Cultist Simulator

The score reflects the ultimate user experience, though there are really two games here: your initial intrigue as it unravels itself from nothing, followed by a masochistic grind that sabotages any lingering goodwill. As an opening the first game is fantastic. Fundamentally it’s an idle clicker game with multiple timers. You feed each timer with slowly materialising cards, so your “work” timer might consume your “passion”, eventually spawning money. You are presented with very little initially, and the story mostly plays out in your imagination through colourful card prompts. The flexibility of the system works brilliantly- many cards have multiple applications, and once “dreaming” is unlocked they can be used in creative metaphorical ways. “Dreaming” of “health” or “studying” “vitality” for instance. Slowly you acquire occult knowledge and magics, and your side-job of founding a mystical society can begin. This curiosity is then dramatically undercut by the second game, the Grind. You need money and followers to explore and expand, which you can barely keep supplied by repeating your in-game job. However you are constantly being thrown arbitrary obstacles. Suddenly a countdown of “dread” is ticking that kills you unless fleeting, difficult to acquire cards are fed to it. A timer literally called “time passes” consumes your funds lest it punishes you with hunger and death. However it randomly causes you injuries even if well-stocked, costing you more funds (or death). These artificial stumbling blocks, some completely unprovoked (expeditions need a random amount of funds, sometimes seemingly infinite), eat up your resources and crush any sense of progress. It’s a downward spiral that feels completely unwarranted. Truly it is INFURIATING game design, more infuriating as it sabotages the first game, the one with the fun sense of wonder. Because the second game is actively obnoxious to the point that I don’t want to play further.

I played the game for around 3-4 hours and had a chance to try different origin stories. Eventually I realized that the game mechanics are not for me. Even though you can stop the time at any moment, sometimes RNG will kill you anyway as you won't be able to gather the needed card in time (be it health, money or something random). Though the game feels deep at first, it gets annoying pretty fast if you are not willing to learn the rules on your own by constant experimenting. And even if you learn the rules, you might still get struck by RNG. Of course there are wiki sites available that will lay all the rules for you, but that's like buying an external map for CP77: that information has to be in game is some shape or form that is easier to understand than cryptic tips on the cards/actions.

Just clearer indication of what happend or what is going on would be nice. Or auto pause when an event finish and automatically zoom and pop up the card. Something that actually gives player a nice view of the result of their action, would greatly imrpove the game play experience. This game feels like it's over tuned for some one that played the game 1000 times and had read all the text before. Reflexively click collect all? well the result text is gone. Weren't there when a card transform after timer is up? you now lost context on the text, was there a card you could have sloted in? or was it just progress of time? it's now a mystery until next time.

I wanted so badly to like this, because I was hoping I would be lured into a creepy story disguised as a card game. It's so atmospheric and charming, you start to feel there must be more to it, but even after an hour or more in it still just seems to be just a really weird (and possibly unplayable) card game. One so opaque that figuring it out just isn't fun. But dang I wish it were!

After about 5 playthroughs and 1 minor victory, I can’t recommend the game for the full price. As others have already said, the mechanics aren’t very intuitive and definitely aren’t clearly explained. But that’s not the biggest problem, you can still learn the basics with a bit of patience. The main flaw of the game is how random it feels, and how frustrating it becomes when you have those moments like “how could I know I would need that later?” or “how was I supposed to know this action would consume this card?” or “how the heck do I get more Glimmerings?” or, worst offender of all, “what am I supposed to do about this death countdown, if there’s no card to put in this slot?”. Even after you establish your cult, it all feels kinda tedious and not that much fun. I wanted to summon Cthulhu, not focus on paying the rent. Even after maybe 4-6 hours with the game, I am yet to experience anything truly paranormal (weird dreams and occult musings don’t count). The only thing I really enjoyed about this game was the atmosphere (the flavour texts) and the overall premise (I wanted to like it so badly…). I guess the first hour or two were sort of fun, because I enjoy figuring out new mechanics. Other than that, though, I’d recommend you to wait for a major discount before you buy the game. You might like it, but chances are you won’t.