to discover for far longer than that.