Cultist Simulator

NOTE: I played the Steam Kickstarter version. The mystique of this type of story is compelling, so many people will be able to look past everything else and enjoy this game on this merit alone. Sadly, everything about the UI and presentation of the game are at odds with the narrative, so it may be difficult to overlook the game's flaws. The actual gameplay is focused on managing an array of timers. Events pop up on the game board, and you create or arrange cards to interact with them. This fundamental element of the game is not managed well. You are probably zoomed in at least a bit, so you may not see an event arrive. You can freely move your cards, but the game also moves them for you. Managing the timers means you must know where your cards are and which ones you have, but the game does not respect your attempts at organization. Corralling annoying cards and suddenly losing to an event you didn't know was happening is...not fun. What this game needs is for card and timer management to be challenging yet intuitive, but this did not happen. It is also surprisingly difficult to focus on the text. The timers are relentless, and the icons showing card types are tiny. Some icons allow you to click on them for information, and some...don't (too bad for you!). Story text only appears once and is easily missed. In game, there is no journal or any way to record your own notes. It is up to you to pause the game and write your own. Pause the game and write. Pause the game and reorder your cards. Actually playing the game does not happen much. This game is both a snappy five-minute sudden death game of timers and a lazy narrative game with discovery of card-combination recipes. It is not good at either. The devs seem to be caught off-guard at the criticism of the UI at launch and have stated there will be improvements. I'm not sure if they will be enough. The problems seem to be pervasive and fundamental. I would hold off on purchasing for now.

This is one of the few games I've seen in the past dozen years that had a truly unique play style and feel. Pros: Unique. Lovecraftian creepiness. I liked the music, though I would like a larger playlist. Lots and lots of flavor text. Trial and error is almost always a good thing or at least a neutral thing. I have not just died from experimenting yet. Plot, plan, murder, study, summon. Go bonkers. Several ways to solve puzzles. Cons in order of annoyance: Needs playability improvements, such as stacking timed cards that you get way too many of too easily (see: mystique), a better snap-to grid system, auto-collecting cards shouldn't shove existing cards out of the way (messing up your layout). Bottle necking tends to become annoying. For example, you can have an expedition going for ten minutes (real world). During that time, you can't explore anything else. Not even send someone totally unrelated to the expedition to walk around the city. Possible fix for this would be to add more verbs. Things that can kill you should not spawn off screen. Suggest some onscreen indicator of impending doom. Red glow or something. Also, I'd like more notice so I have a chance to fix the issue. It's hard to fix something once's the death clock starts ticking just due to time constraints. Summoning is confusing as hell. I've only randomly stumbled into summons. Even with help from the internet, it's still daunting. Sometimes a purple glowy ball of whatever hides cards for a few seconds. It's nice at first but after seeing it a dozen times, it's just in the way. Grindbased / RNG. You need that one special item and just can't seem to find it. For days. Some cards just don't go anywhere. It says you can explore "a fleeting memory" but you can't actually once you get it loaded into the verb window. WYSIWYG: It's a card game. There is fantastic flavor text on the cards, but there are no amazing animations or cinematics. Maybe a problem for some.

Great game with a great atmospheric. It takes the best parts of Fallen London and condense into new lore and gameplay.

You have to know what you're getting: a game which seems to be the puzzle in itself; slowly figuring things out is part of the fun, and although I feel I haven't gotten very far, it's terribly addictive and I can see myself playing alot more until I can figure out how to at least summon anything or figure out what the freaking "bird/worm" setting does. I wish the extensions were included or at least that the game didn't tell you "you have to own this extension to use this card", it's not very immersive.

This game does not offer a tutorial on how to play. It actually sucks you into playing it, eventually meeting your demise if you do not survive Despair. But your character cannot give into the Visions either, so it tries to force you into finding a strange balance on how a cultist should be.