Cultist Simulator

Like most people, I was very confused (but oddly intrigued) by the complete lack of -any- instructions on how to play or what the goal of the game is. I'll save you a little time by telling you that the goal of the game is to perform the required research to start a cult, recruit members, and achieve a victory condition (such as reaching the highest level of enlightenment for your cult's discipline). In order to achieve a victory, you need the right cards. The way you get the cards differs, but it always involves repetitive gameplay where you know what you're supposed to do, but the card(s) you need require you to essentially hit a timer on randomized "locations" to try and get the card you need from the location. You can and will get duplicates, so it becomes really frustrating to just be treading water waiting for the timer only to find out that the card you got after waiting was useless to you. While all the waiting is going on, you'll be required to keep up maintenance on other resources (health, currency, etc) which is really just repeating the exact same card plays over and over and over every single time the respective timer pops. It's not fun or challenging whatsoever. In fact, once you figure out how the game is meant to be played, it's extremely boring. Maybe that's why they don't give you any instructions. The mystery makes the game seem a lot deeper than it is.

This is an amazing game. I can't write much without simply repeating all of the praise you will find in other 5-star reviews, but I wanted to emphasize one point of difference with many who have referred to the game as being "Lovecraftian" in flavor. Sure, you could say that. But only inasmuch as you could say Poe was Lovecraftian, which despite the obvious chronological issue (as Poe came first) I think a lot of people would agree with. This game has a flavor that reminds one of Lovecraft due to both the genre and the masterful lore crafting that has taken place. I would argue that the shared genre is a red herring, as so many pieces of trash fiction (games, films, literature) claim to be of a "Lovecraftian" genre and yet fail to deliver as art. The important part of what makes this game Lovecraftian, is the fact that Alexis Kennedy displays such skill in using words to create feelings, that Lovecraft is one of the few past authors worthy of being used as a comparison. Kennedy's work here meets and frequently exceeds the expectations set by Lovecraft's works, but does so while avoiding the mindless copypasta of Lovecraft's lore. This is all new work, and it's some of the best ever done.

This game has a lot going for it. I actually really enjoy the lore, atmosphere, and core gameply concepts, but the actual product is so flawed it really is impossible to recommend. The largest problem is how draconian the survival mechanics are. As much as I want to enjoy being a cultist, the game forces you to spend the vast majority of your effort tending to mundane issues like holding down a job so you have money to survive, maintaining your health and healing from illness, and avoiding despair. All of these things can very easily end your game, despair especially, as it can only be staved off by generating contentment, which comes randomly through certain activities. This means you can be trying your best to shore up your contentment and till die if the random number generator gives you a run of bad luck, which is incredibly frustrating. Once you've progressed further in the game you have more resources to run more activities, so you can do other things in addition to just going to work and going to bed early in hopes of gaining contentment, but that doesn't count for much considering you'll probably die before then. The game also gives you very little in the way of direction. This is fine, but is a very poor choice given the permadeath mechanics of the game. It also can lead to a problem where you really aren't sure what your goal in the game should be. So you've established a cult with a follower, now what? By the time I stopped playing I still had no idea.

Imagine puzzles. Beautifully crafted, amazing puzzles that you want to put together as soon as possible to see the full picture. And now... Imagine that between adding each piece you have to wait 30-180 seconds. Imagine sometimes you lose pieces just because. Imagine some pieces disappear unless you manage to get more of them in random order. If this sounds appealing; this is a game for you. If not then it's probably not for you. Writing is good. Potential story behind all those secrets is quite interesting (not Sunless Sea or Fallen London tier); unfortunately, since you have to "combine" pieces of knowledge you've found you'll forget this small paragraph you've read an hour ago; so be prepared to have two text documents opened on alt-tab, one for writing down lore, one for writing down combinations. I don't understand Alexis Kennedy fascination with the word "roguelike"; the only aspect this game takes from roguelikes is permadeath; it's like calling a game with demons "doomlike". If you want to join developer discord and share clues; you might have some fun. If you want to explore things by yourself - probably not.

I enjoyed the game's premise a lot. Taking on cults from a founder's or active participant's perspective instead of being the protagonist trying to save the world from one isn't too common regardless of medium. Even having minuscule experience from any type of card games, the logic behind basic functioning didn't take too much time to grasp. However, the game started to fall short very quickly for me at least. New players should know that the learning of the game is based entirely on making mistakes and learning from those mistakes. I'd find this completely fine if I was either given a fair chance to avoid them in the first place or I would be punished in a way that was still salvageable. But no, some actions cause different unforeseen consequences you won't be able to recover from. The game doesn't allow creating a manual save point to continue from, meaning every time you make one of those mistakes you'll have to start from the very beginning. After countless tries I thought I had finally solved the "base-building phase" only to be punished with a game over for doing it too well. At this point I figured the game and I weren't meant to be. A shame. It should be noted that on a general level I enjoy taking games quite slowly and grinding for a good base, were it by improving an actual base in a strategy game or by grinding for good stats in a role-playing game and Cultist Simulator might be a better fit for someone who's able to adapt to different approaches more fluently.